Are Christians Supposed to Tithe Their Money?

When it comes to financial giving, there are many Christians today who claim that it is God’s will for us to tithe our money.

For anyone who doesn’t know, to tithe means to give a tenth of something. So someone who tithes their money gives away a tenth of it.

Some of those who say that Christians should tithe believe that we should give a tenth of our income to our local church. Others believe that we should give away a tenth of our income but don’t specify that this should all be to our local church.

Tithing and the New Testament

So what should we make of this? Are Christians today supposed to follow a principle of tithing when giving away money? Does the Bible point us in this direction?

The answer to this question seems to be a clear ‘No’. There is no good, biblically-based reason for thinking that Christians are under an obligation to tithe.

It is true that twice in the Gospels we find Jesus accepting the validity of tithing herbs (Matthew 23:23; Luke 11:42). However, firstly, the topic here is herbs, not money. And secondly, in the context of each of these passages He is speaking to Jews who lived in Old Covenant times and who were under obligation to obey the rules of tithing found in the Law of Moses, something that is not the case for Christians today.

More importantly, it is striking that although the New Testament is full of instructions for Christians to be generous in giving away money, this is never connected to any principle of tithing.

For example, in the Gospels we frequently find teaching on the importance of giving money to people in need (e.g., Matthew 5:42; 6:1-4; 19:16-22; 25:31-46; Mark 12:41-44; Luke 3:10-11; 12:33; 19:8-9). However, no Gospel passage connects financial giving to tithing.

Similarly, in 2 Corinthians 8-9 the apostle Paul talks at some length about the importance of giving generously. If he had wanted to tie this to a principle of tithing, he could have said that God expects Christians to give a tenth of what they earn. Or he could have said that giving a tenth is the first step in giving and that it is also good to give over and above that. But he doesn’t mention a tenth at all.

In short, there are many places in the New Testament where it might make sense for a principle of tithing to be mentioned if Christians were expected to tithe. The fact that such a principle is never mentioned suggests that we aren’t under obligation to do this. The New Testament contains many instructions to be generous in giving money, but this is never connected with a principle of giving a tenth of what we have.

Problems caused by insisting on tithing

Insisting on tithing can cause various problems.

First, wealthy Christians can sometimes be led to believe that God doesn’t usually expect them to give away more than a tenth of their income, and that He is content for them to spend the rest on themselves.

However, this idea sharply contradicts the whole tenor of New Testament teaching on giving, where extreme generosity is encouraged.

See, for example, how in Luke 12:33 the Lord Jesus tells His followers, ‘Sell your possessions and give to charity’. Or see in 2 Corinthians 8:3 how Paul commends the churches of Macedonia for giving ‘beyond their ability’. Neither of these verses fits with the idea that rich Christians are supposed to keep hold of 90 per cent of their wealth or even close to 90 per cent.

Second, insisting on tithing can cause Christians in dire poverty to be led to believe that they must always give away 10 per cent of what little they have.

This is not a simple issue, because it is true that there is often a place in Christian living for poor believers giving away money and God giving back to them in return. God does work in this way at times.

But on the other hand, I would suggest that there are also times when it is better for Christians in serious poverty to use what little they have for themselves and their families, so that there is no danger they might become a burden on others, and so that they don’t put themselves under even more pressure.

Third, setting a rule that Christians should tithe could in some cases help to foster a legalistic frame of mind.

Christian living is not about following lots of rules and regulations. The Bible doesn’t encourage us to think in this sort of way.

It is true that it can occasionally be helpful for us to make a rule or two to live by on some issue or other, but this is not something that we should be doing much of. Lots of rules will become a burden weighing us down.

Focusing on generosity in giving

When thinking about financial giving, instead of focusing on a principle of giving a tenth, we do much better to focus on a principle of being generous without counting the cost. This really is something that the Bible supports in spades.

 

See also:

Christians Must be Generous in Giving to the Poor

In What Order Should Christians Choose to Help People?

The Prosperity Gospel Is a False Gospel

Is It OK for Church Leaders to Live in Luxury?

Could the First Christians Have Been Lying When They Said Jesus Rose from the Dead?

As everyone will be well aware, there are many opponents of the Christian faith today, who deny that Jesus rose from the dead. 

Some of these people argue that the first Christians genuinely believed that Jesus’ resurrection happened but were mistaken. Others argue that the story of Jesus’ resurrection began as a lie. 

In what follows, I want to say something about this second idea, that the resurrection story began as a lie. As we will see, this idea is extremely implausible and should be ruled out. It just doesn’t make sense. 

Many early Christians claimed to have seen the risen Jesus 

The first thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. 

They include the early Christian leader called Paul, who wrote quite a lot of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul stated: 

‘3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that, he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 And last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he appeared also to me.’ 

So Paul is claiming here that Jesus appeared to him and to many others of the first Christians after he rose from the dead. And it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this. 

There is no good reason for doubting that Paul would have been quite well informed about which other Christians claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. 

We know that Paul knew a number of the others he refers to in his list in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. 

In verses 5 and 7, he says that the risen Jesus appeared to Cephas (i.e., Peter) and James (i.e., James the brother of Jesus, as scholars widely agree). In Galatians 1:18 – and scholars agree that Paul wrote Galatians – he says that he went to Jerusalem three years after he became a Christian and spent two weeks with Cephas. Then in the next verse he remarks that at that time he saw James the brother of Jesus. In Galatians 2:9 he also refers to meeting with John, one of the apostles. 

There is plenty of other evidence too which makes it highly likely that Paul knew others among the apostles he refers to in v. 7. 

To cut a long story short, scholars agree that Paul knew at least several of the people he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and that he probably knew many of them. 

There are good reasons for thinking, then, that in this passage Paul is accurately giving a list of early Christians who claimed they had seen the risen Jesus. 

Unsurprisingly, there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins that many of the first Christians claimed they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. 

The suffering of early Christians who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus 

The next thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians, and that this certainly included some of those who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. 

Paul himself was one of these people. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 he lists the sufferings he experienced because he was a Christian: 

‘23 . . . [I have been] in far more labours, in far more imprisonments, beaten countless times, often in danger of death. 24 Five times from the Jews I have received the thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I have been beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, I have spent a night and a day in the sea. 26 I have been on many journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from bandits, dangers from my own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brothers, 27 in toil and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and nakedness. 28 Apart from such external things, I have daily troubling concerns about all the churches.’ 

Again, it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this and that he is being honest about what he experienced. 

There is wide agreement also that Peter, James and the other apostles, who are on Paul’s list of people who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians. And there is also wide agreement that some non-apostles who made this claim suffered in this way too. 

People don’t go on suffering for something they invented as a lie 

So we have seen that many early Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. And we have also seen that some of those who made this claim suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians. 

The crucial point here is that people simply don’t spend years suffering badly for something they have invented as a lie. It just wouldn’t be worth it. 

If someone claimed that they saw Jesus risen from the dead, when in fact they knew that they hadn’t, one beating or one spell in prison would be enough for them to abandon this claim. Either they would admit they had invented it, or they would just keep quiet and go and do something else with their life. They wouldn’t keep saying that Jesus rose, bringing more and more suffering on themself. So the fact that they did keep saying this must have been because they believed it. 

The idea that Jesus’ disciples stole his body from the tomb and invented the resurrection appearances is therefore not a reasonable  one. Instead, we should have no hesitation in saying that the early Christians genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead. 

The resurrection story did not begin as a deception by Jesus 

Occasionally people suggest that Jesus might actually have survived his crucifixion, and that this could explain the origin of the story of his resurrection. Under this theory, it would be Jesus himself who plotted a big deception. 

This idea should be totally rejected, however. 

First, it is extremely unlikely that someone sentenced to death by the Romans would have survived. 

Second, even if, for the sake of argument, we were to suppose that Jesus survived crucifixion, we would have to assume that in his badly injured condition he then hatched a plot to deceive his followers by pretending to rise from the dead, a plot he succeeded in implementing! This is impossibly implausible. 

Summing up 

In short, although there are many who claim that the story of Jesus’ resurrection is based on a lie, this simply doesn’t make sense of the evidence. 

The idea that so many of the first Christians suffered so much for something they knew was a lie should be ruled out. And the idea that Jesus survived his crucifixion and then managed to trick his followers into believing that he had risen from the dead is just as implausible.  

 

See also: 

A Very Strong Piece of Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus 

The Resurrection of Jesus and Probability 

Two Things about Atheism That Everyone Should Consider 

Are the Old Testament and New Testament Portraits of God Contradictory?