Giving is not about Tithing

Note first of all that not once in these chapters do we read about tithing. Paul is not writing about the Christian tithe. He is no interest in resurrecting or reworking the instructions about tithing from the Mosaic Law. He recognized, as we have seen above, that the laws about tithing were for Jewish people living in a covenant relationship with the God of Israel, and with the Temple and the priestly Levitical system as one of the central symbols of that covenant. There was no command from Paul for the Corinthian believers to give. He explicitly states that what he writes is “not by commandment” (2 Cor 8:9). Instead, he was urging them to finish what they had already started.

Giving is to Help the Poor

What was it they had started? There were several Macedonian churches in deep poverty, and the Corinthian church offered to help these other churches out financially (2 Cor 8:2). Being in deep poverty does not mean that these churches were unable to pay their pastor, or were falling behind on their mortgage. No, remember that such things did not exist at that time. When Paul says that these churches were facing affliction and were in deep poverty, he means that the people themselves could not afford food and clothing. Many of them had probably lost their jobs as a result of becoming Christians. Some of the men had probably been imprisoned, or even killed, leaving their wives and children without income and support.

And so now, Paul is exhorting some of the churches who were not experiencing similar difficulties, to give from their excess to the churches which were facing such dire need. When a church in one area faced persecution and poverty, churches in another area not only prayed for them and sent people to support these other churches, but also sent gifts of money to provide food and clothing for those who could not afford it (cf. Acts 11:27-30; 1 Cor 16:1-4; Gal 2:10).

Jesus’ Poverty is our Riches

As an example, Paul points to Jesus Christ who gave up the riches of heaven to become poor for the sake of the earth, so that through His poverty, we might become rich (2 Cor 8:9). Paul encourages the Corinthian believers to follow the same example, to give from their riches so that those who are poor might have their needs met. Paul does not want the Corinthians to be burdened, but wants them to share out of their abundance to provide for those who are lacking so that there is equality (2 Cor 8:13-15).

Give Generously and Joyfully (to the Poor)

So in exhorting the Corinthians to give, he tells them to give freely, to give joyfully, and to give generously (2 Cor 9). Each person can give what they have decided in their own heart to give. There is no recommended percentage or suggested donation amount. But through their giving, they will sow seeds of righteousness that will multiply and produce fruit of thanksgiving and glory to God. Followers of Jesus are encouraged to give, but to give in such a way that supports the poor and the needy.

Following this, in Acts 5, we read about a husband and wife in the church named Ananias and Sapphira, who decide to do something similar. They also sell some of their possessions, with the intention of giving the proceeds to the church. But when they receive the money, rather than give everything, they only gave part of the proceeds. However, they tell the apostles and the rest of the church that they had given everything. As a result, both of them are struck dead by the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-11).

The Sin of Ananias and Sapphira

It is worth being reminded that the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not in their failure to give everything they are earned, but in lying to the church (and to God) about giving everything they had earned. We must not read into this passage anything about a requirement to give 100% of our profit to the church. There is no “Tithe or Die!” teaching in Scripture.

To the contrary, Ananias and Sapphira did not have to give any of their profit to the church if they did not want to. It would have been perfectly legitimate for them to have sold their possessions and kept 100% of the money for themselves.

But they had seen how much praise and honor Barnabas received when he sold his property and gave the money to help those in need, and apparently wanted to get similar praise and honor for themselves. This was the wrong motive for giving, and then on top of it, they lied about how much they had received in the sale, and how much they were giving to the church.

The Early Church and Money

It is also worth noting what the early church was doing with the money they received from those who so generously gave to the church. The context indicates that the money went to provide for anyone who had need (Acts 2:45-56; 4:32-35; 6:1). By all appearances, there were no buildings or paid staff or expensive programs. The money collected from those who had excess went to support the daily needs of those who had less.

I am not saying that this is what must be done today, or that how churches spend their money today is necessarily wrong. All I am arguing here is the idea that in the early church, tithing was not required or demanded, but those who had more were encouraged to freely and generously give to those who had less.

This sounds a lot like “redistributing the wealth,” doesn’t it? But it isn’t. In a future post we will look at why not.

What are your thoughts?

This will be a short ebook of about 15,000 words, and as soon as I get it finished, I will be sending it out to those of you who have subscribed to the email newsletter.

If you haven’t subscribed yet, make sure you join today! It is free, and I won’t spam you. You get one email per week (on Saturday) which contains summaries from my blog posts for the week, plus one email per month with exclusive content and the occasional free ebook.

If you know anyone else who might want this book, let them know through the Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ share buttons on the left! Thanks!

Lots of people are interested in economics these days. Especially with the whole “99% vs. 1%” debate brought up by the Occupiers in Wall Street, Oakland, and elsewhere.

I have been doing a series on tithing recently, and will eventually end up writing some posts about how we as believers can spend our money, and how we should view our role in the world’s (and God’s) economy.

So it is great timing that the February Synchroblog is about Extreme Economic Inequality. I hope you will join us in writing about this topic!

Here is what it says on the Synchroblog site:

“Economic Inequality” is a hot topic in American politics at the moment but it is not just an American condition.

A report released in May of 2011 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that the gap between the rich and poor in O.E.C.D. countries has reached its highest level in over 30 years.

In Italy, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom the income gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 10% was reported to be 10 to 1. Israel, Turkey and the U.S. had a gap of 14 to 1.  And although the gaps in Chile and Mexico had declined the incomes of the richest are still more than 25 times that of the poorest.

This month we are inviting bloggers to ponder the impact these kinds of extreme conditions are having on the world we live in. Are extreme gaps between the rich and poor harmful to society? Does excessive inequalities of wealth create situations where the human dignity of people are threatened?  Does the kind of economic inequality that is being reported around the world undermine human solidarity and the common good?

If you would like to join in the conversation, please plan to submit your name, name of blog, title of post and link in the comment section of this announcement by 6PM EST 2/7/2012.  The list of participants will be compiled and posted on 2/8/2012.

IMPORTANT REMINDER:  We ask that all synchroblog participants include the list of participants and links at the end of their post.

I hope you will join us!

• Frank Viola – He has a great section on tithing in his book, Pagan Christianity.
• Frank Chase - Tithing in the Present. A well-done PDF slideshow about tithing and some surrounding issues. Very thorough!
• Ray Meyhew - Embezzlement: The Corporate Sin of Contemporary Christianity? Well researched, well written, and quite eye-opening!
• George Potkonyak – The Truth about Tithing. The formatting and tone is a little odd, but the information is good.
• Robin Calamaio – No Tithe for the Christian. The author’s writing style seems a bit arrogant, but the information is helpful.

Do you know of any other helpful articles and studies about tithing? Include them below!

This is my 1000th Post!

If you want to read all 1000, check out the Blog Archives. Ha!

Brief History

Here is a brief history of the Till He Comes blog.

June 19, 2007. The first post on this blog: Welcome to the TILL HE COMES Blog. The website has been in existence since 2001, but this is when I launched the blog. Prior to the blog, I was posting mainly sermons and Bible studies, some of which I am migrating over to my sermon pages.

December 19, 2007. Things went pretty well with the blog for about 5 months. I had a small, but growing readership, in large part due to the traffic I already had through my website, and also due to my work at a Christian non-profit organization and publishing company. I was getting published and speaking in conferences and churches. But on December 19, 2007, I published a post called The Heretic in Me which would change my life forever. I had no idea about the magnitude of the storm that this post would create in my life.

January 17, 2008. Within a month after writing that fateful post, I lost my job and most of my Christian friends. Though I had predicted that some would call me a heretic for the seven ideas I was studying (but had not actually believed), I didn’t actually think that anybody would actually call me a heretic and turn on me. But they did. I can count on one hand the people who did not reject me, criticize me, and condemn me. This is not the worst crisis that a person can face in their life, but it was a crisis for me. I wrote a post about what was going on here: From Crisis to Christless.

June 17, 2008. Over the next six months, I graduated from seminary and decided to become a tentmaking church planter.  I just needed to find a way to “make tents.” In other words, I needed a job. So I applied for hundreds of jobs, and only got three interviews. Only one place offered to hire me: a carpet cleaning company.

November 21, 2008. Blogging really dropped off during my time as a carpet cleaner. Over the next five months, I worked 80 hours per week and had three surgeries. It became apparent that I could not clean carpets for long. So I looked for another job, and found one in New York.

August 27, 2009. This was the date of my 300th post, and I was floundering as a blogger. I didn’t have the time to blog, and there was a lot going on in my life, my job, and my marriage. I decided to try to focus this blog on writing about Scripture, but if you look at the the majority of the posts over the next two years, I still found myself writing mostly about church.

December 11, 2010. I decided to start taking blogging and writing seriously. This meant re-organizing my blog, trying to post every day, and studying the art and science of blogging. At this time, I was getting about 30 pageviews per day. This is also when I first created my Twitter account. I started reading blogs about blogging, interacting on other blogs, and began to teach myself about best blogging practices and design.

Blogging in 2011

Over the course of the next year, I made several good blogging friends online, and learned a lot about blogging, started several other blogs, and decided to pursue my dream of getting published. I am now averaging about 1400 pageviews per day. As I look over this past year of blogging, I would say that these are some of the best things that happened:

• Befriended Alan Knox. Alan has got to be one of the best and most gracious and generous bloggers online. Seriously. I know of no one with his humility, honesty, integrity, and generosity. If you are looking for great insights into church and just an all-around great blog, make sure you read his blog, the Assembling of the Church.
• Found John Saddington at Tentblogger. I learned the most about the technical side of blogging from John Saddington. I read and followed almost every post he had ever written. At some point, I purchased his Standard Theme, which really helped the speed and functionality of this site.
• Decided to write a book called Close Your Church for Good through my blog. This process has helped me think through some issues about church, and has given me more than enough content to write about. It has also helped bring some much-needed consistency to this blog.
• Joined Google Plus and Facebook. I get a lot of traffic from these social sites now, so although I don’t spend huge amounts of time there, they have been helpful in connecting me with other people around the world. Add me on Google Plus and “Like” me on Facebook and I will return the favor.
• Met Sam from Grace Ground, and Anthony from Ant Writes. These are the top two commenters on this blog, and great blogging friends. Thanks, guys!
• Wrote a little “throw away post” about something I read about writing in a CS Lewis book, which gained me over 100,000 visits in one month! I still remember wondering if it was worth wasting my time to write that post….

Blogging in 2012

This year is only a few weeks old, but there are already some great things happening. Here are a few:

• Got a publishing deal with Civitas Press for a book called Finding Church. I’m working on this right now, and you can participate!
• Started an email newsletter. I am pretty excited about this. I am going to try to publish 4 ebooks this year, and they will be made available to email newsletter subscribers for free. 
• To celebrate my 1000th post, I was hoping to have an ebook ready to send out to newsletter subscribers today. It is an ebook called The Skeleton Church. But it is not quite ready… This is good news for you, I suppose. There is till time to subscribe before I send it out (hopefully within a week). In the meantime, subscribers can still get a free copy of my very first (and experimental) ebook, The Lie. But don’t delay. As soon as I put out The Skeleton Church, I will no longer offer The Lie for free.

And that pretty much brings us up to today! Thank you all for your support over the years! I am looking forward to the next 1000 posts!

The widow should not have given to the temple. The temple should have given to her.

Can the Rich Give to the Temple?

If this is the case with the widow, what did Jesus think about the wealthy people giving to the temple? It seems that Jesus did not want the rich to give to the temple either.

Jesus is not too concerned about their wealth (except that maybe some of them had gained their riches through devouring widow’s houses), nor even with how much they are giving to the temple. Jesus is primarily concerned with the fact that they are giving to the temple.

Here is this poor widow in their midst, who has no home, and has only two pennies left to her name, and all the wealthy people are generously giving to the temple, but should be giving some of their money to her.

I think that Jesus would say that this widow is more important than any temple.

The rich should give to the poor; not to the temple.

The Rich Should Give to the Poor

How can I say this?

Immediately after this event, the disciples of Jesus ask Jesus about the temple, and Jesus says it is all going to be destroyed (Mark 13:1-2). It is beyond imagination that Jesus could be praising anybody for giving money of any amount to a building and institution that was about to be destroyed! It is much better, Jesus would say, to give to the poor, the needy, and destitute, than to a building and religious system that was about to be destroyed.

Where Should the Wealthy Give?

So what application can we pull from this passage? First, let us consider the giving from the wealthy people. Jesus nowhere condemns their wealth. It is not a sin to be wealthy. Also, it does not appear that Jesus is too concerned about the amount they give.

It seems more likely from the context that Jesus is concerned about what they were giving to. They were giving to a corrupt and condemned institution where the funds were spent not on taking care of the poor and needy in the community, but on providing fancy clothes and sumptuous feasts for the spiritual leaders.

Now, having said that Jesus seems to be ambivalent about how much money these wealthy people had and how much of it they were giving to the temple (which was probably 10%), this does not mean that Jesus didn’t have something to say on the subject.

Just as He thought it was tragic that the widow was giving money to the temple, He also seems to think that the wealthy should not have been giving to the temple either, especially when you consider how the temple was improperly spending the money.

But this does not mean that the wealthy should be given a free pass to hoard all their wealth, and spend 100% of it on themselves. No, Jesus had plenty of things to say about what the wealthy should do with their money. One of the greatest examples of His teaching on money is His encounter with the Rich Young Ruler, which we will look at on Wednesday.

Yesterday we looked briefly at how most people understand the passage about the Widow’s Mites, where a poor widow gives her last two coins to the temple. Most people today believe that Jesus praised her for such sacrifice, but the context indicates otherwise.

I think Jesus was actually saddened by what He observed.

Devouring Widow’s Houses

The surrounding context of this passage sheds light on how Jesus felt about what was going on in the temple that day. In Mark 12, right before Jesus observes and comments upon the rich giving from their wealth and the widow giving from her poverty, Jesus condemns the religious leaders for their pride, arrogance, self-prominence, and greed. In highlighting their greed, Jesus says that they “devour widows’ houses” (Mark 12:40). According to the Law of Moses, the spiritual leaders were supposed to be taking care of the widows and orphans in the community, and providing for their needs (Deut 26:12). But here they are doing the opposite. They are taking away from the widows what little they have left, leaving them destitute, without even a home to live in.

Could it really be that only three verses later, Jesus is now praising the sacrifice of a widow for giving her last two coins to the temple? How can it be? The temple should be giving to her; not her to the temple! They have already taken her house, and now they take her last two coins as well! Jesus is not happy and encouraged by what He sees, but saddened. He is not upset at the poor woman. Far from it! He is upset and saddened at how far the worship of God in the temple has degenerated that the priests and Levites are teaching and even demanding that poor widows who have no homes and no income give up their last two coins to support the work of the Lord.

If we read Mark 12:43-44 again with this perspective in mind, we can hear that Jesus is not amazed and impressed at her courage and her faith, but is almost choking back the tears at how this poor widow has been caught in the lies of greedy deception by the rich and wealthy religious leaders. She is only doing what she has been told to do. She obeys out of faith, knowing that her sacrifice is probably her death sentence. But she loves God so much, she does it anyway.

But it is not her fault. It is the fault of the religious leaders. They have devoured her house and now they are taking her life as well. Asking widows to tithe from their poverty is like using religion to pick the pockets of the poor. The temple should have been giving to her; not the other way around.

Providing for One’s Family is Most Important

Earlier in His ministry, Jesus had also criticized the religious leaders for teaching people that it was their priority to give to the temple if this giving deprived a person’s family of financial support (Mark 7:10-13). Jesus taught, along with the Mosaic Law, that one’s primary responsibility was to support their family. If it was wrong for a person to tithe to the temple while neglecting their family, it would also be wrong to ask poverty-stricken widows to give to the temple, when they had no one to provide for them. This was especially true if this widow had children.

Here is what John Pilch says about this passage in his book, The Cultural World of Jesus:

Jesus does not praise but rather laments this woman’s behavior. She has been taught “sacrificial giving” by her religious leaders, and that is the pity. These authorities promised to redistribute Temple collections to the needy. In actuality, they spent the funds on conspicuous consumption instead: long robes and banquets. This is how they “devoured the estates of widows.”

The account is found in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4. Jesus and His disciples are in the temple, observing people bring their tithes and offerings. They observed the rich giving large amounts of money, and then saw a poor widow giving two mites.

Mites were very small copper coins, which today, would be equivalent to a few pennies. She did not give much at all. And yet, Jesus says that she gave more than all the rich, for they gave out of their wealth, but out of her poverty, she gave her last few coins.

This is a popular passage in sermons and teachings on tithing, and is often taught with two main points. First, we are told that this passage teaches that Jesus is not so concerned with the amount a person gives, but with the percentage. It is likely that the rich people in the temple were tithing a full 10% of their income, and as a result, were giving huge sums of money to the temple. However, they still owned 90% of their wealth. The poor widow, on the other hand, though she only gave two mites, gave 100% of what she had, and left with nothing. So, we are told that the amount we give to God is not as important as the percentage.

The second point often made from this Scripture is that God even wants the poor to tithe, and to tithe generously. The widow, though she had almost nothing, gave what she had, and Jesus praised her for it. We are then told that even if we are debt, even if we are poor, even if we cannot afford to pay our bills, even if we have lost our jobs and our homes, we still need to make sure we tithe to God before anything else.

Does Tithing Return 10,000 Percent?

Sermons that make this second point about poor people tithing often transition over to Matthew 19:29 (or Mark 10:29-30) where Jesus promises that those who give up relationships, possessions, homes, and land for His sake, will receive one-hundred times as much in this life and in the life to come. The message is that if you are poor or having trouble paying your bills, make sure you give the first portion of your income to God, because that will open the storehouses of heaven, and you will receive a hundred times more than what you give–a 10,000% profit! This poor woman who gave all she had received the commendation and blessing of Jesus.

But is this really what the passage is teaching? Is it teaching that God cares more about the percentage we given than the actual amount, and that even poor people should give out of their poverty?

No. The passage is teaching nothing of the sort. Jesus is not condemning the rich people for being wealthy, or for giving out of their wealth, nor is he praising the poor widow for giving her last two mites. To the contrary, the context seems to indicate that Jesus is saddened by the entire scene.

We will look at this context tomorrow.

Matthew 22:21 is sometimes used to defend the practice of tithing. In response to a question about whether the Jews should pay taxes or not, Jesus says, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” It is sometimes taught that since in the first part of this verse Jesus affirms the responsibility to pay taxes to Caesar, the second part of the verse affirms the responsibility to pay “taxes” to God in the form of tithes.

This application, however, is not the best way of understanding what Jesus says.

Jesus is Faced with a Dilemma

The passage begins with the Pharisees wanting to tangle and entrap Jesus (Matt 22:15). So they send some of their disciples and some Herodians to ask Jesus a trick question (Matt 22:16).

These two groups represent two of the many factions within Israel at this time. The Pharisees were often sympathetic to the segment of Jewish people who wanted the Roman occupation of Israel to cease, and thought that no law should rule in Israel except God’s law as found in the Torah. The Herodians, however, were supporters of King Herod, who was a vassal king of the Roman Emperor. King Herod was placed into power by the Emperor, and was given numerous privileges in Israel as long as he upheld the peace and worked to maintain Roman governance over the region. As supporters of King Herod, the Herodians also received some of these privileges.

And now these two factions have come to Jesus to see which side He will take. They ask Jesus whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar (Matt 22:16-17). If Jesus says it is not lawful, then He sides with the Pharisees and with the majority of the people of Israel. Many believed that paying taxes to Roman Emperor was idolatrous since he claimed to be god, and since the Roman Empire spent tax money on many things that the Jewish people considered to be evil. Of course, if Jesus sides with the Pharisees while the Herodians are there, then they will go back and tell King Herod what Jesus said, and the King would most likely have Jesus arrested for refusing to pay taxes and inciting rebellion among the people.

If, however, Jesus sided with the Herodians in saying that the people should pay taxes to Caesar, then this would be viewed by the religious leaders and the majority of the Jewish people as both idolatrous and traitorous, as it would be seen as placing Roman law above God’s law, and telling people to support the wicked and wasteful spending of the Roman Empire.

It seems like a perfect trap. Jesus is faced with a nearly impossible dilemma. If He sides with the people, He faces imprisonment and death. If He sides with the Herodians, He loses His support among the people.

The Image of Caesar

What does Jesus do? He asks for a denarius. The denarius was the amount of the tax in question, and in asking for the coin, Jesus begins to reveal some of the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. Some of the religious leaders taught that it was a sin to even carry such a coin, as it bore the image of Caesar, and was thus viewed as a graven image. Having such a coin was interpreted by some as breaking the second commandment (Exod 20:4). However, the passage is unclear about where the coin came from—maybe it came from the Herodians—and so this is not the main hypocrisy that Jesus is concerned with.

Upon being given the coin, Jesus asks whose image is on the coin, and they answer “Caesar’s.” It is then that He tells them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Some have tried to get around this by saying that Jesus’ answer was ambivalent about taxes. They understand Jesus to be saying, “Give to Caesar what he’s got coming” which is almost a veiled threat. But it seems best to understand the text at face value: Jesus does want people to pay taxes to Caesar. And if this is where Jesus had stopped,  Jesus would have essentially been throwing His support in with the Herodians.

The Image of God

But He does not stop. He goes on to say the people should give “to God the things that are God’s.” What are the “things” Jesus has in mind? Again, some think that since Jesus was just talking about paying taxes to Caesar, then Jesus must still have money in mind, and is now saying that people must also pay taxes to God, in the form of giving tithes to the temple. In this case, Jesus would be saying, “Pay taxes to Caesar, and tithes to God, and in this way, obey both the laws of man and of God.”

Jesus means something else, however. He is not talking about tithing at all. No, Jesus clearly drew a connection between the image that was on the coin, and His answer that since Caesar’s image was on the coin, it must belong to Caesar. So when Jesus talking about giving to God what belongs to God, the question that people are to ask is, “If things that bear Caesar’s image belong to Caesar, then God must get those things that bear God’s image.” And what is it that bears the image of God? We do. Humans bear the image of God.

The Greek word Jesus uses for “image” in Matthew 22:20 (Gk., eikōn), is the same word used for “image” in the Greek translation of Genesis 1:26 when God says, “Let us make man in our image.”

So when Jesus says, “Give to God what is God’s” He is not talking about money at all, but about giving ourselves to God. And this really is the point of Jesus. The Pharisees were so concerned that giving a coin to Caesar might somehow be a form of idolatry or breaking God’s law. Jesus’ solution is to go ahead and give Caesar his money, if that is what he wants. God doesn’t want our money; He wants us.

Caesar can have his little piece of metal with his image stamped on it, for God has stamped His image upon what He wants: us.