Bible Studies

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Shining Light on the Shady Tithe
By Patricia Backora, author of the book
Tough Love in Christ’s Millennium
Which you can order online from: http://www.publishamerica.com

Scriptural references are from the KJV.

Romans 13:8 says: Owe no man any thing, but to love one another. If tithing is binding upon 21st-Century Gentile believers, whether it be on a million-dollar boardroom salary or a $400-a-month Social Security check, then adherents to the tithing doctrine have to disobey that Scripture all the time. Why? Because from now until they leave this earth, they owe a standing debt to preachers. They owe them 10% of all their future earnings as well as what they’ve got now. Mandatory tithing forces Christians to owe pulpit pilots more than just love.

Although the true Biblical tithe consisted only of stuff like vegetables, grains, fruits, and cattle, and although the Pharisees tithed on garden herbs, I have yet to see any preacher lay claim to 10% of the radishes and tomatoes in people’s home gardens. Truth is, the only greenery fishers for funds thrive on has numbers on it!

I Timothy 5:8 says: But if any provide not for his own, AND SPECIALLY FOR THOSE OF HIS OWN HOUSE, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. It doesn’t say: “and specially for the preacher bellowing in the pulpit”. If anything, this shows me that our own families’ needs have priority with God, not some church treasury. Lots of Christians find that the windfall blessings promised for tithing to men don’t always materialize. So their kids have to go to school with torn track shoes and poorly nourished because of bondage to the tithing doctrine. That 10% sacrifice could make the difference between eating rubbish and eating nutritious food. When you force poor parents to tithe, you force them to be infidels who don’t provide adequately for their family’s needs.

Paul aimed for equality of well-being in the Body of Christ. II Cor. 8:12 says: For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. Much spiritual abuse has taken place in the church world. People have been pressured to “make vows” with money they haven’t even earned yet! Unscrupulous religious leaders have become the equivalent of tax collectors in Jesus’ day, involved in a protection racket, in the Name of God, Who is angry with them, not their poor victims!

Notice a key point in verse 13:FOR I MEAN NOT THAT OTHER MEN BE EASED, AND YE BE BURDENED. But what do we see today, but rich preachers flitting from one exciting tourist trap to the other with other people’s hard-earned cash, wearing the finest designer clothes and living in obscene luxury, while other Christians are going hungry!

Verses 14 and 15: But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for their want: THAT THERE MAY BE EQUALITY. As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack.

What equality do you see today in the Body of Christ? No more than you see in the world, with its wide gap between the haves and the have nots. Instead of humility and charity you hear smug exhortations from "successful" religious leaders that sound like the boast of a proud Pharisee: "God has rewarded ME for MY faithfulness. I am rich and possess all things, and am in need of nothing (Revelation 3:17). True New Testament giving (never tithing) was done to bring an EQUALITY of well-being to the Body of Christ, not to impoverish it for the benefit of a few church celebrities. When you eat, food is distributed to ALL parts of your body, not just the prettiest parts. But what do we see in the Church today, but extremes of wealth and poverty? If these men in fancy suits boat that they stick to the inerrant Word of God, let them sell a few of their surplus mansions and give to poor Christian families who are about to be evicted because they cannot keep up with their rent! Let there be true Biblical equality!

With mandatory tithing, come hell or high water, 10% of a struggling family’s income is siphoned off, even when the church treasury has a surplus and there are no outstanding needs to be met. Paul raised money for churches going through emergencies such as local famines, but he wasn’t continually begging for money like today’s preachers. And Paul never asked for tithes, but voluntary offerings given in faith, not out of fear. When the need ceases the sacrifice should also cease!

Let’s look at II Peter 2:1-3, and I’ll share my understanding of it as we go along, though others might view the passage from a different angle. The Apostle Peter himself says of fishers-for-funds In II Peter 2:1-3:

Verse One: But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily (in a sneaky way) shall bring in damnable heresies (including monetary tithing), even denying the Lord that bought them (selling out for money, as Judas did), and bring upon themselves swift destruction (self-explanatory),

Verse Two: And many shall follow their pernicious (harmful) ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. How true. Multitudes have forsaken the Way of Truth because they’ve been burnt by religious racketeers who sold them an expensive lie and brought them to financial and spiritual ruin. Because of such greedy wolves in sheep’s clothing, TV comedians lampoon preachers fishing for funds, and the lost have found a ready-made excuse for rejecting Christ.

Verse Three: And through covetousness (lust for what belongs to another) shall they make merchandise of you: whose judgment of a long time lingereth not, and their DAMNATION slumbereth not. That doesn’t hold out much hope for unrepentant fraudsters, does it?

I’m sick and tired of the way preachers hang guilt complexes on God’s people whom He has called unto His rest of faith! If anybody’s going to bust hell wide open it’s those leeches on TV who swindle money out of little peons who actually have to go out and sweat their guts out to EARN the elusive stuff. Little old ladies eat cat food so grinning religious clowns on TV can dine on prime rib and lobster. Some own not one, but several mansions, while poor slaves have to struggle to pay rent on a matchbox apartment. At least one sadistic preacher finds the Sin against the Holy Ghost a very convenient crowbar to pry tithes out of poor people. There is nothing in heaven or on earth so terrible as the fear of having committed an unforgiveable sin. This fear has driven many true Christians insane. Those who deliberately foist fear of that sin onto vulnerable hurting people to fatten their bank accounts are going to roast in hell with the likes of money-hungry Judas Iscariot.

God is our loving Heavenly Father, not the cruel taskmaster religious liars paint Him to be. Rich preachers have money, fame, PR people, and scary lies on their side. But the poor people they hurt need somebody to stick up for them. Let all of us who love the Faith Once Delivered Unto the Saints (Jude 3) do that in whatever way God enables us.

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