by johnfariss » Wed Feb 03, 2010 11:19 am
Dear trich,
Like Dave, I am very wary of pronouncements like, "the current economic situation is God's judgment on the US (or American churches, or individual Christians) for not tithing." No matter how logical the syllogism seems to be, we are not God, and He is not bound to follow our logic. As the Bible says in Isaiah 55:8, "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord."
Are non-tithers robbing God? Well, very possibly. That seems to be, as the lawyers would say, "black-letter," in other words, it requires no logic, no extrapolation, it's right there in the open. Must the first 10% go to the local church and that only--and if so, is it sin to do otherwise? Certainly I have a vested interest in the tithe going to the local church, but none of that is specificially New Testament/New Covenant. As for the failure to give that to the local church rather than some other worthy Christian cause--I refer you back to the end of my first paragraph. Actually, the whole concept of the tithe is barely mentioned in the New Testament, and from the lips of Jesus, is a criticism of the Pharisees. When the question was asked in the early church about why the New Testament was silent about it, the answer was that to restrict Christians to giving only 10% would be to hold them back! The expectation was that Christians would joyfully and easily exceed that figure. Perhaps this figures into my own pragmatism: what I see is that people give to what they believe in, not to budgets per sa.
My own base line perspective is that tithing/giving is related to maturity. If you will notice, the earliest "layers" of the OT teach tithing as a rule or law, with punishment for failure--do this or you will suffer consequences. It is very much like what we would tell a small child, "Obey, eat your veggies, use your words, don't hit or bite, because if you disobey, you will be punished." Hundreds of years later, we get to Malachi, where a reward is promised for tithing--just as we might tell an older child that if he/she studies hard, gets good grades, is obedient, & gets their driver's permit/license, they will be allowed to take the car out. What was just the stick has become a carrot dangling in front of them. But then Jesus comes along, does not mandate tithing or even mention it other than once in passing (and then in a somewhat negative way, as a criticism of the Pharisees), and Paul springs on us, "God loves a cheerful giver." He seems to be saying that giving is joy, giving is hilarity, with no references to demands of any sort, internal or external, for fear of punishment or hope of reward. THAT is a comment that requires maturity to grasp. Neither name-it-and-claim-it or (I think) tithing-for-the-storehouse preachers have the requesite maturity.
We all have to start somewhere; we all begin as babes. But we are to strieve to maturity, and to leave the Law as our "Schoolmaster," our pedigoges (the slave in charge of a student's discipline) far behind.
John