Bible Truth

Tithing Part 1

The History Of Tithing

It's rare to find a church today that doesn't teach tithing in one form or another. Some churches just refer to any collection taken as "tithes and offerings" and are reasonably relaxed, others are quite aggressive in their demands for a set minimum giving amount and others still have a more advanced greed based system of giving where you are guaranteed a hefty return on your "seed" investment.

In this article we will take a look at the tithe, the general subject of financial giving and ask the question "Is tithing required for today's church". If it is, and the tithing teachers assertion that modern tithing is a continuation of old testament tithing is correct then the old testament system of tithing should line up with today's practice, so let's see if it does.

The tithe was a tax or tribute typically used to finance governments & institutions and could also serve as a onetime tribute to a King or dignitary as a mark of respect or appeasement in the ancient world.

The tithe in ancient times was commonly used among the heathen nations as well as under Mosaic law for the children of Israel, so when you hear a tithing teacher stating that tithing pre dated Mosaic and Levitical law, he is correct, but probably not in context of the point he is trying to make.

Tithing Under Law

Israel began as a theocracy meaning they had God as their king and His prophets to communicate His instructions to the people, a large part of which was the law. The law was a comprehensive system for everything to do with the running of the nation comprising spiritual, moral and ceremonial aspects.

Earlier on in Israel's history, due to some shady activity, Levi and his descendents were prohibited from having their own land, instead each of the remaining tribes would allot them a parcel of land from their land. These areas were known as Levitical cities. 

God decided that the Levites were to be the officials of the land responsible for the day to day running of things in much the same way as local governments do today, including a specific section of Levites who were designated as temple priests, responsible for the sacrifices, ceremonies and running of the temple.

As the Levites were the only tribe who had no allocation of land, the remaining tribes were commanded to tithe of the produce of their land in order to support the Levites. In addition, the Levites who were not priests were commanded to tithe 10% of the tithe they received to the Levitical priests (Not all Levites were priests, but all priests were Levites).

An interesting point to note is that the people never tithed directly to the priests and the portion of tithe the priests ended up with was actually 1% and not 10% (they only received 10% of 10%)

The tithe was a percentage of the produce of the land crops and of the herds of animals for the purpose of providing food for the Levites and the poor and although money existed in that culture, there was never a command to tithe money or other valuable commodities such as gold or precious stones.

Is the local church the storehouse?

Many churches who teach tithing believe that the local church has taken the place of the temple and that they now represent the storehouse to which the people must bring all the tithes to but a closer examination of the tithing system shows you that unless they lived local to Jerusalem, the people brought their tithes to the levitical officials in the villages and then those officials would take 10% of what they received to the temple. So most people never brought the tithes to the temple and the amount of tithe was only 1% not 10%

The Church Building

The early church was heavily persecuted and reviled by the Roman Empire that ruled over it until Christianity was made legal, and ultimately compulsory by the apparent conversion of the Emperor Constantine and his Edict of Milan in 313 AD.

They were essentially one huge network of house churches who typically met in each other's homes rather than dedicated church buildings for fellowship and were united under the leadership of the apostles and all of one accord rather than divided into independent denominations,  often engaging in open air meetings in the temple court, which today would be pretty much like holding an unauthorized meeting in a mega church car park.

As well as being unable to find any record of the New Testament church either tithing or being commanded to tithe, you won't find a reference to a formal church building used by the early church either.

Today the word "Church" is typically used to refer to a building but scripture teaches that it's the believers who are the church, not the buildings we attend and If there were no church buildings, there were no storehouses.

It wasn't until Constantine's cathedral building programme began that tithing started to be taught in earnest as part of the Roman Church system, possibly in order to help pay for the massive building costs.