The subject of stewardship and Christian liberality is probably never welcomed. Ministers who bring the subject of the collection into the sermon are regarded as somehow carnalising the holy things of God, and reducing Christian theology to the most mundane of levels.
It can be difficult for ministers to deal fully with the biblical principles underlying the giving of money to God's cause. It is on them, after all, that the greater part of the church's money is spent. A relatively small percentage of the congregation, too, will be very generous in their givings, and it seems harsh to make them endure a tirade against the rest. The less generous go home complaining that the church is always asking for more money, and devising brilliant schemes on how the church should use what it has. Those who give the least are usually the best at suggesting what should be done with other people's contributions. Yet, whatever the difficulties, the subject of giving to the Lord is central to the Biblical teaching on Christian responsibility, and to neglect this subject is to do a great disservice to the God who demands our all.
A study of the Old Testament will show that giving to the Lord was integral to the life of faith during that period. This can be explored in several directions.
First, there was the priority of the Lord's portion. Having taken His people out of Egypt, God said to them "Sanctify to me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast: it is mine" (Exodus 13:1). This stipulation is repeated at Exodus 22:29 and 34:20; and the Levitical code, in a chapter on devotion to Jehovah, guards jealously the position that no firstborn animal could be used for any purpose other than as an offering to the Lord: "it is the LORD's" (Leviticus 27:26). Even unclean animals were to be redeemed so that they could be devoted, and once devoted, no further redemption was possible (Leviticus 27:27-28).
Devotion to the Lord, in terms of the Old Testament ritual, could be either for blessing or cursing. The word suggests "the exclusion of an object from the use or abuse of man and its irrevocable surrender to God". That surrender meant either that the object devoted was solemnly sanctified to the Lord, or else set apart for destruction. What was His could not be recalled or re-bought. The Levitical legislation underscored the necessity of redemption in order to devote an object to Jehovah, and the impossibility of buying back an object so devoted. Once the Lord's, it could never be man's again.
All of which reminds us that the order in the Old Testament code gave the place of priority and primacy to God, and not to man. What His people were to give to Him was not what was left over after they had made provision for themselves, but the firstborn, and the firstfruits. In particular, those who served the Lord in the name of the people - the priests - were to benefit from this portion. The priest's due from the people was the shoulder, the head and the stomach of the sheep, along with the first fleece, and the firstfruit of grain, wine and oil (Deuteronomy 18:3-4). Giving to the priest was the practical expression of prioritising the Lord's portion. Those who stood and ministered in the Lord's name received the firstfruits as a token of the dedication of the people to Jehovah.
Second, there is a clear emphasis in the Old Testament on proportional giving. The tithe, or tenth part, is first mentioned at Leviticus 27:30. The tenth of the harvest was regarded as belonging to God: "All the tithe of the land...is the LORD's; it is holy to the LORD." The same was true of the herd (verse 32). It seems reasonable to assume, as a general principle, that the tenth was a part symbolising the whole. The giving of the tenth was symbolic of the offering to God of the whole. Thus, as A.A. Bonar puts it, Leviticus, "this pictorial Gospel of the Old Testament" is teaching that "We must sit loose from earth...This giving up of our possessions at God's call teaches us to live a pilgrim life" (Leviticus, p.494).
The stipulation in Deuteronomy 14:23 required the people to eat the tithe in the presence of the LORD, where He had placed His name, so that they might fear Him always. On the surface of it, this seems to be at variance with the directive in Numbers 18:21, where all the tithes were to be given to the Levites, who in turn (verse 26) were to give a tithe of that tenth to the Lord. This was then the priests' reward for tabernacle service (verse 31). This kind of difficulty is more apparent than real; the rabbinic, as well as the Christian, exegesis of these passages, regarded the tithe of Deuteronomy as a second tithe. When the first tenth of all the income was given to the priest, a tenth of what remained was then eaten as part of the offering meal in the sanctuary. Others have suggested that the Levites received the tithe by sharing in the festive meal. A further tithe was required of the total produce every three years, to benefit the widows, the orphans and the strangers.
The tithe, therefore, was an obligatory, proportional offering. A tithe was given to the priest, for the services of the sacerdotal ministry; a tithe was given for the worship meal; a tithe was given for benevolent purposes. The actual amount would vary, from giver to giver. The significance of the tithe was not that everyone gave the same amount, but that each gave to the Lord out of the measure granted to him in God's providence.
The significance of the tithe is explored by the writer to the Hebrews in his argument regarding the superiority of Melchizedek, from whom the priesthood of our Lord is derived. The Levitical priesthood, reckoned among the sons of Abraham, received the tithe from the people, but, by virtue of Abraham's action paid a tithe to Melchizedek, whose priesthood is eternal. Abraham's tithe, therefore, takes on a christological significance, pointing, in line with the directions of the Old Testament, towards the coming Messiah with His unchangeable priesthood. This in turn forces us to look again at our offerings to our great High Priest in the light of His great accomplishments and achievements. Can we give less to Him than Abraham did to Melchizedek?
The Lord took issue with the Pharisees for their misuse and abuse of God's law. They tithed their spices, mint, dill and cummin, but neglected the most important matters of the law. "God," says Alexander Stewart, "does not mean to ensnare the conscience with trifles". It is the temptation of the religious man to believe that the more idiosyncratic his practice, the greater His favour with God.
The New Testament has little else to say about tithing. Alexander Stewart's explanation of this is that under the Old Covenant the church was instructed in her use of money and property as a parent would instruct a child. The time has now come, says Stewart, for the church to put away childish things. An adult does not need to be taught in the use of money; it is his time for self-discipline in financial matters. Now that the church has left the childhood days of the Old Testament for the adult days of the New, the tithe requirement cannot be held to be binding. The principle of proportional giving, however, must. So Pieter Verhoef argues in his article "Tithing - a Hermeneutical Consideration": "In connection with tithing it must be clear that it belonged...to the dispensation of shadows, and...has lost its significance as a schema of giving under the new covenant. In this respect we have continuity and discontinuity. The continuity consists in the principle of giving, and the discontinuity in the obligation of giving in accordance to the schema of tithes" (The Law and the Prophets, p.127).
Third, there is the votive offering. In addition to the firstlings and the tithes, which were already claimed by God, the worshipper could give to God by making a vow. The story of Jephthah's vow in Judges 11 serves as a warning against rash and over-hasty vow-making. For, while it was no sin not to make a vow, it was demonstrably a sin not to pay to God what was pledged in the vow, to vow first and ask questions later (cf. Proverbs 20:25). The votive offering, according to Leviticus 22:21 had to be "without defect or blemish" if it was to be acceptable. A deformed sheep could be offered as a free-will offering, but not in payment of a vow (Leviticus 22:23). No indeed! For the Lord deserves better if we are to make a pledge to Him.
The paying of a vow represented a deep assurance and trust in God. It was not offered in order to receive a blessing in return, as if in itself it was enough to procure God's favour; it was rather offered out of a sense of thankfulness for blessings already received: "a real element in the vow is the spontaneous conviction that God's gifts require from men not merely words, but deeds of gratitude" (W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament I, p.145).
The essential elements of Old Testament worship with regard to giving to the Lord, then, were these: the priority of the portion to be given to God; the giving of God's portion specifically for the maintenance of divine service and worship; the giving of an amount proportionate to one's total income, and the free, grateful rendering to God in response to His innumerable blessings and favours.
The exacting requirements of Old Testament religion are translated into spiritual principles of Christian living and giving for those who belong to the kingdom of God. We are to seek the kingdom of God first, and then all things will be added to us. "Sell what you have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which become not old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, nor moth corrupts" (Luke 12:33). The corollary of this is in the Lord's words concerning the rich: "how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:23). There is a special kind of discipline required when it comes to parting with our money. Office-bearers of the church are to be free from the snare of money-grabbing; 1 Timothy 3:3 and 8 requires of both elders and deacons that they be "not greedy of filthy lucre".
It is remarkable to see the generosity with which the early disciples, filled with the Spirit of God, gladly parted with their property and goods to help the work of the apostles. They had 'all things common', and none had need. There were no appeals, no borrowing from the coffers of a pagan world, no deficit. Open hearts and open purses were the firstfruits of Pentecost: fields and houses were sold, and the money laid at the apostles' feet. The supply of gospel provision, and the support of vibrant evangelism, were uppermost in the thinking of the fledgling New Testament church. All else was of little consequence.
Paul deals with this thoroughly in 1 Corinthians 9, with reference to Deuteronomy 25:4. It is difficult, at first reading, to work out what not muzzling an ox has to do with making provision for Gospel ministers. The point seems to be, however, that the animal, dragging the threshing instrument after it, was to be left free to eat the produce as required. So God has made provision for those who serve at the altar to live and feed off the holy things of the altar; the Lord has ordained that "they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:14). John White's assessment, however, was that "While a few pastors luxuriate in high salaries, others battle with resentment over poor wages...Yet why, the pastor feels, should he take the major spiritual burden while receiving inadequate pay so others can be set free to make their piles?" (The Golden Cow , p.75). Why indeed? The labourer is worthy of his hire; and those who labour in word and doctrine are to be provided for. To resent giving the minister his due portion is to keep back from God, in whose name the true Gospel minister serves at the Gospel altar.
It is clear from all of this, that there are certain principles which must govern our offerings to the Lord's cause. First, we must give to Him before all others. God must not get what we have left over; we, rather, are to live on what we have left over after giving to Him.
Second, God has given us a primary responsibility and method for giving to Him, in the provision of Gospel ministry. Contribution to the Lord's cause decreases in the same proportion as the Gospel itself becomes devalued in our lives.
Third, we must give with thought. To look for spare change on a Sabbath morning to put in our church envelope is hardly to give as the Lord has prospered us. Christian liberality demands of us that we take time to reckon and weigh out what we give to Him and to His cause in the world. And on this schema, the widow's mite may be worth more than every other offering.
Fourth, we are to give our hearts with our gold. God loves a cheerful giver, whose heart willingly parts with what his hands hold. There is not much difference between being miserly and knowing misery. And no-one who ever gave willingly, freely and lovingly to God's cause ever complained of having too little left over.
Above all, we must give as God gave, not sparing the very best, in order to benefit the very worst. Without hesitation.
Rev Iain D Campbell is the minister of Back Free Church.
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