A few months ago, I posted an article on the site. It is written by Gary Amirault and entitled, “The Tithe Is Illegal.” You can read the article here.
Since posting that article, the traffic to my site has skyrocketed. There are at least twenty people who visit my site per day as a result of searching for information about tithing. Setting my own sentiments aside, this type of traffic clearly tells me one thing – there is a growing number of believers who doubt the validity of tithing. By using the word “tithing,” I mean the belief that all Christians are required to give a minimum of 10% of their gross income (or net income, depending on the group you talk to) as a basis to receive blessing from God.
Ok, I will share my opinion in two statements:
- Nowhere in the New Testament do we see the practice of tithing demonstrated or required as a fundamental practice of our Christian faith.
- Followers of Jesus are called to lead lives of extravagant, outrageous giving that includes gifts of time, energy, and sometime money.
As the comments have gone back and forth, one stands out. It is written by “Doug”:
I agree with what Jim says in that we are to just do as the Holy Spirit directs us. In other words, we just need to get out of God’s way. That includes imposing any sort of required percentage on what we give. Tithing is not a biblical concept for the New Testament believer. Those that preach it do so out of fear and not trusting God, even though they may deny this. Otherwise why would they preach it? Don’t they think that God can speak to every individual heart? So what if people spend their money on latte’s or chocolate, or whatever other indulgence their flesh desires. That is between them and the Lord. What they don’t need is someone teaching a message of guilt and fear to get them to do something different. God will speak to their hearts whether you tell them or not. Preaching guilt results in compulsion and such giving is not glorifying to our Lord. Didn’t the apostle Paul teach that we are not to give out of compulsion. Isn’t making someone feel guilty about buying a latte instead of giving to a church making them compulsory givers? Of course this brings up another point of where did God direct that people are to give to an institution? There is a whole host of issues that this subject brings up.
I don’t mean to be argumentative, but every preacher loves to preach from that one little verse in Micah that says “don’t rob God of the tithes in the storehouse.” Yet, I have yet to hear any preacher teach from Deutoronomy 14 where it basically says to spend it on whatever your heart desires and rejoice before the Lord. It also says to remember the Levite, so I could guess that if someone wanted to twist things around, they could say that pastors are modern day Levites, but that makes no sense since you are a Levite by birth not by personal election. God doesn’t want us twisting His scriptures around to fit our own desires no matter how worthy the cause. God has never been one to teach us that the ends justify the means.
The point is that we need to be free. Jesus came to set us free. Every person is a member of the “priesthood of believers” as stated in Hebrews. The man made pastoral system that is in place today limits people and quiets the voice of the prophets and other saints. People become spectators instead of participants. Our meetings are all geared around one man. It is too easy for heresy to invade a church where only one man can speak the word of God. This is not to criticize the well meaning Godly men who have taken on the title of pastor, but a criticism of the system that perpetuates this unbiblical practice. It is time to let God’s people go. Many pastors are like modern day pharoes who enslave God’s people with fear and trembling and rule them with legalistic requirements. I don’t apologize for coming on strong here because it is the truth.
Here is how I put it to people. What if some remote tribe in a jungle, with no prior human contact, stumbled upon a Bible. They read it from cover to cover, accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. What would their meetings look like? Would they have one man in charge called a pastor? Would they require the tribe members to tithe? Come on folks, its that simple. These are easy answers. We have handed down man made traditions for centuries that have no basis in God’s word. Don’t you think its time to trust and let God’s people go?
What would you do if you met someone you thought just might be one of Jesus’ original disciples still living in the 21st Century? That’s Jake’s dilemma as he meets a man who talks of Jesus as if he had known him, and whose way of living challenges everything Jake had previously known.
So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore is Jake’s compelling journal that chronicles thirteen conversations with his newfound friend over a four-year period and how those exchanges turn Jake’s world upside-down. With his help, Jake faces his darkest fears, struggles through brutal circumstances and comes out on the other side in the joy and freedom he always dreamed was possible.
If you’re tired of just going through the motions of Christianity and want to mine the depths of what it really means to live deeply in Christ, you’ll find Jake’s story will give you hope for your own. This book probes the difficult questions and offers some far-reaching answers. It just might turn your world upside-down as well!
This book was written over four years and each chapter was first published on line in sequence. Now the final draft of that book is available in print. It has been a marvelous journey with so many contributions from those who have read and enjoyed it.
Click here to download the e-book (PDF)
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Click here to download the gleanings for “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore”(PDF)
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GLEANINGS – What are They?
Several months ago, I decided to go through the time-intensive labor of typing out passages from books I read. The collection of quotes and comments came to be known as “gleanings.” If you want to read the gist of a book without flipping through all the pages, this format is for you. Consider it my version of “Cliff’s Notes.”
Rewritten and, well, reimagined for the 21st century, Frank remains a champion of church in the 1st century. But at its best, his is not a wooden literalism verging on fundamentalism, but an evocative appreciation for the peculiar genius of Jesus and his earliest followers for the ways Way-farers can arrange ourselves to most beautifully reflect God’s in-breaking kingdom.
Let’s face it: Viola’s earlier 2008 release Pagan Christianity was a rampaging bull in an ecclesiastical china shop. Called simplistic and mean-spirited by detractors and a prophetic call for renewal by its champions, all readers had this in common – we wanted more. Okay, Mr. Deconstructor, we said. We see how you can tear down someone else’s sand castle with gusto – now let’s see how you’d build your own. And build he does.
This book is a comprehensive re-visioning of what leadership, authority and accountability in a Trinity-rooted, organic church. If you’ve always had an inkling that you don’t need denominational “covering” or hierarchical authority fencing you in to be right with God (as an individual or church body), Reimagining will fund your biblical imagination with an alternative reading of Scripture that points to the dignity of each person in the church, encouraging relational and shared authority responsive to the leading of Christ alone.
“The body of Christ has been stifled by human traditions for far too long. Reimagining Church charts a fresh course for the church that recovers the simplicity of Christ and listens seriously to what the voice of the Great Shepherd is saying to His people.” – Jon Zens, editor, Searching Together and author of A Church Building Every ½ Mile: What Makes American Christianity Tick?
“True to form, this book contains a thoroughly consistent critique of prevailing forms of church. However, in Reimagining Church, Frank Viola also presents a positive vision of what the church can become if we truly reembraced more organic, and less institutional, forms of church. This is a no holds barred prophetic vision for the church in the twenty-first Century.” – Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways and The Shaping of Things To Come
Click here to download the gleanings for “Reimaging Church”(PDF)
(Right-click and select “Save Link As”)
GLEANINGS – What are They?
Several months ago, I decided to go through the time-intensive labor of typing out passages from books I read. The collection of quotes and comments came to be known as “gleanings.” If you want to read the gist of a book without flipping through all the pages, this format is for you. Consider it my version of “Cliff’s Notes.”
I just finished a book by Neil Cole called Cultivating a Life for God. It was a short read with a ton of great insights. Cole has a way of turning a phrase, as well as restating the basics of Christianity in a way that is fresh and insightful. The subtitle of this book is this: Multiplying Disciples Through Life Transformation Groups. He lays out a vision and strategy for discipleship that is simple, reproducible and transferable. It focuses on multiplication without being overbearing, as well as helps instill a value for the greatness of God’s word without being legalistic. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a simple and effective tool for making disciples that reproduce.
The United States is a mission field in desperate need of the gospel. Somehow we have managed to lose sight of the prime directive given to us by Jesus to go and make disciples of all the nations. There is hope. We can still fulfill the great commission in this generation, but we will need to get back the power that spread the gospel across the globe in the first century. We will need to see multiplication of disciples occur among all those in the church. Cultivating a Life for God takes an in-depth look at a tool called Life Transformation Groups and explains how this tool can release the awesome power of multiplication in your Church.
Click here to download the gleanings for “Cultivating a Life for God”(PDF)
(Right-click and select “Save Link As”)
GLEANINGS – What are They?
Several months ago, I decided to go through the time-intensive labor of typing out passages from books I read. The collection of quotes and comments came to be known as “gleanings.” If you want to read the gist of a book without flipping through all the pages, this format is for you. Consider it my version of “Cliff’s Notes.”
When I say “illegal,” I certainly do not mean from the government’s point of view. The American federal government has been extremely generous in allowing religious organizations almost free hands in their money raising endeavors, even to the point of giving them many kinds of tax advantages. By illegal, I mean that God never authorized Christian leaders to take a tithe from God’s people. One will not find the modern church tithe authorized in the Old Covenant, nor in the New Covenant. Certainly, church historians are in agreement, when they say that tithing was not practiced by the early believers.
The tithe is a subject that is very dear to most church leaders. Those denominations that can get their members to actually bring in a full 10% of gross income can create very powerful forces far beyond their strength in numbers. The leading “tithing” sects according to an article in Christian Ministry, are interestingly what Evangelicals would term “cults.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and the World Wide Church of God are the leading givers. The fourth is the Assemblies of God. Recently, the World Wide Church of God abandoned the tithe as un-Scriptural. Donations dropped 30 per cent in the first year. (While the article in Christian Ministry lists the Jehovah’s Witnesses among leading tithing denominations, I’ve since been informed by that organization that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not practice tithing.)
According to Newsweek, most church members give far less than 10%, most giving under 2 per cent. Not surprising is the fact that the poor give a far greater portion of their income than the rich. USA Today (Oct. 25, 1990) tells us that families earning less than $10,000 give 5.5 per cent of their income to charity (not necessarily to church). Families earning between $50,000 and $60,000 give only 1.7% of their earnings.
We hope to show in this book that while many church fund-raising organizations and Christian financial counseling ministries tell us that not paying “the tithe” is robbing God, the actual Biblical facts are that those who teach tithing as a Christian doctrine are, in fact, the ones who are “robbing God.” As we go through this article, keep in mind the above statistic that the poor far out-give the rich percentage-wise.
I am going to make a statement that will probably shock many Christians who have been in church for a long period of time and feel they know the Bible pretty well. I hope this statement encourages the reader to “see for themselves” that this statement is 100 per cent Biblically true. My hope is that when we see how far off Scriptural ground we have come in such basic Christian teachings as giving, we will renew our desire to study to “show ourselves approved.” Here is the statement: The tithe as taught by most Christian denominations as being 10 per cent of gross or net income is not contained on the pages of the Bible!
Click here to download the e-book (PDF)
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Source: Gary Amirault
Though Mr. Amirault adheres to the doctrinal of universal salvation (that every human being receives salvation at the end of the age) this booklet contains a powerful and relevant message. For me, it brought about freedom from lifeless obligation and catapulted me into a joyful lifestyle of extravagant giving.
