The Laborers' Podcast- TITHING

Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast. Tonight we are going to discuss tithing and I hope tonight we're going to discuss it in a way that at least I've never heard.

Tithing discussed before. The Laborer's Podcast begins right now. Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast, which is a part of the Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ.

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Doing well. Happy to be here.

Good. I like that at one time. We're doing well. So tithing. Are we ready to get into that conversation? This is a tough one. You find people on different ends of the spectrum. And then some of the questions that we have.

I know I'm not a Jewish scholar or a Jewish individual. So I'm I'm not as well informed on the topic as some may be. But we want to try to do the best we can to see what scripture has to say about tithing.

We can start at the top or whoever wants to jump in can jump in. Tyler, you are at the top. If you want to hit us off. We got one just a reminder, we got Tyler with us, bread of the word podcast, big john with real talk with big john.

Matt, he is our street evangelist. And what church do you go to?

I go to First Baptist Powell and Powell, Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Check those guys out. And Jonathan Foster, Pastor Jonathan, he's going to be joining us here in just a few minutes. He's going to be doing verticast. And he's the pastor at Vertical Life Church in Newton, North Carolina.

What what were the tithing requirements for the Jewish people in the Old Covenant?

Tithing in the Old Covenant

Well, a good place to start is with the the what's it called the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. And I, I found myself reading it in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is kind of a summary of what's said in the previous four books.

So it's a little more condensed sometimes. But the purpose of Deuteronomy was to lay out for a new generation of Israelites, what the law is, what God expects of his people, and what their their ancestors didn't do that they might learn from those mistakes.

And Deuteronomy 14, God's through the, the vessel Moses says, Each year, you are to set aside a tenth of all the produce grown in your fields, you are to eat a tenth of your grain, new wine and fresh oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock in the presence of the Lord your God at the place where he chooses to have his name dwell.

That would be the temple, that'd be the where they gather to worship, so that you will always learn to fear the Lord your God. I'm sorry, I thought somebody was gonna pick it up from there. The general idea was that there was a tenth, there was a portion of what is of their agriculture, of their crops, of what they brought in.

That was God's, that was something that they were to dedicate to God, whether that was offering the sacrifice in that or if they just consumed it in the holy space. The idea was that it was setting aside a portion of what they produced and dedicating that to God.

Right, right. And this isn't one of my questions. I'm just looking up the interlinear here on the blue letter Bible. It gives you the reverse and the forward. Let's see here. Go to the end of this verse.

I'm looking up the word tithe because, yeah, there we go, there we go. The word tithe, which my understanding and what I've always heard in the past, means tenth. And so that's, I guess that's where we get that tradition, where we get that pretty common preaching is that you need to give a tenth, you need to give a tenth because the word tithe means tenth.

And so that's the command, that's the preaching that we get is you need to give a tenth of your income because that's what the word tithe means, it means tenth. And, you know, was Mace, John, Big John, you were talking about some Jewish words earlier, was Macer one of the words that you were looking at?

It was, and I'm going to spell it because I know I said it wrong, M-A-postrophe-A-S-E-R.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm looking at as a word for tithe, meaning tenth, yeah.

So there you go. So it appears that there's at least two of them that were given by the Hebrew people. One of this, what I've read, that would be Leviticus 27, Numbers 18 and Deuteronomy 14 and Deuteronomy 26.

To me, if you wanted to go that route, because, I mean, what you're saying, John, and what Tyler's saying, what we're seeing in Deuteronomy is that, yes, the word tithe means tenth, we've learned that, we've been taught that, but then there are multiple givings.

So you give a tenth of this or a tenth of that or a tenth of this, and so it seems like if we follow that path, I'm not saying it is, but if you want to follow that path and preach to your congregation, you need to give a tenth of your income.

We've kind of missed the boat, if we're copying the Old Testament at least, because we wouldn't just be, I'm just saying if you're following that mindset. If you're telling your congregation to give a tenth of their income, you're not going far enough because they need to be giving a tenth of everything else in their life.

So there are some issues there with the contextualization there because we are talking about Eastern society versus Western society. We're talking about ancient Israel, which didn't operate as much with money as a cash society, like we think, as much as they did animals, livestock, services, things like that.

And so the idea of giving your animals, the idea of giving your produce, that has a different weight than giving money necessarily to the church. Especially when we have, like Deuteronomy 14 that talks about consuming it in the sanctuary, that is not necessarily giving the money to the temple as it is sharing a meal in the temple.

That kind of energy there.

I think that's huge. Go ahead.

So there are definitely some challenges with how we fit this principle into modern church practice. It gets a little more complicated than we like to imagine sometimes.

I was going to say, I think Tyler touched on this a little bit, just talking about Deuteronomy in general. We have to understand that what the book is, it is God setting aside or giving these commands to his people as a way to separate them, to distinguish them from all other peoples.

So here in Deuteronomy 14, 22, excuse me, through 29, how is there giving to separate them from the other people? So we have to look at what is the purpose of this giving? I would be of the opinion that here in Deuteronomy we see two different tithes.

And then we can go back to Numbers, Leviticus to see an additional tithe. I would argue that there's three. I would say in Numbers 14, 22 through 27, I've heard it referred to as the festival tithe. You see the people taking their grains, their flock.

And again, this was all being taken to the central location, the tabernacle. People were traveling to this place, so if they couldn't transport this stuff well, they could sell it, take the money once they got there, buy whatever.

And they were consuming this, they were having a meal together. And again, it says it was done year by year, so this was a yearly festival, a yearly tithe. You go to verse 28, it talks about the end of every three years.

And this tithe, it speaks more to taking care of those who were less fortunate, the poor, also the Levite. And here it says, let me see, it says these were to be done within your towns. This was spread out over the towns of Israel.

It wasn't a central location where everyone came together. So I believe there's a distinction in the timing and the purpose of these tithes, so that you can say those are two distinct tithes. And then again, going back to Numbers 18, I think you can argue for a third tithe, the Levitical tithe, to take care of the priests and say we're not given an inheritance.

I think there's two things that you guys just brought out. I think that's huge because as you guys continue this conversation with me about tithing, not only are we going to get into that other thing that I mentioned that I've never really heard anybody talk about.

You know, these things that you guys mentioned, Tyler, when you talked about when we're looking at tithing and trying to translate it from Old Covenant, New Covenant, from their time to our time, application or what have you.

Eastern mindset and culture versus Western mindset and culture. That's huge. And then Matt, what you just brought out. I know we ultimately want to see how it glorifies God and how it points to Christ, but the other aspect of the Jewish nation here was to be set apart, was to be different.

And looking at the time in that way, how does their obligation to give or command to give, how does that separate them and make them look different from the other nations? To me, that's huge and worth further study.

I would just throw in there, too. One other very practical. One other very practical side of it is we talked about this before we started tonight. That does cross over both Old Testament and New Testament is the tithe is designed to take care of, quote unquote, the house of God, the ministries of God, the servants of God.

And so even in Judeo Christian culture, that that parallel still still holds fast. And so so regardless, if you debate over the percentages and all those kind of situations, the principles are still the same.

And I think that's I think that's probably where we end up arriving tonight. It's sort of where we is arriving is in our pre discussion is is for for modern day Christianity, the principles of giving and the purposes of giving and the joy of giving and the outcome of giving those kind of things have not changed.

You know, that's that that stays consistent in God's plan and God's economy. It stays very clear that that's God's plan to sustain his his ministries in the earth. And so so there's a purpose in that.

Just want to throw that out there, too, while we're talking about principles.

And you're you're so good at transitioning us into the next question, because some of the things that you're saying are are helping us bleed over into the next the next section and taking it, taking us there.

I love how you do that. But before we leave this last question, I was thinking about what just left me. You're talking about giving to the ministries. And I think I think the most common, you know, teaching and preaching that maybe we've heard in the past is that the the the giving of the time was was for the taking care of the.

The Levites, because they didn't have an inheritance and the priest, because they they worked there, that was their ministry and they didn't have any other means of income. But as Matt was reading there, there was so much more to the time and what it was for than just for the Levitical priesthood, the Levitical family.

It was for for the poor, for the widow, for the orphan and for the stranger or sojourner in the land. So so God was using that that time for those ministries to take care of his people. And one other thing that I thought was so fascinating in Deuteronomy 14, because we have we have such a mindset that the time goes into the offering.

It's you know, everything is just settled and routine. It goes into the offering plate. It goes to this fund. It goes to that fund or whatever. But Deuteronomy 14, 24 through 26, if the distance is so great for you that you are not able to bring the tithe, which would be some of those things that Tyler was talking about, you know, your your produce, your animals, you carry it that far.

Since the place where the Lord your God chooses to set his name is too far away from me, from you and the Lord your God blesses you, then you shall exchange it for money. So you can take money and and buy the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses.

Now, what do we think is going to happen? You take that money instead of your produce or your flock and you take it to Jerusalem. You take it to the temple and they must have a box there outside in the vestibule and they're going to drop their coins there in the box or they're going to pass around an offering plate.

There goes their coins. But but God says here you may spend the money for whatever your heart desires. Wow. This is the tithe that they're supposed to be bringing into this, you know, the storehouse to the temple.

And God is telling them you may spend it on what your heart desires for oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink or whatever your heart desires. And there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice you in your house.

So so to me, reading this, the tithe is the offering to God. The giving him of the tithe is almost him enjoying you, enjoying him.

I think it was it says eat before your God, before your Lord and God and rejoice. I think this was an enjoyable time, a time of worship where the people came together. And again, this is most likely a pretty extravagant feast and just a time of worshiping God and communing with God.

Feasting before him is the time to celebrate what he had done for them and the bounty that they had because of him.

And it makes you wonder how they got so far away to where you have to have a verse in the New Testament that says, do not give begrudgingly. What God here in Deuteronomy is saying, use that money as your heart desires and, you know, feast, you know, in front of me, rejoice with your household.

He's given them such freedom here to enjoy a meal and drink in front of him and just enjoy him and his blessings.

That's a common theme in Ecclesiastes to go to chapter five. Here's what I've seen to be good. It is appropriate to eat, drink and experience good and all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life that God has given him because that is his reward.

Furthermore, everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God. That's all the way with Solomon. That's not Moses.

That's not this period here. That was very much ingrained in their culture, this idea of giving cheerfully and delighting in what God has bestowed upon them. Absolutely.

Any last thoughts on the requirement and the tithe in the Old Testament?

I was going to make a kind of like maybe a branch between this question and the next. I think a lot of you all said in more words or not is what I've heard anyway, is why? Why do they give? Right. Every one of you all said something about giving cheerfully or it's the intention behind it.

Obedience. Sure. Sanctification. Sure. Brother Matt, that's what you were talking about, right? About being separate from the rest of the world, being different from the rest of the world. The rest of the world is a dog-eat-dog world.

The weak serve the strong. The weak do whatever the strong say. But with God's people, it's not that way. God's people, you take care of the weak among you. You make sure that those that are downtrodden and cast out have edges of fields to pick from or have something when otherwise they wouldn't.

Some of the things we were talking about before the program began is it gets to the intent of why they give. I think that that's where tithing and pointing to Christ, Christ ultimately in everything he preaches, the first thing he does is get to the heart of the matter, the intent of it.

When he preached on the law in the New Testament, he said things like, you've heard it said, but this is what it means. You've heard that people done this, but the intent was this. You hear straight from the heart of God when Jesus is talking about the intents that set up the law.

Then we would read later on that the reason for the law to begin with was because of the hard-hearted nature of man, which I think, Brother Rob, is why you get from people cheerfully giving in the beginning to later it's begrudging, just a natural fallen nature of man cascading on itself to where now it's I'll give so that I can receive.

Or I'll let somebody borrow something leading right up to the year of Jubilee because I know that they'll have to give it back to me, stuff like that. I think that's just the nature of man is that because he's hard-hearted, he'll push things or he'll be greedy, stingy.

I think before we jump out of the Old Testament, we were quoting this one earlier. I think the most famous verse when it comes to tithe is Malachi in Malachi chapter three there. Bring all your tithes into the storehouse.

I think that's the most famous passage preached in the New Testament era from an Old Testament perspective. I do think there's a principle there, though, that is important in that is it's obvious there is a generation of people there that abandoned that act of worship of tithing, getting the benefit of all that you read there, Rob, and the perspective of gathering and worshiping and the enjoyment of it.

There was a group of people that were robbing God of that worship. And it is one of the only places in the Bible that God does say test me in this, that he challenges the Israelite people, test me in this and see if I won't honor your worship, if I won't honor your tithe and open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing.

I, the Lord, am promising this if you will be faithful. And so there's principles that do carry over, you know, but those that don't do that, those that don't worship this way, there is a curse attached to them.

And I know we were talking about the legalism of that, of how that's used as a whipping stick in modern-day New Testament churches. But I think the principle is still the same, that having that heart of worship, to worship God, to give, and then the response of God to that in blessing and lavishing love.

And there's this joyous affection between his people and him. But when his people abandon that worship, there's consequences to that. And so that's not only in giving, that's in worship in general, but he specifically uses the truth of tithes and offerings there to say, you've robbed me of this, and as a result, there is a curse upon you.

You're cursed with a curse. But test me in this and see if you'll be faithful in this, if I won't open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing. And so I don't think God's principles have changed.

I think those acts of worship and the joys of that, I do think in Malachi 3, he is referencing the law of tithe to Israel and all the laws that are applied to that. But principally speaking, there should be this joyous, cheerful heart to fellowship with God and give into the work of God and then watch how God takes the fishes and the loaves or whatever that is and multiplies it.

We see that principle of giving and multiplication all throughout the New Testament. But anybody else have any commentary on Malachi 3 that you want to share? Because again, I just feel like that's probably the most famous passage in the New Testament era that's preached on tithing of the Old Testament.

I think as the questions get on, I was going to reference that later.

But we'll see how it goes.

I'm going to keep it on time before I bring that kind of thing.

I really don't think that there's any way that we can take that as a description for a prescription for us in the New Testament to take it, extract it exactly the way it is for them and make it for us.

I think you're right. We look for the principle, but just like everything in the Old Covenant that was for Israel, that was for Israel, and that was God dealing with Israel. We know that they had certain purposes.

We know that God dealt with them in a quid pro quo fashion. He dealt with them so that the Messiah, they would be preserved so that the Messiah could come through him. All these different reasons, as we talked about earlier, they would be separate and different from the other nations so that they would be pointing to God in that.

All these different purposes and reasonings God had for Israel, Malachi 3 is just a part of that relationship with God that they had specifically. I think that this also bleeds into our next conversation, how it then translates to us.

But I don't think we can take it as a literal transfer from there to here because it was specifically for Israel. If nobody else has anything on the Old Testament, I think that was a good conversation, and we've been pushing ourselves to this next question.

And this is the question that I've been most excited about because I've never really heard anyone tackle this conversation. We know that Jesus said when he was on the road to Emmaus, he went through the Old Testament, Law and Prophets, and he said, it speaks of me.

And he went through there with them to show how it points to him. We know that the Old Testament, the prophets, the law, the temple was foreshadowing where shadows were types of shadows. It was pointing to Jesus, and Jesus said, I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill.

He came to fulfill the prophecy, the messianic prophecy. Everything in the Old Testament was about Jesus. And it surprises me that I've never heard anybody have this conversation, discussion, sermon on how tithing of the Old Testament points to Jesus.

So I'm looking forward to this conversation with you guys tonight. So how did tithing point to the coming Messiah or to Jesus? How did it shadow it, foreshadow it? What have you guys come up with?

Go ahead, Tyler. I've seen you flipping all kinds of pages.

Tithing as a Type of Christ

Okay, so obviously I'm not the expert. I don't have a degree in any of this stuff.

Oh, come on now.

Christ gave himself. Christ gave himself as a lamb for sacrifice. And he goes to Jerusalem. And he is handed over for the price of a few pieces of silver. I can't help but see that relating to what we see in Deuteronomy 14 with exchanging things for silver.

And he was, essentially he was exchanged for silver, and he was handed over to be sacrificed as the lamb. And he dies for sin. And what does, when he comes back, what does the church do according to 14?

What do we do after we give? We feast. And he did say, this do in remembrance of me. Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes. I can't, honestly, I can't get that imagery out of my head of the idea of Christ giving himself in exchange for silver, and then those who receive the benefits of him being given feast.

I was going to say something along those same lines. I'll say, I took this from my pastor. He just finished preaching through Deuteronomy at the end of last year, so he actually touched on this text early last year.

But speaking on the first tithe, as he called it, the festival tithe, and it being a feast, it was, again, as I mentioned before, most likely a pretty extravagant event. Again, people were worshiping God, being reminded of how good he had been to them, that he was a God of plenty.

And as we look to Christ, we see that he is the ultimate fulfillment of plenty, of eternal wealth. And again, in this tithe, these people were feasting as they worship. And as we are in Christ even now, we can feast on his goodness.

We're still living in a world with sin, and we as individuals still battle with sin. But ultimately, one day we will, in the presence of Christ, eternally be feasting in a sense. So I think that, to me, that festival feast tithe points to Christ in that way, as Tyler says, feasting and worshiping Christ himself.

I don't know this guy personally. His name's Paul Ellis. I don't know his ministry, but I would. So if he's a heretic, I have no idea, okay? So I just wanted you to know it did not originate with me, but he sparked some stuff in my mind in dealing with this question that I thought was very interesting and referencing some of the passages that we've been reading and principles that go.

So just let me throw out some stuff metaphorically without trying to be hyper-stretching how there's types and shadows in the Old Testament of Christ, and the New Testament is the reality of Christ. So hypothetically, theoretically, what if Christ, the tithe itself, is a type and shadow of Christ himself?

So for example, we know in the Old Covenant you were cursed if you didn't tithe. In the New Testament, if you don't have Christ, you are cursed. And so there's a direct parallel there. In the Old Testament, nobody dared approach God without your tithe.

Like you didn't come without an offering. You didn't dare approach the temple without an offering, and we don't dare approach the throne room of God apart from Christ. Under that Old Testament, no tithe meant no meat in the storehouse, no provision, and no inheritance.

And in the New Testament, apart from Christ, there is no inheritance, and there's no fullness, and there's no provision apart from Christ. In that Old Testament, God required a tenth, and of course we can get into all the percentages and everything else, but we'll just stick with a tenth for now just to make it simple, and it's an accumulation of lots of stuff.

But then Jesus represents so much more the much higher demand of God, so that's why I think there is the tenth of this and the tenth of that and the tenth of this and the tenth of that, and it really boils down to you're giving a partial port of all that you have to God, whereas then the representation to Christ is all was given in Christ.

So what the law could only partially fulfill and what a tenth could only partially fulfill is represented in that Old Testament covenant was completely fulfilled in Christ. So that's another message in itself.

And then, of course, with the tithe, if you tithe, there's blessing. We were talking about Malachi 3 earlier. If you do this, test me in this, God said. If you give, then you'll be blessed. So the tithe brings blessing, and, of course, in Christ there is blessing.

And then under the Old Covenant, under the old tithe, the tithe was for a specific people, but then Christ gives for all people. So the tithe was really for the Jewish nation, which is a select people, and then all people in Christ makes to all the nations.

And so, anyways, those are stretching a little bit, I think. You know, those things are things that I would dial on. But at the same time, as I was researching that, I love to find the thin red line that runs through out of all Scriptures that's pointing to Christ.

And I could find myself preaching a few of those things when it comes to, hey, here's where the tithe brings this, and it's very clear that's pointing right to Christ because Christ would bring the same thing, you know.

So for what it's worth.

I think that was really good. And you made me think about how—. To to say of off the Of but it took to the work of the ministry, God

That's good.

Just amazing stuff.

Yeah.

And one of the things that—go ahead, I'm sorry.

No, no, no. I was going to move on, but go ahead.

Well, I was thinking about something that—. I thought you were going to say it, Pastor Jonathan, a second ago, when you talked about the curse whenever you don't— when you live by the law, if you didn't give a tithe, you were cursed with a curse, right?

In Galatians 3 and 13, it says what? Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. In order that Christ Jesus be blessed, Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

So, it's a far more weighty matter than we often talk about, or maybe it's not a weightier matter than we talk about, but I think it's a weightier matter than we understand or that we can convey into words.

The exchange on that cross and how— if you get hung up in the weeds about stuff, I— we'll mess around and get into the— some of the other questions if I ain't careful. I think that if I were going to use a New Testament verse to supplement what Pastor John was talking about, where he says how Christ is foreshadowed in there, then I would use Galatians 3 and 13.

I'll just leave it at that for the time being.

I don't think that there's any evidence, and I'm just going to throw this out there to get a laugh out of you guys, because it actually kind of contradicts my eschatology to even say this, but we know that Christ is going to redeem his bride.

He's going to make his bride pure, and he's going to hand his bride over to the Father. I'm just wondering if that number of people is going to be a tenth of all man that has ever lived. If you are—if you believe in election.

I mean, there's no evidence.

I don't know.

I don't know why that thought crossed my mind. There's no evidence or anything hinted towards that in Scripture. It was just something I thought about, and it kind of opposes my eschatology of post-millennialism because, you know, the narrow gate passage where only few there be that find it.

Our idea is that that's, you know, specifically talking about that time period in Jerusalem. Only a few people found escape from Jerusalem. It's not speaking of the whole entire human race. We believe that when John looked out, he couldn't number the people, and that's what heaven's going to be like.

It's going to be so numerous, and that's what God is drawing to himself, a numerous world and numerous people. Let me move on instead of continuing to go down that rabbit trail. So we talked about— we talked about how tithing points to the Messiah opposed to Jesus.

Now we want to move on to, I guess, more of Jesus, more of application. How did Jesus fulfill the picture of tithing? And we talked about that. How do we give now being in Christ? Now that we're in Christ, how do we give in light of that?

And I really think that that flows from the things that we've been talking about, things that we've been learning. How Jesus fulfilled the tithe, how it pointed to Christ, and now that we're in Christ, what does that look like?

What does giving look like now for us?

Giving as a Living Sacrifice in Christ

Well, right off the bat, I think of Romans 12. Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true worship.

Don't be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. And then a couple verses down, he goes,. Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.