Pastors, ministers, and
televangelists all over the world tell you that, according to the Bible, you
are obligated to give at least 10% of your money income to their churches or
ministries in order for God to bless you and to avoid any curses! They pressure
and guilt trip you by making up all sorts of lies to get hold of your tithe money!
(See 2. Peter 2:3)
They use verses in the Old
Testament that was only meant for the Jewish farmers, who according to the Law
of Moses had to give 10% of their agriculture products from the land of Israel
once a year to the Levite priests. (See Leviticus 27:30) They also like to use
the passages where God admonishes the Israelites for failing to give their
tithe of fruit and vegetables, so they can guilt trip you and pressure you to
give!
“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In
what way have we robbed you?’
In tithes and offerings. You are cursed
with a curse,
for you have robbed Me, even
this whole nation.
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be
food in My house, and try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will
not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing
that there will not be room enough to receive it.
“And I will rebuke the devourer for your
sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine
fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Malachi 3:8-11 NKJV
These pastors, ministers, and
televangelists also tell you that Jesus said that you must tithe, as they
misuse the scriptures where Jesus was admonishing and condemning the Pharisees,
who were living under the Old Covenant Law of Moses, for their hypocrisy!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected
the weightier matters of the
law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving
the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”
Matthew 23:23-24 NKJV
To top it all off, these
false teachers tell you that Abraham tithed before the Law of Moses came, and
therefore tithing is a principle, an act of faith that we must do in order to
receive the promises of God!
But the Bible says in Genesis
14:18-24 that Abraham, in a one-time event gave King Melchizedek of Salem 10
percent of what he had captured in battle. In other words, Abraham gave a tithe
of the spoil and not from his
personal property! So, if this is the principle we should follow, we should
only give a one-time 10 percent of the spoil we capture in battle or war!
Some of these pastors go so
far to have you sign pledges of how much you will be tithing to their churches
in order to be a member or even to be a regular visitor!
But it is the apostle Paul,
not Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson, Rick Joyner, or many of these other false
teachers, who in the New Testament teach that,
You
must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give in response to
pressure! (See 2. Corinthians 9:7)
Give
in proportion to what you have. Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it
eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have. Your
giving should not make life easy for others and hard for yourselves! (See 2.
Corinthians 8:12-13)
On
the first day of each week, you should each lay aside some of the money you
have earned. (See 2. Corinthians 16:2)
As
you can see, the Old Testament Law of Tithing, which by the way was not about
money, was never meant for the New Testament church, because when Jesus Christ
died on the cross, He ended the system of law with its commandments and
regulations! (See Ephesians 2:15)
These
pastors falsely teach you to depend on the law of tithing to make you right
with God, but actually you are under God’s curse! (See Galatians 3:10)
So,
to teach that you must pay tithes, is dangerous and nothing but a scam that
often leads to financial ruin!
The
apostle Paul warned those who teach such a thing:
“Let God’s curse fall on anyone,
including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of
Gospel than the one we preached to you!” Galatians 1:8 NLT
“God condemned them long ago, and their
destruction will not be delayed!” 2. Peter 2:3 NLT
But
God blesses those who cheerfully give whatever they are being led to give! He
generously provides all what they need and they will always have everything
they need and plenty left over to share with others! (See 2. Corinthians 9:7-8)
