Tithing from a Biblical Perspective by John Crandell www.audiowebman.org

The New Covenant Compared to the Old
when it comes to Tithing & Giving

I have recently been doing a lot of research on the subject of tithing. “Is tithing still in affect today” I have been asking “or was it done away with when Jesus brought in the New Covenant Age” which you and I are now living within today?

According to the Bible, I believe, you and I today are living in the New Covenant age. Jesus did say in one of the verses, in the Bible, that a certain sin was not forgiven in either this age, which was their age, or in the age to come, which today is our age, and there is even a verse in Hebrews that says that Jesus was born under the old Judaic age which was the Old Covenantal Age.

The Old Covenantal Age was still very much in affect until Jesus took our sin upon Himself and uttered out those last words for us which were “it is finished.” Yours and my sin debt has now been atoned for through the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 9:26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

“The end of the age,” that Hebrews 9:26 speaks about, is the Old Covenantal Age which was the mosaic age held by the law and the sacrificial system.

Hebrews 10:10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Ephesians 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace

I am not trying to say that we should stop giving to the church. By no means am I saying that at all. In one of the sermons I taught, I was able to sharing with others to give with a cheerful spirit; because the Lord does not own just 10% of our increase He really owns everything, as most of us honestly would agree upon.

Curtis one time shared in a sermon of his that giving is still a thing Christians practice today which he has said:

“I think that the Scripture is very clear that we all are to be giving, the question that is so debated is, "How much are we to give?" You might be surprised to hear that the Bible teaches that the amount that we give is voluntary - brought about by one's own choice - free, spontaneous, un-compelled. The Bible teaches Grace Giving! And grace giving is voluntary.”[1]

2 Corinthians 9:7 So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Cor. 9:7 is a verse that pastors like Elmer Ponce uses all the time when it comes to giving our offerings, no because it is a law since we are not under it anymore but, to help further the work on reaching others for the Lord and helping those who are in need like the widowers, fatherless and even our pastors.

An Editorial reviews from the author of “Tithing and Still Broke” from amazon’s website shares:

“There is no New Testament scripture that supports the allowance of a curse upon any believer for not tithing. In fact, there is no clear, concise teaching in the New Testament on tithing at all! The NT teaches about giving from the heart, and when we give from our hearts, we will often be inclined to give far more than the tithe. In fact, we will have an entire life to give.”[2]

John MacArthur, from his article on “Thoughts on Tithing” says:

No place in the entire New Testament is it ever advocated for us to give tithes, that is, for us to give 10% to the church. You say, "Well what was it in the Old Testament?" Every year a Jew had to give 10% of all of his crop and all of his produce, and all of whatever he had. He gave 10%, which was called the "Levite's Tithe," and what you have to understand is that the nation Israel was a theocracy, that is, it was ruled by God through priests. There were 24 different orders of priests, with thousands upon thousands of priests—they were the government officials, they were the Senate, the Congress, the whole thing, only they didn't have to vote on anything—they just sought God and God told them what to do. So it was a theocracy ruled by God and that rule was disseminated through these people.[3]

From a New Testament perspective, the “NEW COVENANT BASIS FOR INTERACTIVE MEETINGS” shares:

There is no tithe required of New Covenant believers! Rather, the measure of one's giving is to be "according as a man purposes in his heart... not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver." II Cor.9:7 The first priority of believers, who live in the enjoyment of the New Covenant, is to GIVE THEIR OWN SELVES TO THE LORD AND THEN TO GIVE THEMSELVES IN SERVICE TO OTHERS. When the Lord has the man or woman, themselves, He also has direct control of their finances. Under the Old Covenant, the TITHE WAS THE LORD'S. But under the New Covenant, the TOTAL IS THE LORD'S! II Cor.8:1-9[4]

Hebrews 8:13 In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 9:12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

I know that you understand why I believe tithing is not for us today, under the New Covenantal Age, so I thought I would try to go into honest detail on just what tithing was when the Old Covenantal Age was still in affect at the time until Christ died, upon our behalf, and brought a close to the Old Age while bringing an opening to the New age since the Bible plainly speaks of only two ages.

Matthew 12:32 “…either in this age or in the age to come.”

Tithing & Offerings
in the Old Covenantal Age
under the Mosaic Law

Tithing, to make it simple, had four basic principles it lived by. The four basic principles on tithing were:

1) The tithe was eaten by the tither in the presence of God. Free will offerings were exactly that – a free will offering. You did not have to offer a free will offering. Tithes were never collected in the form of money.[5]

2) Tithing was to be only on the increase.[6]

3) Tithing was an intimate act directly between the tither and God.[7]

4) Give to those in need around you: the widow, the fatherless, and the strangers. This act of kindness glorified God. It was a visible demonstration to those in need that you had the one true God.[8]

Tithing not only had four basic principles but there were also three types of tithe, that these four basic principles mentioned, that were given under the Old Covenant age which was:

:: 1st TITHE: Annual tithe for the maintenance of the Levitical Priesthood (Num 18:21-24). The tribe of Levi received no inheritance (Num18:20, Deu 12:12, Deu 14:27). This tribe was segregated from the rest of Israel (Num 3:39-45, Num 3:5-10, Num 8:14-19) in order to serve the Lord in the Temple, and in the Tabernacle in the wilderness. So the first tithe was necessary for their support, since they had no other means of subsistence.[9]

:: 2nd TITHE: A second tithe was brought to Jerusalem for festival purposes and had to be enjoyed with a Levitical Priest (Deu 14:22-27).[10]

:: 3rd TITHE: A third tithe was required every third year to assist the poor (Deu 14:28-29). Every third year was known as "the year of tithing," (Deu 26:12-14). When the Israelites had completed tithing of the increase of the land, they were to give this 3rd tithe to the Levites, the strangers, the orphans, and the widows. When this was completed, they were to declare unto the Lord that they had performed to the best of their ability in obeying the divine commandments. All the tithes mutually would consist of 23.3% of one's assets. Tithing was an annual event, not weekly. Tithing also consisted of giving a portion of one's crops and herds, not money. 20% is added to the appropriation if converted to cash (Lev 27:31). At this point it should be clearly evident that what transpires for "tithing" in the modern Church is not consistent with the Biblical definition, but is, in reality, an ecclesiastical tax imposed by Church leaders. Much of this document is devoted to illustrating the differences between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant, and how this fallacious tithing doctrine actually undermines much of that teaching. Other doctrines can be impacted as well, such as justification by faith alone, since there are some tithing preachers who actually teach that Christians who don't tithe are unsaved. But it should be pointed out that compulsory giving and voluntary giving are similar in both Old and New Testaments. Compulsory giving under the Old Testament has already been illustrated to be a tax to support the governing authorities in Israel, but we find freewill offerings there also. See Exodus 35:29, Leviticus 7:16 and 22:18, Numbers 15:3, Deuteronomy 12:6, 2 Chronicles 31:14 and many others. In the New Testament I will demonstrate that the Church is to be supported by freewill offerings, but in Romans 13:6-7 Christians are commanded to pay their taxes to the governing authorities. In the Christian Era the governing authorities are the secular governments of the various nations that Christians live in.[11]

Now that we have found out what those tithes were let us now try and focus on how they were practiced as well.

As most of us have been taught, we were told that tithing was about us giving 10% of our money to the church when in all reality, in the Old Testament, tithing was when they gave of their produce. Some of the people will than say, “they did not have money back than” but than I would have to ask, “oh really”. If we look at verse 25 of Deut. Chapter 14, we read:

Deuteronomy 14:24-26 (NIV) 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice.

Malachi 3:8
"Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
"But you ask, 'How do we rob you?'
"In tithes and offerings.

Malachi 3:8 is one of those verses that most pastors use at churches when they are seeking fund raisers or even when the money is not coming in and they are trying to add guilt on the people so they will start giving more to the church so that the things the pastor would like can come about.

The question that I must ask, that we all must ask, is to whom are the people the Lord was speaking to? Audience relevance is one of the most important principles when reading any part in the scriptures to help you come to your conclusion on just what that specific passage is claiming to say. The way to find out whom the people are the Lord must have been speaking to is to read verses, or even chapters, before and even after that one verse you want to interpret.

Before I really start to show who the people robbed God let me ask you a simple questions. If God owns everything already what could you really rob God of? Have you ever thought of that? If God really owns everything already and does not need our help towards giving Him grain, food, animals and even money than what really was it that we, the tithers, could rob God of? I am convinced that we can rob God of nothing when it comes to objects and so forth on things that we own, but there is one thing that can be taken from God and I hope to reveal that one thing as we look over the chapters in Malachi and also look at the four basic principles and the three different tithes as well.

Malachi 3:9-10

9 You are under a curse-the whole nation of you-because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Now I ask of you, does God need food? Does God Eat? God is Spirit so why would He let them know that He wants there to be FOOD in the store house?

“You cannot rob God of natural substance, but you can rob Him of the glory that is due Him from being expressed through your life!”[12]

If we look back over the four basic principles and the three tithes that were practiced we can come to the conclusion, since God does not need material thing nor does He eat either, that it was principle four and the third tithe that was being robbed of God which was us bringing praise to his name.

R. Johnston shares:

“The glory was to be received by Him, as His children out of an intimate relationship with Him blessed those in need within their community. As this visible demonstration of His sovereign provision touched the lives of the widows, strangers, and orphans God received glory unto Himself.”[13]

But who really was the ones robbing God, you still are asking, if principle four and the third tithe is the one that has been ignored?

Since it was the glory of God that was being robbed from Him, letting God receive praise, who than could be responsible for not letting God receive the praise that was due to Him? Who was the thief in the story here? Who was the thief that was keeping God’s people from giving Him the praise that was do to Him?

The only way “the glory was being stopped from flowing through the lives of God’s children”[14] was “because the priests in the temple were corrupt.”[15] “Their corruption and reliance upon the law and its power was what drove them to crucify Christ.”[16]

In the Old Testament, the priests many times robbed God’s children of the chance on bringing Glory to His name.

In 1^st Sam. 2:12-17, Eli had some wicked sons which can help bring some understanding on how the priesthood in Malachi was corrupt as well.

1^st Sam. 2:12-17
The Wicked Sons of Eli

12. Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the LORD.

13. And the priests' custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant would come with a three-pronged fleshhook in his hand while the meat was boiling.

14. Then he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; and the priest would take for himself all that the fleshhook brought up. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

15. Also, before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, "Give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you, but raw."

16. And if the man said to him, "They should really burn the fat first; then you may take as much as your heart desires," he would then answer him, "No, but you must give it now; and if not, I will take it by force."

17. Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD, for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.

Through the Evil priesthood, the tither would disregard on bringing their tithes and offerings before the Lord so that the Lord could receive praise. But, how could the Lord really receive that praise if the priesthood was not performing the acts required in order to give God the praise that He deserves? The tithers were better off not going than they were on going because either way, their tithes and offerings would be wrongly practiced and it would have been better off if they never presented it to began with, so instead of the tither loosing what he wanted to offer to the Lord, which would of never of been offered anyways, they went ahead and saved their tithe and offering for themselves.

1^st Sam. 2:22-25
Prophecy Against Eli's Household

22. Now Eli was very old; and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

23. So he said to them, "Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people.

24. No, my sons! For it is not a good report that I hear. You make the LORD's people transgress.

25. If one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?" Nevertheless they did not heed the voice of their father, because the LORD desired to kill them.

1^st Sam. 2:27-35
Prophecy Against Eli's Household

27. Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: "Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house?

28. Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer upon My altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod before Me? And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire?

29. Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?'

30. Therefore the LORD God of Israel says: "I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.' But now the LORD says: "Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.

31. Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house.

32. And you will see an enemy in My dwelling place, despite all the good which God does for Israel. And there shall not be an old man in your house forever.

33. But any of your men whom I do not cut off from My altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart. And all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age.

34. Now this shall be a sign to you that will come upon your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall die, both of them.

35. Then I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in My heart and in My mind. I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before My anointed forever.

A simple question to really think about is, “would God charge the tither with error when His priesthood was corrupt…”[17] Do you really think that the tither would be the one at fault for robbing God, of His tithes and offerings, if it was the priesthood that was really corrupt to begin with?

1^st Sam. 4:15-18
Death of Eli

15. Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were so dim that he could not see.

16. Then the man said to Eli, "I am he who came from the battle. And I fled today from the battle line."

And he said, "What happened, my son?"

17. So the messenger answered and said, "Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead; and the ark of God has been captured."

18. Then it happened, when he made mention of the ark of God, that Eli fell off the seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck was broken and he died, for the man was old and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.

Eli and his sons was a good example of just how corrupt the priesthood could be on some occasions. When we get to Malachi, the priesthood was just as corrupt as it was in Eli’s time.

As we move back to Malachi, to pick back up where we left off, on finding out who was at fault and stealing the tithes and the offering from God, we must keep one important principle in mind. The important principle to keep in mind is:

“When you read scripture always remember to keep it in its proper context of who is speaking to whom. Never pick it up and immediately apply it to you.”[18]

Malachi 1:1 shares, “The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.” This shows us that Malachi was written directly to Israel during that time and age. Not only were the words, from Malachi, written to Israel but it was directed towards the corrupt Levitical priesthood of that time. Never once were these words written to you.

Remember that “as we read the Bible we must keep in mind the hermeneutical principle of audience relevance which seeks to discover what the original audience understood a passage to mean.”[19] So always remember that “The Bible was written for us but not to us.”[20]

Malachi 1:6-10
Polluted Offerings

6. "A son honors his father, And a servant his master. If then I am the Father, Where is My honor? And if I am a Master, Where is My reverence? Says the LORD of hosts To you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, "In what way have we despised Your name?'

7. "You offer defiled food on My altar, But say, "In what way have we defiled You?' By saying, "The table of the LORD is contemptible.'

8. And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, Is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?" Says the LORD of hosts.

9. "But now entreat God's favor, That He may be gracious to us. While this is being done by your hands, Will He accept you favorably?" Says the LORD of hosts.

10. "Who is there even among you who would shut the doors, So that you would not kindle fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you," Says the LORD of hosts, "Nor will I accept an offering from your hands.

As we can see, from Malachi, the sacrificial system, which was required at the time, was not being practiced correctly to bring honor to our Lord.

Under the Levitical priesthood, a perfect sacrifice was required or else it would be tossed aside until they found a perfect sacrifice to offer. All those sacrifices, which were offered under the Levitical priesthood, were a reminder of the one, and only, sacrifice that was soon to come who would be Jesus.

Malachi 2:1-9

Corrupt Priests

1. "And now, O priests, this commandment is for you.

2. If you will not hear, And if you will not take it to heart, To give glory to My name," Says the LORD of hosts, "I will send a curse upon you, And I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already, Because you do not take it to heart.

3. "Behold, I will rebuke your descendants And spread refuse on your faces, The refuse of your solemn feasts; And one will take you away with it.

4. Then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, That My covenant with Levi may continue," Says the LORD of hosts.

5. "My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, And I gave them to him that he might fear Me; So he feared Me And was reverent before My name.

6. The law of truth was in his mouth, And injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity, And turned many away from iniquity.

7. "For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, And people should seek the law from his mouth; For he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

8. But you have departed from the way; You have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi," Says the LORD of hosts.

9. "Therefore I also have made you contemptible and base Before all the people, Because you have not kept My ways But have shown partiality in the law."

As we can all see, the priesthood has become corrupt in the eyes of God. Malachi 2:1 “…O priests, this commandment is for you” shows us that it was speaking to the priesthood, the Levites who took care of the tithes, not the tithers, and verses 4-7 explains for us what a priesthood was about. When we get to verse 8 and 9, of Malachi 2, it reveals that it was the priests who have corrupted the glory that was rightfully due to be given to our one and only true God.

I hope this has helped you at understanding what covenant we are living within and is tithing still for us today.

May you continue to learn and grow in the understanding of the scriptures

[3] Thoughts on Tithing by John MacArthur http://www.biblebb.com/files/tithing.htm

[4] NEW COVENANT BASIS FOR INTERACTIVE MEETINGS

[9] author unknown at this time http://www.getfaithgo.com/tithing.htm

[19] Inspiration and the Second Coming of Christ by David B. Curtis

[20] Up, Up and Away – The Rapture by David B. Curtis