The Law of Tithing

Keeping the spirit of the law does not what we used to say spiritualize away, our obligation. It does not mean that because we're under grace, that there is no law. Rather, we understand that God's law is an expression of what He is. God is love, and His law is an expression of love, of how to love. The greatest commandment, of course, is to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And the second that's like it is to love your neighbor as yourself. And then we add to that, all the laws beyond that are explaining just how to do that. It's funny, God works with broad principles, and then where necessary, we'll give us specifics. And I think that's good. Sometimes we need that. We want to think of the broad principles. For instance, the Sabbath. And I've been working and studying, I want to, I'm working on a message on the Sabbath, and the spirit of the law with that. And I think it's good to focus on that. But sometimes we need some particulars. God gave us the particulars for one thing of when the Sabbath is. You know, it starts at sundown right when the beginning of the seventh day, and it is the seventh day, not any other day. And then He gives us some broad generalization, or guidelines, and not a lot of specifics unless they're needed. And I'm not speaking on the Sabbath today, but I wanted to give that as an example that we'd easily understand. If you would, let's turn to Proverbs chapter 3. I want to look at a broad guideline that I think is important for us to remember before we look at some specifics. Proverbs 3 and verses 9 and 10. Here it says, Honor the Lord, honor the Eternal with your possessions. Or I believe in the original King James says, Honor God with your substance. And with the firstfruits of all your increase, and so your barns will be filled with plenty, your vats will overflow with new wine. I think this is a good summary of the spirit of the law when it comes to God's direction for our finances. Honor God with our possessions. Honor Him with our physical things. And of course, when we do that, it'll amount to end up with blessings for us. And when I started preparing this, I made a note here, I almost got sidetracked because I sat and started pondering that. And I'll mention this because I'm going to quote some articles from long ago. I looked at several articles in some of our booklets in the church that we published in times past. And when we spoke on giving to the church, there were several articles that quoted how people thought, Oh, I can never do this. And then there's examples of how they were suddenly blessed, and they kept getting more and more blessings. And then I read an article of a woman saying, well, you're running all these articles saying that we'll be blessed if we give to God. Well, that makes it sound like you're only giving to God so that you can be blessed. And that doesn't sound very Christian. So it's sort of a conundrum. We do give to God, but He always gives us even more. And I thought about that for a while and said, no, I don't want to speak about that yet. Maybe I'll get to that. But I wanted to get down to some of the basics of some of the direction. And so after all this beating around the bush, I'll tell you, I want to talk today about tithing. Tithing is one of those cases where we've got the broad general guideline, the spirit of the law. Slow that down. Spirit of the law is honor God with your substance. Then He does give us some particulars. The Church of God has taught for a long time that tithing is something that Christians should do. But it's important in difficult financial times that we understand what the Bible teaches about tithing.

And this is going to be a message of review for just about everybody here. Well, not for Lily and Connor, but perhaps for everyone else. But that's all right. I'll cite the sermonette that Mr. Bumgarner gave in Pressensburg this morning, spoke on how we need to prove what God's Word says and never take a man's word for it. And I think we've got a special motivation when it comes to financial laws. We want to make sure we understand what this book teaches. Never just take someone's word for it.

Now, we want to go back to the book of Leviticus. I'm not going to wade through every law about tithing that's in the Pentateuch, but I want to set a basis for us with a couple. So Leviticus 27 and verse 30.

Here he says, All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, this is saying basically whatever is produced, you know, a fruit, a ground crop, of trees, whatever, it is the eternals. It's holy to the eternal. God is saying, that belongs to me and it's holy to me. And we should be aware, it's another thing I was thinking about concerning the Sabbath, but it's serious about things that are holy to him. And in case we didn't realize it, just as a review, I'm not going to turn to a scripture that tells us what the tithe is, because by definition it means 10%. A tithe is 10% of whatever you're discussing, and if you do it in the verb form, two tithe means to give 10%. Knowing that, let's turn to Numbers 18.21. Numbers chapter 18 and verse 21. After God has made it clear that it's his, and of course I could turn to some other scriptures where God makes it clear that everything is his, we don't have anything that he didn't give us in the first place, but he shows us, well, I'm going to keep back 10%. I'm giving you all this, but after I give it to you, 10% of that is mine. But then he shows us what he chose to do with it in this instance. Numbers 18 and verse 21. He says, Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel. As an inheritance, and return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting. So God said, these tithes are mine, and I'm giving them to this group of people for them to do this job. And if we go through and read all of this, which we're not going to, we'd see that it was in place of them owning land and working and producing their own crops. They were to serve God and do the work of the tabernacle and later of the temple, and as they're paid for doing so, they receive the tithes. Now, of course, tithing is something that most professing Christians, most churches other than ours, say, well, that was in the law. You know, it says it's to the Levites. We know that doesn't apply anymore. Many of them say it's part of the old ceremonial law that was nailed to the cross, as they like to say. And we have to admit, there are some ways where it would seem that way.

But, here's where I want to go to the New Testament to show that it was not. We're going to turn to Matthew 23 and verse 23.

Because we do realize that there are some parts of the ceremonial system that are not in place anymore, at least not in the letter of the law. We don't go and slay bulls and goats and sprinkle the blood. All that symbolizes Jesus Christ's sacrifice, and so it's no longer done.

Would we say that tithing fits into that part of that ceremony that's no longer done? Well, we begin to see a contradiction to that here in the words of Jesus Christ. This is part of a long discussion he was having with the Pharisees, where he was criticizing them for the way they interpreted the law. And in verse 23, he says, Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

You pay tithe of mint, anise, and comin', and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. The weightier matters of the law are justice, mercy, and faith. So he's telling them, you know, you're tithing, you're focusing on all that, and neglecting the weightier matters. But he goes on to say not that, well, you shouldn't have been doing those things. He says, the weightier matters you ought to have done without leaving the other undone. It's interesting, he didn't say, now let's only do justice, mercy, and faith. Forget about that being careful with your tithes. He says that's something that should not be left undone. But I think it's worth us saying, though, that tithing, while it's not to be left undone, is not one of the weightier matters.

You know, it's not. God seems to say there are some things that matter a little more to him, or that you have to pay more attention to. That doesn't mean, though, that you don't pay attention, or that you don't do it. You just don't, you may not need to spend a lot of time meditating and studying and dwelling on it. And that's the way it's been for me. I've been tithing, I think, since I got my paper out. I was 12 years old, and I'd learned God's law, and so I had to think about it a lot more at that time, especially because I'm not sure if they do it that way anymore, but I delivered the Columbus Dispatch, and I bought the papers.

And then I went and delivered them, and once a month or every two weeks, I would go around to my customers and collect the money from them, and I had to calculate what I spent and then what was left over, and I would figure out a tenth of that and, you know, tithe on it.

But I haven't thought much of it since then. I've been doing it all along, but it doesn't take a lot of thought and contemplation. It's not a way to your matter. But I think we do need to think about it enough that we do do it properly, since it's not to be left undone. Now, still, there are many who call themselves Christian who, I would say, that tithing was only for Israelites.

Israelites had to give their tithe to the Levites, and when the Levites were put out of business, so to speak, at Christ Crucifixion, that all went away. Well, the book of Hebrews addresses that subject. I want to go to Hebrews 6 and start in verse 20. Hebrews 6, and we'll begin in verse 20. It says, this was written, we believe, not long before the physical temple was destroyed. And there's some debate over whether Hebrews was written by Paul.

Some scholars say Apollos or possibly Timothy. I've heard some good reasons for saying that it was the Apostle Paul. But whoever it was, you could tell, was wanting to prepare the Jewish members of the Church, especially, for the fact that the temple was probably not going to be around a lot longer, and there would be no more sacrifices. And they should realize that that physical symbolism was not necessary for their salvation.

So we're going to pick up as part of that discussion here in Hebrews 6 and verse 20. It says, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus. So Jesus is the forerunner, having become high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. So it's saying, whereas they were familiar with a Levitical priesthood, going back, a chain of high priests going back to Aaron, he says, we're going to have one high priest now who will live forever because he won't be a man that will die. That's Jesus Christ. But he's not of the order of Aaron.

Order usually refers to either a genealogy or a type of organization. If you look in the Catholic Church, it's still there, but I was studying recently. It goes back to the Middle Ages when they started the orders of the monasterial orders, or monks, is the easy way. You have Benedictine monks, that's an order. Franciscan is a different order. And here he's referring to priesthoods. So the order of Melchizedek is separate from that of Levi, and Jesus is of the order of Melchizedek. Well, that leads to the first question. Well, who's this Melchizedek guy?

It's not even easy to say. Well, let's keep reading in chapter 7. Hebrews 7, For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all. Now, I'm going to stop there, because this is referring back to the story in Genesis chapter 14.

And I'm not going to turn there and read it, because this summarizes it very well. But if you remember, if you do go to read it, you'll see that there is a battle between one group of four kings and a group of five kings, and on one side of those, Sodom and Gomorrah were involved. And they were the losers. The other kings conquered them, hauled the people and all their goods away.

Abraham wouldn't necessarily have cared, except he realized that his nephew Lot had been taken prisoner. So as the story goes, Abraham armed the servants in his household and went out, and God gave them a victory. He defeated those other kings and brought back all the people and all the spoil.

And he was met by the kings for whom he brought back their stuff, but also this Melchizedek appeared, and it says he was a priest of the Most High God. And as we pick up here in verse 2, this account begins quoting from Psalm 110. So I'm not going to turn to Psalm 110, because it says pretty much what we're going to read here. Referring to Melchizedek, it says, Then also, king of Salem, which means king of peace. He was, I'm asserting that he was, but without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually. Now who could be without father or mother, never having beginning of days or end of life? Well, that's not even referring to any angels. That could be only God. And if we study into this, we would discover that it's referring to the one who in John 1, verse 1, is called the Word, who was with God and who was God. Thank you very much. You brought me too. That means you want me to go along. Or not.

But we believe that the one who was Melchizedek in the Old Testament was the one who later would become Jesus Christ, the actual member of the God family.

One of the main themes of the book of Hebrews, as I said, was that there was not going to be a need for a physical temple and a physical priesthood because Jesus Christ was now the high priest, as we just read. And the church is the spiritual temple. And we are living stones within that temple. We're not going to need physical animal sacrifices, or we're not going to. We do not need them because Jesus Christ was the ultimate sacrifice. As I said, this cites both Psalms and Genesis showing that Christ was that Melchizedek. He was a priest before Aaron was appointed priest. And the Levites carried on that role for so many thousand years. But then that came to an end and Jesus Christ again became the high priest. But this passage also shows us that tithing was part of God's law before the Levitical priesthood.

Let's continue reading in verse 4. It says, That's referring to Melchizedek, So he's saying, well, Melchizedek wasn't a Levite. They came from Abraham, but Abraham paid tithes to him. And we'll continue in verse 6.

Here, carrying on back in verse 8, And that points out a couple of important things here. One is that tithing existed before Moses received the law in Mount Sinai. If nothing else, we can see a strong example of that. Tithing wasn't just started then. And by the way, there's another example that I'm not turning to because it doesn't fit in with this. But in Genesis 28 is when Jacob, the patriarch, slept with a rock for a pillow and had visions of God. And afterwards, he promised to give a tithe of all to God. Jacob promised that he would tithe then. And of course, that was also well before Mount Sinai. So first, we see that tithing existed before the Levitical law. Second, we see that Jesus Christ, Esmaelchizedek, has a higher claim upon tithes than the Levites did. And we could say a prior claim. I didn't mean to make that rhyme, but it comes out. A higher claim and a prior claim. We read in Numbers that God gave the tithes that were His to the Levites. But when the Levites stopped serving in the priesthood, the tithes reverted back to God. So the tithes belonged to Jesus Christ. Let's continue reading here in Hebrew 7 and verse 11.

Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there be of another priest, or what further need was there that another priest should rise, according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? In other words, if the Levitical priesthood took care of everything, you wouldn't have this other priesthood appear. But the Levitical priesthood consisted of mortal men using physical sacrifices. It was only a symbol of the real priesthood. For the priesthood being changed of necessity, there is also a change of the law. Okay, I'm going to stop there because I wanted to get to that word. The rest of the chapter goes on to explain that there indeed has been a change of the priesthood, from the order of Aaron through the Levites to the order of Melchizedek in Jesus Christ.

I don't think anybody usually disputes that. Even in professing Christian churches other than ours, they're happy to say, yeah, we don't have to offer sacrifices because of this change. What does it mean, change, though? Well, make the point, it does not say in verse 12 that there is a termination of the law. It doesn't say there's an abrogation, that it ceases to exist. Now, that applies in a sense, we could say, with sacrifices. We stop sacrificing animals because we have the one real sacrifice that's eternal. And the same, in a sense, could be true for tithing. If tithing were really something that applied only in ancient Israel, Jesus Christ probably would have told his disciples that. He certainly wouldn't have told the Pharisees, well, you should focus on the weightier matters of the law, but don't leave the other undone. He might have said, pretty soon you're not going to need to do that at all.

I'm going to make myself slow down.

Well, it's a bit... it's not that dense, except I remember, I think, years and years ago, Mr. Armstrong did like a four-part radio program talking about Melchizedek. So, if I'm covering it in ten minutes, I'd better talk fast. But I'm not going to tell you to write in for the Plain Truth magazine in between, either.

Some part of the understanding we can get here is from the Greek word that appears in verse 12, that's translated into the English word change. The word in verse 12, where we see the priesthood being changed, there's also a change of the law. The Greek word used there is metathesis. And I'm not a Greek scholar, but I was able to look this up. And I learned that most places in the New Testament, and the common word for change in Greek is alasso.

And it means to switch, either to transform one thing into another, or basically that's what it means, change something into something else. But metathesis does mean to transfer from something to something else. So it's a switch more than a change. And to me, the best analogy I can think of is if I come into a room and Sue's watching TV, and I say, let's change the channel. Change the channel there doesn't mean turn the TV off, it means change from one program to another one. And we actually don't have that discussion very often, I just think it in my head.

And vice versa, especially on Sundays when I want to watch football for nine hours. But I hope you see what I mean when I say that the Greek there is a transferral, not necessarily a stopping of something.

So when God was working with the physical nation of Israel, He transferred the tithes from going to Himself directly to the Levites. But when He stopped working with the physical nation of Israel, He transferred the tithes once again back to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. And I think that's what this section of Hebrews is essentially saying. And that's probably not a surprise to most people here. But if I were speaking to someone who was new to this truth, they might say, okay, that's good. I'm going to give a tithe of all that I have to Jesus Christ.

How do I do that? Well, actually, I thought of a joke that helped me to understand this. So I'm going to share this with you, and I hope it conveys the idea. Because as I said, we're going to give the money to Jesus Christ. I want to tell you about an old fella. And I don't mean to be denigrating to old people, but this was a miserly old fella, and he was getting near the end of his life.

And I could say that because I'm a little tight with money. But this fella had been around. He had three grown sons. And they'd had needs over the years. And he knew he was nearing the end of his life, and he'd lent money to each of his sons. And so he called them to his hospital room. He was sick. He knew he wasn't going to live much longer. So he called his sons in, and he had words for them. But one of the things he insisted on was they needed to pay him back.

He was always diligent with his money, always repaid his debts, and you boys are going to pay me back every penny. Now, they say you can't take it with you. I'm going to. I want you to put that money in the coffin with me, and I'm going to be buried with it. Now, you promise me you'll do that.

So, I mean, what do you tell your dad, who's old and sick? Okay, we promise. And as it turned out, it wasn't that much longer that he did pass away. So he's there at the funeral. Of course, there's a service, and the people come by afterwards. The first son walks up. He had borrowed from his dad $400. He drops in a fat envelope. The second son comes up who had borrowed $2,000.

He's got a nice fat envelope. Puts it there in the coffin and walks away. The third son, he's the younger one, he'd started a couple of businesses, and he had borrowed from his dad $10,000.

He has an envelope, but it's surprisingly thin. But he tucks it right in there with the others. Later, everything's taken care of. The funeral's over, and at the end of the day, the three brothers are relaxing, you know, and having a drink, and just talking about their dad reminiscing with stories. And one of them says, I can't believe dad made us bury him with that money. Boy, what a skin flint. But I was not going to disappoint him. I promised I would do it.

I owed him $400, so I put 20, $20 bills in an envelope. Put that in there. The second son who'd borrowed $2,000 said, Me too. I wasn't going to let him down. So I put 20, $100 bills in an envelope. And I put that in there. The third son says, Well, I know dad just didn't like having to deal with a bunch of cash, so I wrote him a check for $10,000, and I put that in there.

Now, to be honest, how many of you knew where I was going with that? You've heard that one before. Okay, quite a few of you, but it still carries a bit of a punch. And I wonder, the same thought, though. I've got to give my money to Jesus Christ. Do I write out a check? Jesus Christ?

Put it in an envelope, and, okay, Jesus Christ, heaven. Drop it in the mailbox. Well, if I do that, it's going to probably amount to the same as putting, you know, writing a check and dropping in the coffin. Or the same as a lot of letters that were addressed to somebody supposedly living at the North Pole that are piled up. I'm not sure where those things get piled up. Well, does the New Testament Scriptures clearly say, to whom we should give the tithe?

Well, it doesn't... I can't turn to a passage that says, take the tithe, you know, turn it into money and give it to this person, or send it to this address.

But there are a number of references to ministers in the church being paid by contributions that we believe are tithes, because we've shown that the concept, the law of tithing, is still applicable. I knew I could get that word out. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 9, if you will. 1 Corinthians 9, and we'll begin in verse 3.

Now, I'll comment on this as we go, but the Apostle Paul was in a good position, talking to the church at Corinth, to explain why they were supposed to tithe. And we'll get to that as we go. But he's basically comparing himself to others who called themselves teachers of Jesus Christ, and he wanted to show that his credentials were good.

So we're breaking in here. In verse 3, he says, My defense to those who examine me is this. Do we...he's talking about he and Barnabas. Do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? So, this thing, other apostles and ministers were basically able to eat and drink and support a family on being paid by the church.

He says, Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? By working, he means going out and doing a manual labor to earn his key. Whoever goes to war at his own expense, who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit, or who tends the flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things as a mere man, or does the law say the same also?

And here, aside an Old Testament passage, For it is written in the law of Moses, You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Is it oxen God is concerned about, or does he say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt it is written, That he who plows should plow in hope, And he who threshes in hope should partake in this hope. I'd only add one thing. I think the Apostle Paul is correct. How conceited that sounds of me. Paul is using this to make a spiritual principle that might not be readily evident, although I would add, I think God is concerned for oxen, because he tells us to take good care of our livestock.

But he's saying this is also written so that a person that's doing a particular job should be supported by that. And he goes on in verse 11, If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? In other words, he's saying you're paying others to come and teach you. Barnabas and I have that right even more so.

Nevertheless, though, we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings at the altar? Even so, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.

And as I said, I think we can combine this with what we've read in Hebrews to show that tithing is something that Christians should do, and those who need that support are those who are doing the work of the church. Paul has a unique opportunity, I would say unique, because at the time he wrote this, the physical temple was still there.

So when he says, are those who are serving at the altar, they partake at the altar, there were still physical priests who were slaughtering animals as worship, and they actually ate part of the animal that they killed before burning some of the flesh. And he said that the Old Testament law says they should do that. Well, that's symbolic, he's saying, of saying that those who are working in the spiritual temple, that is the church, should be able to eat from what's being done in the church. Now, okay. I'm just trying to see if I want to explain that any further, but I don't think I do. And I think it's also interesting, Paul was in a unique position as he says, he made this case to them and said, but I'm not doing that here in Corinth.

He said, I'm not taking these tithes, even though I have this right to do so. He'd made a point and he explains it in some other scriptures of working while he was there. We learn from other scriptures that Paul was trained in tent making, and that he worked with Priscilla and Aquila, did the same trade, and so for all we know, Paul put in four or five, eight hours a day making tents, and then perhaps held classes at night, and every Sabbath worked and taught. He must have had a phenomenal intellect, because I find that preparing sermons takes more time than I could do just part time. But he was able to do that. But we can see from some other places that he did accept tithe money and other circumstances. He didn't want the people at the Church of Corinth to think he was just in it for the money. And I think when he compares to other teachers, perhaps because they might have felt abused, because other people did come in and propose to be ministers and take their money, he said, I'm not doing that. I'm not here for the money. I'm here to serve you. Let's look in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. We'll see that the Apostle Paul, although he didn't accept pay from the Church of Corinth, did accept pay from other churches. 2 Corinthians 11, beginning in verse 7. Here, he's referring back to what we just read. He says, Did I commit sin and humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge? I robbed other churches, taking wages from them to minister to you. So Paul was taking wages from the Church, but he didn't want to do it at Corinth for their benefit, actually. And when I was present with you and in need, I was a burden to no one, for what I lacked, the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied. And in everything, I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will keep myself. Now, I'll say as an aside, Paul was dealing with a particular situation that he knew it might disturb some people's spiritual growth, that he said, hey, you need to be paying me for this. That's one reason, you know, I'd hate to be in that situation. I don't mind if I sell somebody something and say, no, they'll pay up. I'm glad in the modern era of the work that I'm guessing Mr. Armstrong decided this years ago, that he would say, okay, we're going to have a central office, and people can send donations, tithes, offerings to that office, and then the ministry will be paid from there, and they'll set a wage scale for wherever they are. So that way, you know, we used to transfer ministers fairly often. You don't have them saying, well, I don't want to go to that area because they don't make much money there, and, you know, I won't make any money. I want to go to this area where they're high rollers. You know, it doesn't work like that at all. And thankfully, I'm glad, you know, it never crossed my mind. Now, when times are tight, I might say, boy, I sure hope, you know, there's enough money in the church to pay all of us. And that's not really a concern, but as I said, you never have to worry about being transferred to a particular area, and you don't have to tell people, hey, get that money coming in.

Let's go to Philippians 4. There's one other point I want to make that Paul said about money that's given to the church, and the way he, Paul believed that God views it. And as Paul said, he believed that he also had the Spirit of God, and as his words are put in Scripture, I think this is good for us to follow. Philippians 4, beginning in verse 16, he's writing to the church in Philippi, but he says, So, Paul said, when I was in Thessalonica, you sent aid once and again for my necessities. So, thank you, you people of Philippi, for sending the stuff that I needed. Not that I seek the gift, I seek the fruit that abounds to your account, and indeed I have all and abound. I'm full, having received from Epaphroditus, that was the messenger who brought it, the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. Interesting comparison. He's using metaphorical language here, and Paul is not saying that tithing takes the place of animal sacrifice, because only Jesus Christ's sacrifice takes the place of a sacrifice. But he was making a comparison, I believe, perhaps to a thank offering, where people would come and give to God to say, thank you, you blessed me so much.

The point I want to show is that Paul is saying when they gave the money to him, they were giving it to God. He's saying, you sent something to me, but it was pleasing to God that you did it. And that's the attitude I've always had. When I send a donation to the church, when I send in money, I say, I'm giving this to God, it's just I don't have his post office box and address, so I'm sending it to the church that's doing that work.

Now, before I, I want to leave this discussion and look at some particulars that apply to our modern economy, but I did want to read a couple of, from a couple of different writings that I think are useful for us to think about tithing in our modern era. The first one is a paragraph from the United Church of God Ministerial Notebook on Fundamental Beliefs of the United Church of God. Whew! That's the first UCG I put in there, but I got this, it's a fat notebook that I was given when I was ordained, and there's a section on each one of our fundamental beliefs, an essay, and a lot of scriptures, and on the section that covers tithing, it says this, Concerning the administration of the law, it is the duty of the church to teach people to tithe, but it is the responsibility of the individual to obey. Tithing is a personal matter of faith between the individual and his Creator. We teach that anyone devoted to God should obey him in this fundamental way, but it is not appointed to the church to enforce and regulate tithe paying. I like the way they said that. It's not appointed to the church to enforce and regulate.

Because of the economic complexities in today's societies, the church regularly receives many technical questions about tithing, and we seek to render wise administrative guidelines according to God's will and direction. So, people say, well, what do I do in this particular situation? We try to give an answer, but the church says it's not our duty to say, you're not paying your tithes, you better start doing it, or we're going to track you down.

As a minister, it's my job to give a sermon like this once in a great while, but it's not my job to keep track of who tithes and who doesn't. As a matter of fact, I'm tremendously happy that I don't know if or when you send money to the church, and I have no way of finding out. And that gives me great relief. I'm glad I can tell you that. Because, you know, I would hate it if someone called and said, can you come and anoint me? And they're thinking to my mind, now he knows that I didn't send in my tithe check yet. Maybe he's not going to come. I hope no one would think that, but, like I said, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, I'm paid by God. Although he's not the one signing the actual check, but we've already gone over that. And locally, as well. I think some people make donations locally, but I don't know who they are. Kevin Call handles a local account, and I try to have as little to do with that as possible.

And that's partly by design, and partly because it's just good business sense. So, I do want to make another point, quoting from another article, though. Because you certainly should... Well, the point I want to make is, you should never give the tithe that belongs to God to any church only because it says you should. You should look at the fruits. You shouldn't just take my word for it. And as I said, I really appreciated that the sermonette Mr. Bumgardner gave this morning about how you've got to prove things. And he cited the Scripture and acts where the people of Berea searched the Scriptures to make sure those things were so. And reading some of the articles on this subject, I found one from 1970 written by Rod Meredith. This was from...we called it the Tomorrow's World magazine back then. It's funny, when I was writing the title on my news, it was actually called The Good News of Tomorrow's World, which is why later we shortened it to Good News. But this was from the February 1970 issue. And it says this, Now, I'm going to skip down. It was like a two-page article. I'm just reading a little bit. He says, I like that. He was saying, And I think it's the similarity. If we just took out the word World Tomorrow program and put in Beyond Today, that could apply just as well today as it did 40 years ago when he wrote it.

Now then, I'd like to turn...as that section I read from the UCG manual said, we sometimes get technical questions. I thought it was worth reviewing three or four of those technical questions and look at what the Bible says. We've already addressed, I think, the two biggest ones. The first one, Are we supposed to tithe? Well, I think the answer to that we've seen is yes. I think it is something Christians should do. It's a spiritual principle.

And that the particulars might change, but the fact that we should is still there. Well, who do we tithe to? As we just saw, the tithe belongs to Jesus Christ, so we could send the money to the church that is the body of Christ. That group that is the body of Christ in doing his work is an appropriate recipient. I believe the United Church of God fits that role today, but that's a personal matter that everyone should prove to themselves.

Now, some questions have gotten more complicated since Moses' time. One is, how do we calculate the tithe? You might say, Well, what do you mean, how do you calculate? Tithe means 10%. You already told us that. But does it mean take an inventory of everything you have, send 10% into the church? Well, if you do that, say if you do it every week, pretty soon, 10%. If it's a 10% of everything you have, you're not going to have as much pretty quickly. Let's go to Deuteronomy 14. Deuteronomy 14 and verse 22, we'll see the guiding principle. It's not complicated, but I wanted to show that it is drawn from Scripture. And I wanted to look at some other things in Deuteronomy 14 after this.

Deuteronomy 14, 22 says, You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. So the tithe is on the increase. Now, we've seen that Scripture that we read in Leviticus shows that it's not just the increase of the grain, it's the increase of whatever. You know, grain, fruit trees, and of course nowadays, our tithe is usually on a salary or a paycheck. That's the way it works for most of us. And then it's real easy. You get that in, you can figure out a 10%. Where it gets more complicated, and I know there's some in this room who understand, if you're running a business, then it's not 10% of your revenue, it's 10% of your increase because there's a cost to doing business.

You have various expenses that you have to put in before there is any revenue. So if you tithe on your total revenue, instead of your increase, which is your profit, pretty soon, once again, you might be running in the red and running out of money. That's never God's intention. So the tithe is off of the increase or the profit. Now, there's a related question that's become more important in our modern society for wage earners. And I'll warn you now, now I'm going to go into some questions that there is debate and discussion and disagreement about.

And I'm okay with that. These are the source of some discussions where the men or the women are sitting before church and can talk about and you can come up with different answers. I'm fine with that, but I'm going to discuss what the church currently teaches and why and let us go from there. But the next question was, do you tithe on your net or your gross? That means before taxes are taken out or after. Now, as I said, that's a little more complicated because the Bible doesn't discuss it.

The only thing it says about taxes is render to Caesar what's due to Caesar. Pay your lawful taxes. I'm going to say who custom is due, all of that. Decades ago, and in the early years of the modern church, we typically, the church taught that you should tithe on the gross. They said that was your increase and, yeah, you're going to pay taxes, but taxes are part of life. But taxes were relatively low at that point in time.

And I want to point out, we first had to confront that shortly or a little while after World War II when the church started growing rapidly in Europe and things were different in Europe. A lot of the countries there developed socialized support programs and very high tax rates. The administration in Pasadena started having church members contact them and say, hey, I'm being taxed at a 58% rate. If I take 10% of that, of my total gross, I don't have enough to buy groceries.

I can't get shoes for my kids. And so the ministry started looking and said, well, yeah, God's not intending people to go broke. The only logical thing seemed to be to tell them tithe on the net because you don't have control of that money that's being taken out. They would see it as part of your cost of business, part of the expenses that are met before you can have a profit. If you look at your life as trying to do business and part of your business expense is paying taxes, that gets easier to understand.

Now, as I said, there's debate and discussion because opinions vary tremendously. How high do the taxes have to be before we would recommend that you tithe on the net rather than the gross? Well, for several decades now, it's been the official policy of the church is that we don't make a recommendation. We teach the general principle. Tithing is a spiritual principle, but so is the fact that you tithe on your increase. And we don't make a hard and fast ruling.

We let members analyze their situation and decide where that level should be. It should be 10%, but how do you calculate what are expenses and what are not? We don't answer that question, which makes it a little easier on me, except when people say, well, I've got to write down a number. The one thing I will say is if you're looking and say, well, I feel like I'm tithing on my net, but I'm not giving enough, well, you're allowed to give more. So you can always make a free will offering or increase the amount.

So I wouldn't want anybody to ever feel like I'm not giving enough. You certainly can. But I always caution people, you have an obligation under the law of God to provide for your family.

No one should ever be giving so much to the church that they can't buy new shoes for their children or things like that. That's why God only asks for 10%. Now, while we're here in Deuteronomy 14, though, let's drop down and look at a couple of other questions that come up.

In verse 22, now we read this often a certain time of year. You shall surely...well, I started with 22, but... ...tithe all the increase of your grain in the field. You shall eat before the Lord your God, and the place where he chooses to make his name abide. The tithe of your grain, of your new wine, your oil, the firstborn of your herds, and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God. If the journey's too long for you, so you can't carry the tithe to the place where God puts his name, turn it into money. I'm paraphrasing here in verse 25. Exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place where God chooses. And spend the money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen or sheep or wine or similar drink, whatever your heart desires, you'll eat before the eternal, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.

Now, wait a minute. That sounds like a contradiction. Haven't we spent all this time saying that the tithe belongs to God, and it was for the Levites to do the work, and now it's going to the church to do the work?

Well, how can you keep it and go somewhere and spend it all on yourself? Well, the only logical solution is that this is a different tithe. You can't spend the same 10% on two different mutually exclusive things, and so we've developed the term second tithe. Most of you are... well, I say some of you are nodding, most of you look like you're about to fall asleep, except that I'm talking so loud. Now, can we find that term in our Bible?

No, we don't see the word second tithe in the Bible, but the logic is there. I was surprised, though, in reading some of the... as I said, I read some old articles written by scholars in the church. I came across one by written by Dr. Herman Hay in 1959 that pointed out something that I'd never seen before.

He was studying the Greek Septuagint. You might wonder if the Greek Septuagint... I believe... I'm not sure if Dr. Hay read Greek, but he knew Greek pretty well. What the Septuagint is is a translation of the Old Testament into Greek that was made before the time of Christ.

Basically, 70 rabbis got together who were knowledgeable, and they translated the Hebrew into Greek because that was the common language. So the Bible that Jesus and many of his followers used was that Septuagint. Well, let me explain also. In the Septuagint, then, the Greek word for tithes is decaton. Decaton means tenth, just like tithe means. But in Hebrews 1422, the word that's used there for tithe is epidecaton.

Put that prefix epi in front, which means above tithe, literally. And the literal translation means a tithe besides, or additional tithe. So in the Septuagint, basically, they used a word that means second tithe. Now, I'm not saying that that's an official translation, because it's not. And we refer to the Septuagint if it sheds a little light on something we're doing, but we like the translations into English that were from the original manuscripts. So we don't go back to the Septuagint. As I said, I just wanted to refer to that, because maybe those 70 rabbis who knew the practice of the law said that's a good way to translate it, because that's what it means.

But we do base our doctrine on just the sheer logic, that God says, use this tithe, and it can be only for this, and it's holy to God. Then He says, take a tithe and do this, and it's something that's totally separate. Well, as I said, the same tithe can't be for both. There is one other bit of evidence that I'd like to throw out there, though, for why this is referring to a second tithe.

And that's life's experience. As I said, going back to since I was 12 years old with my paper out, I was taught one tithe goes to the church, another tithe is saved for keeping the feast of God. And I've learned that it works. It works extremely well. And I bet just about everybody in this room can say that. You've been doing it for years. You don't have to have anybody come up with conclusive evidence in the Bible to tell you that it's a good system. It's a good system. I thought, actually, because of the season of the year, a few years ago I was having this discussion with my sister, who was in the church with me as a kid, but when she was an older teenager, parted ways as far as belief goes.

And she was talking about comparing keeping the feast with keeping Christmas. And she pointed out something I wouldn't have thought of, because I don't pay attention to keeping Christmas, but she said that she spends about the same amount on Christmas presents as we spend going to the feast. Which, oh, that's interesting. And I'm not sure if she calculated until it was close to 10%, but in her mind it was about the same amount. I thought, huh. So if people would just switch from keeping pagan days that don't signify God's plan to doing things God's way, they wouldn't have to take 10% out of their income.

They would just switch it from a false system to doing what God says to do. Once again, experience shows that it does work. Let's go to another question, though. I promise we'd end early. I'll still get to there.

In verse 28, At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied, that the Lord your God may bless you and all the work which you do. Now, by all the reasoning I've just presented, you might ask, what is this? Is this a third tithe? And the answer is, yes, that's what it is. It's describing a third tithe. All that same logic that said, you can't use the same one tenth for two mutually exclusive functions, says, yeah, if I add a third function that's different from the first two, the same, there has to be another pot of money that goes to that. And that's borne out also by the timing. In verse 28 it says, at the end of every third year, but across the page, it's across my page, in verse 22, you shall tithe the increase year by year. That's every year. So is tithing done every year or only every third year? Well, let's turn to chapter 26 in Deuteronomy. Chapter 26 will help make it a little more clear. Deuteronomy 26 in verse 12.

When you have finished laying aside all the tithes of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, as I said, if the third, every third year were the only year you tithed, that would contradict what we just read in Deuteronomy 14.22. But let's go with this. The third year is a year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your gates. Well, that can't be the second tithe, because you're going to take that to the place the Lord your God chooses. And it can't be the first tithe, once again, because that's got to be given to the Levites. But anyways, when you've done that, you shall say before the Lord your God, I have removed the holy tithe from my house, and I've given them to the Levite, stranger, fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandments that you've commanded me. I have not transgressed your commandment, nor have I forgotten them. Okay, I've already been addressing how it seems to be another mutually exclusive thing. We get a little more help from the Septuagint here. That same article by Dr. Hay in the 1959 Good News, or I think it was Tomorrow's World, anyways. He points out that the Greek word here, in Deuteronomy 26 and verse 12, the word here for tithe, remember the base word is decaton, just means tenth, where it's talking about what we call the second tithe that was epidecaton, and in verse 12 they use the word deuteron, epidecaton. Boy, that's getting to be a lot of syllables, but deuteron, remember, if you see Deuteronomy, the D-E-U-T, that's a prefix that means two or second. The literal translation of the Greek word here means second additional tithe. The second additional tithe of the third year, or we just shorten it to say third tithe. Now, I was wondering, and to be honest, when I was preparing my notes, I expected there to be more young people, teenagers in the room, because I was thinking we could have some people in the room who've never even heard the term third tithe. We don't say it very much anymore. Am I right about that? Okay, so that does lead to the next question. I had a series of questions. What does the church teach about third tithe? We see that it's in the Bible. What is it? What's our obligation here? We want to obey the spirit of the law, but as we said, when something's holy to God, we don't want to be careless about it. Well, one thing I think that helps, and it's obvious when it describes this tithe, is that it's for the needy. It's for the orphans, the widows, the people that are going hungry otherwise.

We see that this was part of the civil law that was given to ancient Israel. Ancient Israel served as a church, but it was a political nation. It had to have laws that had to be enforced for how you live. And any political nation has poor people in it. So God gave them some systems for taking care of people that don't have so much. Let's go back a couple of chapters to chapter 24. Deuteronomy 24, beginning in verse 19. We'll see that there are a couple of different systems provided to help take care of the poor.

Here in Deuteronomy 24, 19 says, When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, which remember when you're doing horse-drawn wagon or whatever and you have these sheaves, they didn't have, you know, square balers and ramblin' balers and tractors, you could say, oh, there's a sheaf out there. I forgot to bring that in the barn. It says, Don't go back and get it. It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that the eternal your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

When you beat your olive trees, and that's the harvest, you put a blanket underneath and you hit the trees to make the olives fall, so you do that to harvest your olives, but you shall not go over the bowels again. You do it one time, you leave the others that don't fall off the first time, for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.

When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean afterward. It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. So we see here, instead of a social security system or a welfare system in ancient Israel, they had gleaning for those who didn't have means but could go and work. And we've got a really good example of that in the book of Ruth. And most of you will remember that. Ruth and her mother-in-law were a couple...

They weren't able to go farm their land and they didn't have much, but she went out to the fields and followed Boaz's harvesters and she was able to glean enough to support them. So for those who can work, there's gleaning, but there's also the third tithe system. For those, maybe, who can work, but especially for someone who's infirm and not able to work, ancient Israel had a system to provide for them.

Now, the Church has interpreted these commands, then, in a way similar to the way we looked at the law on whether you tithe on your gross or your net income. We've said the situation in society has changed over the years and it might change again. So the spirit of the law is always the same. We're required to tithe. We're required to take care of the poor among us. But how the spirit of the law is applied in specifics can change over time. Now we live in a society where the government takes money from us, with or without our consent, and puts it into programs that provide for the needy.

As I said, we've got welfare, we've got food stamps, we've got probably a lot of other things. I know there's, what, wick? I knew someone who used to get the cheese. Actually, my sister got that for a brief time when my brother-in-law broke his arm and couldn't work. So our physical nation does these things and they take the money in the form of fica and other taxes. Now, I would say they do it somewhat inefficiently. I think if the Church were given the option of doing Third Tie, they'd probably work much better.

But if we said everybody here has to do a Third Tie and pay their taxes, we would be essentially paying the same money for the same purpose twice. And so the Church has said we don't see that as an obligation upon us. Not because it isn't a valid principle, but because the government's taking money and doing exactly that.

And we don't want to teach people that they have to do the same thing twice. Now, I should hasten to add, there's nothing wrong if someone in their conscience disagreed with that interpretation and said, no, I think the Church has got it wrong. I'd better send 10% every third and sixth year out of a seven-year cycle. We're not going to stop you. And nobody would say you're sinning by doing that. But we're saying it's a matter of conscience. We're saying if you don't do that, we think that's valid.

We also realize that some people have extra means and want to help those who are in need. And the Church has a separate fund specifically to provide for those. And if the government doesn't do the job that we'd rather be doing ourselves anyways, if someone's in need, we say come to the Church and let us know and we'll help and provide. We should take care of our brothers in any event. Now, there's a lot of other questions. As I said, these last ones have been the source of discussion and disagreement and debate for years and years, and I don't frown upon that.

It's good to discuss. It's not good to condemn others if their interpretation comes out slightly different than yours. But if you have other questions on particulars, feel free to come to me or several of our members in the Church who have been around a long time. I'm not going to say I'm the only one that has any knowledge on the subject, but I think I've covered the biggest ones.

As I said, this is review for about all of us, but it's good to look in the Bible, especially in tough financial times and understand why do we teach tithing, how is it done, we want to base it on the Scripture. But we want to remember that the spirit of the law is what we read early on in Proverbs 3. Honor God with our substance. Remember, all things are His in the first place.

He's the one that gives us an ability to get wealth, and He reserves a small part of it for Himself. And fortunately, as I said, it turns out we can never out-give God. When we give, He gives back, you know, press down and overflowing. So let's keep that in mind, keep in mind that we want to follow the requirements, but keep in mind mostly the spirit of the law, and let's honor God with what He's given us.