Tithing Had Become a Powerless and Profi tless Doctrine

Tithing Had Become a Powerless and Profi tless Doctrine

One: Tithing, along with all of the other Levitical ordinances, had failed to produce
the spiritual perfection and maturity within believers which God required
(7:11, 19; 9:9, 11; 10:1).
Two: Since the Levitical ordinances (including tithing) had proven weak and
unprofi table, there was an inherent need of a New Covenant (7:19, 22; 8:7-13;
10:1-9).
Three: Old Covenant tithing was not motivated by grace, love, or the burden for
lost souls. Under the Mosaic Law, it did not matter whether one paid tithes out
of sincere desire, paid grudgingly, or paid without being cheerful. One must pay,
regardless of attitude or the condition of the heart.
Four: “You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods” (Exod.
23:32; also Deuteronomy 7:2). Tithing was never used for evangelism. As a
matter of biblical truth, national Israel was commanded NOT to share its covenant
with any other nation; the covenant was their distinction which set them apart
(Num. 18:19-21; Lev. 27:34; Mal. 3:6-9). Even today Jews do not deliberately
evangelize or attempt to convert others.
Five: Tithes limited the priesthood. Only one part of one family in one tribe
could “draw near” into the presence of God—Aaron’s house. Levites and priests
were not encouraged to establish independent outposts for evangelism of other
nations. Today, too many churches totally ignore the clear implication of verse

In practice, they replace the tithe-receiving aspect of the Levitical priesthood,
not with the priesthood of believers, but with tithe-receiving pastor-teachers. Too
many ignore New Covenant giving principles of grace and insist that pastors be
paid a tithe according to the commandment of the Mosaic Law. The pastors then
keep more than ten percent of the total tithe, and also own and inherit property—
all contrary to the law itself. In doing so, both churches and pastors “set
aside” better giving principles of grace, based on God’s “indestructible power,”
and return to the “weak” and “unprofi table” principles of tithing.
Six: Tithing too often receives a greater priority than evangelism. I have personally
known pastors who preach on tithing at least monthly, yet the members do not
have a burden for souls, are not trained in soul-winning, and the churches are
weak, dying, or dead. Preaching tithing is not the Scriptural ingredient that guarantees
successful church growth!
Seven: The New Testament clearly shows that tithing, along with circumcision,
Sabbath-keeping and adherence to food laws became useless marks of boastful
self-righteousness among the legalistic Pharisees and scribes.
Eight: It is not by accident that the only three uses of the words “tithe” and
“tithes” recorded in the Gospels record the hypocrisy and failure of legalistic Jews
who boasted of their tithing achievements. Jesus actually cursed tithe-payers for
their hypocrisy.
Nine: Even in the church, tithing does more harm than good. First, church
leaders tend to be wealthier tithe-payers, while better spiritual leaders who cannot
give as much because of family sickness and other legitimate losses are left out of
leadership roles. The Bible does not teach that the fi nancially competent are
also the best spiritual leaders. Neither does the Bible teach that an inability to
give disqualifi es one from a church offi ce. There is no justifi cation in adding to
the Bible a requirement that church offi cers are required to give ten percent of
their income. Excluding the fi nancially less-fortunate deprives the church of their
God-given gifts and competent leadership abilities. The resulting unbalanced
leadership is spiritually weak.
Ten: Also, tithing is more harmful than good in the church when its abuse of
tithing negatively affects the public reputation of the church. Frankly, the legalistic
strict preaching of tithing has given many churches a bad reputation and a weak
witness.
Eleven: The most important reason that tithing does more harm than good relates
to the gospel. Teaching tithing to meet fi nancial needs actually robs the church
of God’s blessing available if it had used the Spirit-approved New Covenant principles.
Those pastors and churches that teach tithing will never experience the
greater success they will enjoy from God’s hand when they replace tithing sermons
with sermons about soul-winning. The success of the New Covenant church
proves that the fi rst century poor, women, children and slaves were motivated by
the desire to see souls won to the Lord. Their giving was motivated by love, not
Law.
Twelve: Great evangelistic movements, great revivals and great growing churches
(whether tithe-teachers or not) occur only when church members are burdened
for the lost. The power is in gospel principles, not in principles of the law. Sincere
believers, burdened for lost souls, will give out of a love response for the lost without
recourse to any legal prodding. Churches that are not growing are churches
without a burden for the lost.
Thirteen: Since tithing is included within the scope of Hebrews 7:18, one must
conclude that teaching tithing is equivalent to teaching a spiritually “weak” and
“useless,” or “unprofi table” doctrine.