According to the Tanakh, every tenth animal under the hook is to be holy for Adonai (Lev. 27:30), yet many Christian religions say that tithing is not required anymore.
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But if tithing isn’t required, how do we explain what God told the people through the prophet Malachi (Malachi 3:8), when he said:
Can a person rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tenths and voluntary contributions. A curse is on you, on your whole nation, because you rob me. Bring the whole tenth into the storehouse, so that there will be food in my house, and put me to the test,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
“See if I won’t open for you the floodgates of heaven and pour out for you a blessing far beyond your needs.
Do you recall that we are told we should not test, the Lord, our God? God told us this in Deuteronomy 6:16, and Yeshua quoted it to Satan in Luke 4:12. But now, here is the Lord, himself, saying in this case it is acceptable to test him! The only way we are allowed to test God is to tithe, which will result in receiving even more blessings than ever has before.
So, I ask you: Why would anyone NOT tithe when it results in multiple blessings? Do you really think that the Lord can’t give you back much more than the equivalent of a measly 10% of what you earn?
I don’t attend any specific house of worship, so I could, if I wanted to, simply excuse myself from tithing… but that would be a cop-out. Yet, I don’t have any synagogue or church to financially support, so what can I do?
What I do is give to organizations that do God’s work, such as Ezra International, Bridges for peace, Lwatama Messianic Synagogue (they’re in Uganda), I support a Christian student in Sierra Leone, I have MRI’s in my car and give them to the homeless people on the street corners when I am stopped at a red light, and I give of my time to do this ministry, for which I do not ever ask for, or accept, monies.
Am I giving 10%, or less, or more? I don’t know, but it’s probably a little less than 10% of my total income, or should the tithing come out of our net income, or maybe not until after bills are paid, or just whatever disposable income we have?
That has been a conundrum for many. After all, we are told not to harvest the edges of our fields or go back and re-harvest the vines or trees, so that the poor can glean (Lev. 23:22). If we don’t harvest those foods, are they part of our produce? I mean, we grew them, but we never had them for ourselves. In modern times, we get paid a gross salary, but before we ever touch the money at least 10% is already taken out (often more than that) for FICA and state and local taxes, which we do not get back, totally. So, if we never receive the money, is that subject to the tithe?
I have no answer for you- you have to decide what you will tithe and from which income. Or you may decide to accept the Christian teaching that many Christian religions give, which is that tithing is no longer necessary. Their reasoning? Tithing is in the Torah, and Christians do not have to obey the Torah because Christians are not under the law of Moses, they are under the law of Christ.
That statement confuses the heck out of me! Yeshua (Jesus) was a Jewish man, and he was the Messiah who lived a sinless life, which means- undeniably- that he was Torah observant his entire lifetime. So, if Christians say they only have to live the same way Yeshua did, who lived in total accordance with the Torah, how can they, in the same breath, say they don’t have to live in accordance with the Torah?
Get real, people! You can’t say you follow Yeshua when you live and worship in a manner that he never lived, and would never allow any of his followers to live?
I am sorry to destroy your fantasy, but nowhere in the New Covenant does Yeshua, or any of his disciples, say that the law of Moses is done away with. The ones who created that lie were the Gentile leaders of this previously Jewish movement who, by the end of the First Century, decided to separate themselves from their Jewish roots to avoid trouble with the Romans.
The lies that have been promulgated throughout the past two millennia are now so ingrained into Christianity, that only a few Christians are beginning to wake up to the fact that Yeshua was a Jew, lived as a Jew, and taught us to follow his father’s laws. The term “law of Moses” is misleading because Moses never made any laws- he took dictation directly from God.
Look- if the CEO’s secretary takes dictation, in which the CEO makes up new requirements for the employees, when the letter is distributed do the employees say that it’s the secretary’s idea?
Whether or not you tithe, and in whichever way you decide to tithe, it is always going to be between you and God. In truth, everything we all do is always between us and God, no matter what your religious leaders tell you. Even when King David committed horrible sins against both Bat-Sheba and her hubby, Uriah, he knew that his sin was against God, and God, alone (Psalm 51).
So, nu! You and God talk it over, and decide if, and/or how, you will tithe. But let me give you this one piece of advice- I don’t recommend telling God that his laws are not relevant to you because some human beings a few thousand years ago decided that Gentiles do not have to worship God the way God said to.
I just can’t see that going over very well with the Almighty.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
