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Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. Proverbs 3:9-10
18 Days to Go: First Fruits
Main Point: Tithing is still applicable today.
My Pledge: I will commit to tithing or recommit to continue tithing.
Daily Assignment: If you are not a tither, make a list of the reasons why you don’t tithe. Your list might include things like:
I can’t afford to tithe.
I am afraid I won’t have enough to pay my bills.
Add up all the nonessential expenses you had in the last month, such as cable, eating out, going to the movies, etc. How much are you spending on these?
Figure out how much your tithes would be per month and compare this with the money you spent on nonessentials. Do you see places you can cut your expenses to find the money to tithe?
If you are already tithing, are you tithing on your gross income? If not, take a look at your discretionary spending (cable, cell phone, entertainment) and consider cutting back so that you can tithe on the full amount of your “increase.”
If you already tithe on your gross income, examine your offerings or charitable contributions to other organizations. Are you giving as much as you can? Or are you tithing to the penny, while grousing that you can’t or won’t give another dime to anything else?
My Response: I believe if I budget appropriately I will be able to give more in offerings each month to my home church. We currently have a building fund pledge going on to help renovation our church. I filled out the card but I have yet to turn it in because I do not really know where I am going to find the money, I thought. After four days on the financial fast I believe I can support this effort with the $20.00 a week a waste on unnecessary things. I plan on turning in the card with my first donation this Sunday.
6 comments:
OLD TESTAMENT - THE FIRST OF THE FRUITS SHOULD GO TO GOD
Proverbs 3:9 (KJV) “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:”
NEW TESTAMENT - THE WORKER SHOULD BE FIRST TO RECEIVE A SHARE OF THE FRUIT
2 Timothy 2:6 (KJV) “The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.”
The New Testament teaches generous, sacrificial giving, from the heart, according to our means. For some, $1 might be a sacrifice, while for others, even giving 50% of their income might not induce a sacrifice. In the Old Testament, ONLY the farmers tithed, and it was equal percentage (a tenth). The New Testament teaches the principle of equal sacrifice instead of equal percentage. Equal sacrifice is much harder to achieve, if not impossible, than giving ten percent.
As well intentioned as you are, your post is full of biblical errors.
(1) Prov 3:9-10 is about firstfruits and not tithes. They are very different. Tithes were always only tenth-fruit FOOD from inside God’s HOLY land of Israel which God had miraculously increased. Tithes could not come from what man increased, from Gentiles or from outside Israel. Period. Firstfruits were very small token offerings to be eaten inside the OT Temple. See Deu 26:1-4; Neh 10:35-38 and many other texts.
(2) There is no text which says that tithing is still applicable today. Both the OT Temple and priesthood now dwell within the believer. Those who received OT tithes were to remain poor and could not own land. NT giving for the Church after Calvary is primarily SACRIFICIAL. And that means more than ten per cent for many and less for others (2 Cor 8:12-15).
(3) Neither you nor anybody else can truly give a real biblical tithe today (Lev 27:30-34). You can give much more than ten per cent sacrificially but that is not the same as an OT tithe which was only given by food producers who lived inside Israel (Mal 3:10-12)
(4) Tithes in the OT could not be used for Temple building expenses, for maintenance materials or for missionaries. There is no precedent for the Church here. Better New Covenant principles apply today.
www.tithing-russkelly.com
Thank you both for your comments.
I believe tithing is still applicable to today's Body of Beleivers. Taking what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
OK, Ryane, for sake of argument, suppose you are right.
Leviticus 27:30-33, Numbers 18: The First Tithe - a tenth of crops and animals and commanded to take the tithe to the Levites.
Deuteronomy 14:22-27: The Second Tithe aka The Festival Tithe - a tenth of crops, plus add to that the firstborn animals, and take for the yearly feast.
Deuteronomy 14:28-29: The Third Tithe aka The Three-Year Tithe aka The Poor Tithe - a tenth of crops, kept at home, and invite the Levites, widows, orphans, stranger to eat.
Now, tell me. Which of the above three tithes commanded by God do you follow? Those are the ONLY tithes commanded by God.
In all three tithes, the tithe is on assets (crops and animals) and NEVER on income or money. The Israelite farms did, in fact, have income from the sale and/or exchange of their crops and animals, but the tithe was never on income.
God's Holy tithe could ONLY come from God's increase, or God's hand, or God's labor, or to put it even another way, from the miracles of God.
Church leaders have CHEAPENED God's tithe by CHANGING the definition from the miracles of God to the income of man.
Do you own study of the tithe instead of just believing what your pastor says. Just because your pastor says it is so doesn't mean he is right. Please check the scriptures for yourself.
If what your pastor teaches is not in the scriptures, he is a false teacher.
Matthew 5:17-18 states Christ came to fulfill the law and not abolish it.
This is where some education in law is useful. What does fulfill mean? What does abolish mean?
Let me give an example. A legal contract is enforceable under the law. Let’s say you hire a contractor to build a swimming pool in your back yard. Once the contractor has completed the job, and everything in that contract has been completed, the contract has been fulfilled. The contractor’s job is to fulfill the contract, not abolish it. He fulfills it by completing the terms, bringing it to an end.
Consider:
Hebrews 8:13 (KJV) - In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
Colossians 2:14 (KJV) - Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Galatians 5:18 (KJV) - But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Galatians 3:19 (KJV) - Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
Until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. In other words, until Jesus came and fulfilled the law.
Galatians 3:23-25 (KJV)
23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
Galatians 3:10-14 (KJV)
10For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
11But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
12And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.
13Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
14That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Gary,
I have study on tithing, not an in depth study but I have study on tithing. I will go back and do my reseach again...asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to me the things I need to know about tithing and the biblical mandate on tithing for me.
I attend a Bible based church, where my Pastor encourages us to study corporately and to study the Word of God on our own.
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