The fear of the law of tithing (Part 5)
Verse of the Day: Malachi 3: 8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and offerings"
The teaching on tithes and offerings sow confusion in the Church of Christ. We will move forward step by step in order to discern the mind of the Holy Spirit.
In the teachings that I have heard in over 98% of churches, tithing is exactly as practiced in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, tithing was not a choice but a duty or more a law. If someone does not give a tithe (10% of income), it was a sin before God and had to face the consequences related to his disobedience. By consequence, I mean curse as it is said in the following verse: Malachi 3: 9 " You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me”
A few years after my conversion, I felt in my heart that something was not right regarding the teaching on tithing because a preacher could spend more than an hour to condemn those who do not give tithes in charging them to a terrible sin to the point that some could even not pray because of guilt. These teachings gave an image of an angry God with a rod in hand to punish all those who rob Him by not giving their tithes. What was the result? They gave their tithes by pressure and not by love and very few people could give them regularly.
They did it by terror and not by faith, and if unfortunately someone was over a month without paying his tithes, he could lose himself in guilt before God and his Pastor because many Pastors closely follow the payment of tithes. They know those who regularly pay and those who do not as it should be because in some churches they have one book reserved for the payment of tithes in which are registered the names and the amounts paid. In other churches they simply write the name on an envelope and precise that the money paid is for tithing.
Therefore, I spent some time to meditate and I asked myself the question to know why in the New Testament we do not talk at all about tithing? From the Gospel of Matthew to the book of Revelation, you will not find anywhere that Jesus and the disciples taught about giving tithes (except the case of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7 but it was not the Law of Moses, and it was not an order). Yet the disciples taught how to give money to God's work, but they never talked about tithing (1/10 of income). If the non-payment of the tithe was a serious sin as claimed by most preachers, why neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor the apostles never spoke or warned the people of God on the subject?
Our meditation begins with the revelation of Jesus when he said he did not come to abolish the law, but he came to fulfill it (Matthew 5: 17). If you do not understand this sentence, you cannot understand this teaching because today one does not need to be circumcised in order to ally with God and All Christians agree that eating pork meat is no longer a sin, while the Law of Moses in the Old Testament forbade! Many Christians are working on the Sabbath (Saturday) without feeling guilty and apparently the new covenant (New Testament) is very different to the old covenant and yet Jesus said that he has not come to destroy the law?
In Part 6, we will see how we can put ourselves under a curse by focusing on the works of the law
Chris Ndikumana
