“When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.”-Deuteronomy 26:12
When it comes to tithing, the gentile church harbors the following two notions:
FIRST NOTION:
Our total monetary obligation is to give a tithe of 1/10th of our income to our place of worship and that’s it. Doing only this fulfills any Scriptural duty we have to give of our own possessions and/or property. The argument usually given by the pastor in spite of the fact that the entire concept of tithing is thoroughly explained in the TANACH Is that “we are a New Testament church”. Therefore, we are under no further obligation to give beyond 10%.
SECOND NOTION:
Our obligation to give is based on whether we feel “spiritually led” to give or not. If some kind of spiritual unction all of a sudden wells up within us prompting us to give, then we give. If we don’t receive such a spiritually led unction, then screw it, we don’t give at all. I think it’s pretty obvious what normally happens when operating under this free-for-all doctrine.
Alrighty, I can tell you with 100% full confidence that the above-mentioned two doctrines are anything but Scriptural.
We’ve already studied in the earlier books of the Torah that there were actually several types of offerings and tithes that all operated simultaneously.
You didn’t get to pick and choose which offering and tithe you wanted to give.
Each type of offering or tithe was to be given at its prescribed time for the purpose the Lord had pre-ordained.
Bottomline, they were all required man!
There were sacrifices of animals and grains that were offered at the altar for various reasons.
There were first fruits ceremonies that took place several times during the year (we just got done studying about this).
Support was also needed for the Tabernacle or Temple workers and the building materials and its infrastructure.
In addition, the poor and needy also had to be supported.
And this is hardly scratching the surface in terms of the tithes and offerings that were required.
Heck, later when the apostles came onto the scene preaching and teaching the Gospel, the Apostle Paul argued that it was the duty of the Messianic Community to support these evangelists just as they supported the Temple.
But understand, Paul was NOT saying the support of the Apostles was to supersede or replace the God-ordained Temple offerings and sacrifices.
It was to be in addition to all of the other Torah-prescribed offerings and tithes.
Let me say that again.
Giving to the Apostles or Messianic missionaries did NOT negate the Torah requirements governing what was to be given.
Of course, once the Temple was destroyed by the Romans and the Priesthood was broken up, certain types of giving became impossible to do.
So what’s the big takeaway here?
The takeaway is this.
In light of what the Torah teaches, the typical gentile or Western church model is a far cry from what is presented to us in Scripture.
In Torah, our tithes, offerings and general giving just isn’t as straightforward as we’d like it to be.
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