Do you tithe? Why or why not? If so, what has it done for you?

NO!

I don't go to any church.

umbra

ps - God doesn't need the money.

Yes. My tithe is the exact cost of the radio show I do for God's glory. Tithing allows God's word to go forth to his chosen people.

It has taught me not to be money grubbing, and to trust God to care for me.

Not like I should but I try to. I was once very skeptical about this but have come to the conclusion that not only for the biblical reasons you should tithe to the church in order for it to the God's work.

Many people are against it because the first thing they think of is Rev. PimpDaddy taking their money to buy himself a Cadillac. You have to believe that the money is going to good use.

Yes.

It's a lot like fasting, and subject to the same sort of misunderstandings. You can't tithe or fast without doing it deliberately and choosing to give away instead of keeping it for yourself, therefore you have to actually believe God when he says that other people are just as important as we are. then you find out that he is right--again.

We have a moral responsibility to help others, and so our church tithes its income to help the poor, and tithes again for missions. As a result, our pastor does not drive a Cadillac. He drives a '93 Mercury Sable that he bought second-hand quite a number of years ago. It has almost 200,000 miles on it now, the A/C stopped working a few years back and the rear windows no longer roll down, but still he drives it because helping others is more important than his car-comfort is. But somehow, he's happy in it all.

Tithing and fasting are not what we tend to think of them as being. When we think of tithing, most of the time we think of what we give up, don't we? We think of what we have to give away and do without. That is rather self-centered. It's natural, but it's self-centered. Tithing and fasting force us to think of others, of no longer being self-centered and of trusting God instead. There is a joy in that that no amount of self-centeredness can match. There is a freedom in being able to give 10%, and to decide to go without eating for a time, a freedom that turns one's mind away from oneself to God and to others, a freedom that changes our minds about what's really important in the world, a loosening of the grip of our wants, desires, drives, and fears as we find that "God is faithful," and "the joy of the Lord" really is "our strength."

This part of it really can't be taught. It can only be learned. As a part of a life that trusts God and loves our neighbor, it is worth learning.

Hell no!(Of course)

At a Million or More Movement Local Organizing Committee meeting I attended it was divulged that 34 million dollars was deposited by the Dallas Churches alone in Dallas area banks EVERY Monday. I shutter to think what the numbers are in total nation wide. ALL that money sure doesn't show up in the Dallas communitee. It's a damn shame.

BTW the Black preachers were all called together by Bush's lap dog, T.D. Fakes to stop their flock from attending the meeting. It largely worked. Only 2 DFW area Black preachers showed... and the blind flock of sheep largely didn't attend.

BTW, to add the the TD Fakes bash I'm on.... he makes people pay for parking to attend his services at "The Potter's House" which also boasts an ATM in the front lobby. He charged poor Kenyan folk $40.00 U.S. to attend his motivational speaking seminars last year(this is a country where 1 U.S. dollar equals about 70 Kenyan shillings) ANd pocketed 1 million U.S. in donations on top of that and all his church members ever tell me is that he is building 'severa' wells in rural Africa.... Like that's were the money is going!

I don't like to "belive" money is going to a good use, I want to see it put to work. It can't all be going to the church fund folks! Our people need to wake the hell up on this subject!

quote:

Originally posted by MidLifeMan:
You have to believe that the money is going to good use.

I'm with Oshun. "Believing" that the money is going to good use, without seeing any actual works, is a very disturbing idea to me. Why are people so trusting of these institutions, but skeptical about other things? You don't "believe" that George W. Bush is doing right by us in Iraq, or in much of anything else, so why trust in these institutions? I don't get that, not one bit.

As for tithing, although I don't believe in the Bible as the word of God, those who do should understand that tithing of 10% of your money is NOT supported by the Bible. The references to tithing cannot logically apply to money. When you interpret a scripture, you should interpret it in a way that results in the entire reference having meaning. Regarding your tithes, the bible says somethig like, "If you wish to buy any of back, you must pay the standard price plus 20%." Since that cannot apply logically to money, it's a sure bet that what they meant by tithes clearly had nothing to do with money. It was expressly speaking of crops and farm animals. As in, since God gave us the ability to reap of what God allows to grow from the ground for our purposes, it's the least we can do to devote 10% of it to him, for his. If it doesn't make sense to extend that to money, then it's wrong to teach that tithing means your money.

If the church teaches something that is incorrect, and uses that to exact money from you, that is immoral. That is sleazy. So it doesn't really matter what the money is used for, IMO. But if the money is obtained dishonestly, by telling you that God requires it, then the safe bet is that most tithing money is used for less than honorable purposes. Those dirtbags that Oshun is talking about are not the exceptions.

If TD Jakes does do that (and I wouldn't be surprised, actually) then he is wrong to do so, and I wouldn't attend a church like that. I don't, in fact.

But some people doing something wrong doesn't mean that the right thing to do is wrong. Tithing is a minumum. Giving is more than that, and should be done wisely as well as obdiently. The Church doesn't, can't, exact payment from people. They give. But churches sometimes do wrong when it comes to money. Sometimes they manipulate people to get it, and when they do they need to remember the warning God gives to such people--Eli the priest, for example, and the priests condemned for their luxury in Hosea. There is a price to pay for such acts as TD Jakes appears to commit, for he harms people by doing what he's doing.

That does not excuse me from my responsibility to obey God, however. Nor you.

And the tithes do come out of our money. There are examples of people bringing money into the tabernacle: Lev. 27 has the case of people making vows to God and bringing money--silver and gold--to give to the tabernacle for the vow, and Ex. 25 has the people bringing money to the priests for the building of the tablernacle. In Numbers 7 is a case of a man bringing gold into the tabernacle as an offering.

So I really don't think we can say that the tithe and the offering is not meant to be money. It certainly could be what passed for money in those days.

quote:

Originally posted by Melesi:
And the tithes do come out of our money. There are examples of people bringing money into the tabernacle: Lev. 27 has the case of people making vows to God and bringing money--silver and gold--to give to the tabernacle for the vow, and Ex. 25 has the people bringing money to the priests for the building of the tablernacle. In Numbers 7 is a case of a man bringing gold into the tabernacle as an offering.

So I really don't think we can say that the tithe and the offering is not meant to be money. It certainly could be what passed for money in those days.

First of all, "what passed for money in those days," WAS MONEY. They had money in those days, just like we do. No difference.

Secondly, find me ONE verse in ANY book of the Bible that refers to tithing as money. ONE. Whenever it refers to payment of money to the church, they refer to it as OFFERINGS. Not once, anywhere, do they refer to tithing as the payment of money. Tithes = one tenth of the agricultural bounty and one tenth of the farm animals (and maybe the by-products thereof). Offerings, which are different, = money. The requirement of one tenth as money: find me a verse that says it.

I'm not sure why it's so important to you to draw such a hard and fast distinction between tithes and offerings. Both are given, and for the same reason.

But in answer to your challenge, didn't you refer to one such place in an early post: Lev. 27? Early in that chapter "special vows" of animals can be "redeemed" or paid for by money, and in 27:32, 33 money can be substituted for the agricultural tithe.

quote:

Originally posted by Melesi:
I'm not sure why it's so important to you to draw such a hard and fast distinction between tithes and offerings. Both are given, and for the same reason.

But in answer to your challenge, didn't you refer to one such place in an early post: Lev. 27? Early in that chapter "special vows" of animals can be "redeemed" or paid for by money, and in 27:32, 33 money can be substituted for the agricultural tithe.

Yes, I think it's an important distinction, for an important reason. One one hand, say there there are 20 references to tithes, and not one of them = payment of 10% of your money, but those that specify an item specify animals and crops. Then, say there are 30 references to giving money to the church to please God, but not a single one of these references refers to it as paying tithes.

This means to me that the commandment announced in Leviticus requiring one-tenth payment doesn't mean money. Structurally, it would be too coincidental that the references are so consistently exclusive. The consistency is too rigid to be coincidental. Therefore, they must be talking about different things.

You'd be right about not being "hard & fast" about the distinction, if the usages weren't so consistent.

Now, your point about Leviticus and money tithing is an incorrect interpretation. The NIV regards it this way:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=3&chapter=27&version=31


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 If a man redeems any of his tithe, he must add a fifth of the value to it. 32 The entire tithe of the herd and flock—every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd's rod—will be holy to the LORD. 33 He must not pick out the good from the bad or make any substitution. If he does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute become holy and cannot be redeemed.' "

The "redeeming" of tithes with the payment of money logically nullifies the interpretation that tithes can mean money. You can buy back an animal, & you can buy back a crop. But you can't buy back money. You give $1000, and you want to redeem it by... paying $1000 more? Plus an additional $200? That's not a logical reading, but it's the only possible reading if you wish to extend the idea of the tithe as money.

Where you say, ...and in 27:32, 33 money can be substituted for the agricultural tithe, that's just a misreading on your part, not a misinterpretation. This passage relates back to the idea of substituting one animal for another. It says that you can't substitute one animal for another, but that if you try to, both animals become part of the tithe. so you give up the ten you were supposed to, plus the one you tried not to give up. It doesn't say, and cannot mean, that you substitute money for one of the animals.

quote:

The references to tithing cannot logically apply to money.

Tithing is biblical

Tithing meant to bring to God a part of what you produce from your labor. At that time many people farmed to produce. We now have jobs and make money.

Once again, if you can give to "charities" like the UNCF etc in the hopes that your monyey goes to help others then the same is true of the chuch.

Our church has an annual finance meeting and anyone can come. They show the church financial information...how the money was spent the previous year and plans for the coming year.

quote:

Originally posted by MidLifeMan:

quote:

The references to tithing cannot logically apply to money.

Tithing meant to bring to God a part of what you produce from your labor. At that time many people farmed to produce. We now have jobs and make money.

If you haven't read all of my long-winded posts, the flaw in what you're saying is that...

1) Back then, they expressly did have jobs and make money. There's no reason for Leviticus to limit tithing to land and animals, as it does, if they already had money. But it says they had money; why did it omit money?



2) If it says you have to pay 120% of the value of the tithed items in order to get it back, that doesn't make sense as applied to money, because you can't buy back $1000 by giving $1200. If you don't believe me, I'll gladly sell you $1000 if you pay me $1200. Your only other alternative is to say that Lev 27:31 is meaningless. If you want to write out a whole verse from the Bible to support a belief that that verse doesn't support, that's your spiritual business. But I can't stand that this is done at the expense of black people who are getting shafted out of that money.



Money as OFFERINGS is biblical. But tithes are not offerings.

quote:

If you don't believe me, I'll gladly sell you $1000 if you pay me $1200.

No VOX. You should say, "I will gladly sell you back the $1,000, you gave me, if you pay me $1,200.

I your example, you come out with $1,200, but have to give $1,000 back, leaving you with net $200; in mine, I get $2,200 and only have to give back $1,000, leaving a net $1,200.

I'm not so sure about that, Vox--

Lev. 27 is not just about substituting one animal for another. The whole issue of "redeeming" has to do with the promising of something to God, an issue that the entire last chapter of Lev. teaches, and teaches that such vows are very important, not to be undertaken lightly.

But notice that there is a monetary value that the priest is to place on people promised to God (an example of that would be Samuel) and then redeemed, and grains. One can be substituted for the other. Animals were not redeemed because the tenth of those belonged automatically to God.

The grain did not have to be brought to the tabernacle if the farmer brought its value plus 20% in gold or silver.

My point in having called it money as they knew it to be then was because it wasn't minted. There were no coins at this time. The first coins were minted in the Greek kingdom of Lydia about 550 BC during the reign of Croesus. Coins hadn't been made in Israel by the time of the Pentateuch. The shekel was a measure of weight, so the metal was weighed out.

This is not quite the same as money. It is wealth, but not money. Gold and silver, what today we coin into money, however, could be used to replace a vowed grain or person, and thus was acceptable to the Tabernacle. It's the same as what makes up our wealth, and therefore would be acceptable to the temple and to God as our money. To the tabernacle, the two seem to be equal substitutions for the other.

So even though it is not quite money as we know it today, it still is wealth, and it could be used to bring to the tabernacle in place of the regular agricultural tithe.

Your point seems to be to disallow money from teh tithe so that churches cannot require it. Do I read your post right, here?

quote:

Originally posted by Melesi:
I'm not so sure about that, Vox--

Lev. 27 is not just about substituting one animal for another. The whole issue of "redeeming" has to do with the promising of something to God, an issue that the entire last chapter of Lev. teaches, and teaches that such vows are very important, not to be undertaken lightly.

I agree that the chapter discusses keeping promises to God, but it also discusses not cheating him, or trying to get around your obligations as well. 27:32 & 33, it's saying (pretty clearly, too) that every tenth animal you count out belongs to the tithe. It takes pains to stress that you can't try to hold onto the tenth one if the tenth one happens to be one of your favorites. You can't give him the 11th one because the 10th one is more valuable. If you try to do that, you would have to give up both the 10th and the 11th one, and you can't have either one back. It says pretty much the exact same thing in verse 9 & 10. The clear import is one animal being substituted for another. The French, Spanish, and Russian versions of Lev 27:33 all spell it out a little more literally. For example...

Louis Segond version, in French, says, "If they replace one animal with another one, both the one and the other will become holy and cannot be bought back."

La Bible du Semeur, also in French, says: "if they really undertake an exchange, both animals, the one who is replaced and the one who replaces it, will be kept for sacred and cannot be bought back."

The Spanish one says the same thing, pretty much. And none of the English ones contradict that interpretation. The verse is admonishing against playing a shell game with your tithes. It doesn't say or imply that you can pay a monetary value for the animal.

quote:

[quote]
The grain did not have to be brought to the tabernacle if the farmer brought its value plus 20% in gold or silver.

No, it says that if you wish to buy it back, you have to pay the standard price plus the 20%. Nowhere does it say you can substitute some kind of equivalent value for the actual tithing. Again, interpretation is one thing. A complete rewrite is altogether different. I would expect words like "substitution" to be used in that verse if what you're saying is true. "Buying back," which is the only logical meaning here of "redeeming," means you gave it up and you want it back. The fact that 33 says you can't buy back or redeem the animals refers to the fact that it says earlier that you could buy back the agriculture.

And again, at best, the commands here are so specific and detailed that if money could be tithed, it would have said so. If I specify what to do with stocks and then specify a slightly different, but still specific, guideline about T-Bills, then you really can't apply either rule to real estate. There would need to be a specific set of rules spelled out for real estate, and if there are no rules, among people who actually knew about real estate, then real estate must not count.

quote:

My point in having called it money as they knew it to be then was because it wasn't minted. There were no coins at this time.

They didn't mint them? No, but they assigned value to metals that allowed them to pay certain amounts of it in exchange for goods. That differs from the barter system. Unless you're exchanging goods for goods, you're treating the non-goods in the exchange the same way we treat currency today. If you can buy things with it, and it's not a bartered good, then it served substantially the same purpose as minted currency. They knew about, and used, what we would consider money, in such a way that the tithing commands would have referred to it if it was intended.

I realize that application of strict logic is not something that religionists think is valid in matters of "faith." But that's the problem with religion. Charlatans promote that "faith yes, logic no" argument to subdue the masses, and to TAKE YOUR MONEY. It's not right. If you believe scripture is the word of God, then that belief is the only thing you need to have "faith" in. But what his Word says is not the subject of faith. It's the subject of logic. If you believe he said it, then u believe it's true. But if he said one thing and you twist it into something that it DOESN'T SAY, then you're no longer following what you claim is the Word of God.

quote:

Charlatans promote that "faith yes, logic no" argument to subdue the masses, and to TAKE YOUR MONEY

So ALL people of religion are charlatans? Debate of the biblical "interpretation” aside, that is a bit of a generalization. Yes there are, have, and probably always will be those that “twist” the Word to fit THEIR agenda rather then Gods but that doesn’t mean everyone of Faith does.

I understand where you are coming from. I’ve made the same judgments in the past myself. But if you believe that your church is doing God’s work why not support that effort. People give to UNCF and other “charities” to help others; do THEY have charlatans taking and abusing peoples trust? Yes.

So I understand your “distrust” but not EVERY church is duping the congregation.

Fair enough, M.L.M., and I'm sure some, and maybe even most, church people honestly believe the misinterpretation at this point. But the difference between UNCF & church is that the UNCF doesn't argue that you're required to give 10% if you're black and support education.

Honest or not, it's still wrong, and it seems to me that it's pretty damaging.

Vox,

I think to a great extent we agree on this issue. Perhaps not for the reasons that you give, which seem to me to be unduly rigid linguistically, but on the most important point I think you are right.

To explain,

There are a couple of questions that I have about your explanations:

1. Least important, do you find it faintly amusing to say that the French translation is more literal, and then give an English translation of the French, itself a translation of the Hebrew? Wouldn't it be better to find a better translation of the Hebrew in English, of which there are so many? This is not a bad thing to do, mind you, and it is a temptation for us all, but a translation of a translation has enough problems that I would not want to rely on it regularly to explicate a translation.

2. A common difficulty in such discussions--often caused by a simple lapse in attention for a moment (I know the difficulty well)--is a thought like this one in a previous post:
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I would expect words like "substitution" to be used in that verse if what you're saying is true.
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You know as well as I do that what you or I might "expect" is irrelevant. We have to deal with what is given. With the vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible as limited as it is, words quite often had to do double and triple duty (we have words that do the same. How many ways do we use the words "take" or "set," for example?), and the purpose of the writer is always more important than what we, at more than 2000 years' remove, might "expect."

An Israelite couldn't bring the monetary equivalent of his harvest to the tabernacle instead of hauling the actual commodity from Dan and Beersheba? Where is that forbidden? Modes often are not delineated, that's why the Jews have the Talmud and the Oral Law. Humilty would seem to say that we have to be a bit careful when we explicate the Scriptures. While "what we expect" is important in the discussion that leads to understanding, it is not an ultimate reason, basis, or argument.

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3. And again, at best, the commands here are so specific and detailed that if money could be tithed, it would have said so.
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This partakes of the above difficulty. We do not know that "it would have said so." That is importing a modern understanding in a monied world into a world that was not monied. The world was run by barter, not by money. Even money was bartered. There was no set international value for gold then, and it was weighed out like barley. Metal was bartered. the economy was a barter economy, and most people didn't have enough gold or silver to barter with. For most of their lives and purposes they didn't need it, they could trade for what they needed. That's the basis for the Law being set as it was. Anything else would have been irrelevant or impossible because the majority of the people just didn't have gold or silver to speak of, except perhaps in ornaments, and many didn't even have those. So how else was the Law to address this issue? We cannot expect the Law to say then what it might say now.

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4. I realize that application of strict logic is not something that religionists think is valid in matters of "faith."
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Come, now, Vox, I hope you didn't mean that to be as condescending as that sounds. You apparently have never heard Christians in seminary classes argue or read kresge's posts. Logic is very important there and is used all the time. You've read the arguments between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus on free will? Or the works of the German theologians Helmut Thielicke or Karl Barth? Logic was very important to them. As it is to us: in this matter of "faith" (whatever you might have meant by that) we are looking for the meaning of the relevant Scriptures, and logic is a very imporant part of this discussion, isn't it?

5. One of the reasons that the Law was set up as it was is that not only was the world a barter world then, remember that the Levites had no farmland, and the priests had to rely on the tithe just to live. It's part of the Mosaic commands. As C. S. Lewis said, not only did the Temple smell like a slaughterhouse, it also smelled like roast meat. The sons of Eli took the wrong meat out of the sacrifice pot, but they were entitled to some meat. The sacrifices that were brought into the tabernacle and the Temple were shared with the poor, too. So there were several reasons that the Law is arranged as we see it. We cannot be too rigid in our present, removed understanding of it.

Now, about the part on which we agree and I think is your most important point of your argument, even though it seemed a bit buried in the reasoning (which was most likely my fault in not seeing it):

While I am still convinced that the tithe is a command, and churches need to teach it as such, and it can be given in money and not just crops, churches have no right to demand it. Money is a very important part of Jesus' teaching (you've heard the old bromide that Jesus talked more about money than he did about heaven or hell. It's true, actually), and the life of love exemplified by giving is crucial to the Christian. Therefore, the Christian must give generously. But the church does not have the right to demand the tithe. The church congregation must be content with the giving the people decide freely to give. The preacher must not leave money out of his teaching, but his motive must only be for the spiritual good of the people under his care and not for the income of the church. I believe that pastors must be more like George Mueller, who would not speak of money needs to others but only prayed about the money his organization needed. He got what he needed.

The problem here is the pervasiveness of sin, which twists everything that we do and think. I would not be surprised to find that it influences how you think about this issue, Vox, which is not a criticism, only an observation. You[ve heard about a recent finding that when it comes to maney, if men beleive that they are not trusted their testosterone levels rise by a third? That's fairly influential in us, and we have to watch over it, because sin then would see that as natural and justified, even though it is self-centered. We cannot justify anything based on our testosterone levels even though it seems right in our eyes to do so. There seems to be much of that in any discussion of money we men engage in.

So about one of your most important points, I think you are right. The church should never demand the tithe. But the Christian should give it, and sometimes even more.