- TITHE
taɪð noun One-tenth. - 2. verb. Set aside a tenth of something, either as savings or as a charitable donation.
- 3. verb. Give [either a tenth, or any variable amount] to our church.
Most Christians define
But for small churches, what we collectively donate isn’t always enough to cover
And you need to bring your whole tithe to church. ’Cause it says so in the bible.
Malachi 3.8-12 KWL - 8 “Does any human cheat God like all of you cheat me? You say, ‘How do we cheat you?’
- In tithes. In offerings. 9 You’ve cursed yourselves. The whole nation is cheating me.
- 10 Bring your whole tithe to my treasury: There’s unclean food in my house!
- Please test me in this,” says the L
ORD of War. “See if I don’t open heaven’s floodgates and pour down blessing till you overflow. - 11 I rebuke the blight for you: It won’t ruin your crops. It won’t kill the vines in your field,” says the L
ORD of War. - 12 “Every nation will call you happy, and consider you a land of delight,” says the L
ORD of War.
Most preachers only quote verses 8-10, and don’t bother with verses 11-12. They should. These verses reveal
I know; you might never have heard this idea before. You’d be surprised how many Christian pastors are totally clueless about this fact. I grew up Christian, and hadn’t heard any of this stuff till my thirties. But it’s all in your bible, hiding in plain sight.
How the Law describes tithing.
In Genesis there are two major events where a mahašér came up:
- Avram gave Melchizedek a tenth of his plunder from a recent battle.
Ge 14.20 - Jacob promised the L
ORD a tenth of everything the LORD granted him.Ge 28.22
Elsewhere in the bible we see Samuel’s warning that a king might demand a tenth of the Hebrews’ seed and sheep as taxes,
But properly, tithing got defined by Moses in Deuteronomy 14. Big long quote time:
Deuteronomy 14.22-29 KWL - 22 “Tithe, tithe all the produce of the seed which went into your field, year by year.
- 23 Eat it in your L
ORD God’s presence, at the spot he chooses for his name to live: - Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine, oil, the firstborn of your oxen and sheep.
- Through this, you learn to revere your L
ORD God daily. - 24 When the road’s too long for you, so you’re not able to carry your tithe—
- because this spot your L
ORD God chooses for his name to live is too far from you— - 25 when your L
ORD God blesses you, you may take silver instead. - Hold the silver in your hand. Walk to the place your L
ORD God chooses for himself. - 26 Take the silver to buy anything your soul craves:
- Oxen, sheep, wine, liquor, anything your soul asks for.
- Eat it there, in your L
ORD God’s presence. Rejoice, you and your household. - 27 And don’t neglect the Levites who live inside your city gates,
- for no land was given them as a portion or possession with you.
- 28 “At the end of the third year, bring out the whole tithe of your yield for the year.
- It’ll stay within your gates. 29 The Levites get it.
- (For no land was given them as a portion or possession with you.)
- Foreigners, orphans, widows within your gates: Come and eat! Don’t be hungry.
- Because of this, your L
ORD God will bless you in all the handiwork you do.”
Waitaminnit, you only give away your tithe every third year? The other two years, you eat your tithe?
Yep. The purpose of this tithe was so the Hebrews could celebrate the harvest God gave them. As just about every agrarian culture does. But in most of these cultures (including the middle east in the 14th century
So God’s tithing idea kept things from getting out of hand. No longer would you overindulge. You’d celebrate, but you’d eat no more than a tenth of your harvest. You’d celebrate near the tabernacle or temple, near a place of worship, as a reminder to
Likewise no longer would you under-indulge. You know how some folks, out of pure stinginess, would squirrel everything away, or sell it all for profit, and enjoy none of it? Well now God required they enjoy it. They weren’t to enjoy the cold self-satisfaction of having a bigger savings account; they were to directly enjoy what God gave ’em year by year. And when the harvest was good (and God’s intent was for every harvest to be good), a tenth was no small amount. It’d be a pretty nice party.
Now it was possible your tithe would be impractically large. So God allowed for some or all to be exchanged for cash, and cash could be exchanged for whatever else one might want to purchase. Which was handy for those Hebrews who didn’t grow a diversity of crops. If you only grew wheat and not grapes, but you wanted wine, sell wheat and buy wine. If you ranched but didn’t farm, sell cattle and buy vegetables. The Hebrews weren’t forced to only party with their own supply: They could buy whatever they wished. They could even buy
Waitaminnit, you got to spend your tithe on booze? Yep.
Now, the bulk of the Hebrews were farmers and ranchers; the Levites weren’t. When God distributed Canaan among
Okay, every third year: On these occasions, the Levites got the entirety of the tithe, which went into their cities’
- WIDOWS, whether by virtue of their husbands dying, or abandoning them;
- ORPHANS, i.e. any child who lacked a parent or family;
- FOREIGNERS, anyone who might travel past the city, or flee there for refuge.
You know, all the people conservative
So now that we know what the ancient Hebrews thought tithing meant, back to Malachi.
Shafting the poor.
The L
As a result there was
Yet that’s what was in the treasury at the time: The existing food was getting moldy or rotten, and unfit to eat; or it included animals which hadn’t been killed properly, or were found dead, and the stingy Hebrews donated the stuff they’d never feast upon, and figure the needy should be happy to get anything at all. You know, like when cheap Christians donate expired cans of our least-favorite soup to our own churches’ food closets.
People likewise misunderstand when God says “unclean food in my house.”
And just as when we give to the needy, we’re giving to God,
Three tithes?
First time I taught on this subject, I got an objection from someone who claimed the Deuteronomy description of tithing only refers to one kind of tithe. There were, he claimed, three kinds of tithing found in the bible.
1. A TITHE TO FEAST WITH. Like I just wrote about.
2. A TITHE FOR THE NEEDY. They way these folks interpret Deuteronomy 14, they figure every third year, the Hebrews were to actually tithe twice: One tithe to party with as usual, and one tithe to put in the treasury. They weren’t to forego their party.
Now, I just translated
Deuteronomy 14.28-29 above. (Go ahead and compare it with other translations, if you wish.) Is that what the text said? It doesn’t say to bring forth two tithes, but “the whole tithe of your yield for the year.”Dt 14.28 It’s the same tithe, applied differently every third year.3. A TITHE FOR THE LEVITES. Remember how every third year, the Levites got people’s tithes? Well this got mentioned again in Numbers:
Numbers 18.21-24 KWL - 21 “To Levi’s descendants, look: I give them all Israel’s tithes as a possession,
- an exchange for their service they serve, serving my meeting tent.
- 22 Israel’s descendants: Don’t approach my meeting tent to bring me sin—to die.
- 23 The Levites serve it, do service at my meeting tent, and they can bring their sin.
- This is a perpetual decree for your descendants,
- and in the midst of Israel’s descendants Levi does not possess a possession,
- 24 for Israel’s descendants’ tithe, which the L
ORD lifts up, is the offering I give the Levites as a possession. - This is why I say to them, “In the midst of Israel‘s descendants Levi does not possess a possession.’ ”
Since this passage was declared before Moses restated the Law in Deuteronomy, these folks assume this isn’t the same tithe as the one Moses spoke of. This, they claim, is a wholly separate yearly tithe. Supposedly the Levites got this third tithe every year: A “sacred tithe,” like the one Avram gave Mechizedek,
Ge 14.20 and this is the type of tithe Christians are supposed to give our churches.Why is this not a separate tithe? ’Cause Deuteronomy isn’t a separate command; it’s Moses repeating the same commands the L
ORD previously gave Israel. Deuteronomy wasn’t meant to introduce new commands, but reiterate (and reorganize) the commands of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. And the tithe Moses spoke of, is the same tithe as Numbers.
Where’d Christians get the idea there are three tithes instead of one?
Tobit 1.6-8 KWL - 6 I frequently went to the feasts in Jerusalem alone,
- just as it’s written, in a command for all Israel for this age.
- I brought the firstfruits, the tithes of the harvest,
- and what I had of the first sheep-shearing.
- 7 I gave all the produce to the priests, Aaron’s descendants, at the altar.
- I gave the tithe to Levi’s descendants who served in Jerusalem.
- Each year I sold a second tithe, and went and spent it in Jerusalem.
- 8 And a third I gave to whoever it seemed right, just as Devvora commanded
- —Devvora my father’s mother, for I was left an orphan by my father.
We find it in the first-century Pharisee historian Flavius Josephus:
Besides those two tithes, which I have already said you are to pay every year, the one for the Levites, the other for the festivals, you are to bring every third year a third tithe to be distributed to those that want; to women also that are widows, and to children that are orphans. Antiquities 4.8.22
And we find it in the Mishna, the second-century collection of Pharisee teachings, in the tractate Mahašerót, “Tithes.” Pharisees were ordered to give three tithes:
- The mahašér rišón, “first tithe,” is given to a Levite.
- The mahašér šení, “second tithe,” is taken to Jerusalem to be eaten solemnly.
- And every third and sixth year of a Sabbath-year cycle, the mahašér šení is replaced with the mahašér aní, “charity tithe,” and given to the needy.
Today’s Orthodox Jews still practice this.
But the reason Christians never identify this Pharisee teaching as the error it is, and keep spreading it around as if it’s a valid interpretation of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, is because of our culture’s interpretation of what “tithing” is: It’s giving to your church. Giving 10 percent of every paycheck. Some pastors demand it be 10 percent of the gross amount: Doesn’t matter what the government deducts for taxes and Social Security and child support, and if you only tithe the net you’re robbing God, and then he won’t rebuke the devourer, and you’ll never realize why everything is so expensive.
I interpret Tobit’s “I gave all the produce to the priests, Aaron’s descendants” and “I gave the tithe to Levi’s descendants” as
But the Pharisees pointed to the third-century-
Luke 11.42 KWL - “But how sad for you Pharisees: You tithe mint, rue, all your herbs—
- yet God’s justice and love escapes you.
- You have to do the one; don’t neglect the other.”
Christians likewise skip right over the justice and love Jesus is talking about, wholly unaware these two concepts have anything to do with tithing. It’s unjust and unloving to ignore the needy. God generously provides for us because he wants us to pay this generosity forward. Not think in terms of, “I made $300 this week, so I owe God $30,” and give that to our churches, and nothing more to the poor. (And often our churches give nothing to the poor either, ’cause you’d be stunned at how much we gotta pay for rent and electricity.)
We dismiss love and justice as if they’re nice but unrelated, and fixate on the money: “See? Jesus said we still have to tithe. So it’s not just an Old Testament idea which
Our proper takeaway.
What do we, as Christians, take from these passages?
I’m not in the agriculture business, and neither are a lot of American Christians. Unless we have a vegetable garden in the backyard, we’ve no produce to tithe from. Nor Levites to support; most of us are
We do have income. In a sense that’s our “produce.” We get paychecks as the fruits of our labor. And we should take a part of those paychecks—set aside a tenth part of our budget—and enjoy ourselves with it. After all, our purpose in life isn’t just to toil, toil, toil, and save, save, save. God didn’t create us to be wage slaves, nor misers. God blessed us with income. Rejoice with it!
In moderation, of course. I’ve known folks who blow a crazy amount of money on entertainment or vacations. I’ve likewise known people who enjoy nothing. Both extremes are unhealthy.
Every so often, maybe every third month we should take that tenth we’d otherwise fritter on ourselves, and give to the needy. Share our blessings with those who aren’t so blessed. Look out for the poor in our communities, and make sure their needs are met. Make sure their stomachs aren’t empty. Let that be our entertainment for the month: Rejoicing with those whom we’ve given help, and hope.
Conservatives and progressives can debate about how far we should get the government involved. But regardless of where you fall on that issue, feed the hungry. Doesn’t matter
What about our churches? Well of course we should contribute to their upkeep. Make sure the pastors get paid, ’cause they’re worthy of it.
In fact, the New Testament principle about providing for our churches is that we don’t merely give tithes: We give everything.