Is Tithing A Biblical Requirement?

National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) recently announced a surprising notice concerning tithing (a $5 word for giving 10% of one’s income).

In a nutshell, the NAE found that 58% of their board members believe that the Bible does NOT require tithing. Note that the NAE board is made up of a 100 people who are the head of various denominations such as the Vineyard, Salvation Army, the Assemblies of God, Baptist General, Church of the Nazarene, etc.

The other 42% of evangelical leaders help fast to the traditional view, saying that the Bible requires Believers to give 10% of the income to the church.

For me personally, I would have to go with the 52% as I don’t see the Bible “require” Christians to tithe.

Why?

Well, Dan Olson, a Purdue University sociology professor, sums it up my thought pretty good in this quote:

“Most of those leaders would probably say, ‘you really ought to tithe, but the term ‘requires’ gets at a theological point,” he said.

“Most Christians would say the laws of the Old Testament are not what save you – you’re supposed to be giving out of a spirit of freedom, not because you’re bound to laws,” he said.

What do you think?

Does the Bible require tithing? Or is just a good practice that one should engage in?

Oh, one last thing – the same article that reported the above also mentioned that 95% of evangelical leaders give at least 10% of their income to the church. This fact means that these leaders are walking the walk and not just talking it.

3 thoughts on “Is Tithing A Biblical Requirement?”

  1. “There is not a single thing taught today about tithing that is biblical for the church.”

    I stated that on CBS Sunday Morning several years ago and I repeated in on Revelation TV in London March 30th during a live debate.

    True biblical holy tithes were always only FOOD from inside God’s holy land which He had miraculously increased. They were to support the Old Covenant Levitical priesthood as an “ordinance” of the covenant. And Levitical tithe recipients could not own or inherit property.

    In fact true holy biblical tithes could not come from what man increased, from Gentiles or from outside Israel. While money was essential for sanctuary worship, money was never a tithe-able item.

    New Covenant, post-Calvary giving is always: freewill, generous, sacrificial, joyful, not by commandment and motivated by love for God and lost souls. That more than replaces tithing.

    When we remove this shackle of the Law, those who stay home to keep from feeling unwelcome will return and our churches will see a great revival.

    Russell Earl Kelly, PHD
    Author of Should the Church Teach Tithing?

    1. You have a good point Russell. Tithing in the Old Testament was a support system for the Levitical priesthood. The New Testament authors never really talking about tithing per-say…they did, as you mentioned, talk about the giving of money, which should be done from a generous heart.

      It looked like this post generated a lot of questions (granted, folks commented on the post in Facebook so their comments don’t show up here), so I am going to be spending a few more days on the issue. Feel free to join in the discussion. 🙂

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