The Tithe...
"We should be preaching and teaching
on tithing, but we must first
understand what Jesus said about it."
By Pastor Jack Hayford
November is when I've done it—almost always! This beautiful
month of harvest, moods of Indian summer and Thanksgiving is when
I usually bring a series on giving. I always look forward to it.
I always feel privileged to stir the faith and reinforce the convictions
of the flock. I feel humbled, freed of seeming "pushy,"
and more anointed to embrace others with God's love than to "preach
people into obedience."
Thirty years of pastoring in one place, and finding financial solidarity
and growth through the whole time, has taught me two things:
- You don't need hype or fund-raising tricks to meet church budgetary
needs.
- You do need to believe it—and preach and teach tithing
(and unfailingly practice it yourself).
What never ceases to amaze me is the combination of either fear
or doubt, which limits so many pastors—fear of assertively
preaching the promise and blessing of tithing; doubt regarding its
applicability to the New Testament believer. If either of these
liars taunt you or tempt you to silence, let me provide you with
some grist for your preaching mill.
Yes, it's a covenant!
God's Word clearly reveals tithing as a God-ordered financial discipline,
with wonderful promises attached and underwritten with a covenant
of promise by Father God Himself. In Malachi 3: 8-12, the prophet
makes bold in the name of the Lord, saying in no uncertain terms
that to not tithe is to play the role of a thief stealing from God!
He quickly, however, even immediately, discloses a message that
reveals the heart of God behind this in-your-face confrontation.
God doesn't feel so "stolen from" in economic terms as
in being deprived of the opportunity to bless His people—to
strike an agreement, a covenant including abundant provision and
abiding protection.
Looking at the elements of the covenant, God's target in the tithe
unfolds. God intends the tithe to be an overflowing with grace,
tenderness and a benevolence that calls every Bible believer to
embrace the habit of tithing—and to add offerings as well.
However, as clear as all this is, I still meet dear pastors who
are too intimidated to teach tithing as a practice, by reason of
the tired, unbiblical accusation still registered on occasion:
"Tithing's only in the Old Testament!"
This idea mistakenly verbalizes the biblically unexegetable notion
that tithing is "only required by the law" and is therefore
not incumbent upon New Testament believers. Of course a half-truth
(the problem with most errors) is that tithing isn't incumbent upon
us—not for our salvation or for our hope of heaven's fullness
and eternal riches!
However, the practical promises within God's proffered covenant
of the tithe cannot be expected apart from the faith and the will
to participate in the terms of the covenant. My pastoral call to
"tithes and offerings" is not a revocation of the believer's
liberty—"into law and out of grace." Nor is it any
more a regression to legalism than it is a veiled effort at helping
fund the church's programs. I issue this biblical call because I
want a congregation that is burst from the bonds of fear, and into
the abundance of God's grace-filled promises of economic adequacy
and spiritual liberty.
Yes, it's in the New Covenant!
Not only is the truth of the tithe in both testaments, but the New
Testament approaches
tithing as being timeless and as always being offered by grace,
not law! Never make
the mistake of failing to remember that all God's blessings and
covenants are always a
gift of His grace, always initiated in His love and always sustained
by His mercy.
Jesus Himself addressed the issue of tithing. Both Matthew and
Luke record an occasion when, confronting that tough breed of religionists—the
Pharisees—He strikes out at their habit of ritually attending
to the letter of Old Testament law, yet entirely avoiding its deep,
honor-with-your-heart spiritual demands.
"'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay
tithe of mint and anise and
cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice
and mercy and
faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others
undone'" (Matt. 23:23,
NKJV; see also Luke 11:42).
Now look closely with me so we make no mistake about what is and
what isn't said.
People deserve to be shown that the "woe" Jesus announces
on the religious fakery of these hypocrites was not for their tithing,
but for their neglect of faith's "weightier matters."
In pressing His point, He doesn't condemn their fidelity in tithing
(indeed, they were even weighing out the tithe of the tiniest of
spices—mint and cummin!)
Here's God's chance to clear the decks. If tithing was unimportant
to the Savior—now to become meaningless under the new order—He
could have said, "Take care of justice and mercy, and quit
bothering with tithing—mint, cummin or anything else!"
But rather, our Savior, whose habit is to say, "You have heard
it said, but I say unto you," does nothing to dismiss the concept
of tithing. Instead He reinforces it, saying, "These you ought
to have done" (a clear reference to their tithing) "and
not to leave the others undone" (referencing their shallow
attitudes and manifest heartlessness regarding justice and mercy).
Also note how, as Jesus touches on tithing, He employs the word
ought—a powerfully significant word usage of "the moral
imperative," thereby acknowledging tithing as "something
that ought to be." With His "ought," Jesus is essentially
declaring the practice of tithing as a precept that "should
not to be violated," making tithing a practice transcending
the Old or New covenants, and as instead being a part of God's intended
natural order for humankind.
Actually, the Savior's authorization of the practice "ought"
to be enough for anyone, and for that reason I want to abbreviate
from here (though I've elaborated more fully in my book The
Key to Everything). But let me leave you with these
brief notes regarding Abraham, whose model is given in the New Testament
as a key to living in vital faith.
A trail of verses develop irrefutable evidence that "tithing
is for New Testament believers, too." Beginning with Romans
4:12, which calls us to walk "in the steps of the faith which
our father Abraham" walked, we trace to Hebrews 11:1, when
that path is described as one living in a faith that:
- sees the invisible
- lives in covenant promises (Heb. 11:13)
- practices a pattern of worship that includes tithing (Gen. 14:20).
There's more, but for now, allow me to rest the case. Tithing may
have begun in the Old Testament, but its spirit, truth and practice
proceed unto today. God's Word underscores it as ours to believe,
to rejoice in, to worship with and to be rewarded by!
So, let me urge any fellow shepherd who might be intimidated by
any traditionalist who denies the biblical basis of this blessed
privilege of choosing faith's practices in our finances: The harvest
season surrounds us right now, and I'm reminded again of God's laws
of sowing and reaping. And I can't imagine bowing to any system
that argues against sowing on His terms.
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Jack
Hayford Ministries
14800 Sherman Way, Van Nuys, CA 91405-2233