Become a Tithe-Loving Church, Pt.2

How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but you should not leave undone the more important things. (Mat 23:23 NLT)

I love the Scripture laid out above where Jesus gives the religious leaders of His day a little hiney whooping (I am not sure if I can say that, but I just did). Let me also add that Jesus is heated right now, and I don’t mean in a polite and modest kind of way – JESUS IS TICKED OFF. Here is why Jesus is angry (by the way it is ok to get angry over the things that God gets angry about – it’s called righteous anger – reference Jesus in the temple in Matt.21.13). So, yes I do get angry about the tithe (by the way, God also got angry over the tithe in Malachi 3:10 – but we’ll talk about that later:).

Let me rewind real quick: a tithe is simply a tenth or 10% (if you are into mathematical terms:) The Bible says that the tithe belongs to the Lord; God gives us all that we have and He only asks us to bring back a portion of it – this is to honor God as the Ultimate Provider and Sustainer in our lives.

A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD. (Lev 27:30 NIV)