Every Sunday and Wednesday, the Pastor, Associate Pastor, or the Pastor’s son would stand up to say a little something about the tithe and pray over it. The elected person for that particular service would usually speak for about 10 minutes or more and it would sound something like this: “At this church you never hear a sermon about the tithe like one of those other churches down the street . Here we give because we love God. Turn in your Bibles to Malachi 3:8
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—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 there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.
“Folks, it is wrong to rob God. God also says in this portion of scripture to test Him in this. Pay your tithes; make your tithe the first check you write every month. Give God your first fruits of your labor, that first 10%. I do. Do this and see if God won’t open up the floodgates of heaven and bring you a new job if you need one. Test Him and see if He won’t give increase and favor in your workplace, and bring you increase in your home life and divine ideas that you can put your hand to, to help you be blessed to be a blessing. Test God and see. Now, you don’t have to do this but I made a promise before God that I would never come before Him without an offering to give. This is between you and God, but I will give an offering, above and beyond my tithe, to God today because why?”…and the congregation would automatically respond… “Because we Love Him”
The tithing message would continue, sometimes with a testimony thrown in. Malachi 3:8 was the most commonly used verse to reinforce the tithe. Despite their claim that the tithe was never preached in that church it was preached every service with a good helping of condemnation thrown in. If you didn’t catch the manipulation, it’s there under the surface with the implanted idea that if you don’t tithe and give offerings that you are robbing God, you don’t love Him, and you will be cursed. Some other subtleties within the message are: Tithe to be blessed, tithe first-pay bills later, and give an offering if you really love God and as a way to get into his presence.
What about poor people? What about when Jesus showed that the woman that gave the one cent gave more because it was all that she had? Why should the rich be the only ones to get blessed or get into heaven? That is not the God that I know. According to them, the unemployed (a lot of them right now) the poor, the suffering, the incarcerated, the sick would not have a place with God.
ReplyDeleteIf Christians would only read their own bibles from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation without leaving out one word, they would understand the differences in New Covenant vs Old Covenant, Law vs Grace, what was fulfilled After Jesus died. Who God was speaking to in Malachi 3. They would know what changed after Jesus fulfilled the law. They would understand that God gave them his favor when Jesus saved them.
ReplyDeleteChristians were never under the Old Covenant. Christians never had to keep the Leviticus laws which totaled 613 laws, not just tithing.(goggle 613 Old Covenant Commandments for the complete list).
My question to the Tithe enforcers is this:
Have you kept the Sabbath law every week? Sabbath rest starts on Friday night as soon as the sun goes down and last for 24hours. It requires rest from all activity.
Do Tithe enforcers eat pork?
Were your male babies circumcised on the 8day after birth by a Priest? This law and the Sabbath predates when the law was given to Moses just like you claim tithing did.
Do you observe all the Jewish Holidays, like Yom Kippur known as The Day of Atonement? It was Oct 8.2011. If you broke one of these laws according to James 2:10 you broke the entire Old Covenant contract.
Were you stoned to death for not bringing an animal sacrifice to the Priest on the Day of Atonement?
When you answer the above questions please use logic as to why Christians are not under these laws or tithe law either.
Galatians 3:11 "Clearly no one is justified by keeping the law ....
Galatians 3:13 "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law...
Galatians 3:14 He did this so the blessings of Abraham might come to the Gentiles (non-Jews) through Jesus Christ by FAITH in the promise of the Spirit. Notice Galatians 3:14 did not say the blessings come to the Gentiles by paying God tithes.
Romans 8:32 ..God with His Son freely gives us all things. 8:33 No one can condemn you.
Let the Holy Spirit do His work and lead you into how much to voluntarily give and to which Ministry to sit under. If you give to a false teacher teaching a false doctrine is sinning against God.
Read your bibles first then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.'
Jesus said Paid in Full, not Pay in Full!
I have rarely met a Christian who has so many blessing they have no room for anymore. Most Christians have never been taught how to study their bibles or how to apply the use of first mentioned. This means when in doubt over the meaning of a word in the bible Bible Scholars apply the first mentioned rule. This means you look up the word in a bible concordance to find when it was first mentioned.
ReplyDeleteExample: The word Open the windows of Heaven is used in Malachi 3 as in Opens the windows of Heaven and pour of a blessing (used to enforce tithe paying). The first use of Open the windows of Heaven referred to pouring out Rain. Rain was needed for crops to grow in abundance. If there was no rain they experienced lack and famine because their crops from the land God gave them would not grow.
Connect the dots.
Open up the windows of Heaven was to pour out rain to grow their crops to then have food to put in the Storehouses. There would be so much food in times of plenty that the Storehouses would not have enough room to contain all the food.
One can logically conclude that God was not talking about not having enough room for your money or material wealth. Billionaires never run out of banks to put their money in or homes for their material stuff.
Geez!Use logic people! Wake up! Jesus never told Christians after he died to pay tithes. You will never find one verse mandating tithe paying to Christians after Jesus said Paid in full. Jesus paid for you to go to God in his name for your daily grace period, free of charge. Grace means unmerited favor, unmerited means something you did not merit by your own work or efforts!
Don't be a robot and check your brains at the door when you walk into a Church bldg.
The Prosperity Gospel shames the poor and accuses people of sin or lacking faith if they go threw a season of hard times. This is a convenient way of not only not helping the poor but blaming and shaming them. How convenient for some of these Prosperity teachers to hog all the money for themselves and keep you sowing seed of money to them only! Shame on them and God help them when Jesus clears the Merchants out of his temple again!
ReplyDeleteProverbs 19:17 SAID IF YOU HELP AND ARE KIND TO THE POOR YOU GIVE TO GOD AND HE WILL REPAY YOU!