Tithing falls 90% short of what God requires of us
Everything we have is from God. If you believe in a Creator God at all, that’s a perfectly logical statement, and in fact is necessarily true. If God created us, he is to thank for every good thing we have. And if God is not only the Creator of the world but is actively intervening in our lives today, as the Bible says he is, then he is even more directly to thank for the things we have. That includes everything, from the things that fall into our lap to the things we earn by the hard work of our hands.
So what should we do about it? The answer has been that we should give back to God. We should give part of what we have back to him, to show our thankfulness. That’s what is often preached in many churches today. But how much should we give back?
This is where the ancient idea of the tithe comes in. The tithe is one of the most ancient Judeo-Christian teachings, going all the way back to the 14th chapter of the Bible, when Abraham gave 10% of the plunder to the priest Melchizedek after he and his 318 men defeated a coalition of four kings to rescue the prisoners they had taken, including Abraham’s nephew Lot. The practice was then laid out in the law of Moses, which actually appointed three different tithes: one for the Levites who served in God’s temple (Numbers 18:21), one for the national festivals (Deuteronomy 14:22), and one for the poor every three years (Deuteronomy 14:28-29). So these actually amounted to an average of 23% per year, not 10%. Under a theocratic government, these tithes functioned as a sort of religious taxation, a minimal requirement for the operation of the temple, provision for the religious officials, and provision for the poor.
There are some who say that, even though we no longer live in the theocracy of Israel, the tithing command still applies today. I don’t agree with that view for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s very selectively applied. No one argues that we should be obligated to give just 3% per three years to the poor, or that we need to save 10% for religious pilgrimages. In fact, the tithe to the Levites was a tithe of each person’s crops, not cash. Numbers 18:21 says that if they wanted to pay in cash instead, they had to pay 12%!
Nevertheless, under Jesus’ new covenant, the national laws of theocratic Israel don’t apply to us. So why should we think the one about giving 10% to our place of worship does?
Of course, we are supposed to give to our church. But when the idea of giving to the church is talked about in the New Testament, no amount is ever specified. Paul simply says that each person should set aside a portion of his income (1 Cor 16:2), and that each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give (2 Cor 9:7). Paul could easily have specified a number to the Corinthians, many of whom would have had minimal familiarity with the Old Testament system, but he didn’t. The question of how much money we’re supposed to give seems to be one that’s left up to each person’s conscience. We may point to the tithe as a good example of what we ought to give to our church, but I don’t think there’s any basis for imposing it as a requirement.
However, that doesn’t excuse us from giving. Quite the opposite. At no point in the New Testament are we commanded to give 10% of what we have to God. What we are commanded to do is to give everything to God. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” Jesus requires not just our money, but our lives. It all belongs to him. We can’t give back 10% and keep the other 90% for ourselves. We can’t give 20% and keep the other 80% for ourselves. We can’t give 5% and keep the other 95% for ourselves. We can’t even give 99% and keep the other 1% for ourselves. None of it is ours to keep. God didn’t redeem us so we could pay him his due, and run off and live our own lives and do things our own way. God redeemed us so we could fulfill his purpose for us in this world and have eternal life with him in the next. That’s what he made us for; that’s the only worthwhile way to live.
That doesn’t mean we have to give everything except what we need for food and clothing to the church and homeless shelters and missionaries, either. We don’t have to all squeeze into tiny houses with beater cars with no items of leisure to give everything to God. It’s possible that for some people, living in a wealthier neighborhood is what God wants them to do so they can share the gospel with their wealthy neighbors. Others have sensed God calling them to live with much less than they could afford, so that they can have a large surplus left over to give to the poor. (Famous pastors Francis Chan and David Platt both experienced this kind of calling — you can easily find their testimonies on YouTube, I’m sure.) But our reasons for making either of those decisions should not be because we want to do what we want with our money. It should be because we are confident that’s what God’s mission for us is in this world.
So, if we give 10% of our income to the church, we should call it what it is: giving 10% to the church. There are many other ways to give to God as well, and it’s not just 10% we owe him — it’s 100%, and even that’s not enough. That’s why Jesus had to die on the cross to pay the debt we owe to God because of our sin. 100% is the least we can give to Jesus, in response to Jesus paying 100% of our debt. If we want to be followers of Jesus, we must accept that we don’t belong to ourselves. We belong to Jesus, 100%, and trying to hold back any part of that is, indeed, robbing God of what’s his, and robbing ourselves of the maximal benefits of being under God’s perfect leadership.
We do have a responsibility to give to the church. We need to pay our pastors so they can devote their time to shepherding us, and we need to help provide for the operation of the ministries our churches carry out. If our church is struggling with funding and we’re not giving what we know we should be, then we are accountable to God for that holding back. But what exactly that number is depends on our conscience and the needs of our church. But we must not forget that, whatever portion we give to the church, we must give 100% of ourselves to God.
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