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Go Ahead and Keep Your 10%!
by
Cory Harrison
The
always provocative Cory Harrison takes a look at tithing and
comes up with an interesting conclusion.
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My wife and I administer a Corps in a fairly affluent
community in the United States. We have Soldiers at our Corps,
including ourselves, who “bring home” a fairly significant
amount of money comparative to about 95% of those we live life
with us as part of our ministry.
Like most churches we have financial commitments; budgets to
meet and expenses to pay out; a café that runs 6 days a week
and we have just agreed to provide 3 meals a day open to all
who live in our neighborhood. We estimate that we will see
over 500 a day for those meals alone. We have just hired a
full-time staff member to focus completely on evangelism and
out-reach and a crazy Salvation Army World Services goal.
In the midst of knowing all that, I am about to make a
dramatic decision at our Corps. I am shortly going to instruct
every Soldier to go ahead and keep their 10% ‘tithe check.’
Oh, and not just for this week or this month but forever (or
until I get fired for this and they bring in the next person).
How did I come about this decision?
It all started with a New Year’s resolution to read 52 books
this year. It then lead to a trip to the library, and has now
lead to me reading A.J. Jacobs book, The Year of Living
Biblically. The author asks a spiritual advisor about how much
to tithe and the response is, “You shouldn’t get too
legalistic about it. Give what you can afford. And then give
some more. It should feel like a sacrifice.” Jacobs writes, “I
study my Bible for insight. It seems at the time of Ancient
Israel—before the Romans took over—no one paid taxes per se.
The tithes were the taxes.”
This got me thinking as to if Jacob’s was right. I mean, if
this was the case, what was tithing for? Jacob’s doesn’t cover
this in his book, he just moves past it as if it were just one
out of the 613 laws he is trying to live out. But for some
reason it stuck with me, like a splinter in my brain, as
Morpheus would say.
So here is a bit of what I have come up with…
I learned that I have Jacob seems to have had it a bit
backwards, or perhaps my pastors did.
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and
will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give
me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to
my father's household, then the LORD will be my God and this
stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and
of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."—Gen.
28:20-22
This Scripture seems to contradict about 99% of the sermons
that have ever been preached on the subject of tithing. The
messages that I always heard were always about if you
give…then God will. The always told me, “You have to give
until it hurts and then God will come through for you.” But
prior to these verses Jacob realizes that God was there and he
begins to proposition Him. “IF God will do this and IF God
will do that and IF God will come through on these things over
here, THEN I will give Him a tenth.” Isn’t it funny that God
honored this throughout history?
Let’s ask ourselves a reasonable question: Just how did Jacob
actually give a tithe to God?
Did he personally hand it to God? No, no one has ever even
seen God.
Did Jacob tithe to an angel? No, angels do not need and can’t
use tithes.
Did Jacob send his tithe to Heaven by Celestial Express? No.
Did he take it to the local church? No, there was no local
church.
Did he take it to the Temple? No, there was no temple.
Did he give it directly to one of the Levite priests? No,
there were no Levites as yet.
How then did Jacob tithe to God?
Here are a couple ways that he accomplished his task of
TITHING.
But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose
from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his
dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt
offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what
you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the
firstborn of your herds and flocks. There, in the presence of
the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall
rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the
LORD your God has blessed you.
Jacob pulls the whole TITHING thing off just the way the LORD
instructed. He got his family together and they ate the tithe
in an act of communion and celebration.
Can you imagine being confronted by a pastor who asks about
your tithing and you tell him that rather than putting it in
the offering plate, you took your family to _____________?
There was another way.
At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that
year's produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites
(who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the
foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your
towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD
your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
The second way that Jacob gave his TITHE was by gathering the
FOREIGNERS, the FATHERLESS, and the WIDOWS, who lived in his
town together so they could come and eat and be satisfied.
The TITHE is again celebrated with not only family but with
the alien (and my version does not stipulate that they be only
‘legal’ aliens), the fatherless, and the widows who live in
the town. The tithe is again eaten up because the basic idea
of the tithe was that it was consumable not depositable (i.e.
a check).
I like this verse from Leviticus 27:30-33:
"And all the TITHE of the LAND, whether of the SEED of the
land, or of the FRUIT, of the tree, is the Lord’s: it is holy
unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem ought of his
tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And
concerning the TITHE of the HERD, or of the FLOCK, even of
whatsoever passes under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto
the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad,
neither shall he change it..."
We learn a great deal about tithing in this section of
Scripture: The tithe comes from the "land," not the air or the
sea. Fishermen were not required to tithe fish. It was the
"seed" or agricultural products from the fields that was holy
to God and tithable. Products from "trees" were to be tithed.
This not only included the fruit, but oils, etc. Of "herds or
flocks" it was the "tenth" that passed under the rod that was
holy and dedicated to God.
Here is exposed another lie of my modern teaching. It was not
the first tenth, but rather the tenth tenth that belonged to
God, contrary to every minister I have ever heard, who insists
that the first tenth always belongs to God.
Another interesting point is this. If a herdsman had nine
cattle, he didn’t tithe his cattle at all! Also notice that
God did not even require the best of the cattle, just the
tenth one to pass under the rod even if it was the runtiest of
them all. Remember, we are talking about tithing and not
sacrificing (animals for sacrifice always had to be without
blemish).
Did you notice that this summary at the very end of the book
of Leviticus does not mention the tithing of money?
So here is what we are thinking of doing at our Corps. In an
effort to be as accountable to the original idea of tithing as
possible, we are instituting a food tithe. I believe it was in
the gospel of John Maxwell that I read, “My grandfather had a
farm. My father had a garden. I have a can opener.”
We understand that society has changed and so has eating. One
of our goals, as we move into providing meals for our
community, is to establish the art of the long meal. We
believe that the earth is the LORD's and everything in it. We
believe eating together to be a very spiritual act.
We are requiring each Soldier of the Salvation Army at our
Corps to provide a tenth of their food for the alien,
fatherless, widow, homeless, poor, lonely, and needy within
our community. We are seeking to develop a community in which
we bring a tenth into the storehouse and prepare a meal and
eat together.
If you are ever in the St. Petersburg, FL area, you can stop
by, keep your 10% and enjoy a meal with us.
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