“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse , that there may be food in My house, and try Me in this,� says the Lord of hosts,� if I will not open for you the windows of Heaven and pour out for you such a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive.�� Malachi 3:10.

There is probably not a Christian who has not heard this line spoken from their pastor at least once; especially immediately before the offering was taken. Yet, going back to as early as the time of Abraham, the tithe has been one of the oldest traditions recorded in the Bible. In Genesis 14:20 the Old Testament patriarch is said to have regularly given a tenth of his earnings to the high priest. Giving ten percent of one’s income was not only a gift to God, but a commandment for His people to participate in the established principle of sowing and reaping, which was not only a natural, but a supernatural, process. Worldly processes had always been viewed as running counter to, and the opposite of, spiritual ones. But in this, where seeds are planted and crops blossom, so to does one’s economic investment in the kingdom promise of a spiritual (and possibly economic) harvest. This is not to say that tithing is a practice adhered to for the express purpose of receiving something in return. I should not expect that Abraham gave in order to get something back. I am sure he was blessed for his obedience, but the fact that he did was not the reason for offering it up to God in the first place. And with that in mind, the principle of giving to God is without question. However, there are some who find the tithe to be exclusively an Old Testament requirement that is, for the New Testament believer, a remnant of an unnecessary Jewish tradition (such an abstaining from pork, circumcision, and so forth). But for others, they see tithing as a literal obligation that is carried over from the Old Testament into the New. We will examine both sides of the debate so that we can better understand what the Bible has to say about tithing and New Testament giving.

“And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, it is the Lord’s, it is holy to the lord.� Leviticus 27:30

Concerning the issue of New Testament giving as it pertains to this passage in the OT, there are those who would see this as referring to what is known in Theology as the Old Covenant. I will not go into detail as to how and why OT laws were transformed by New Testament teachings. It suffices to say that such regulations as the 10 commandments hinging on 2 and what comes out of a man makes him unclean are all re-evaluations of OT laws, both of which were instituted by Jesus Himself. In the same vein, those who oppose absolute tithing cite the fact that there is really no mention of its compulsory engagement for Christians. On the contrary, upon reading the New Testament we find a rather opposite principle. For instance, in II Corinthians 9:7, we read, “Let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.� This implies that the amount one is to give is not some concrete percentage or number, but a matter of God’s spirit speaking to the individual.

On the other hand, there are many who find this argument unconvincing and charge that such a rendering of scripture comes from situations where the Bible is silent and thus lends to overly creative interpretations. For if it were the case that the early church had abandoned tithing, it would seem, being that it is a very significant issue, some opposition would have arisen to warrant a rebuttal from Paul, and other church leaders at the time. Yet there is none. And furthermore, perhaps there is something intrinsically ‘holy’ about the number ten, as it pertains to percentages of income, that mirror the importance of numbers such as 7, 14, 40 and the like as they are found in concrete things in the Bible. For these, tithing is not some type or shadow preceding the phenomenon of New Testament giving, but an obligation carried over from it.

With these two positions to consider, one being anti-tithing, the other pro, I would recommend that you, the reader, study as much as you can on the subject. I find both sides equally compelling to where a firm decision to side with either one is difficult. Because, for one the idea that God leads each and every person to give as he purposes in his or her heart makes sense. And this needn’t be only ten percent. But, there is the problem of subjectivity. For some, they could use this as a way of giving less than they should objectively. Either way, we should look at giving not as an obligation, but as an opportunity. An opportunity to touch the hand of God. For if we reach out to give to Him, we are assured that he will reach down to take it; and in the exchange…He touches us and changes us completely.

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