Reimagining Giving Part 1: Old Testament (The Church part 23)

Part 1 of 2 on Giving- Tithes, offerings, and first fruits

All the these the audience and commands on tithing are directed to specifically the children of Israel- the ones under the Mosaic Law. And directly connected to being in the Promised Land. • For the gentiles the concepts and commands in the Law are good but they are shadows of the substance which is Christ. They are signposts pointing to something greater. Next episode we’re going to look at the substance. Second, it was always produce, fruit, and animals and never money given to the Lord. Money was always exchanged for an animal, produce, drink, etc, if the trip to the temple was too far to haul your offering. It was not give in the place of these things in the 3 tithes. If we want to take this in context we need to see a few things: • Before the law giving was voluntary not a commandment. This seems to be God’s ideals. o We cannot take these Pre-Law examples too far though. We don’t see that the giving was in regularity or even immediate. It was usually in response of thanks to God for something big He accomplished. • The Levitical tithe was to the Levites (the priests). Originally the whole nation were to be priests but they rejected this and God commissioned the Levites. Today we are a kingdom of priests in Christ, so we can’t exactly use this for supporting a class of religious professionals. We’ll see in the NT their possessions were at the disposal of the community when in need. The Levites would also tithe to the Priests who would tithe to God. So, God actually got 1% of the whole Levitical Tithe. • The festival tithe was saved up for you to use 3x a year to celebrate God with the community- essentially to take 3 vacations with Jesus. • The Storehouse tithe was about caring for the least of these. It was 10% every 3rd and 6th year in the 7-year cycle. This was for the care of the needy. • The King’s Tithe was a tax for rejecting God. The main ideals of tithing: • Caring for the Levites (caring for those ministering in the family of God) • Caring for the poor, widow, alien, and fatherless • Fellowship and celebration with God