Have you ever wondered if your pastor pays tithe? Well you may want to
ask him/her tomorrow in church. There are a few things your pastor will
not tell you about tithing, let us start with the Old Covenant, i.e. the
Old testament where the whole idea of tithing started from.
What
is the tithe? The tithe is 10% of the increase, established in
Leviticus 27:30-33 as an offering Holy to the Lord “30 “‘A tithe of
everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the
trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord. 31 Whoever would
redeem any of their tithe must add a fifth of the value to it. 32 Every
tithe of the herd and flock—every tenth animal that passes under the
shepherd’s rod—will be holy to the Lord. 33 No one may pick out the good
from the bad or make any substitution. If anyone does make a
substitution, both the animal and its substitute become holy and cannot
be redeemed.’
The Bible identifies the tithe as grain and fruit,
herd and flock. The tithe is food! An example of the tithe can be seen
in a shepherd with a flock of 100 sheep who is blessed with the birth of
50 lambs in the spring. Five of the lambs must be offered to the Lord
as a tithe. The tithe was brought to the temple in Jerusalem in
acknowledgement and appreciation of God’s provision for His people.
What
was the tithe for? God doesn’t need the food – God doesn’t eat. God
doesn’t desire sacrifices or offerings ( Psalm 40:6 and Hosea 6:6 ) – He
desires mercy. God doesn’t need us to give Him a 10th of everything –
when He already owns everything ( Psalm 24:1 and Job 41:11b ). The tithe
was used to feed the Levite priests (and their families) who were
required to work in the temple day and night ministering to God on
behalf of God’s people ( 1 Chronicles 9:33 ). Without the tithe, the
Levite priests would have needed to raise their own food, thereby taking
them away from ministering before God. Hence the reference in Malachi
3:10 "…that there may be food in my house". Nehemiah 13:10-13 records a
time when the Levite priests were not receiving the tithe wherein they
abandoned their daily temple responsibilities to work the farms to feed
their families. The reference to ‘robbing God’ in Malachi 3:8 is in fact
robbing God of ministry and worship by failing to take care of God’s
priests through the tithe of food items. Unlike the other tribes of
Israel who were given land as their inheritance, the Levites were not
given any land – only a few cities in which to live. God was their
inheritance ( Numbers 18:20-21 ). Thus, the remaining tribes were
obligated to provide the Levites with food since they had no land on
which to grow their own.
But the Levite priesthood is no longer
necessary as the old covenant system of animal sacrifice in the temple
was superceded by the everlasting covenant of Christ’s blood.
The
old covenant gave condemnation; the new covenant gives justification
and peace with God as Christians believe, in the old covenant there are
pages and pages and pages of instructions that were part of the laws of
the old covenant--”sacrificial laws”--laws that had to be fulfilled in
order to receive this “atonement” for sin “For the life of the flesh is
in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an
atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement
for the soul.” (Leviticus 17:11). But in the New Testament said Jesus
paid for it all - Hebrews 10:10 “By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
There
was the time before the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, this was
the time of the law. And there is the time after the sacrifice and
resurrection; this is the time that we live in now. There are vast
differences between these two periods, for the simple reason that what
was valid in the first period, the law, is no longer valid in the second
period as modern pastors would preach. For example they will tell you
most of the laws in Leviticus, they will say the New Covenant, given by
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself [whom you profess to believe in], clearly
states that the Old Covenant Law was a CURSE, that no man is justified
by the Law, that the Law is not of faith, and that Christ redeemed us
[true believers] from the CURSE of the Law, (Galatians 3:10-14). And
what is valid in the second period - grace and being children of God
through faith in Jesus Christ - was not available in the first period.
Can we learn from what was valid in the first period? Definitely we can.
Does it apply to us? Not necessarily. This we can infer from the
teachings of these pastors. You can read the Psalms and the Proverbs and
get guidance for your life today. It is God’s eternal wisdom that
crosses time. On the other hand, you can go to law-specific passages,
such as the passages about tithing, or the passages about the
sacrificing of bulls or the celebrations they had in Israel. Though you
can learn from these passages, they are not directly applicable to us.
The same is valid for all that refers to Mosaic Law, for the simple
reason that this law was abolished with Christ’s sacrifice. It is like
reading the law code of laws that are no longer valid. You can learn
from them but they are not to be applied, for they are obsolete. As
Colossians 2:13-14 says: “13 When you were dead in your sins and in the
uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you[a] alive with Christ. He
forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal
indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it
away, nailing it to the cross.”
So a Christian who believes
Jesus has atoned all sins need no offering or sacrifice or tithe. I know
many will respond with passages like some specific out-of-context
verses in Malachi 3:8,10-11, I expect that especially the one that said
“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we
robbed thee? In tithes and offerings” and the tenth verse which says
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in
mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I
will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing,
that there shall not be room enough to receive it..” Let me ask you what
a storehouse is. 2 Chronicles 31 teaches that the storehouse is the
Temple in Jerusalem. When the tithe was re-instituted under King
Hezekiah, the king gave orders to prepare storerooms in the temple to
hold the tithe. Apparently the grain "tithe" was heaped up in the
streets, which caused a traffic jam of sorts. King Hezekiah had the
storehouse built to relieve a bad case of urban congestion in ancient
Jerusalem. The storehouse is not the car dealership selling Bentleys or
Boeing selling jets!
Lastly, tithe was meant for the priests, but
with blood of Jesus everyone is a priest The Levite priesthood is no
longer necessary as the old covenant system of animal sacrifice in the
temple was superceded by the everlasting covenant of Christ’s blood.
"Who is the priesthood now?" 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 says those who have
received Jesus as Lord and Savior are the priesthood. So they are
entitled to their own tithe if at all the want to pay any.
In
conclusion, you will be better off spending that money on charity, give
to your poor neighbor, the street beggars, the shoeless schoolboy who
may one day become your president, the old and weak. AND YOUR LORD WILL
BE PLEASED WITH YOU.
Adekunle Al Muftau Adeite
Baltimore, MD
January 4, 2014
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