by Pastor Robert B. Scott

 

If you’re looking for a brief resume of a big and important subject like tithing, you won’t find one here. You will find spiritual meat that deserves to be studied by any serious believer who wants to prosper and be blessed by God in every way, including financially. We invite you to dive in and prove all things, holding fast to what you prove to be the truth (I Thes. 5:21), truth that will set you free financially, even in these perilous economic times.

 

What do you think God would deem one of the most serious – if not the most serious – of sins? Murder, adultery? Murder may seem a likely choice. It is definitely a tragedy, for the person and the loved one. And yet God can and will easily resurrect the person. That’s no challenge to Him. The loved one will see the person again, in a much better world. Adultery is cheating on your mate and on another’s mate or future mate. But is there not a form of cheating and stealing that would be worse than cheating on a mate or even killing another person? Yes, there is. Do you know what it is?

 

What about cheating or stealing from the most important Person in the universe? What about a form of cheating or stealing that would hinder the most important Work on the face of the earth – the Work of preaching the precious message of salvation in Jesus and the good news of His coming Kingdom to this world? What could be more serious than thumbing your nose at God and saying, in effect, “The most important thing in Your mind, the most important thing You are doing on earth, means nothing to me. I don’t care about the thing that is the most important to you.” 

 

How would you feel, wives, if your husband said that to you? You’d probably feel like slapping him – or leaving him. We are the bride of Christ, preparing to marry him soon. Would you marry a fiancé who despised what you considered to be most sacred? How do you think Jesus feels when we tell Him, “I worship the money You have given me more than You! I couldn’t care less about the others You are calling to be Your bride. I just want to get blessed. I want to keep all the money you have said is Yours. It’s no big deal to steal from You. I’m sure You’ll understand. I need the money. Hey, money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. We’re under grace, you know. Everything’s cool. We don’t have to obey those picky Bible laws. I’m not under law. I’m delivered from the law. The Bible says so! I’m under grace. Why would You get all bent out of shape just because I want to keep all I make so I can have a few extras in life. I mean, life is hard. The economy’s bad. What’s a man supposed to do? And anyway, all those preachers want is my money. Those guys of the cloth are no better than those high-up cheats at Enron!”

 

What does God say to that? He says, “You’re saying you are so selfish you don’t care about what matters to Me – Your Creator, Sustainer, Provider. I’m the One who gives you the breath you breathe. And I have the power to take it away! You don’t care about the most important activity on the face of this earth? You have no love for those precious people in this dying world whom I have planned to call to Me. You refuse to obey My command to finance My Work.  And you call yourself My son – My brother? I am love. You are not. Generous offerings are optional. Tithing is not. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a law! It’s My way of teaching you to be a Giver like Me. But why should I give you eternal life if you refuse to be a giver like Me? Why should I give to you when all you do is take from Me – steal from the very One who made you and gives you life and breath. Do you have any respect for someone who steals what is precious to you? Well, I don’t have much respect for those who mock Me by pilfering what is Mine! You have robbed your God!”

 

I lived in a group home in which have lived some people who have lived really messed-up lives (and others who have gone on to great success). And the home is like Grand Central Station or La Gare de Lyon train station in Paris. People came in at all hours and stole my things – especially my food and drink in the fridge. I was in Grand Central Station in 1999 and I was in Lyons train station in Paris basically every day for four years in Paris – and I never had anything stolen. But this Grand Central Station is different. 

 

If you would ask me what the worst sin committed in this place, I wouldn’t say it was the foul language I sometimes heard, or the angry words, or even the murder threats I have heard, or the drugs taken surreptitiously on the property against the house rules. It’s when someone shows such disrespect for those things that belong to me and steals them – even when my name and “thou shalt not steal” is marked on it in bold magic marker! Now I sometimes will leave things out purposely that I don’t really need and wouldn’t mind people taking. But they would steal my butter. They would steal my juice. More often than not, I would walk sometimes three hours to buy thirty liters or more of heavy juice on sale and lug it back on foot. And they would drink it like it’s going out of style! It doesn’t matter how many signs I posted on the fridge or shelves that taking without asking is stealing, or that in Arab countries they cut people’s arms off for such crimes. I was tempted to put a sign offering courses in remedial reading payable with juice.

 

I should have put a reminder to myself about being in the constant attitude of forgiveness, since God always forgives us when we confess having stolen from Him (Be on the lookout for the soon-coming book God has given us to write, God’s Fruits of Forgiveness.)

 

I know you can’t compare God to comedian Rodney Dangerfield, but sometimes victims of theft can identify with his routine where he bemoans the fact that no matter what he does, he gets, as he says, “no respect.” Wonder how God feels when we steal from Him? When you don’t have any respect for someone’s property, you have no respect for him or her either. I rarely knew who stole my things. But “they” stole a lot. And even though I end up forgiving “them” and releasing “them” to God’s whip -- uh, I mean, God’s will – there are times when the feeling that attacked me were not worth of a believer, committing in my thoughts what this sermon describes as a lesser crime – murder!

 

I have belabored this point for a reason: It illustrates how God must feel when we steal something that is precious to Him. It’s not just the money. It’s what the money is to be used for. It’s to warn the world, give them hope and bring precious sons and daughters of God into the Family of God, sparing them from a time of sorrow and horror to come upon the world.

 

This is not some picky doctrinal article. It’s a matter of life and death. If we willfully and persistently steal from God, He has every right to refuse to give us a place in His eternal Kingdom – or at least deprive us of being Jesus’ bride in the first resurrection. And you would be surprised how many Christians don’t pay tithes (97 percent according to the latest surveys). 

 

Some thirty years ago, on a baptizing tour in New Brunswick, on one of my rare English visits a man asked me, “What is the ‘tithe’ (with a small ‘i’ sound)?” He didn’t know what the tithe was, and I didn’t know what he was talking about since I had never heard it pronounced that way – ever. Most Christians do know what it is. They just don’t want to do it. Tithe simply means tenth. The French call it “la dime.” A dime is a tenth of a dollar, so we English can easily see that a tithe is a tenth of our earnings or “increase”-- to use the biblical term.

 

Why would this tenth part of our income be so important to God?

 

Our ancestors knowingly rebelled against the Sabbath command. Ezekiel 20 says that was the reason God sent us into captivity. But today the church and the nation are more deceived than rebellious regarding the Sabbath. Tithing, on the other hand, is a clear biblical command and the excuses Christians use to justify not paying it are as lame as can be. Not tithing is open rebellion against God. If we don’t tithe we won’t be obeying God in any other area either. Although it may not be logical to man’s mind, it is a clear command from God and a major test of our willingness to obey Him. After all, it is holy, as is the Sabbath. It is set aside for a special purpose. It is not to be used for any other but the sacred purpose God intended for it. 

 

Notice Leviticus 27:30 – “Thus all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the [Eternal’s]; it is holy to [Jesus].” One of the meanings of “holy” is, for lack of a better term, “taboo.” It means the holy item is off limits.  You are not to touch it or you will die. In the case of tithing and the Sabbath, the item that is taboo is positive. In the case of objects that Jesus devoted or set aside to destruction, it was a matter of cursed objects that had to be destroyed so as not to pervert Israel.

 

In a similar manner, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was taboo, off limits. We are to keep our feet off the Sabbath day and our hands off the holy tithe. They are off limits, except for the holy purpose God for which God has designated them. If you knowingly rebel by using them for any other purpose than God’s – and persist in that rebellion – you will die spiritually.

 

Many churches say tithing is not New Covenant – only giving. The lame excuse that tithing is not necessary under the New Covenant is ludicrous. First of all, as we shall see, tithing was instituted long before the Old Covenant was ratified – with Abraham, the father of the faithful. It is interesting that Paul uses Abraham as an example of faith and grace versus legalism. And yet Abraham – by the grace or empowerment of God – kept the law of tithing. 

 

 

Remember that the purpose of the tithe was to finance God’s Work on the Earth. And God’s Work of preaching the gospel under the New Covenant is far more important than His Work in the period prior to the coming of our Savior Jesus. So tithing becomes even more important under the New Covenant.

 

The Pharisees took self-righteous pride in paying the exact amount of the tithe, while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness. These last matters, Jesus told them, “you should have done, without neglecting the others [referring to paying at least the exact amount of the tithe].” That’s Matthew 23:23 and that’s New Testament! 

 

So is Hebrews 7, where it is clear if you read the whole chapter carefully that the law of tithing, although administrated differently, is still the same under the New Covenant. People like to misapply verse 12: “For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.”

 

This verse simply means that because the tithe no longer goes to the physical Levites, the law is administered differently under the New Covenant. That definitely does not mean that now tithing becomes like an offering where you decide the amount.

 

Tithing is indeed a statute connected to the Ten Commandments, and therefore a law (which is not done away, by the way – Mat. 5:17). That law is still a law, even though it may be changed because it doesn’t go to the same people. We’re talking about an administrative change – not a change in the essence of this moral law.

 

Yes, it is a moral law. Love must be specifically defined. That’s what the law does. You can’t love God and your mate and sleep with someone else. The seventh commandment defines love. The tithing statute – which is simply a way of saying a specific law defining another and broader law – defines the giving principle God wants to instill in us.

 

Giving is love. But God defines that love. It’s a minimum of ten per cent and a minimum offering. That’s the standard. We rob Him in tithes and offerings (Mal. 3:8-10). It is in the offerings that we can express our abundant, Holy Spirit, New Covenant love by generous offerings. But that doesn’t change the letter of the law of tithing.

 

Not tithing breaks at least eight of the Ten Commandments. It is idolatry – worshipping money. It is taking God’s name in vain – denying the name of Jesus by refusing to honor and support what He is doing on this earth. It dishonors our heavenly Father, so that’s already commandment 1, 3, and 5. It is hatred of those God wants to help in the preaching of the gospel – which is spiritual murder -- #6. It is spiritual adultery -- #7, and most definitely stealing – from God -- #8. It’s living a lie, #9 and being a false witness of what a follower of Jesus should be. And since covetousness is idolatry and vice versa, it is coveting money instead of desiring to love and obey God -- #10.

 

Not tithing doesn’t break the Sabbath command, but it breaks the same principle of touching or using for one’s own purposes that which is holy to God. All of these principles are most decidedly New Covenant. If you don’t think this is New Covenant, you need greater understanding of that covenant. You’ve been sold a lie from the devil – and you didn’t even check your bill or your shopping bag. 

 

I have heard the most ridiculous excuses for not tithing under the New Covenant. I once belonged to a group that taught tithing. Some dissenters left in rebellion to the law of tithing. They claimed that under the New Covenant the law of giving ten percent is done away. They were, however, starting a new church that needed financing. So they said, “Tithing is abolished under the New Covenant, but we recommend you pay to our church between 9 and 11 per cent of your salary.” Ha! You’ve got to be joking. But they weren’t!

 

When is the church going to grow up and understand that grace is a bigger concept than they have imagined – and it includes the idea of empowerment to obey the law! Paul’s words are so clear in Romans 6:14: “For sin [which is defined by John as breaking the law, which includes the law of tithing] shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but grace.” He is saying, “You can have victory over sinful law-breaking by the empowerment of God’s grace that enables you to obey the law!” Verse 15 adds,  “Shall we sin [by not tithing and thus stealing from God] because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!” What is there about “may it never be” or the King James Version’s “God forbid” that we don’t understand? God forbid that any of us can’t understand plain English!

 

Tithing is a large subject, so we will only touch the surface in this article. We hope it will be a good start for our readers. And by the way, we are not soliciting funds. We encourage our readers to tithe to the church or ministry that is feeding them the most in a spiritual sense. If that’s us, then we won’t refuse you the blessing of giving, but our goal is to give the truth, not to get.

 

We must first look at the history of tithing. Did Adam tithe? We know he obeyed Jesus in all things before sin came in, and that he kept the Sabbath. But did he tithe? Did he need to tithe?

 

We must remember that he was a god on the Earth under Jesus. He had all the power of God and the wealth of God to do whatever he needed to do. He was the finisher of the creation on the earth and in the universe (Gen. 1:26-27). He had to be submitted to Jesus, but under the authority of the Most High God, he had God-plane authority over ever part of the creation of the Most High God. God doesn’t need to tithe, does He? He has it all. And so did Adam. He had all provision – all power.

 

Now you may say, we also are gods on the Earth today. Yes, we are, but unlike Adam when he walked with Jesus, we have an enemy to fight. When Adam sinned, his sons who wanted to walk with Jesus did tithe. They were not gods on the Earth. They had been cut off from God, but came into harmony with Him as they obeyed and gave sacrificial offerings that foresaw the sacrifice of Jesus.

 

Genesis 4:3 says, “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to [the Eternal] of the fruit of the ground. 4 Abel on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And [Jesus] had regard for Abel and his offering.”

 

Notice that men were doing what God instructed Israel to do many years later. An important fact to remember is that these were offerings. You can’t give an offering, if you are a farmer or shepherd, unless you first give the tithe! So tithing began before Abraham. It began at the beginning. And since they were offering firstlings, they were already doing what Jesus commanded Israel (albeit not in all the particulars, since there was no Levitical priesthood yet). 

 

The law of tithing may have been expanded as Israel became God’s nation and an elaborate system was instituted, but the law of tithing itself existed from the beginning – just after Adam. Genesis is truly the book of beginnings. It sets the pattern for everything. 

 

In Genesis 14:18, we see the father of the faithful being faithful with the increase God gave him: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.” He was actually a part of the Godhead, because there’s no way you can be “without genealogy” as Hebrews 7 says He was unless you are the Eternal God. This was a meal shared with Abraham by the One who became Jesus, who appeared as a man. 

A meal was always a covenant meal. And this was a shadow at the least of the communion ceremony, picturing the blood covenant Jesus was going to make with Abraham in chapter 15. Jesus was and is a Priest representing the Father. As a priest He came to share the picture of His future blood and body with His covenant partner. There is much in these covenant words in verse 19: “He blessed him and said, ‘Blessed be Abram of God Most High [in this context Jesus refers to the Father], Possessor of heaven and earth.’”

 

The word for Possessor is qanah, referring to a contract for ownership, taking that ownership away from one not qualified, meaning Satan, recovering from a worthless owner and redeemed for a rightful owner. Now Abraham and we who follow in his example of faith and obedience are co-heirs with Jesus to take back the Earth and the universe from Satan. 

 

Verse 20 continues: “And blessed be God Most High [Jesus always has and always will elevate and honor the Father], Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” God fights our battles and gives us victory over our archenemy Satan. And God is a God of exchange. There was an exchange here. “And he gave him a tenth of all.”

 

So Abraham tithed. Before the law was officially given at Sinai. Before the Old Covenant was made. Abraham was made the righteousness of God by faith, but He became established in that righteousness by choosing to obey the law. The promises of the covenant were based on obedience to the law. 

 

The main covenants that gave man rulership over the earth were the dominion and Sabbath covenants. Obedience to all God’s commands was necessary, but tithing was especially important. God is saying, “I own everything, but if you don’t give Me the tenth I claim back, you forfeit ownership over everything. Not only do you have no right to claim ownership of the Earth and the universe. You don’t even own what you think you own.”

 

The Sabbath and dominion covenants must thus be accompanied by tithing. The qanah or Possessor of heaven and earth cannot give us co-rulership with Jesus to replace Satan if we are stealing from God. If we are stealing from Jesus, we are denying Him and His name. And He says He will deny us before our Father in heaven.

 

 

This is a serious, heavy matter. And while I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of this matter, I do believe we can learn better and retain a subject if we switch to a lighter mode as a change of pace and see the subject from a different perspective – which is lighter but heavy in its own way. I believe we learn better when entertained. Some of you may not be entertained by the following but I hope most will.

 

It’s a song from a believer who speaks in tongues and sings blue grass country like nobody’s business. It’s Ricky Skagg’s song, “You Can’t Take it with You When You Go,” and we played it on air when this tithing message was first broadcast years ago.

 

Looking at tithing from the viewpoint of eternity is a lighter touch, and yet thinking about eternity, which we should really do every week, can make us reflect quite seriously on the things of this life.  I like the reality and clever songwriting of country music and my Southern bones vibrate with this tune. It’s your choice whether you want to take a pause from this teaching and google the song on YouTube. It might keep you alert for the rest of the article, and you might learn something from the lyrics.

 

Songs say it well. Like the one that says there are no U-hauls in funeral processions. Sometimes a true story tells it even better: A rich Jew in New York stipulated that in his funeral procession he would be carried in full public view with his empty hands facing upward and sticking out of the casket to make a statement. “I may have been rich in this life, but I couldn’t take a bit of it with me.” And that’s quite a contrast with the story my father enjoyed telling before he passed away. A rich New York Jew who was injured in a car accident and lay helpless on the street. A man came by to help him and asked him, concerned about his possible injuries, “Are you comfortable?” The rich Jew replied, “I make a livin’.”

 

 

God says that He has placed eternity in the heart of man, but when it comes to money few think in an eternal perspective. We seem to have a hard time even esteeming the house of the Eternal One on Earth as more important than our house.

 

Haggai has some important lessons to teach us on that point. For God is about to build a house on this earth – a church – bigger and better and more glorious than any house He has ever built. He says He’s going to pour the wealth of the wicked into it so the gospel can go forth as a witness as it has never gone out before (Prov. 13:22). 

 

But those blessings cannot come to a lazy, disobedient church that persists in robbing God in tithes and offerings. In Haggai 1, beginning in verse 2, Jesus quotes what the people are saying, “The time has not come, even the time for the house of the [Eternal] to be rebuilt…Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?”  

 

This is an end time prophecy and Jesus is saying to His church today, as we continue in Haggai 1:6, “Consider your ways! You have sown much, but harvest little’ you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied… and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes.”

 

God says that when we don’t tithe and thus steal from Him, He curses us and our finances so we can come back into harmony with His giving ways and get blessed. Verse 7 repeats, “Consider your ways!” The prophet continues, “Go up to the mountains, bring wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified…You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away [it is a direct curse from God – not an indirect, permissive will of God where He just lets things happen]. “‘Why?’ declares [Jesus], Because of My house which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house.”

 

Jesus is saying, “You take care of My house, and I’ll take care of yours. You meet the needs of My church, My house, and I’ll meet the needs of your house. If you steal from Me, I will curse you and your finances.”

 

Verse 10 continues, “…because of you the sky has withheld its dew and the earth has withheld its produce. I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on what the ground produces, on men, on cattle, and all the labor of your hands.”

 

Remember that God made a covenant with Israel. We are Israel, and He promised to bring drought if we didn’t tithe as a nation. This is past tense, but other prophecies make it present tense for us: “I will shake all the nations and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory [which includes wealth]…The silver is mine and the gold is mine (Hag. 2:78-8).

 

God is reminding us that all we have comes from Him. He owns it. And we only own it when we give Him the 10% He commands us to give Him.

 

God gives us a choice as a church and as a nation. He says, in effect, “Choose disobedience and death, and I will curse you. Choose obedience and life, and I will bless you.”

 

We shall now accent the aspect of the blessing in Malachi 3:10-12: “Bring the whole tithe [pay on the gross amount, before the government takes its share and pay on your increase, even if you didn’t work for it. You are still increased even if you didn’t labor for it] into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house [that includes spiritual food – for the church and the world; the principle is repeated here that if we take care of the food in God’s house, he will meet our food and other needs] and test me now in this…if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes. All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be delightful land.”

 

God is a God of increase. Isaiah 9 says that of the increase of His government there shall be no end. We now know that the universe is in constant expansion. And God has ever-expanding plans for the future of the universe of which He has given us only a little inkling. Even the sky is not the limit. The possibilities are awe-inspiring. Could other beings in God’s image be created on other planets in other galaxies to produce an eternally expanding Family of God? With God everything simply keeps getting bigger and bigger and better and better. He knows no limits. And we cannot begin to increase in our finances if we do not begin by paying God the tithe on our increase. Generous offerings allow great expansion, but the beginning is the tithe and at least some amount of offering. That is the building block, the foundation for the expansion of God’s Kingdom and the expansion of our finances as well.

 

Giving is one of the foundations of God’s character of love. He wants us to live the way of “give” rather than the way of “get.” The “greasy grace gang” can’t seem to grasp the love of Jesus they talk so much about. Jesse Duplantis, in differentiating love and romantic love, as only Jesse can do it, says there’s a difference between love and “lu-u-u-ve.”

 

When we talk about the love of Jesus and more precisely our love for Him, there is love and “l-u-u-u-ve.” The latter is the true, romantic love for Jesus. He says in Luke 6:46. “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” He says in John 15:13, “If you [“l-u-u-u-ve”] Me, you will keep My commandments.” “21- He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who [“l-u-u-u-ves”] Me.”

 

The problem is this: many Christians today do not even have His commandments. They’ve thrown away the ten major laws Jesus Himself gave at Sinai. And they’ve thrown away the tithing law that eight of those ten laws address. The problem is that they can’t understand for the life of them – for the eternal life of them – that God Almighty has the right to define love. 

 

His definition is in Romans 13:10: “…love is the fulfillment of the law.” How dare God mention love and law in the same breath? That’s the reaction of the greasy grace gang. 

 

Yet I John 5:3 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” Tithing is not burdensome. Sabbath keeping is not burdensome. What is burdensome is the lie of the devil that would deceive Christians into disobeying the law that brings all the blessings of God upon them. Sin is a burden! Keeping the law is not a burden. Breaking the law is a burden!

 

Tithing does not put you under the “curse of the law.” Au contraire, not tithing puts you under “the curse of the law.” The law of tithing defines the love of God. Some have said it defines giving. Actually, in one sense, it doesn’t define giving. Tithing itself is not giving. The tithe is God’s. We can’t give Him what belongs to Him. We give it back to Him rather than give it. It is the minimum requirement to teach us to give back to God what is His and to be givers as He is. And an offering, however small, is a requirement, not extra credit. Malachi quotes Jesus saying we have robbed Him in tithes and offerings. Giving no offerings is a sin. How much we give is where we determine our rewards here and later in the Kingdom.

 

 

Let’s look in more detail at the most important New Testament on tithing. In Matthew 23, Jesus is giving the “woes” against the Pharisees. They were self-righteous hypocrites who kept the letter of the law in some cases and always neglected the spirit of the law. They kept even laws that were added by the Jews. Whether God’s laws or their laws, they kept them in a picky and legalistic way. They majored on the minors. It was the way they did or did not keep the law that bugged Jesus.

 

Jesus made it clear He upheld all of the moral law of the First Testament (Mat. 5:17). He went much farther than the letter of the law, as Matthew 5-7 makes clear. Matthew 23: 23 says,“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these [justice, mercy etc] are the things you should have done without neglecting the others [paying tithes!].”

 

Understand what Jesus is comparing. He is not comparing justice, mercy and faithfulness with tithing and generous offerings. He’s comparing those weightier matters with picky, hypocritical legalism. This comparison does not take away from the tremendous importance of tithing in God’s eyes. Luke 18:12 confirms that the Pharisees practiced tithing.

 

Jesus clearly said in Mat. 5:19 that whoever annuls one of these least commandments shall be called least in the Kingdom – and tithing is one of the greatest, not least, commandments. Verse 20:“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” They kept the letter of the law of tithing strictly. Should we do less? Surpassing means surpassing.

 

We have something to say to those who abolish tithing under the New Covenant. To understand the Bible, you need to read it! We are sure such people have read many commentaries full of hermeneutics, but we have to wonder if they have really attentively read the pure and simple Word of God. As Jesse Duplantis says regarding other matters, “This is so simple that it would take a theologian to help you misunderstand it.” We would add this: it would take a demon or a demon helping the theologian. Have they ever really read Hebrews 7? Let’s do it.

 

Hebrews 7:1- “For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2-to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.” [in Mat. 5:35, Jesus calls Jerusalem the city of the great King, referring to Himself. He is the King of peace and righteousness.] 3-“Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.”[Theologians have made this a mystery. The only mystery to me is how supposedly intelligent people with degrees after their name can misunderstand something so simple. We’re talking about a Person here who is eternal. It has to be Jesus, since no other member of the Trinity appeared in human form to man.] 4-“Now observe how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils. 5- And those indeed of the sons of Levi who receive the priest’s office have commandment in the Law to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brethren, although these are descendants from Abraham. [Notice that this is the same law Jesus said He did not come to abolish] 6-But the one whose genealogy is to traced from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises. [Here’s another confirmation Melchizedek was Jesus. Jesus was not from Levi but descended from Judah]. 7-But without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater. 8-In this case mortal men receive tithes, but in that case one receives them, of whom it is written that [He] lives on. 9-And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, 10-for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. 11-Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron? 12-For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also. [I have seen this verse, taken way out of context, not only to say that the tithing law has been abolished, but that all the law, including the Ten Commandments, is abolished! All the Bible is saying here, as the following verses make clear, is that the recipients of the tithe have been changed, since the tribe of Levi no longer receives them under the New Covenant. That does not do away with the law of tithing. Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water!] 13-For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. 14- For it is evident that our [Divine Master] was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests. [How much plainer can you get? – Jesus was Melchizedek!] 15-And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Mechizedek, 16-who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life. 17-For it is attested of Him, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ 18- For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness 19-(for the law made nothing perfect). And on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.” [Some have the gall to say that God’s moral law, the Ten Commandments and its statutes, has been set aside because of its uselessness and weakness. When you consider the context of the epistle and the chapter, which is the priesthood of Jesus compared with the priesthood of the Levites, this becomes clear: the Bible is talking here about the stipulation in the First Testament law, which did include ceremonial aspects that are not applicable under the New Covenant, that the priest should be physical Levites. Under the New Covenant, of course, Jesus is our High Priest, and we are all priests and kings like Jesus our Brother.] …28-For the Law [an all-inclusive term here, referring to the Torah or first five books] appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.” There is nothing in this chapter that does away with the law of tithing. The priesthood was changed, not the law of tithing. The frequent mention of the word tithing in this New Testament book is a testimony to the truth that God is affirming what He said in the First Testament.

 

Believe the Bible. Believe both Testaments. Believe Jesus. Believe your Father Love loves you enough to bless you, even financially. But also believe Jesus when He said, in effect, “If you love Me, obey Me!” Enter into the blessings God has for you by keeping one of His laws of love that will bring automatic and great results. Choose the way of love, the way of giving, and God will cause money to fall into your lap (Luke 6:38). You can’t afford not to tithe!