“We recognize the duty of tithing and urge all our people to pay tithes to God ...
It is true there is no direct commandment in the New Testament saying ‘You must tithe to God one-tenth of your income’; but there is also no statement declaring the Old Testament plan as no longer valid.”
STRAIGHT
TALK TO GIVERS
At the August 6, 2015 Republican presidential debate, candidate
Ben Carson said he would reform the U.S. taxation system to match the tithing
expected by God in the Hebrew Scriptures.
A flat tax of 10%, he claimed, would eliminate all loopholes and complex deductions, since “God is a pretty
fair guy.”
Carson seems uninformed about just how complex the tithing system was
in ancient Israel (e.g., the distinctions between Biccurim natural first fruits and Terumoth processed first fruits, as well as Levitical “tithes of
tithes” and Sabbath-year cycle exclusions from tithing requirements).
Of more interest to me, though, is just how uninformed churches
themselves are about tithes – particularly those churches that require or
expect formal tithing from their congregants.
It’s about preachers using the Old Covenant concept of tithing to coerce
and compel New Covenant giving.
I’m not going to dive into the pro-tithe vs. anti-tithe debate. If your church pushes you to tithe, that’s
your business and your church’s business.
But I will contribute to the debate with the following consideration: Just
as the Hebrew Scriptures had rules for tithe
giving, they had rules for tithe getting.
Is your preacher delivering on his end of the tithing laws he promotes?
STRAIGHT
TALK TO THE GETTERS
To those preachers, I propose this:
If you demand that your congregants follow Old Covenant tithing
regulations as a matter of Scriptural Law, then it is only fair that they in
turn demand you follow Old Covenant tithing regulations as well. What’s good for the giver is good for the
getter, since God is no respecter of persons.
TITHE-GETTING RULE #1 – You
can’t accept money.
Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures is tithing ever, ever connected with
donating money. Not once. So if you are a preacher who tells his congregants
God expects them to provide literal tithes, you for your part must only accept
tithes in the following literal forms: herbs, grain, wine, oil, cattle, honey,
sheep, dough, and other “tithes of the soil,” as Nehemiah 10:37 calls them. This practice wasn’t due to the ancient
Hebrews having no money system. They
certainly did, and many edicts of Scripture from Mosaic times mention shekel
amounts for fines and payments. Money
existed. But all Biblical tithes were
edible.
TITHE-GETTING RULE #2 – You
can’t sell tithed goods FOR money.
Just in case you tithe-demanding preachers think you can work your way
around the cashless tithe system of Scripture by using Craig’s List to sell the
tithed goods you receive, Hebrew Scripture covers that as well. Deuteronomy 14:23-28 allows you to convert
your “tithestock” into cash temporarily, but only for the purposes of travel
convenience over long distances. Once
you reach your destination, you must convert the money back into
edibles. Biblical tithing remains a
cashless system. So preacher, if you
were hoping for cold, hard bucks, remember that every tithe comes with the
divine label: “Not redeemable for cash.”
TITHE-GETTING RULE #3 – You
can’t own land.
The entire rationale behind tithing was the support it provided the
Levites. Unlike the other tribes of
Israel, Levites were given no land, no home to call their own. Instead, they needed to live among the other
tribes, performing religious services in exchange for the generosity and
hospitality of the landowners. The Bible
states directly (Numbers 18:21-28 and Deuteronomy 26:12-18) that the only
reason tithing even exists is to feed the landless Levites. So preacher, if you own private property
while demanding tithes from your congregants, you are not following Scripture’s
rules of tithes.
TITHE-GETTING RULE #4 – You only
get grain & veggie tithes 5 out of 7 years.
In every seven-year cycle of ancient Hebrew farming, there is a Sabbath
rest from planting. Leviticus 25:1-7 makes that clear. Because tithing was performed on the increase of crops, there could be no tithe for that season. Goods from the sixth
year of every cycle were storehoused and made to last through a subsequent year
of no planting. The no-planting year was
followed by a second year of planting and waiting for the crops to grow again before
being harvested and tithed – which is to say, those receiving the tithes went
for two years living off the stores. Any
modern preacher demanding tithing must also live for two years off the grain
and vegetables donated before the Sabbath rest year, and must not accept
donations again until the third year arrives. Until then, it's an all-Keto diet with just livestock.
TITHE-GETTING RULE #5 – Your
tithes must be tithed to your higher ups.
Congregants weren’t the only ones to tithe in Israel. Levites, too, were required to provide a
“tithe of the tithe” to the priests of Aaron (Nehemiah 10:38), a contribution
to the temple’s storehouse. What does
this mean for our modern preacher? In
effect, he must immediately pass along 10% of his gains to his church’s central
authority. If his church has no higher
central authority (for example, if he runs an independent nondenom church with
no ties and no accountability), then tithing isn’t allowed. Biblical tithing is designed to sustain a
formal religious system of clergy. Where
there is no system, there is no tithe.
TITHE-GETTING RULE #6 – Givers
must divvy the tithe they pay among you, immigrants, orphans, and widows.
Deuteronomy 26:12-18 gives direction on who gets cuts of a congregant’s
“tithestock.” It turns out, dear modern
preacher, that your take is just a portion of what’s split to benefit those in
need of social welfare. It’s not clear
from Scripture what the percentages of the split are. My rough count puts modern U.S. proportions at
1 ordained clergy member for every 46 immigrants, orphans, and widows (yes, I really
cranked the numbers, I just didn’t want to bore you with the details). To keep the tithes division as reasonable as possible, let’s estimate conservatively and let the clergy keep a very generous quarter of
that four-category split. I realize that
isn’t proportionate, but we don’t want to knock them all the way down to 1/46th.
ADDING
IT ALL UP
When you crunch all those numbers, a tithe turns into 1.6% of a tithing
household’s grain and livestock winding up in the preacher’s hands. Given average US household sizes and
salaries, that’s each member of a U.S. congregation giving the landless,
cashless preacher the equivalent of 85 cents in food a day. The bigger the congregation, the better shot a
preacher has at a healthy, balanced diet for himself and his own family. Call it a performance incentive.
None of which, obviously, is my point here.
My point is twofold:
FIRST: If you belong to a
church that coerces and makes you feel guilty for not shoveling over a full 10%
of your gross yearly income to its pastors, ask yourself why they hold you to
that Old Covenant standard but do not hold themselves to the cashless, landless
rules surrounding it. Why do they expect
you, but not themselves, to be literal about tithing?
In fact, don’t ask yourself those questions. Ask them.
SECOND: If Ben Carson really
wishes to use ancient Hebrew Scripture as the basis of modern U.S. flat tax
reform, we’re going to need to use all of Montana to store the food and
livestock for our Sabbath years. It’s big
enough to see us through the storage times and it’s nicknamed “The Treasure
State,” so we’ll be all set with our new financial system.
I just hope our Chinese creditors accept chickens.
Marana Tha,
Cosmic Parx
