What is Tithing?

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What is Tithing?
        
Thursday August 14, 2014

Tithing means giving 10 percent of your income to God.  “Tithe” is the Hebrew word for “tenth’.  Tithing started in the Old Testament, where Jews would give a tenth of their produce to support the temple, the priests and the Levites who worked there and also to help the poor.  

In the New Testament Jesus approached tithing just like he approached everything else in the Old Testament.   He both affirmed it and transcended it.   He came to fulfill the Old Testament, not to abolish it.   His way of doing so was that, instead of pushing people to follow the law legalistically, he always challenged the heart.  He would make the point over and over again that it’s not enough not to commit adultery or not call someone a fool, but we must look at our heart and get that right with God . 

Same with tithing.   Jesus was really blunt in telling us that God doesn’t just want a tenth, but he wants everything.    

“Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”    Luke 9:24  

So, now, what?  How much should I give?  A rich person can tithe and not miss that money and be immoral with the rest of his money, right?   A poor person can give less than a tithe but whatever he gives it can be a far larger sacrifice than the tithe of a rich man!    What to do?  

First, tithing is first and foremost about growing a generous heart toward God and others.   This means to me that I must monitor whether or not my generosity is increasing or is it stagnant.   Kathy and I have tithed for entirety of our 28 years of marriage and that’s a way that we’ve learned to trust God.   But this doesn’t mean that we’ve arrived.  That would be legalism which all too easily borders on spiritual pride.   God wants our heart.  

 So that’s first.  Are you increasingly more generous?  

Secondly, I look at tithing not as a law but as a really good benchmark, because it gives me a way to measure whether I’m deceiving myself about my generosity.  If I were to give less than a tenth that would mean to me that I’m not really all that generous.  And it also tells me that if I am tithing I’ve only just begun.  

So that’s second, what do you use for a benchmark?   

Third, tithing is fundamentally a response.  It is a response to God who owns everything.   Nothing I have is mine anyway which is what this verse is about.  

‘A tithe of everything  . . . belongs to the LORD; it is holy”.      Leviticus 27:30

Tithing is a response to God’s generosity and love for me.   It’s the least I can do considering what Jesus did for me.  

                     And that’s third, how does your giving reflect your gratitude for God in Christ
                     has done for you?

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