We are in trouble. Do we have a solution to all the hungry and starving around the world? Quite possibly yet you would never hear about it, because it so far has not been proven profitable to fix. That is what I was thinking about since last week in class. We live in a world that is focused on profit and gain. From my world view of Christianity I was challenged to see how things aught to be and just what my faith has to say about all this. One thing that I personally found interesting is that the inital and purposeful use of the tithe in the early Church was for the ministers, missionaries, hungry, and widows. The "tithe" is the giving of the first ten percent of your wages to the church for these four purposes. I was thinking about the idea that this goes directly against the very capitalist nature that we have developed within ourselves. Could it be that this is a mechanism to fend off one of the greatest ills of capitalism, greed? Besides the religious meanings, could it be that this is an act used to break Christians out of the habit of greed? It would make sense to me seeing as less than ten percent of a churches members actually tithe according to studies. Greed is a truly powerful evil given room to roam in our system, and I believe that this is the reason Christians today find it so hard to give. Yet, in giving to church or other venues, is there not possibly a leeching of the illness from our system?
Jon said, "One thing that I personally found interesting is that the inital and purposeful use of the tithe in the early Church was for the ministers, missionaries, hungry, and widows.
ReplyDeleteThe "tithe" is the giving of the first ten percent of your wages to the church for these four purposes."
The initial purpose of the tithe was to support the Levites and priests - the Levitical priesthood, as well as the poor.
The early church (New Covenant) had NO tithing. Tithing ended when the Levitical priesthood ended.
Tithing was NEVER the first of anything. God defined His tithe as a tenth of the crops (not the first tenth), and every tenth animal in herds and flocks (the LAST one out of ten) raised on the Holy land (Leviticus 27:30-33). Those are assets that come from God - miracles of God. God never commanded anyone to tithe on their income or money.
Then God commanded His tithe be taken to the Levites, forever (Numbers 18). God NEVER gave any pastor or church permission to receive His tithes and gifts.
Church leaders who teach that tithing is a part of the New Testament are either ignorant of the scriptures, or just plain liars. I personally know both types of pastors. They are false teachers.
The New Testament teaches generous, sacrificial giving, from the heart, according to our means. For some, $1 might be a sacrifice, while for others, even giving 50% of their income might not induce a sacrifice. In the Old Testament, ONLY the farmers tithed, and it was equal percentage (a tenth). The New Testament teaches the principle of equal sacrifice instead of equal percentage. Equal sacrifice is much harder to achieve, if not impossible, than giving ten percent.