Teaching about Tithing (or Stewardship)

Kris again asks an excellent question, and I’m making my answer into a new post rather than extending the previous discussion.

Can I just see what your answer would be to the specific question of how should a pastor/ lead presbyter teach disciples of his to tithe?

I’m assuming the question really applies to stewardship and giving generally, since I previously stated that I do not believe tithing is a New Testament command.  But there are two major objections to this in my experience.  First, that we won’t be able to support our churches without teaching tithing and second that we have no framework for teaching stewardship without the basic rules of tithing.

These are both good issues, and I’m going to try to respond to the second one first.  Without tithing, what do you do for teaching on stewardship, for stewardship sermons, and so forth?  When and how do you talk about money?  I think one text expresses a gospel oriented approach so well we can make it paradigmatic:

For it is by grace that you are saved through faith, and that is not from yourselves.  It is God’s gift.  It is not from works, so that no one can boast.  For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good worsk which God prepared for us ahead of time so that we make them our way of life. — Ephesians 2:8-10 (slightly paraphrased)

Stewardship, and any other aspect of behavior, should be taught starting from grace.  I think Paul uses this same framework in many places in his writing.  We tend to read it a piece at a time, either looking only at the part of the text that talks about being saved by grace, or only at that portion that speaks of works.  But Paul doesn’t separate the two ideas.  He never talks about salvation by grace except that he goes on to talk about what this means in the believer’s life; he never talks about action except that he roots it in the gracious work of Jesus in providing our salvation.

My feeling is that many of us don’t really believe in the power of the gospel.  If we did, we would spend more time on it and we would depend on it for much more in our lives and society.  But when we want finance our churches we do fund raising and try to teach tithing, and when we want to change our society we set up campaigns to accomplish particular legal, and we hope moral, goals.

I believe that the best thing is to teach God’s all-encompassing grace and the power of the Holy Spirit and let God do the work (those good works he has prepared ahead of time) in people’s lives.  If we truly believe in the power of the gospel, I believe this is the only paradigm to follow.

Yes, by urging people to do certain things and making it more socially acceptable for them to take heed, we can certainly modify behavior.  This is the practice in many churches where it is expected that people will be tithers and say that they are.  This same process works for other types of behavior as well.  But it is not the approach that should characterize the gospel.

On the other hand, we have the approach that talks only about grace and salvation and fails to continue on to Jesus Christ as Lord.  As my own pastor said recently, it’s quite easy to say that Jesus is my savior, but much harder to say he’s my Lord.  On the other hand, when Christians speak only of ethics, of ethics independent from salvation, I think we reduce our system to a fairly ordinary set of ethics, especially when we consider how little of it real people can actually accomplish.

So once it is rooted in grace we do need to teach about stewardship, and here we can look to some extent to the Old Testament for some guidance.  This is not to provide us with a precise checklist so that we can determine just how much we are legally obligated to do.  Rather, it gives us a sort of outside check to prevent self-deception.  In her comments Kris has pointed us to Numbers 18 and Deuteronomy 12.  These chapters can give us some help.  They show a high level of support that was provided to priests, Levites, and tabernacle or temple services.

Amongst other things they suggest that giving was systematic, that it supported both the religious (and at one time political) establishment, and that the poor were provided for.  It also indicates that some was spent in seeing to the worship time of the families involved.

But we have to make sure that we can flesh out these principles from the teachings of Jesus and of the early church.  Matthew 5:21ff has a number of commands prefaced with the statement: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times.”  This is followed by a command to which Jesus contrasts what he has to say on the subject.  In each case I find the command of Jesus more demanding, and specifically demanding something that comes from within.

Acts 4 & 5 give us some idea of how the first Christians lived.  Paul gives us an example of generosity in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9.  I think that each of these can be taught easily when grounded in grace.  Amongst other types, Wesleyan theologians like to talk of prevenient grace, justifying grace, and sanctifying grace.  Whether one likes the names of these various divisions of grace or not, they do tend to emphasize that grace works in every aspect of our life.  If we truly believe the gospel, I believe we will emphasize this.

In answering the second, I think I have partially answered the first.  How can we support churches if we do not teach tithing?  This is one of the problems I have with numbers based assessments of how well a church congregation is doing.  A church can be very successful in terms of numbers and be a total failure in terms of the gospel.  It has been said that a living church will see that life reflected in numbers, and I think this is quite frequently true, yet I have to wonder what report the conference dashboard would have given on Jesus’ ministry after John 6:66?

I would suggest that the way to support a church is by making it truly be the body of Christ, a group of committed believers who are putting themselves at God’s disposal for ministry.  Such a group, I believe, would likely give more than any congregation fully whipped into shape through teaching on the requirement to tithe.

Will it work?  I think so.  But only by the grace of God!