Why I Tithe: Part 4 of 4

Why I Tithe:  Part 4 of 4

Jeff Lampl
Tuesday, February 23, 2016

This picture is a parody of Christianity playing off . . . . .on Michelangelo’s painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, where God creates Adam in his own image.   So what’s the creator of this image trying to say?

When I started tithing all those years ago, giving ten percent of my gross income to the church, God did not give me the expectation that God would reward me in any way financially.   Instead, rightly or wrongly, I had the mindset that my tithing brought not special reward with it.    For me it was simple obedience to my best understanding of scripture.   Also, whether it was God or just me,  I never had the thought that tithing would somehow make God like me more, or that because I tithed I was somehow a better person, or that tithing meant that God, “owed” me for my good obedient behavior.   I cannot take credit for this.  Maybe my make-up is such that I simply knew (and know) how undeserving I was (and still am).

If the picture above depicts that my giving to God is like a bribe (quid pro quo – I give to God but expect Him to pay me back) then the picture is a depiction of a God who doesn’t exist.   God gives because God is a giver.  God is good because God is the definition of goodness.  In fact God is so incomprehensively better than anything I can imagine, that when I blatantly  give to God with the hope of getting something from him in return, God simply, simply accepts my (bribe?) and loves me and blessed me anyway. In fact He’s been giving me everything I need from before I was born.   and I’m simply entrusting myself to him, just as any good father wants his sons and daughters to entrust themselves to him. 

For Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series of posts, click here,  here and here