In this episode we sit down about the spiritual discipline of tithing. Is it still a valid New Testament practice? What does the Scripture teach? How should we talk about it?
Tithing is the beginning point of generosity not the end point… when people argue with me about tithing, they’re never arguing because they want to give more… they’re looking for a reason not to give…
Tithing for me revealed motives that were deep in my heart… it revealed my fear of losing money or not having enough… tithing unsettled and stretched me and made me more disciplined…
In Acts, when the Spirit is poured out, people get radical with their generosity… tithing is fulfilled and heightened in the New Testament, it is not done away with…
The reason that a lot of people aren’t tithing is that they are living off of more than 100% of their income… you have to learn to live on less…
Now of course when people walk through crisis, for that there is grace… in fact, that’s why the rest of us should be tithing—to take care of those people!
Sometimes the way that we’ve talked about tithing is transactional… it’s about the person to person interaction with God, and we’ve lost the communal aspect of tithing…
The problem with many people is that when they start making $75k or more is they lose contact with the poor… when you lose contact, you lose compassion… tithing keeps us connected to the plight of the poor…
One of my own measurements personally with giving is, “Can I pray the prayer: Give us this day our daily bread?” with authenticity… if I can’t pray that prayer and mean it, I’m not being generous enough…
Giving to the church is a different kind of giving… it is worshipful and therefore undesignated… there’s a sense in which it is an openhanded gift, where we are saying to God, “I am yours…”
If everyone at New Life Church tithed, we could just about solve the problem of homeless, single moms in El Paso County… that’s what drives me to talk about this…
Where a lot of pastors fall short is that we don’t tell people where the money is spent… we need to let people know how their collective giving does collective good…