Tithing
Monday, June 15th, 2009
France is kicking Scientology out the door.
You know, that sets an interesting precedent. Regular church isn’t much different. They extort money from people ALL of the time. “Just give us 10% of your income and god will be happy with you, you will be a good Christian and get into heaven. And if you want to give more. . . ” When I was in the ministry, the church wanted us to give 10% of the income they gave us BACK to them. It was a requirement. If we didn’t do it (which most of the time, we couldn’t) we had to give an explanation. I had to sit down with pastors in both of our churches and show them every last penny in our budget. It was humiliating.
They say if you tithe, then God will give it back to you, and sometimes even more. He never did for us, though. By the time we paid taxes and tithe, we didn’t have enough money left over to pay bills. Having been taught to do it anyways, we did. We tithed and ran up our credit card bill paying for food and gas. So we stopped. We tried to do it when we could, but I can’t say I think it was money well spent. Really, tithing is completely different in the Bible than it is practiced now. We knew it, and didn’t agree that tithing as practiced in the Baptist church is entirely Biblical. Furthermore, tithing is to support the church, not God. God doesn’t need our money. Tithing as practiced today is meant mostly to support the ministers. It never made much sense to me to be forced to give back part of our salary so they could pay us a salary. To have to justify why we weren’t tithing to a church who knew precisely how much money we were making was embarrassing. I had to sit down with the pastor who then sat down with the board. Everyone knew exactly where our money went and it was none of their business.
The guilt and humiliation over tithing that the church put is through, I think, is more unchristian than our lack of tithing as interpreted by them was.
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June 16th, 2009 at 10:29 am
He didn’t for us either.
Giving something to get more of it is a bit like gambling (or superstition).
June 16th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
God have mercy, folks. I’d be looking for another church. This is outrageous.
No where in the N.T. are people commanded to tithe. I think people should give willingly whatever God is leading them to give, what seems good, and best to them. I can’t think the Lord is too honored when people give out of guilt or obligation, expecting a reward, and then can’t pay their basic bills too boot!!
Lauradee, thank God that you are out of this spiritually toxic situation. May the Lord continue to bring healing, joy, and renewal to your life. Amen!
June 18th, 2009 at 3:58 am
I fully understand how yuou must feel. It’s a shame about the state of today’s church; peddling a very unbiblical doctrine – the tithe. In some churches, they know this tithe thing doesn’t work and then resort to using another guilt tactic – they tell you that tithing shows your love for God. Can you imagine that! Where for God’s sake can that be found in the bible?
I think believer need to resist this alien doctrine because the bible tells us to give what we can afford and does not advocate a tithe!
February 5th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
What’s wierd though – is I still think trying to give (not to church FYI) 10% of my money is the ultimate goal – despite my waywardness. It’s funny what we cling too.