2001--tithe over time (revised)

            Today, this post is another revision of a previously posted commentary.  Once I actually attempt to record these, problems show up that are not so obvious in writing originally.  In this case, these were written for a five minute time frame, and the previous version, I could read in about three and one-half.  Further, this commentary has some of the same ideas as the commentary I posted two days ago.

            Also, I am concentrating on at the end of these writings giving more citations of where I got the information.  Hopefully, this will help someone.

2001—the tithe over time

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  Today, a little bit about how the idea of the tithe has morphed over time.  In the days of the Old Covenant with the physical chosen people, the Jews, there were three tithes.  The first was the temple tax, which was for maintenance of the temple in Jerusalem, the Levites and the priests.  Key verses which speak about this one are Leviticus 27 verses 30 through 33 and Numbers 18 verses 26 to 32.  The second tithe was to pay for the festivals commanded in Torah, the Law or Teaching of Moses.  Key verses for this are Numbers 18 verses 20 to 26, Deuteronomy 12 verses 1 to 19, and Deuteronomy 14 verses 22 to 26.  The third tithe was voluntary, and was a third of a tithe or a tithe every third year, and is based on Deuteronomy 14 verses 27 to 29 only.  That tithe was for helping the poor, of which it appears that the Levites were expected to be a part of.   At the times in which Israel was a nation, the budget for the country also came out of the tithes.  By the time Jesus came to earth, the Jewish people had greater hardship, as, in addition to these tithes, the Roman Empire had more layers of taxation upon conquered peoples.  Further, the rabbis had made a rule, not based on any scripture that Jewish people were not to give more than 40% of their increase.  This was because of the influence of Roman culture, in which certain wealthy persons were paying for large public works projects to gain favor with the people, so as to be able to gain public office with the Empire.  These public works projects could be likened to some of the earliest political advertising in history.  Although this might look good to us today, given how we are barraged with annoying and twisted political ads today, the rabbis saw it as a danger to the people. 

            When Jesus died on the cross, the early believers understood His death as the ultimate sacrifice which fulfilled the Old Covenant, including the laws about tithes.  This is confirmed in Acts 15 verses 23 to 29, where the apostles and elders write a letter to define to the early church what parts of the Law were to be carried over into the church. Verse 29 says, “that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.”  The question they were writing to settle was about circumcision.  Tithing wasn’t even an issue.

            The church gave generously to help spread the message of Jesus, and to help others, both fellow believers and neighbors who were not.  The church did not have buildings.  Leadership was by God’s leadership gifts. 

            Saul’s parents or further ancestors were apparently sufficiently wealthy to purchase Roman citizenship.  When he became a Pharisee, it was a rule that Pharisees had to learn a trade, as in the past, Levites had a difficult time when large amounts of Israelites turned away from God and then stopped tithing.  When Saul had the miraculous experience that brought him from persecuting the church to speaking for faith in Jesus, became Paul, grew in faith, and started on missionary journeys, having the trade of making tents was handy for supporting himself far from his home church.  When Jesus said in Matthew 10 verse 10 that “a worker is worthy of his food,” that was not a license for a church to have a payroll, but that the believers had a responsibility to financially help those who were going to take the message of Jesus where it had not been heard, as those cultures might be so different that being able to make a living there with skills obtained in their home culture may be difficult to impossible.  Jesus commended the widow in Matthew 12 verses 41 to 44 who gave generously out of her poverty, as opposed to those who gave much more out of their abundance.

            The teaching of one 10% tithe came back into the church in the 8^th century, when the Catholic Church began acquiring land in northern Europe, where 10% of a year’s crop was the traditional land rent.  The local leaders, who at that time were trained in ritual, but not necessarily on understanding scripture, then got it confused with the Old Testament writings.  Whether that was an honest mistake or not is beyond our reach.  Possibly this did not disappear in the Reformation due to the church leaders not being prepared as Paul was to earn a secular living.  Today, in traditional churches, 85% of offerings go to building costs and payroll alone, and only two one-hundredths of 1% go to sending the message of Jesus where there is absolutely no Christian teaching going on. Interestingly, we are hearing a great move of people coming to faith in Jesus in the Marxist, Buddhist, and Islamic lands where the believers are underground like the believers we read about in the New Testament, but we, with all our money, buildings, marketing, and programs see minimal.

            I can be reached at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or 757-xxx-xxxx.  If you wish to review what I just said, a transcript is posted at tevyebird.blogspot.com, dated September 27, 2011.  You can find out more about believers being the church without buildings and corporations in this area at www.hrscn.org .

            Much of the reference information about the three tithes is at the end of the blog of September 25, 2011 (the immediately previous one).

            The information about the middle ages return of the tithe can be found in George Barna and Frank Viola, Pagan Christianity.

            The .02% statistic comes from Steven S. Lyzenga, ASSESSING THE STATE OF SIMPLE CHURCHES IN THE USA  REGARDING RELEASING RESOURCES TOWARD FINISHING THE GREAT COMMISSION.

http://house2harvest.org/docs/Simple_Churches_Releasing_Resources_S_Lyzenga.pdf

2110--three tithes

One of the odd things about a blog is how everything is from newest to oldest, so I need to repeat some things I've previously written.  Back in December, 2010, I released scripts of 2 minute commentaries written for radio on subjects that some of us believers in Jesus would maintain have not been dealt with properly by the organizational church in our culture.  Currently, I have been making 1 minute and five minute versions of those, as, when I have the cash to run these on radio, those are time frames that fit stations I might deal with.

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            My name is Tom.  This is Simple Church Minute.  In the Old Covenant, the children of Israel were commanded to give two tithes for certain, and probably a third, every third year tithe.   The first tithe, spoken of in Leviticus 27 and Numbers 18, was for the support of the Levites, the tribe of Israel who was not given land so that they could be responsible for worship among the people.  The next tithe, the festival tithe, was for celebrating Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, details of which appear in Deuteronomy chapters 12, 14, and 16.  Many, but apparently not all, who are familiar with these details understand there to also be a third, every third year tithe, for the poor and the Levites, which is based on Deuteronomy 14 verses 28 and 29.  When Israel was an ancient nation, the operating budget of the nation also appears to have come from the tithes, so this may not seem so excessive, although when it was subject to another nation, such as they were in the days of Jesus, when Rome collected their taxes additionally, it was certainly more onerous.  These tithes were part of the Old Covenant Law, or Torah, which we believers in Jesus understand to have been fulfilled by Jesus’ death on the cross.

          In Acts 15 verses 1 to 29, when the mainly non-ethnically Jewish believers asked the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, after being visited by persons who were teaching that the Old Testament law about circumcision was still to be obeyed, the apostles and elders, led by James, wrote them to abstain from food offered to idols, animals which were strangled, from drinking blood, and sexual immorality.  There was nothing there about paying tithes.  The New Covenant includes the virtue of being generous.  To this effect, for believers earning a superior income, 10%, 20%, maybe even 50%, may not be generous, and for those who are poor, anything is. First Timothy 6 verses 17 to 19 are appropriate.

          Further, First Timothy 3 verses 3 to 8 and chapter 6 verse 9 teach us that a qualification of elders, deacons, and teachers, which were not organizational appointments, but positions of experience and gifting, was that they were not to be greedy. We, in our culture, have an extremely distorted idea of wealth, as most of us have more material possessions and comforts than the extremely wealthy and royals of all previous generations and many current ones, although our culture’s expenses are greater, also.

          On the opposing side, nowhere in the New Testament have we been directed to spend money on buildings and support of local leadership.  The main example in the New Testament is Paul, who had a skill to support himself during the main part of his missionary journeys.  One liability of the church today in the west is occupational leaders whose only skill is theology, and avoid certain teachings of the Word in concern for their job and family.

          You can find out more about simple worship of Jesus locally at www.hrscn.org, and also at www.simplechurch.com. You can contact me at _______.  If you wish I could repeat what I said, a transcript of this with footnotes is at tevyebird.blogspot.com, dated July 17, 2011.

          I used the breakdown of the three tithes from www.biblestudy.org/belief/tithe-in-the-bible/three-tithes-of-israel.html.  As New Covenant believers are saved by faith in Jesus, not by obeying the Old Covenant Law/instructions, I used this as a simple explanation of the three tithes, and am in no way even wishing to quibble about whether a given Old Testament scripture refers to one tithe or the other; I brought this up as a matter of history, as it is irrelevant to following Jesus, except for it being a historical precursor, and that in the Middle Ages the term got dragged into faith in Jesus in error.  Frank Viola and George Barna’s Pagan Christianity, in chapter 8, p. 171-185, covers the historical detail on this subject with copious footnotes.