Christian Tithing: A curse...or is NOT tithing a curse?

Judging by my own experiences of once belonging to a US-styled charismatic mega-church, and those of my Christian friends and TBN, it appears that tithing is a Biblical commandment.
Not only that, but one is considered "cursed" if one doesn't pay tithes.

In the mainstream genre of evangelical Christianity broadcast to the global world by a matrix of mass-communication and ideologically connected preachers, "tithing" is considered giving 10% of your income to the church or ministry.

My friends believe this unquestionably, and they think they must "sow the financial seed" to be blessed.
It's almost regarded as a law - tithe and you shall receive in much abundance.
However, I also pity them, because they are struggling financially, and cannot afford to hand over 10% of their income so that the pastor can buy himself something nice.

No use arguing with them though. The husband of the couple just returned from a "Mighty Man" camp by Angus Buchan, where the the laws of "financial prosperity" through giving away cash was once again drummed into him.

Some now say a "Godly law" deserves consumer protection, and if one is not blessed after a given time one should get the money back. Fat chance...

They told me they would send me the verses that tithing is based on, because I've never really seen them in the New Testament (the last verse they sent me was from Malachi).
But they seem to go more on testimonies of the "miraculous effects" of tithing in their church.

However, while Googling on the topic, it seems tithing is a conspiracy within Christianity.
Many sites argue that tithing as a set 10% (or even more) is not a requirement at all.
They even say this teaching is a curse and a heresy used by sham pastors.
bible-truths.com...

Now what must I believe - so tithing is a curse from the old law (like animal sacrifice), and my friends are "cursed"?

Are they just misled, or even doing the right thing?

If the church is using the money to support the poor in their area, or do something good with it like medication in third world areas , water, food etc.. and you can afford it, then i see it as a good thing.
but if they are using it buy another gold chalice pope mobile or other waste of money and they pressure you to pay or get cursed, then thats not good.
i think it would be better for someone to give their time to help at a shelter or soup kitchen the give away money to the church.
there is many other institutions that need it more and do better focused work for the needy.
Look around and you will see time is just as important as money.

reply to post by halfoldman


Tithing is not a curse in any way. Not the way the Bible describes it.

If you wish to donate, donate. Do it in secret if you wish, God knows and is actually pleased when you do it like that, not like some rich guy who needs a statue erected in his honor for his donation.

But on point, some Churches require a donation, which is wrong. There are no requirements, except love your father and love your neighbor. Of course, if you're saved by Jesus, you don't need to do that. It's not like you're going to hell for not donating money.

If they are financially in trouble, they shouldn't have to worry.. God will take care of them.

My family has been in a steady decline for awhile, especially now that my mom's leukemia has returned. We're losing money all the time.

Lord provides though, and has blessed us with donations and fundraisers for my mom, like this yard sale we had the other day that made over $2,600 for my mom.

This ministry (Into the light Ministry) argues that tithing is old law, and if that law is paracticed selectively it puts the very salvation of the Christian into jeapordy.
So tithing has little middle-ground in Christian tradition: it's either good or evil.
But which side is the "evil" conspiracy?
Here it is the anti-tithing side:

If we try to fulfill the law today it puts our salvation in jeopardy. Galatians 5:3-4 "we are severed from Christ if we keep the law".

No. 1 no one except Jesus ever did it.
No. 2 if you break one law your guilty of them all and deserve death.
Trying to keep the law is trying to develop your own righteousness. Accepting Christ is accepting his righteousness and realizing you can't be good enough. So God wants us to stop trying. God wants us to stop trying to obey the Old Testament law. When we receive Christ he writes his law on our hearts. Our salvation is both immediate and progressive. Our walk includes a progressive salvation of our soul by allowing the life in our spirit to renew our soul one step at a time, from glory to glory. Our spirit becomes a new creation instantly; our soul is renewed day by day. God's word cuts through the veil of division of the soul and spirit to release the life changing power of the living word within us. The Holy Spirit will let us know when we violate the inward law. Tithing, circumcision, ceremonial washing, Saturday worship, holy days, dietary laws, Temple worship, stoning, all are part of the Old Testament law. Do them all or NONE AT ALL.

www.intothelight.org...

Of course they make a distinction between "tithing" as giving according to one's means, especially to the poor, but tithing as a church commandment based on the Old Testament (or even pagan) law is considered heresy.

reply to post by Lionhearte


Yep your right,in secret i forgot that one.
im not a true Christian ill admit, but i know a bit of the bible.. as much as many who claim to be Christians

as written in Matthew

Matthew 6

Giving to the Needy

1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Here is the mega-church rationale that supports the 10% tithe.
The "prosperity preacher" (prosperous preacher?) here is called Ed Young.
It appears he tried to remove his own sermon from a group that watches him.
I'm not sure why - just switch on TBN and you hear the same stuff all day.

If you want to do 'good works', skip the middle man and use your time and money to really help those around you. You don't need a church to validate who you are or dictate how your money gets spent. It's all a racket anyway.

Just my two cents, for what it's worth.

They need the cash to build super mega churches and nice mansions to live in.
It must be pretty nice being a tax exempt organization that sells no actual product
but racks in tons of profits.

reply to post by halfoldman

My goodness, this video just about sums up all the strategies.
Shocking!

What is new to me, but very typical to the Angus Buchan scam is how your masculinity is questioned if you don't "lead" your wife and pay tithes.
A man who doesn't tithe is seen as cursing his whole family!

This is scary stuff.

reply to post by Lionhearte


Just wanted to say God bless you and your family always.

From what I learned, not tithing is not a curse. But I guess to be a good Christian who follows Jesus, you should give 10% of your earnings back to the Lord. So where did this 10% come from?

Tithing was mentioned in the Old Testament

Gen 14:20 - And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand." Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Deut 14:22-27 - Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice. And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

Deut 14:28; 26:12 - At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

And here in the New Testament

Matt 23:23 - "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
Luke 11:42 - "Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.

reply to post by balon0

Thank you very much for that, but ironically those are the same verses that are regarded as anti-tithing in, for example, my two links.
My OP link summarizes some of the points:

SOME SHOCKING TRUTHS ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN TITHING DOCTRINE

Abraham never tithed on his own personal property or livestock.

Jacob wouldn’t tithe until God blessed him first.

Only Levite priests could collect tithes, and there are no Levite priests today.

Only food products from the land were tithable.

Money was never a tithable commodity.

Christian converts were never asked to tithe anything to the Church.

Tithing in the Church first appears centuries after completion of the Bible.

bible-truths.com...

reply to post by halfoldman


In the past tithing to the church was for the benefit of the people. People would give to the church what they could. then the church would turn around and help those people who needed it. Kinda like a red cross within each little town. It wasn't meant for the priest to spend for himself. If the church sprung a leak the men would gather and freely fix it. That was a long time ago however. Now a days I think the church is more a corporation then anything else. Fundamentally Its like any other business they sale forgiveness, redemption, and heaven For a price.
Don't want to go to hell, No worries just pay a monthly bill of 199.99 til you die and you will be set.. The religion is not bad in my opinion its the people who follow it. Somewhere along the line they decided the word of God only resided within a church. I think he is far from the churches as they no longer service the people. Come all yee faithful. If you want god in your life just sit down anywhere and pray to him. You do not need to pay a pompous fat man anything. Wear any clothes you like God does not see anything but your soul. I am not particular to any religion. I truly hope you all get what you think you deserve when you die. I have always beleived you create Your own heaven or hell on your own. If you need a priest,rabi,father,monk.cardinal, whatever to tell you what your heaven or hell is then I do not beleive you are trully living your life. Yet i hope you get everything you think you deserve in life and in death..

reply to post by Therian

Sounds nice, but when were these good old days?

I think the Vatican and the Orthodox churches had magnificent buildings that needed more than a local handyman!

At least today they provide a big service and a great heritage for believers.

In Germany church tax is immediately subtracted to a religion of your choice.
You can choose to not pay it, but then you lose membership and will have to fork out for baptisms, marriages and funerals, and possibly even lose a seat at Christmas mass.

The point is, you get something in return, so a lot of people pay it.

What exactly do American Christians get in return?
A worship band and a flower arrangement?

Malachi 3:10 - Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

In the above verse, God is saying to test Him on this...
God doesn't need our money, but He promises that the giver will be blessed by doing so.

How one decides to donate their tithe, (one-tenth / 10%), is between them & God.

reply to post by halfoldman

Critics would say that verse is used completely out of context to justify Christian tithing.

That temple and storehouse was destroyed along with the Levites, and the tithes were not money.

There are some who seem to think God as a kind of insurance policy. I came across a fella that each pay day made a big show of calculating how much to put in the 'tithing' envelopes he kept in his desk. That guy was sacked because he used company time and resources to set up an internet based business that he ran from the office! So much for his 'insurance policy'!.

Tithing cash to a church is, in my opinion, heresy. God does not ask for money! I get the giving from the heart, in secret and not as a show for others, but if it is not from the heart, to fund charitable works, then what is it worth?

There are those that subscribe to the doctrine of prosperity; that God does not object to Christians living as princes in this life.

Prosperity theology (also known as prosperity doctrine, the health and wealth gospel, or the prosperity gospel) is a Christian religious belief whose proponents claim has tens of millions of adherents, primarily in the United States, centered on the notion that God provides material prosperity for those he favors. It has been defined by the belief that "Jesus blesses believers with riches" or more specifically as the teaching that "believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confessions of faith and the 'sowing of seeds' through the faithful payments of tithes and offerings." In the words of journalist Hanna Rosin, the prosperity gospel "is not a clearly defined denomination, but a strain of belief that runs through the Pentecostal Church and a surprising number of mainstream evangelical churches, with varying degrees of intensity." It arose in the United States after World War II championed by Oral Roberts and became particularly popular in the decade of the 1990s. More recently, the theology has been exported to less prosperous areas of the world, with mixed results.

en.wikipedia.org...

I agree that God does pour out His Blessings on the lives of those who are True in heart but this comes at a price that does not include material wealth and I suspect those who ascribe to the prosperity doctrine have had their reward.

reply to post by teapot

Interesting ... so the "heresy" only began in the US after WWII.

And now they've exported it to the poorest nations.
I wonder what shady group is really behind this all, and where all the money really went?

Look no further than P.T. Barnum

"There's a sucker born every minute"
"Every crowd has a silver lining"
"Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant"

Do you people know how much it costs to tote the note on a Six Flags over Jesus --- geez -You want to play you gotta pay

I do understand tithing to an extent.....

My father was a pastor for a zillion years (or so it seemed) and it was his full time and only job. He did not just do 40 hours a week, but it was a 24/7 job and was on call 24/7. He did people's weddings, funerals, counseling and so much more (all free). My mother was his partner in everything. So they both worked 24/7 for the church.

The tithing not only went to pay the lights, electricity, etc for the building....but supported youth activities, mission trips, homeless outreach (food, clothing and shelter) and supported my father with salary.

What bothers me is the guilt trip and sermon added to tithing. IE. If you dont tithe, God will not bless you financially, etc. My father (who is retired now) STILL reminds me I need to tithe. I do not attend a church and have not since I was in my early 20s. So needless to say, I do not tithe. But he feels as do many Christians, that you need to tithe 10% every week, even if you do not attend Church.

I think not.