Giving & Tithing: Does the Bible command Christians to tithe? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 12

Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. So in today's episode, we're going to be discussing giving and tithing because this is a question, again, in our 20 -year history we've been asked tons of questions about.

The most common ones are are Christians supposed to tithe? Where does the tithe command come from?

What does it mean to give cheerfully? Or why are churches always asking for money?

Those types of questions. What is the Christian's attitude towards giving? So today on the show

I have Kevin, our managing editor. Hi, good to see you guys. And Jeff, the manager of our

BibleRef .com commentary site. Howdy. So for me, this question is very personal because I've got a close family member who the why are churches always asking for money is a big hang -up.

It seems like every time she goes to church, giving is emphasized. One of the first times she ever visited church, the pastor gave an entire sermon on trying to encourage

Christians to give more. And so for her, that was this very off -putting. So it's a difficult balance in that giving is a part of the

Christian life. There are numerous scriptures call us to give, to give generously, to give sacrificially.

At the same time, we should never make it seem like getting people's money is what we're all about.

I mean, GotQuestions .org is a nonprofit organization. We rely on donations to fund the things we're doing.

So we need to occasionally present opportunities to give, but we absolutely never want anyone to ever think that giving is what we're all about.

That unless you give, you can't participate or engage with our ministry. So we try to keep the giving requests subtle and spread them out so we're not constantly doing it.

But at the same time, we get complaints of, why are you asking for money? Why don't you just trust

God to provide the money? So we're gonna be discussing some of these issues today. What is the proper attitude for giving?

So let's start out, and Kevin's got some great points for us to think through from God's Word.

Sure, I was taking a look at some of the New Testament principles concerning giving, because of course,

Christians are to be a giving people. It should be part of our nature because God is so generous with us, and He, you know,

God so loved the world that He gave. You know, there it is. He's a giving God.

And so in response, in gratitude for all that God gives us, we are giving people.

And that's just part of following Christ. But the principles in the New Testament for the church, for Christians to give, are found in several passages.

If I could, I'd just like to share four short passages, and out of those four passages, pull out ten guidelines for Christians in their giving.

First I'll take a look at one of Jesus' statements in the Sermon on the Mount, where He was talking about alms giving, and He said, when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do, as the actors do.

And so the first principle that we see right here is that we are not to be giving to be noticed, or you know, to draw attention to ourselves, but we give quietly.

We give privately. We don't let the right hand know what the left hand is doing, type of thing, which means we don't even, you know, think about it that much ourselves.

We don't file it away in the back of our minds as, you know, that's my good deed for the day.

We don't even approach it like that. We just see the need. We know that we can meet the need.

We give quietly, privately, and that's the first principle. Taking a look at 2nd

Corinthians chapter 8, then, Paul's talking about the churches of Macedonia who were collecting some money for the poor saints in Jerusalem.

They're going to try to help them out during their time of need. So these churches of Macedonia were giving in spite of their own distress, and Paul describes it this way, in the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.

That's an amazing statement right there. In the middle of their extreme poverty, it welled up into rich generosity.

Hardly even seems like those two things go together, but there it is. And Paul continues, for I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability, entirely on their own.

They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the

Lord's people. So here we see the principle of giving sacrificially.

The Macedonian churches were in extreme poverty, and yet they still found a way to give to others who were even needier than they were.

Also, we have the principle here of giving unselfishly. It was a privilege for the

Macedonian churches to give. They begged Paul, please give us the privilege of giving to this need.

We really want to be a part of this, and helping the Lord's people was what it was all about.

So we don't give in order to get. We give because we love the

Lord. We are thankful to Him for all He's given us. We want to see His work furthered in the world.

Turning to 1st Corinthians chapter 16, then we see a couple more principles. On the first day of every week,

Paul says, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper.

So Paul was alerting the Corinthian church that he was going to pay them a visit. When he got there, he was going to go ahead and collect whatever funds they had already collected for the

Jerusalem Saints. So when he got there, he didn't want to take up a collection himself. He wanted them to have it all ready for him.

And so to do that, he gave the instruction that they were to set some things aside once a week.

So we have the principle here of giving regularly and also giving proportionately.

I think very important there, Paul says, give as each individual should give as he may prosper.

So if the Lord has prospered you, then you give accordingly. And there's no set percentage that we're told in the

New Testament. We're not talking about a set amount. We're talking about giving proportionately to our income or to our blessings through that week or month or whatever.

And then in 1st Corinthians chapter 9, we have the final five principles or guidelines for New Testament giving.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

So the principles I think that we see here, the guidelines for us, are to give bountifully. So Paul says not sparingly.

So we are to be generous. We are to be bountiful in our giving. We are to give purposefully.

Paul says as you have decided in your heart. A corollary here would be that the amount to give is a personal decision.

I think a lot of times Christians get hung up on the what to give and how much to give, but New Testament doesn't address that.

New Testament's more concerned about our attitudes when we're giving, why we're giving, and how we give.

So give purposefully as you have decided in your own heart. This is a decision between you and the

Lord. No one else should really enter into it, but you have prayed about it.

You've thought it through. You've taken a look at your own finances, and you have decided this is what

I'm going to honor the Lord with in this gift. Also give willingly, Paul says, not reluctantly.

Give willingly. Also give freely, not by compulsion,

Paul says. Churches really don't have the right to demand a certain amount of money from their congregation, from their membership.

They can present the need. I think that's biblical, but to start coming in there and saying, well, you've got to give this amount.

You've got to participate at this level. I don't think there's any biblical standing for making that type of a rule.

We are to give freely, not by compulsion. And then give cheerfully, of course, because God loves that.

The very next verse, after God loves a cheerful giver, says this, God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound for every good work.

And so God's promise to the cheerful, bountiful, determined, willing, and free giver is that he will see to it that all of our needs are met, and that he will actually supply everything that we need to keep on doing good.

We will abound to every good work. It's a wonderful promise, as we cheerfully give.

I like that you were bringing up the idea, Kevin, of not getting overly obsessed with a specific amount.

One of the things that I've seen a lot of people struggle with is exactly that, where there's this obsession with the tithe, and they get hung up on the idea of a 10%, 10%, 10%.

And from a biblical standpoint, even there's more complication behind it than just 10%.

Those numbers actually add up to something even different when you go back and look at it in the Old Testament. But there's,

I think, I see people who sometimes struggle with that magical number of 10 % becomes a legalism thing.

And for some people, it's a struggle, because they feel, if I can't work my way up to 10%, or if I'm not giving 10 % of the right kind of income, gross or net or inheritance or whatever it is, that they're not doing everything

God has asked them to do. And then on the flip side, that can also be a very easy excuse for somebody who's very blessed, very abundant in the resources

God has given them, who gets to that 10 % level and goes, well, then I'm good.

Where for that person, truly sacrificial, cheerful giving could be a lot more than just that 10%.

So the idea that we sometimes get focused on a specific number, and we lose track of all those principles that you were talking about, none of the things that you brought up,

Kevin, had anything to do with math. They were all about our relationship with God and what the intent of our heart is, and whether or not we're responding to the

Holy Spirit, and what he wants us to do in a particular moment. None of them are about pulling out a calculator and coming down with those things.

I also appreciate what you were saying about the idea that there really isn't anything biblical that gives a church leader the right to look at some member of the congregation and say, here is the amount you are obligated to provide.

It's not my place to ever say there's never a time where a leader could encourage or put pressure on somebody when they know specific circumstances and everything else like that.

But way too often we see people who are trying to leverage the Bible for the sake of financial gain.

I have a, you could call it maybe a pet peeve, so to speak, with persons who are very clearly leveraging the gospel or religious terms in order to get money.

I sympathize with Shea's family member, who feels like they're constantly being hounded for money from religious folks, because it's very easy to find clips on the internet and advertisements and brochures and things where people are saying, if you give this bit of money,

God will bless you. Or the reason that God is not healing your disease or fixing your problem is because you aren't giving enough.

And I'm going to choose not to go into a long extended rant on the whole issue of how some persons do that sort of thing.

And while they're flying around in jets, they're asking people on fixed incomes to hand things over.

I know that we have some plans for deeper discussions on that issue in the future.

But I do think it's important that we remember that it's supposed to be, giving is supposed to be about our personal interaction with the

Holy Spirit, that we're supposed to be sensitive and submissive to what he wants us to do and what we're looking for.

And I think that it's good for us to be able to tell other people who see these negative experiences, they see people who are abusing the words of the

Bible, and to be able to tell them, no, we are supposed to give and we are supposed to be sacrificial, but we're not supposed to make it all about the

Benjamins. We're not supposed to make it a mathematical sort of an issue.

And I know to what Shea was saying, we do see a lot of questions that come through the ministry where that's a lot of where people are coming through.

I think, Shea, you said that you'd seen a few of those recently where we'd had a little bit of a swell in questions about that issue.

Yeah. And then, Jeff, you brought up some great points. The questions we get are almost always related to tithing.

So, should I tithe off of my gross or net income? It's like, I don't even know how to answer the question because the

New Testament doesn't teach tithing. So, do you want to be blessed off your gross or net income?

I don't even know how to answer that. Do I have to tithe if I win the lottery? Do I have to tithe off of inheritance?

Like, I don't know. I mean, if you follow the New Testament's teaching on generous giving,

I think anytime you are blessed, you should sacrificially give off of that. But to set a tithe, again, that becomes very legalistic.

If you look into the Old Testament law and the different offerings Israelites were required to give throughout a year,

I know I've been told to never do math in public, but I think if you add them up together, I think it actually adds up to something like 23 and a third percent that they were required to give if you add up all the different offerings throughout the year.

So, I know there's some pastors who would love this idea. Oh, I need to be teaching 23 percent giving.

Well, that's not what we're saying either. But no, it's God wants our heart.

God wants us to be giving sacrificially and joyfully, and the percentage will vary.

I'm just being honest. My wife and I have prayed three about this, and we generally set our giving at approximately 10 percent to our local church, but then we give above and beyond that as the

Lord leads. So, for us, the 10 percent is kind of like the minimum that we start with, and then we give in addition to that as the

Lord leads. So, but in no sense am I saying that's for everyone.

I mean, God has blessed us to the point that we can do that, and we can do that joyfully.

So, that's the conviction that we have, but we don't do that because we think the new covenant commands tithing.

We do that because we think that's how much God wants us to be giving, and we've come to that realization after praying, after talking, after looking at our budget, and looking at the needs around us.

So, I think that's a better attitude to have, but like again, in no sense would I criticize other people for giving.

What I found, something very interesting for me, several years ago, for a couple years, I served as the treasurer for our local church, and what was the difficult aspect of that was seeing what people give, and seeing some of the people in our church who don't give at all, and to then take that, okay,

I know what their jobs are. I know their career. I've seen their house, their car, blah, blah, blah, and for them not to be giving at all, then

I was like, okay, ultimately, Shay, this is none of your business, and for all you know, they are giving to other ministries, other causes, other missionaries supporting, so ultimately, it's not our business.

It's not the church's business to be, I believe there's a prominent cult out there that actually requires people to turn in their annual

IRS forms to make sure they actually gave the appropriate amount to the church, and that is antithetical.

I actually visited a church once where, up on the wall, it had the previous year's top givers, like pictures of them with their names.

Top giver in 2020 was Joe Smith. Like, wow, talk about the exact opposite of not letting your right hand know what your left hand's doing, so I think giving generously, giving joyfully will look different from Christian to Christian, but at the same time, giving is important.

It's a part of our walk with Christ. It's a part of spiritual growth is learning to sacrificially give.

As Kevin said, God is a giving God. I think it's also worthwhile to remember that the giving that we're asked to do is for a reason, and Kevin actually is probably the better one to speak to this idea, is that when churches talk about giving, this isn't just talking about saying,

I want you to put dollar bills in the pastor's personal pocket. Running a church and running a ministry has needs and requirements, right?

Absolutely, and it's a necessity. I mean, for you, Kevin, you can speak to that.

And speaking of the, I mean, it's a necessity that the church has finances, of course.

I think everybody understands that, and so that's part of why we give, to just make the local church able to function in the community.

But then there's so much more to it, and I just want to throw in here, too, that as a pastor,

I make a point not to know what any member of the church is giving or has given in the past or anything else.

In fact, if somebody comes up, they missed the passing of the offering plate that Sunday, they come up to me later and hand me a check or something,

I like to say, well, just see our treasurer about that. I'd rather not even handle it.

I don't want to know, and I try to take steps so that I do not know.

It's really none of my business what people are giving to the church. We encourage giving, but yet so much more than financial.

I mean, the biblical principle in the New Testament is that we, our whole selves, belong to God.

We offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. All of us, everything that we have, we have because of God, and in gratitude and thanksgiving to Him, we are available for whatever the

Lord would have of us and however He would like to use us. So that includes our finances.

It also includes so much more. I'm glad you brought that up.

That's a thought that had gone through my mind, was making sure that we clarify that the other drawback to an overemphasis on tithing is thinking that my obligations to the church are met as soon as I reach a certain level of dollars that I've given, because there is a lot more that we're supposed to be doing.

We're supposed to be contributing time and talent and resources and prayer and all these other things to the church.

It goes way beyond just the financial. I guess for me, one of the things that I see people struggle with with the tithing issue is very often that it provides a means for people to stop well short of what

God really wants from them when it comes to their involvement in the church, because they get to a certain financial point and then they're just done.

I also know that people are frustrated sometimes because they're not involved in the day -to -day operations of a ministry or a church, and they don't grasp all the things that go into those things.

For ministries and churches to be able to provide the resources and the help and the support that they do to their congregations and their community does require resources.

Especially nowadays, it's not cheap to keep the lights on and the heat going and make repairs and all the other things that go along with that.

It's good to see all the different points kind of falling together as we're talking about this, that legalism is not only not the issue, but it's not just about money.

There's a lot more to it than just how many dollars you're putting in the collection plate. Exactly.

So great points all around. I think the final issue maybe we can dive into before we have to wrap this up is we get the question a lot,

Matt, how can I know where God wants me to give? And again, this is an issue the

Bible doesn't directly address in terms of percentages. We get people, well, is it okay if I give 5 % of my income to the church and 5 % to this other

Christian cause I believe in? Again, going back to the 10 % thing. So if you believe that's what the

Lord is leading you to do, by all means, do what you think God's wanting you to do. I always point to James 1 .5,

while it's not talking about giving, asking God for wisdom and that God promises to give us wisdom when we ask for it.

So if you need wisdom about where and how to give, ask God for it. So my personal conviction is that our primary giving should be to our local church, the local body that we're attending in and serving with.

But beyond that, what you give, whether it's to a para -church ministry, whether it's to supporting a child with compassion or another organization like that, or supporting a missionary that you really believe in the work that he or she is doing, or supporting a homeless shelter, whatever the

Lord leads you to do, that's what you need to be doing. And don't get so hung up on the percentages or how do

I divide this up, because that will probably look different from one person or one family to another.

And another interesting tidbit is a couple of years ago, someone was donating to Got Questions.

I don't remember what the amount was, doesn't matter. And he viewed that as that gave him the right to basically tell us what we were supposed to do.

So it was like, okay, I'm giving this amount. I expect this and this and this and this from your ministry.

And I was like, I don't care how much you're giving.

That does not give you the right to tell us what God's will for the ministry is.

So I promptly canceled that person's monthly gift. And thankfully, the

Lord filtered out of my mouth what I wanted to say to the person, instead said something more kind and hopefully edifying.

But Kevin, have you ever dealt with that as a pastor that someone who gives maybe generously to the church then views that as the church is obligated to therefore listen to their input more so than others?

Kevin I have not personally experienced that. I've heard other pastors have had to deal with that type of issue.

But praise the Lord, at my church, people are just—we're blessed with a very generous church and a very helpful church who wants to be involved.

And they seem to have a good head on their shoulders. They're just trying to think biblically about it all.

And that goes back to the principle of give without expecting anything in return.

So if you're giving to a church, giving to an organization and expecting them to then therefore treat you differently as a result of that gift, well, that's not giving sacrificially.

That's giving in order to buy influence, which is the absolute wrong attitude to have.

So thankfully, that's not something that—I think that's the only occurrence where someone actually, without question, viewed their gift as making us responsible to them, to listen to them, to their input.

And don't get me wrong, we love input. But don't view your gifts, your donations to your church, to a ministry as meaning they are therefore required to give you any special attention.

So hopefully this conversation has been encouraging and worthwhile to you. In summary, give sacrificially and give joyfully.

Ask God for wisdom about how much he wants you to give. Don't allow it to become something that's legalistic, but then just rejoice and trust that God is going to take the gifts you've given and use those for his glory to expand his kingdom and to bless others.

So that should be our attitude. Again, I think prayer is the key to all this. Seeking God's will and then submitting to what he leads you to do.

So thank you for listening to the Got Questions podcast. Got questions? Bible -ized answers?