Just a question. First, I stand behind the record to say I am not against giving. I am not against giving money to the local church. Most of us fight, kick, and scream when it comes to giving because we need more money to spend at Wal Mart.
My stand is if your heart is right you want to give. If you are not giving, you want to rearrange your budget and redo your finances to fix the problem. You want to buy tracts instead of Twix. You want to spend money on bibles instead of Bubbleyum. You want to support the Saviour instead of the Sabres.
Give 10% of your gross if you want, Give 50%, but give because you love God not because you do it out of a covetous self-centered, good-luck-charm, superstitious, sort of motive.
What I am questioning is could we perhaps have a materialistic, prosperity gospel, selfish motive for preaching the tithe the way we do? The bible says in the Old Testament to cry aloud, spare not, and lift up thy voice like a trumpet. We don’t get excited about that one. We hear that if we give God 10% and if it is all his anyway, he gives us 90% and more and we end up with more than if we kept the 10% back for ourselves. Does that sound like a motive of love that gets stirred up or a motive that appeals to our greed and lust?
I believe if you give with out a selfish motive, God will bless that. However, when you give with expectation or promises of man with strings attached, watch out. We can get disappointed at God if he doesn’t make us rich.
All across the board, it is taught you must tithe or you are robbing God. Or God won‘t provide for you. (Let me ask where it says that God will supply all your need. ****only if you tithe of course.) Or you are cursed financially. So everyone who is “spiritual” tithes, the churches get bigger and proud of how ‘my church can beat up your church’, and the brethren tithe not out of love, but out of fear their car will break down if they don’t. So what if I don’t witness, so what if I love the world, leave me alone, I am tithing and wearing a suit on Sunday so God must be pleased.
I was thinking this because all across the board, in liberal or conservative churches, we can’t agree on anything. (Except maybe that street preaching is the wrong way to do it, even though “we” aren’t doing anything.) We can’t agree on whether to witness with our words or by actions. The only agreement on Bible versions is “it can’t be the KJV”. We fight over whether Genesis is literal. We can’t agree on who can preach or marriage and divorce or whether homosexuality is a sin.
Yet EVERY CHURCH can take 3 verses from the OLD TESTAMENT WRITTEN TO JEWS and conclude WE MUST TITHE OR WE ARE of the devil.
Again, let me say I am not saying “don’t give and keep over spending.” Again, I am not saying Don’t give to Missions. I am not saying to turn your back on the offering plate as it passes by. What I am asking is this. Why can the churches of America only be in agreement about financial matters is my question?