Giving To God

The increasing emphasis on money in most churches is causing many people to study the Word of God for the truth on this important subject. Each year brings new schemes to raise money to support the increasingly top-heavy ecclesiastical organizations with which so many of God’s own are affiliated. A large church in an east Texas city has rated its members according to the amount they contribute to the church each year while another church has developed a slogan: “Would you want your neighbor to know how much you give?”
These clearly are efforts to play on the desire for social approval and the wish to out do one’s neighbor and to use these urges to increase the funds coming into the church organization.
The question I raise is not whether to give or not to give, but it is a question of giving as a member of the body of Christ, in the church age of grace in contrast with giving as an Israelite under the law.
In the first place, the word tithe is found in only one portion of Scripture this side of Calvary, and that is Hebrews 7:1-10, which refers back to Genesis 14:17-24. Many glory in these passages, insisting that since Abraham paid tithes, tithing antedates the Mosaic Law, and is therefore binding today. By the same argument, one would have to accept circumcision, (Gen. 17:9-14); animal sacrifices, (Gen. 4:4; 8:20); the seventh-day Sabbath (Gen. 2:2-3); etc.
Some hold that Hebrews 7:8 which says, “Men that die receive tithes” would indicate, by the verb tense, that they are still being received. In the same book, chapter 10:11, however, we read that priests were still offering daily sacrifices, but that does not indicate that God required either the tithe or the sacrifice at that time that the book was written.
Tithing definitely was incorporated into the law program, as I brought out in Leviticus 27:30-34. Note how carefully God links this with Israel. “These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai”.
In Malachi 3:7-15 we have the verses that are overworked by preachers today who accuse believers of robbing God if they do not tithe. The “storehouse” of verse 10, they tell us, is the local church treasury, and church members are told that they pay the tithe to the storehouse. Anything above the tithe they say is an offering. But actually the “storehouse”, under law, was the Jewish temple. Note again how God tags the verse in Malachi with Israel (3:6 – “Jacob”). He calls tithing His ordinance (3:14). Paul tells us that “we are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). Colossians 2:14 assures us that the ordinance of Malachi 3:14 has been blotted out, nailed to His Cross. How does this effect our giving?
OUR MOTIVE FOR GIVING IS INFINITELY GREATER. Instead of bringing a tithe into an earthly storehouse because a legal ordinance requires it, we give because we have received God’s awesome gift, eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 6:23).
Who should give? Every believer in the Lord has the privilege of giving (1 Cor. 16:2; 2 Cor. 9:7). How much should be given? It is here that confusion arises, when the truth God gave to Israel under the law is brought over and forced upon members of the body of Christ, living under grace. Two principles are laid down to guide the member of the body of Christ as to how much he should give.
ONE – HE IS TO GIVE “AS GOD HAS PROSPERED HIM” (1 Cor. 16:2). This suggests giving in proportion to our income, and giving systematically. As the Christian’s income increases, his love gifts to support the work of the Lord will increase.
TWO – HE IS TO GIVE “AS HE HAS PURPOSED IN HIS HEART” (2 Cor. 9:7). The yielded believer prays much about his giving as to the amount, the phase of the Lord’s work to which the gift will go, etc. The giver is to have a willing mind (2 Cor. 8:12), that is, a desire to give without coercion, and we are to give cheerfully (2 Cor. 9:7).
The amount the believer under grace gives, then, is based on the amount of his income and the amount he purposes in his heart to give. This is it! These are the rules of grace!
Contrast a strict law demanding that we give, with giving cheerfully, not because we are bound to, but because it is our desire! Many have been enabled to give far more than the legal tithe, and have done so. One well-known Christian businessman has consistently given 90 percent of his profits to the Lord’s work, and used the other 10 percent for personal needs, and God has prospered him.
On the other hand, God has many choice saints with a meager income, barely able to meet life’s needs, whose financial contributions are not much in numbers, but are acceptable in God’s sight on the basis of the above standards. Many who have been unable to give financially to the support of the gospel have spent much time in prayer and witnessing, and they are accepted according to what they have, and not what they lack.
Giving can and should be a means of worship. But giving is a matter that should be strictly between the believer and his Lord; no man or men have scriptural authority to dictate to the lowliest believer how much he should give or how he should give it.
To summarize, every believer in Christ has the privilege of giving to the Lord’s work because we have been born into God’s Family. We are to give as God has prospered us. There is nothing wrong in giving a tenth, so long as it is understood that we are not legally bound to any tithing ordinance of Israel. And these gifts are to be given as we have purposed in our hearts, cheerfully and freely.
We are saved by grace; let us live under grace; let us learn the superiority of giving under grace compared to tithing as though we were under law.

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