Christ

Tithing is one of the most divisive and misunderstood Christian practices in churches today. Is tithing biblical? What does the Old Testament say about it? What about the New Testament? If it is biblical, should Christians tithe on your gross income or net income? Is it left up to individual interpretation? Let’s explore some of those questions.

What is Tithing?

What is tithing? Tithing is the practice of offering God a tenth of the harvest of the land and of livestock. The practice sets aside this offering for God. Today, many Christians apply it to mean one-tenth of one’s income to the Lord.

The Hebrew word for one-tenth is translated tithe in many English Bibles.¹ Where does it appear in the Old Testament?

Tithing in the Old Testament

Genesis 14 recounts Abram’s return from an epic battle with a group of kings where Abram comes out victorious. When he comes back, he meets this mysterious figure named Melchizedek, who brings Abram bread and wine and blesses him. In turn, Abram gives Melchizedek one-tenth of everything—all of his spoils from the battle. This figure is identified as a priest of God Most High.²

The tithe also appears in Genesis 28 where Jacob has a vision of a ladder reaching heaven. He renames the place Bethel (“House of God”) after this vision and vows to give one-tenth (a tithe) of his possessions to God as a result.

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy go on to elaborate on the practice of tithing. According to those books, the practice was to include every tenth of the produce of one’s land—including vegetables, grain, fruit—and one-tenth of herdsmen’s flocks.

The Levites were to live off these tithes since they had no land inheritance themselves.³

The Malachi Mantra

“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse…”⁴ If you’ve visited any church that teaches tithing as a principle, Malachi 3:8-12 is probably a text you’ve heard before. It’s the Malachi mantra used to support the idea that tithing is both biblical and a Christian duty.

Let’s talk about proof-texting for a minute. Proof texting is taking one isolated out-of-context quotation and using it to establish a principle or a proposition.

An example? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.⁵ Try it. Have a 5’4’’ person who wants to dunk a basketball on an 11-foot rim recite that scripture before trying the feat. Probably not going to happen. Being able to accomplish anything you put your mind to isn’t a principle in that passage. The passage is more about enduring suffering and bad circumstances.

Unfortunately, Malachi has been proof-texted to death as well. How? The prophets harsh words aren’t for “the church.” Here’s the irony. Malachi’s harsh words are for the priests and Levites who are neglecting their own responsibility to tithe.⁶

Curses and Legalism

Here’s where proof texting gets dangerous. Malachi draws a line in the sand. If you tithe, you’ll be blessed. If you don’t you’ll be cursed. This rhetoric fills houses of worship every Sunday. There’s a word for that. It’s called legalism.

What is legalism? It’s when someone adheres to a law, formula, or principle in excessive ways. It’s attaching a blessing to one’s giving and a curse to one’s refusal to give.

Tithing in the New Testament and Early Church

Jesus warns against legalism in the New Testament. Even when it came to tithing. He tells the Pharisees that they are so legalistic in their tithing that they’ve neglected weightier matters—like justice, mercy, and faithfulness (see Matthew 23:23).⁷

“Early Christian documents such as the Didache may promote tithing, but they refer to the practice implicitly.”⁸ Irenaeus went as far as saying Christians should give everything they own to the church. Both Jerome and Augustine noted that tithing was something Christians should do as a normal practice.

The Case Against/For Tithing

Is tithing biblical? Yes it is. There’s biblical evidence that it was practiced in both the Old Testament and New Testament.

But many have made the case against tithing based on the legalistic practice of tithing. The case against tithing boils down to making a distinction between law and grace. Many argue that tithing was required under Old Testament law, but that, through Christ’s New Covenant, that requirement has been abolished. Instead, God asks that we each give cheerfully, as each of us has purposed in our hearts.⁹

On the other hand, others see the two incidents in Genesis as proof that tithing is pre-law (meaning that the law/grace distinction doesn’t apply).¹⁰ For proponents, tithing is a practice God set up for perpetual practice for all who trust in God as their true source.

Gross and Net Results

Personally, my position is a synthesis of both the case for and against tithing.

To quote Paul’s words, in part, I believe God loves a cheerful tither. A cheerful tither is a tither who gives because they are blessed, not to be blessed. A cheerful tither doesn’t treat tithing as a principle, but as a privilege—a privilege to give back to the Creator of the universe and the work he is doing in and through the church.

I think gross/net arguments teeter on the verge of legalism. I don’t think it’s smart to argue that someone “gives the church all their money” because they give from their gross income. And I don’t think it’s smart to argue that someone values Uncle Sam more than God because they give from their net income. So I’m not going to argue for either. If you give from your gross income, praise God. If you give from your net income, praise God.

Whatever You Do, Give

Whatever you do, give to God’s Church (big “C” because Jesus has one Church he died for with several local bodies a part of this global body). She is the vehicle through which the hope of the gospel reaches this broken and hurting world. Find a church or organization doing amazing work and support them with the resources God has given you to help change this world. Whether you agree or disagree with “tithing”, supporting God’s Church is something that’s biblical.

1. There is a great treatment of tithing in The Lexham Bible Dictionary entry under “Tithe.” The Hebrew word here is.מַעֲשֵ.  ↩
2. It is important to note the fact that some scholars believe this figure to be someone who prefigures the coming Christ. In fact, in Hebrews we discover Jesus is called a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Many differ on whether this figure is an actual pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus, though there some evidence that might be the case. The writer of Hebrews says that Melchizedek was “without father or mother…without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God.” (Hebrews 7:3) ↩
3. “The Levites have no portion among you, for the priesthood of the Lord is their heritage. And Gad and Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them.”” (Joshua 18:7, ESV) ↩
4. “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” (Malachi 3:10, ESV) ↩
5. Proof texting is one of the most abused practices of biblical reading and interpretation among Christians. Often, it is used to make passages say what the speaker wants them to say or to apply scripture in a way that the original author or audience wouldn’t have understood. ↩
6. Although the Levites were without an inheritance and received the tithe from the people of God they were still expected to give a tithe from whatever tithe they received from God’s people. ↩
7. Though he does say they ought to be tithing, but not to the neglect of those other matters. ↩
8. Charles Meeks, “Tithe,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016). ↩
9. “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:7, ESV) ↩
10. Pre-law in the sense that Abram and Jacob’s tithing experiences occurred before Mosaic law was implemented. ↩

Seventeen years ago I died. Well, not literally I don’t think. I have shared my testimony several times over the years. It’s a story of unknown brokenness—a college student doing “normal college student” things. It’s also a story filled with overwhelming grace—God giving me a chance I didn’t deserve. I’m shocked to see that my story has been shared over 10,000 times on Facebook.

The “Good Old” Days

I remember those college days. Living for the weekends. Hitting “the store” for a package or two. I still run into classmates who knew the old John. What happened, John? In college you were…

Jesus happened. And I’m not talking about in the “I heard a message that changed my life one day in Church” kind of way. I’m talking about the “going in a completely different direction and getting the wake-up call of my life” kind of way. It’s amazing that God uses both these methods to call us to Himself.

The Night I Died

Below, I wanted to reproduce the brief testimony I shared with a Christian website almost ten years ago as a reminder of God’s grace. Who knows, you might discover something new about my Pentecostal/Charismatic beginnings:

On Sept. 30 this year I was at home studying for a test, not knowing that this would be the night that I would die to self. I was preparing to go out that night when I started drinking. Afterward, my roommate came home and told me that he had some marijuana. I never smoked it in my life. This was my first time and would definitely be my last. After drinking and smoking, I started feeling weird sitting on my couch. All of a sudden I looked at my roommate and told him that I loved him and to tell everyone else that I loved them and that I was “gone.”

The sequence of events that happened afterward was horrific and I would wish them on no one. I fell to the floor and passed out. During this time, my sinful life was passing before my eyes. The music I listened to, the girls I messed over, the times I partied, the material things I cherished, as well as other sins that I rendered to be “little sins.” I felt as if I were going through eternal torment. I was a Christian, but at that moment I realized that I had backslid in a major way. I began to scream but nothing would come out. I called out to God. I said, “just let me go back and be a living testimony.” I want to change people’s lives.

At that moment I felt a rush come through my body that isn’t humanly explicable. He basically snatched me out of the gates of hell and picked me up off of the floor. I jumped up ran out of the door and went to a neighbors apartment. As soon as she opened the door, I walked in burst into tears and told her that we needed to change our lives and start living right. That’s just the beginning of a journey in which I’ve become on fire for the Lord and have learned to put full faith in Him. Since then, I’ve received my Spirit baptism. Some people don’t really know what it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and seek that filling daily. I didn’t know before that the Holy Spirit is a Comforter and dwells within and helps you in your walk. I was trying to do it alone before and that’s where I made the mistake. I seek God’s will in my life diligently and wherever I’m led to go or whatever I’m led to do I’ll do it.

Today, I might have written it differently. But I appreciate reading the raw emotion I felt in recounting that event early in my Christian walk. It was the night I died to myself. And I’ve been a dead man walking ever since.