Tithes and offering
So it seems we have gone around the circuit, with the tithe issue with no one being the winner. Ya I know it is not about anyone winning.
I have notice the differences in understanding of the OT command to tithe, based on what they have been taught. The thing is most of the teachings are not what is scriptural. neither is the power that many give to the priest. The priest had one primary obligation, that was the ministry to God within the tabernacle. This primarily was the offering of the daily sacrifices unto God, the sin sacrifices for the people, basically ministering to God, not to or for the people. The implication to teach was secondary, and only when the people has forsaken to obey God's commands. This ministry was given to the parents.
I might add that the tithe was never solely for the priest, and was not solely given to the priest. And was not monetary, but agricultural. And this was both for the lively hood of the priest and the needy.
Another thing that seems to be missed is that the priest hood is no longer in effect, because Christ has become our priest. The ministerial gifts are just that gifts, not positions of authority as found in most if not all the religious world today. We tend to misread Ephesians in our attempt to make the gifts of ministries in the church have an unbiblical authority. Let me emphasis this one more time. In the beginning the priest in the OT did not have the authority we have read into scriptures. And by that same token neither did the apostles in the New Testament have the authority as so many claim they had.
I was reading something someone else said, about how if the church did not obey an instruction that Paul had written to them, then said church would then be in disobedience to Paul. Where do we continue to get this idea of there being a separation between the saints and ministry? We see none of this type of separation in the ministry of Christ. Neither do we ever find Christ exercising authority over the people. Christ did not separate himself nor hold himself above the people and even taught against this. Too many use
Ephesians 4:11-12 and
Hebrews 13:17 as passages that supposedly give the ministry authority to rule over the saints. If this is so then why does Paul speak against this idea in
Ephesians 5:21-26. He states that we are to submit one to another, and that Christ is the head of the church over the husband, he does not even imply a pastor nor one of the other so called ministries between Christ and the family.
We have been taught that God always speaks through a man, while this may be true in some instances, but in those instances, never in those times does God give authority to that man/women, that if you don’t obey them you are in rebellion to the man/woman. As a matter of fact, Paul stated that we are to be persuaded by those that oversee the church, not blindly being obedient to them just because they hold a position that is not scriptural in the first place.
So how might you ask does this relate to paying tithes? Simple really, if there is no authoritive rule in the church, then there is first off no need to pay a person in authority. Secondly to go back under the teaching of paying a tenth, puts one back under the law, which it has been stated by the apostles that to keep one part of the law makes one subject to all the law.
Does this mean that there are not services, or servants within the body that should be paid? Of course there are. Even Paul said that if one serves as a minster that they should be able to live of the ministry. “Muzzle not the ox that treads the corn” Going back to the ministries spoken by Paul in Ephesians and overseers spoken of by Paul within the body, if their work takes up more time ministering to the body, that they cannot support themselves outside the body, they should be recompensed from the body. While the financial support of the body can be given as a tenth or simply in the form of offerings, there is no primary set obligation other than to give cheerfully and from the abundance of the heart.
Of course I realize that there are those that will disagree with part or all of this, but this is my stand from my personal study.