Do we have to pay tithes?

[Tithesmeister]

Originally Posted by 1ofthechosen

Ok sounds good, chapter and verse please.... That say's what you are saying.

Let's make it easy. Quote one verse where the tithe was ever rendered in money.

Just one.

[Aquila]

I do know men who are torn because they sincerely feel in their spirit that there is a spiritual principle behind tithing that the church should experience. And for this reason, they do not wish to surrender on the doctrine of tithing.

I want to say that Grace Giving doesn't negate the principles of tithing, nor does it forbid tithing. In fact, Grace Giving liberates tithing.

A ministry that functions by Grace Giving can establish what could be called, "Covenant Partners", or "Partners in Ministry". Through such a program, the ministry can strongly challenge members to support the ministry through the experience of tithing (which in OT times established covenant). Those who wish to partner with the church and/or ministry can voluntarily vow (or pledge) to give 10% of their income (a tithe) for a year. They can renew that vow every year if they wish to.

In this fashion, the principle of tithing can be experienced in the NT context of grace, wherein one is free to give as they have purposed in their heart.

There leaves no need to threaten Hell to get people to tithe. In fact, think about it. If someone threatens another with harm in order to convince another to hand over their money... that's more akin to robbery or extortion. Grace Giving can prevent that dynamic while encouraging that those who are truly able to tithe to support the work of God, cheerfully, lovingly, and graciously...without disenfranchising those who are truly too poor to commit to such a covenant.

I believe that the practice of tithing can be a blessed thing if liberated from OT legalistic mandates. If handled in this manner, Grace Giving can actually save and sanctify the practice of tithing beyond the OT law.

[Aquila]

Most don't know the history of the tithing in the Western world. To them, it is like dues for being a member of the church. But there is actually a rather dark and oppressive history regarding the tithe. For an eye opening history of tithing, please review the information presented in the following link:

The Church from the Fourth Century until the Eighth Century

The church in the first centuries had a very different use for money than the typical church today. Williston Walker reports that, in the year A.D. 251, the church of Rome under Bishop Grainelius had a membership of approximately 30,000 members and supported over 1,500 dependents. This amounts to one dependent per 20 members![13]

Although Cyprian tried to enforce his idea that church workers should not pursue secular trades, Walker comments, “By the middle of the third century the higher clergy were expected to give their whole time to the work of the ministry, yet even bishops sometimes shared in secular business, not always of a commendable character. The lower clergy could still engage in trade”.[14]

It may, or may not, be noteworthy that Schaff does not mention church “buildings” until the lapse of persecution between 260-303. It is unclear to what extent church edifices existed prior to this time. As long as Christians were blamed for almost every disaster such as famines, earthquakes, floods, battle losses, and barbarian invasions, the pagan population very often punished the church as its scapegoat and would have quickly destroyed highly visible and accessible structures associated with the church.

The Encyclopedia Americana says, “It [tithing] was not practiced in the early Christian church, but gradually became common by the 6th .. century.”[15] The statement assumes Cyprian’s failure in North Africa and probably means that tithing was not practiced “by enforcement of Church or secular law” until the 6th century.

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912 edition only) says, “In the beginning .. [provision] was supplied by the spontaneous support of the faithful. In the course of time, however, as the Church expanded and various institutions arose, it became necessary to make laws which would insure the proper and permanent support of the clergy. The payment of tithes was adopted from the Old Law, and early writers speak of it as a divine ordinance and an obligation of the conscience. The earliest positive legislation on the subject seems to be contained in the letter of the bishops assembled at Tours in 567 and the Canons of the Council of Macon in 585.”[16]

While it may appear that both the Encyclopedia Americana and the Catholic Encyclopedia ignore all of the tithing references made by Cyprian and the Constitutions of the Apostles as invalid, actually, they must be agreeing with the premise of this book that the early church did not teach tithing! When tithing was first re-introduced into the church, it was voluntary and was built on an erroneous comparison of the New Covenant bishop as a high priest to the Old Testament priesthood.

Centuries later, the church acquired wealth in the form of land. At first wealthy landowners donated land to the church for parishes, but retained the privileges of nominating the bishops and keeping the profits and tithes from the land in their own secular hands. Therefore, tithing soon became a source of abuse. Eventually, however, the church gained enough secular authority to regain appointment of its own priests and bishops again, along with keeping the tithes in the church. The church soon owned from one half to one fourth of the land in many European countries and enacted tithes from those who rented its lands.

Historians usually agree that, not until A.D. 567, five hundred and thirty seven (537) years after Calvary, did the Church’s first substantial attempt to enforce tithing under its own authority appear in history! The Council of Tours in 567 and the Council of Macon in 585 enacted regional church decrees for tithing and excommunication of non-tithers, but did not receive authority from the king to enforce collection through civil decrees. It is significant that tithing did not emerge historically until the church became powerful in the secular realm. Even at this late date tithes were still only food. Eventually the Roman Church even refused to administer last rites if it was not given wealth or land in wills.

Between 774 to 777 the Frankish king, Charlemagne, destroyed the Arian Lombard kingdom which separated his empire from northern Italy. After his defeat of the Lombards, Charlemagne’s unopposed rule included northern Italy and Rome. By quoting the Mosaic Law as its authority at a Church synod, the pope finally convinced Charlemagne to allow enforced agricultural tithing in support of the fast-growing parish system of churches. In 785 Pope Hadrian attempted to impose tithing on the Anglo-Saxons. In appreciation of his church support, on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, the pope crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, thus making official the renewed “Holy” Roman Empire.

In 906 King Edgar legally enforced food tithing in England. In 1067 and 1078, at the Church Councils of Gerona, and in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, tithing was increasingly applied to all lands under Christian rule. All citizens, including Jews, were required to tithe to the Roman Catholic Church. A typical peasant was giving the first tithe of his land to his secular ruler or landlord (which was often the church) and a second tenth to the church outright. In 1179 the Third Lateran Council decreed that only the pope could release persons from the obligation to tithe, and he exempted the Crusaders.

For several centuries the right to collect agricultural tithes shifted back and forth between the Church and the secular authority –depending on which was the strongest power. Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), in order to strengthen and purify the church, ordered that tithes for the support of the church be given precedence over all other taxes, excluded all lay interference in church affairs, and prohibited any one man from drawing the income from more than one church office. Theologian Thomas Aquinas defended tithing by stating, “During the time of the New Law the authority of the Church has established the payment of tithes” (Summa Theologica, Vol. 3, The Second Part of the Second Part). He did use Genesis 14 and Melchizedek to substantiate his argument.

Exacting agricultural tithes from Jews became especially severe in England and Germanic countries. Beginning around the 14th century, Jews were not even allowed to own land in many nations. This forced the Jews off the land and many went into banking and commerce because those occupations and money were not included in tithing. In 1372 even the clergy in Germany revolted at having to pay tithes to the pope.

Not long after the Bible had been translated into the language of the common man, Otto Brumfels in 1524 proclaimed that the New Testament does not teach tithing. Later that century, Pope Gregory VII, in an effort to control secular ownership of tithes, once again outlawed lay ownership of tithes.

In 1714 the English Anglican exacted agricultural tithes from Roman Catholics and Presbyterians for the support of the Church of Ireland. Soon revolt became ripe in France. Some of the earliest stages of the French Revolution were actions which struck at the privileges and status of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1789, tithes were abolished in France by the secular authority.

Other revolts against tithing followed. Between 1836 and 1850 tithing was mostly abolished in England. It was later commuted to a rental to be paid in cash. In 1868, as a result of agitation which began at least as far back as the 1830’s and which was pushed by Dissenters, the compulsory payment of local parish tithes for the maintenance of the church was abolished and was made purely voluntary. However, the final tithe rent charges were not abolished until 1936 in England.

In Canada, as late as 1868, the Fourth Council of Quebec declared that tithing was mandatory. For a while tithes were even made mandatory in the French lands of the New World until the territory was sold in the Louisiana Purchase. In 1871 tithes were abolished in Ireland. In 1887 they ended in Italy. In West Germany residents must formally renounce church membership in order to avoid mandatory church taxation. Elsewhere, the Eastern Orthodox Church has never accepted tithing and its members have never practiced it. The Roman Catholic Church still prescribes tithes in countries where they are sanctioned by law, and some Protestant bodies still consider tithes obligatory.

Today most religious bodies have abandoned the practice of compulsory tithing, particularly in the United States, where no system of tithing was ever generally employed after the American Revolution. Tithing was never a legal requirement in the United States. Nevertheless, members of certain churches, including the Latter Day Saints and Seventh-Day Adventists are required to tithe and some Christians in other churches do so voluntarily. Southern Baptists define tithing as an “expectation” and some of its churches are pushing to make tithing a requirement for membership (in addition to holding church offices). For further study, most books on church history briefly discuss the history of tithing since Bible times. As Europe slowly rejected church-state taxation and the divine right of kings, it also rejected enforced tithing to state-supported churches.

Relevant to this book, the biblical model of tithing best fits a church-state economy similar to Israel’s theocracy. History reveals that tithing became a “Christian” doctrine only after the Roman Catholic Church joined hands with secular and political forces. However, just as tithing was an unprofitable ordinance which never produced spiritual growth in national Israel under the Old Covenant, even so tithing never led to spiritual growth when used by Christians and was eventually forced into retirement a second time by state churches.

Both Roman Catholics and Protestants have been guilty of oppression and persecution regarding state mandated tithing laws. And, like Old Covenant tithing in national Israel, nothing good has ever resulted from such attempts to enforce tithing on another.



Note: The historical source material from this chapter has come from the following: Encyclopedia Americana; Encyclopedia Britannica; The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912 and New); Baker, A Summary of Christian History; Durant, The Reformation; Latourette, A History of the Christian Church; Qualben, A History of the Christian Church; Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2; and Walker, A History of the Christian Church. See Bibliography.

A Secular History of Tithing
http://tithing-russkelly.com/id15.html

[1ofthechosen]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Let's make it easy. Quote one verse where the tithe was ever rendered in money.

Just one.

No this isn't about me this was about your whole statement. "Offerings. Offerings were biblical, tithes were biblical. Offerings were sometimes money (in the Bible). Tithes were never money (in the Bible). If you're going to pay bills with tithes, you would have to barter. Offerings were given in money in the Bible. Tithes never were. Tithes, by the direction of God, were not allowed to be rendered in money."

Bible study it out chapter and verse for all. I'm not just talking about the tithing, but I also mean the tithing.

[Tithesmeister]

Originally Posted by 1ofthechosen

Ok sounds good, chapter and verse please.... That say's what you are saying.

Lev.27
[30] And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's: it is holy unto the LORD.
[31] And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof.
[32] And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the LORD.


Since you asked so nicely . . .

Do you see any mention of money here?

[1ofthechosen]

Apostolic1ness if you have the time go back and peruse this thread. At this time me adding anything else unto this is

Which is pointless, I've already been to this point a couple times...

[Tithesmeister]

Originally Posted by Apostolic1ness

So how do the bills get paid at the church....please dont say offering, God knows if you think tithing isnt biblical giving in the offering isn't either.

You would be wrong. Giving money as an offering is certainly biblical. The rendering of tithes as money was not allowed in the Bible. To be clear, the redeeming of your (agricultural) tithe with money, was allowed (unless the tithe was a clean animal).

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Lev.27
[30] And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's: it is holy unto the LORD.
[31] And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof.
[32] And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the LORD.


Since you asked so nicely . . .

Do you see any mention of money here?

The church you currently attend, do they take what is called "tithing?"

[1ofthechosen]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Lev.27
[30] And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's: it is holy unto the LORD.
[31] And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof.
[32] And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the LORD.


Since you asked so nicely . . .

Do you see any mention of money here?

That's not not even close to all the Bible verses about it. And that's not all you said. You said "Offerings. Offerings were biblical, tithes were biblical. Offerings were sometimes money (in the Bible). Tithes were never money (in the Bible). If you're going to pay bills with tithes, you would have to barter. Offerings were given in money in the Bible. Tithes never were. Tithes, by the direction of God, were not allowed to be rendered in money."

When Leviticus 27 was given they lived where?

[1ofthechosen]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

The church you currently attend, do they take what is called "tithing?"

I've never been to a church of any denomination that doesn't call it tithing.