Sunday 25 October 2015

Tithing

What's your opinion on tithing?

If you're in a hurry, scroll down to the last paragraph for my answer. 

When I was working full time, I tithed to my local church, plus gave additional freewill offerings to a couple of evangelistic and missionary organisations monthly.

It was my delight to do it. I was a cheerful giver. I could afford to do it.

I desired to serve the Lord fulltime with no thought of pay, so it was my delight to give, whether I had to or not.

When you're in love, you do something because you want to, not because you have to - no-one can stop you. The more you give the happier you feel. People might tell you you're giving away too much, but you just laugh it off coz you're in love!

Then when the time came when I felt God tell me to give away my car and give up my job and go wherever He told me to go and preach the Gospel and just trust Him for my needs - I decided to really go out on a limb: I started giving away all my savings too. I was on a roll. It was fun!

Once I was on the road, I didn't think about tithing any more - because in some towns there was no church; no bank to make direct deposits into a church's account. 

Almost everything I received went into ministry anyway. (Not everything though - because I was still paying off my house.) But I no longer thought about tithing because way more than 10% of the money I was receiving was being spent in the service of the Lord. 

After some time on the road, I felt the Lord ask me, "Have I been meeting your needs pretty well?" 

I said, "Oh, pretty well". He sure had! It was amazing! I never lacked a thing. Everything I'd given away He gave back to me multiplied! So, "Yes".

Then I felt, How about believing Me now for enough for others too.

I thought, Would that mean I have a giving ministry. How amusing, that I could have a giving ministry even though I'm not a businessman - I didn't even have an income. In fact, I had monthly loan repayments to make. 

We often thought giving was a ministry mainly for those with natural supply. But I realised it isn't - giving is a spiritual gift just like all the other gifts. It takes faith to operate it, just like all the gifts. God is the source, not the person's existing resources, like with any of the gifts. I smiled at the thought of me having a giving ministry.

And you know in the next year I think I sometimes gave away bigger amounts of money than I ever did back when I was earning a fulltime wage.

Sometimes I gave even when I needed it myself. But God always gave to me again for my need.

Maybe it was easier to give away what to me were lump sums, seeing the money had been given to me in the first place, it didn't feel like I'd earned it. So I didn't feel like I was giving away my money - it felt more like I was just the conduit. 

But on the other hand sometimes I felt like I wanted to hold onto it for my own need rather than give it, because I never knew for sure when I was going to get money next. Unlike when I was earning a wage, I knew how much I was getting every week.

But anyway, even more I wasn't really thinking about tithing any more. It kind of was irrelevant. To think about whether I should have been tithing would have been like asking do I put a hose in the swimming pool to fill it up, while a tsunami has submerged the thing!

I haven't always stayed at that level of faith. 

Love is the fulfilling of the Law. So any ethics the Law taught, you'll do - because the love of God has already been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. 

But you won't use the same vehicle to fulfil those ethics that the Jews used under the Law. You won't even give it to the same place the patriarchs did before the Law was given. 

It will be your delight to pay your fair share of the running costs of your church, to pay your ministers, to give to outreaches, missions, the poor, buildings, to spend on travel, attending conferences, buying books and CDs, meals after church, etc. That's how NT believers express their love.

Another thing we do with our money is honour our parents.

Irrespective of tithing, we all know it's ethical to pay for what we get. Even non-Christians know that. 

So one day I decided to calculate my 'fair share' of what I'm getting out of my church.

I added up the total weekly cost of running the church (rates, electricity, wages, building maintenance, etc); 

then I estimated the number of members of working age, and divided the total cost by the number of working-age attendees. That gave me the average cost per person.

But we all earn different amounts. So I looked up the Australian national average income, on Wikipedia. And I expressed my personal income (which at the time was rental income from my house) as a percentage of the national average.

I then multiplied my personal figure by the average cost of operating the church. To give me my fair share of the cost. Of running the church. Proportional to my income. 

That's fair eh. No-one could argue with that.

And you know what it came to? 10% of my income. 

So, forgetting about tithing - if we all just pay our fair share (which is only right), and if we all just walk in love, the love which God already put in our new nature through the Holy Spirit Whom He gave to us, then we'll fulfil the ethics which the Law of the tithe sought to model anyway.

But we'll do it through a new and living way. 

(When we were born again and received the Spirit, God made us partakers of the divine nature. It's natural for us to love, for God is love.   We live in that Spirit and He lives in us - so we tend to walk in the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit too. Just like a kid looks like his dad. It's natural for us to give, to do the right thing and pay for services rendered to us, to be kind. It just comes naturally, in our spirit, even though our mind needs renewing and our flesh needs subduing. But God's Spirit and our spirit are one.

The Law is still useful for pointing-out sin, but not for empowering us to do. To love.

Love is the answer. To any question. New Covenant love. Life in the Spirit.

No comments:

Post a Comment