Tithing Remarks

From Cherry Brandstater:

Since tithing was given as a law to Israel it certainly predated "the church." It was never given as a way to sustain "the church." There is no template for tithing in the early church. Nothing suggests that such a formula persisted into the Christian community. Instead, there was a much more inclusive and personal mechanism developed whereby members of the church had an accoutability to each other. They no longer saw their belongings as their own but pooled their resources so that all were cared for equitably.

It was much like the difference in the Sabbath given to Israel and the Sabbatismos (Heb 4) given to The Church. For Israel it was one in seven. In The Church it was "today" - seven out of seven. Every day was now a day of rest from our works toward salvation.

With respect to tithing Israel was required to tithe one in ten. In Christianity - why just one in ten? We are redeemed. We are sons and daughters in the kingdom. We no longer owe a tax - we own the business along with our older brother, Jesus. It's not one in ten as if we owed a tax. It's everything we have, everything we own, all that we are. We are joint heirs of the kingdom. We jointly own the kingdom with Christ. Everything we own is His already and everything He owns He has already given to us in the Son.

We need a renewing of the mind. We need to come up higher and give up the slave mentality of taxpayers. Jesus opened a way into the Holy of Holies by which we may come into the immediate presence of the Father and join in His councils. Until we see that one in seven and one in ten respresents the mindset of a slave we have not yet grasped the height, depth and beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

From Hazel Holland:

Amen! A number of years ago I chose "releasingcaptives" as my email address because I believe God wants to release His captive children from the mindset of slavery.

As long as we continue to keep one day in seven and give one tenth of our income to God, we still have the mindset of a slave child.

We still haven't fully understood that as God's sons and daughters we may daily enter into the "rest" that He has already provided! The only thing left for us to do is to enjoy sweet fellowship with Him through the Spirit. Then from this position of "resting" in His grace, He will show us the "work" that He has prepared in advance for us to do. But this "work" is not like what we are used to performing under the Old Covenant...

Since we have been bought with a price, everything that we own and have are already His. And we have everything when we have Christ!

Could it be that God's Spirit is confronting us with the truth that since Jesus already fulfilled the Old Covenant law, including the law of "tithing", we may now freely give of ourselves to others as we are led by the Spirit to give?

...I believe the story of the widow's mite is an example of how God desires that we give everything to Him in the new covenant reality.

From Ramone Romero:

Yes, the widow's mite is a picture of God's economy -- He doesn't want an amount of money or even money at all: He wants our hearts! God can take one penny given in faith & love and do more with that than a billion dollars given without them. God's economy is in faith & heart. These are the "currency" of the Kingdom, and are the means by which He wants us to live and spread the word of His good news.