[SwordmanJr]

Originally Posted by HaShaliach

Should a local assembly take on the responsibility of supporting those who labor among them? Absolutely!

I agree with this. One thing I will add, however, is that I am a member of a local assembly, but it is not one that has a professional hireling whom we must support. Our assembly recognizes the priesthood of all believers.

Do those who "require" tithing actually believe in what they teach? Only a few! Most continue to grasp firmly to their secular jobs, not trusting in God to really meet their needs through the gospel they preach.

This too is a good point. I have yet to find an example of the local elders within any locale in the NT making their entire living off those to whom they minister. Compensated for their expenses, yes, but the vast majority of those who made their living from those to whom they ministered were itinerant, such as Paul of Tarsus.

Even so, if one is going to follow Paul's example, then they should leave the subject of tithing alone and support themselves, so as not to be a burden on the assembly.

This opens another avenue of consideration, of which most never give thought:

At what point does one reach the point of spiritual maturity? In other words, why does the average congregant member have no problem with having given up his birth-right to spiritual maturity? Why does he sit in the body of perpetual sheepdom week in and week out, living out that which portrays his being stuck in that rut? The positional layout of most congregations speaks loud volumes to the fact that, in that place, the minister functions on a plateu to which all the other men in that place will not be allowed to aspire. All the men are expected to sit silently, and speak only when spoken to....which is nothing short of spiritual castration. After all, we have to have order.....right?

Spiritual functionality of ALL the believers in the assembly is not a violation of order. The accusation that it is a violation of order mostly eminates from those who are supremecists in their outlook upon the body of believers. Pastor-centricity is strangely missing within the very book after which most church organizations claim to have patterened themselves.

Yet, my personal position on tithing is that ten percent of my income is good a starting point for personal giving – when I have it to give – to support the work of the kingdom of God.

A side note to this is the fact that there are also biblical priorites as to where the primary portion of one's giving should go. As I pointed out in another thread, more than 93% of all institutional church organizations consume more than 95% of what's given to them for their own expenditures. That clearly gives us a credible indication that handing the primary portion of one's giving over to his or her church organization is NOT synonymous with giving to God's work.

God's work is PEOPLE, not organizations.

Good stuff, bro.