Quote:
Originally Posted by Bowas
If we are to tithe on our "increase", what is considered "increase" in the manner of a farmer or a business would understand it, in that the Bible uses the references of tithing to these occupations primarily.
Is increase to be understood to be wages, which is not legally an increase but rather a fair exchange. Money is exchanged for labor, time and or knowledge.
Increase to a farmer/business would be after the initial costs were covered, any profit would be considered increase and therefore constituted increase or first fruits.
When I owned a business the government did not tax the portion that I claimed as expenses to running the business but all that was above my investments or costs was in fact taxed.
Having said that, common labor is neither an increase or a profit but any investment made with the funds that produced an increase above the original costs would be titheable.
In short, Time, labor and knowledge in exchange for money is not an increase but a fair exchange.
What do you think?
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I agree with all of your post except the bolded portion. Biblically speaking it was increase, not because there was profit above the initial costs, but because the increase came from God. In other words one can plant a seed but God grows it into a plant and makes fruit from it. You can have 10 cows but later on you will have 12 or 20 or 50 because of a process that God put into place.
And first fruits was just that. If you had a cow. Her first calf went to God via the Levites. There would never be anymore first fruits given for that cow. The rest of her calves only went to the Levites if they fell on the 10th new calf for the herd.
On the second bolded portion. I'm not going to disagree with you on that one. But I don't see it, personally, as the increase spelled out in the tithe. The tithe was agricultural and it was agricultural for a reason. The increase of agriculture comes from God. The increase from investing money does not. As a matter of fact if we studied hard & long enough making money from money is probably a form of usury.
Just to interject further thought...
I would have to assume that a fisherman like Peter did not tithe on his catch because he didn't just own them and they increased per natural procreation. He went out and worked to catch fish and then sold them so his income from that venture was from work and would be considered a fair exchange for his work.
Now... if one owned a fish farm... then they would need to consider paying a tithe on that because they put fish in a pond and there was an increase from just letting them sit there and bring about God's increase.
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