The word "tithe" is often thrown around as the standard for Christian giving. Asbury uses this word to describe the expectation of Christian giving as our 6th objective in our MVO. But just what is the tithe?
I don't want to spend much time on the biblical root of the word. I think most of us understand that the word is rooted in a biblical idea (search "tithe" on biblegateway.com) Basically, the biblical notion is that the people of Israel are required to give ten percent of their "income" to the LORD through the temple/tabernacle. In the Bible, this was not money in the way we think of money. Rather, it is the harvest of some commodity.
Through conversation with some lay people in our church, we learned that our stated objective on the tithe is not clear enough. Asbury states in objective #6: "Every member bringing the tithe (one-tenth) in loving obedience to God's gracious provision." Apparently, this is not clear enough.
The question that then came up: one-tenth of what? What box on my w-2 should I be looking at when determining what I should be giving ? Is this a pre-tax tithe or is this a post-tax tithe? And what about other "gifts" like professional services that I might offer the church?
I understand the question, but as I listen to this I can't help but think that these are simply the wrong questions. If our members are asking these questions then we have done a poor job of communicating the why of obedience to God. I think of Jesus' way of teaching. Jesus never communicated specificity of laws, he communicated spirit of laws. For instance, what does it mean to commit adultery? Is it only when I have sex with another woman? What about oral-sex? What about internet porn? Jesus' response doesn't give us a check list so we know when we have crossed the line; he takes us to the heart of the matter: adultery is when you lust in your heart.
On top of that specificity argument, there is another issue going on in the tithe discussion. There is the tithe in the Old Testament (10%) but in the New Testament this doesn't seem to be communicated quite the same way. In college, one of my New Testament professors (who looked just like Tom Skerrit from Top Gun: )
taught that the tithe wasn't even a NT concept. I'm not going to go that far. But one thing I am willing to say that if the law taught us to give 10%, then grace teaches us and empowers us to give much, much more. Here is where I will speak with specificity. If the law taught us to give 10%, then that is a good place to start. But more than that, the questions I would ask is how does money inhibit how you serve God? How does money make you afraid of the future? How do you serve others with your money?
If we are concerned with communicating pre-tax or post-tax tithes then we're totally missing it. Lets not sell our calling short. If you are not giving, then you need to be giving and 10% is a good place to start. But possibly, God is calling you to give more than that. We all need to be looking to give as much as we possibly can, not just get to 10% and call it good. The truth of the matter is, God is probably calling most of us to give well beyond 10%, but we are so in love with our money and us clergy are so afraid to say this that the church continues to live in bondage and the church continues to be underfunded.
On a final note, I think a lot about young adults and their financial giving. For some reason, it is very difficult to motivate young adults to give. Maybe they are bogged down with debt. Maybe they are unwilling to give to institutions. My thought though comes back to the call of discipleship. When we narrowly defining giving as 10% and then plead with people just to get to 10% we are selling short our call to live an alternative life in the world. The church has a radically different value system than the world's and yet most of the time we play by their rules. Young adults need the challenge of gospel living, not a prescriptive check list that they can say "Yes, I have arrived because I give 10% to my local church." I believe young adults are hungry for a radical challenge of discipleship. I think young adults are weary of sermons that simply gloss over the issue of why. We are weary of giving to an institution that just wants our money but is not calling us to come and give our lives for the sake of a calling that is beyond us. We want to be captured by a greater vision, a cosmic vision. Surely, the church is a place where that can take place.
4 comments:
The in-post picture didn't show up for me. May I assume you are referring to Jeff Lamp?
I think you are right-on approaching the situation as a matter of capturing the spirit of the law. If we are looking to do as little as we can (and still be okay with God), something might be a little off in our perspective. Instead, we should be thinking, "How can I sacrifice in other areas to give more and more to the Lord" (financially, with my time, talents, etc).
Another case the church focusing on the "what" instead of the "why".
I really appreciate this post. I'm afraid I plead guilty to a couple of things you listed. You are spot on with one of the reasons (excuses) behind the lack of giving in the younger generation is debt. Absolutely we should be responsible with cleaning up our messes, but God is so much better at helping us with this. The more we trust God with our lives & money, the more he will give of himself. This of course being one of the only instances where God actually challenges us to test him (Malachi 3:10).
Keep your posts coming, Spencer!
Hi, I just found your post through a google search. I'm a theology grad student and minister, and my wife and I use percentages to try to make sure we don’t fall behind in our giving –– so we give 10% to church each paycheck, and another 5% to a charity we like, then occasional other gifts as it seems right.
I found myself in an odd spot this year in that we forgot to have my wife’s state income taxes withheld, with the result that I had to write an $800 check the other day. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t have paid income taxes on that money if we had withheld it––and never would have thought twice––and then I wondered if it would be the right thing for me to subtract it from the amount we tithe on this month.
I think the percentages can be very helpful as you say for a starting point, because otherwise we might be giving what seems to us like a lot of money, but actually amounts to, say, 3% of our income or something––especially as people’s income increases over the years. When people play things by ear, we tend to err on the side of self-interest!
Anyway, I think your post here is dead-on, and I very much appreciate it. I still use the percentages just because I don’t know another way to keep myself disciplined, since we don’t make so much money that we could just give away excessively and still pay the bills.
But in general, I think Christians should expect to give our money away in a way that seems excessive to us. I suspect that most middle-class families, by the time they’re middle-aged, could easily be giving 40% of their income to church or charity if they were honest about what they actually need, versus what they simply want.
Getting bigger houses and nicer cars to match our growing incomes is the most natural human thing to do, but that doesn’t make it Christian.
sh in Boston
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