And why? Because he’s a dead beat. He is able to stand for hours at a time unashamedly holding a sign that says “hungry” just a couple of miles away from a place that’ll feed him better food than I’ll eat in a day. All he wants is your money (for only God knows what), and he doesn’t want to work for it. And yet for some reason we as Christians feel compelled (or are told we ought to feel compelled) to assist people like this man because they supposedly fall under the “Least of These” category.

Ignoring for right now the fact that Christ created a “Least of These, My Brothers” category not a “Least of These” category, what brings us to the conclusion that this man who has stood in the same place for years falls into this category? If we were to look at those to whom Christ ministered, do we see Christ “ministering” to men like this man? We see Christ healing lepers, blind men, lame men, demon-possessed men, etc.—all men who had a need or disability that rendered them socially inept. In other words, these men were beggars and outcasts because they had no choice. And immediately after each were cured of their inability, they were expected to reenter society as everyone else. To the paralytic, he did not merely say, “Walk,” but “Take up your bed, and walk” (Mark 2:9).

I think we would find ourselves a bit angry if were to have an account of Christ healing a man of his infirmity and then were later to find that healed man back at the gate of temple begging for alms. I doubt Christ would have little compassion on such an able-bodied man, for as he says to those in the parable, “Why do you stand here idle all day?” (Mt. 20:6). Even Paul writes, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2Thes. 3:10). And that’s New Testament.

Should we will feel compelled to preach the Gospel to such idle men? Of course, but why should we feel compelled to preach the Gospel to them more than we do to others? Are they greater sinners or closer to believing than others who actually do work? Should we feel compelled to give five bucks to every man who stands in perfect health on a street corner? You can have your personal convictions, but I sure don’t, especially when I and my wife work and sometimes barely get food on the table for ourselves. And I surely won’t feel more convicted to give a handout to a man outside the church who is able to work and doesn’t than I will to give to those who are in the church who are in desperate need and cannot help it.

And as such, it matters very little that opposition against the principle of the tithe is brought with the desire for biblical fidelity, for it is to them foundational and irrefutable. Therefore, for those who seek to establish a biblical pattern of Christian Giving with their own lives that is not necessarily opposed to tithing (that is, not opposed to tithing for the sake of being opposed to tithing without Scriptural warrant) but is desirous to live lives that accord with God’s Word in all matters of life including giving, the battle is for them an uphill one. For it is not (in many cases) a matter of “Let us search the Scriptures for understanding,” but it is rather a matter of “Why do you break the traditions of the elders?” And as such, one might quote and discern Scripture till he blue is in the face, and yet he will gain little ground in the battle for common understanding.

Therefore, one may wonder whether it is profitable to question the present understanding of Christian Giving at all granting that it will be undoubtedly met with such fierce opposition. For what ground can be gained against a doctrine that is so entrenched in the minds and hearts of the church that it is defended with such fervor? And, if there is ground and progress to be had, what edification, if any, is there that would be profitable enough to justify rifting the status quo and the relative peace on the matter?

For the answers to these questions and others, it would be helpful first to understand the purpose behind Christian Giving and secondly to understand the manner prescribed in Scripture for its fulfillment. For I am convinced that latter bears a great weight upon the former, and by understanding the reason for our giving as Christians we will better understand why certain means and methods should be accepted and why others should be rejected.

The Purpose behind Christian Giving
On the purpose behind Christian Giving, perhaps the best discourse in Holy Scripture is given by the apostle Paul to the Corinthian church. In his second letter to the church, he admonishes them to give, not for the sake of paying the wages of the apostles or for paying the electric bill of the local synagogue, but it was for the sake of supplying the basic needs of their brothers and sisters in Christ. We know this is the heart of the apostle, for in an earlier discourse he declares that it is the right of the apostle and the laborer of God to be compensated for his spiritual work, and yet for their sakes and for their understanding, the apostle relinquished his rights and his due compensation so that he might not lay any obstacle in the way of the Gospel (cf. 1Cor. 9:8-18).

However, though the apostle relinquishes what is due to him for his faithful service, he by no means exempts the church from giving. Quite the contrary, at the beginning of his discourse in his second letter to them, he gives to them an unsurpassable model of giving in the Macedonians. There he writes:

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints (2Cor. 8:1-4).

Now to understand the model of giving given by the apostle to the Corinthian church, we must understand the context in which it was done. First, we must understand who the beneficiary of the Macedonian giving was. The apostle Paul, as is recounted in the book of Acts, was busy collecting aide for the saints in Jerusalem who had suffered great hardship by virtue of being in Jerusalem. Therefore, the saints in Macedonia gave, not for the express benefit of their local congregations, but for the benefit of their brothers and sisters who lived in another province. To put it another way, they did not see their material duty as bound to their brothers who lived among them, but they saw that it was their duty to aid the church universal. All who were in Christ were their brothers (despite their nationality), and they earnestly sought to aid their brothers in any way that they could.

Secondly, we must understand the extent of the Macedonian giving. The apostle Paul recounts to the Corinthian church that the Macedonians not only gave according to their means (meaning that they were giving whatever they could without jeopardizing their own livelihood), but they gave beyond their means. Now, we are not given the manner by which the Macedonians altered their lives so that they could give beyond their means for the sake of their foreign brethren, but we do know this–that they willingly subjected themselves to “a severe test of affliction” and to “extreme poverty.” The Macedonians, bound only by their love for their fellow saints, gave and gave to the point that they had to beg the apostle Paul to take more from them.

Thirdly, we must understand the result of their giving. Apart from the obvious benefit to the impoverished saints in Jerusalem, the Macedonians themselves received a more blessed gift, namely grace. This grace given to them by God (cf. v. 8:1) did indeed result in the exhausting of their material wealth and comfort, but much more than that it resulted in their “extreme joy” (cf. v. 8:2). From their extreme poverty burgeoned a “wealth of generosity” so that they who lacked wealth “abounded in joy.” No, they did not retain their Xboxes or their Cable TV or their meals at Outback Steakhouse, but, in return for their great sacrifice, God was pleased to give them a joy that surpasses all material and fleshly pleasure. The result of their sacrifice is nothing short of ironic to the fleshly minded, but its result in reality is nothing short of Kingdom of God (cf. Mark 12:29-34).

Enter the Tithe
When placed against the instructional example of the Macedonians, the tithe seems nonsensical. For the Macedonians did not sit back with their W-2s and calculators and calculate the ten percent which they thought they owed, but they not only gave one hundred percent of what they were able to give, but (to use bad mathematics) they gave one hundred and ten percent. The Macedonians did not see themselves as bound to an statute of giving given to the Israelites under the Old Covenant (which after multiple tithes given at different intervals came closer to twenty-three percent of their income), but they saw themselves as bound to the law of Christ. And what was this law but that they should love their Lord with all their soul and that they love their neighbor as themselves? And since they did indeed love the saints in Jerusalem as themselves (and, arguably, more than themselves), they did what the rich young ruler could not do, namely sell all of his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor (cf. Mt. 19:16-30). By living thus, the Macedonians were assured that God had pulled them through the gates of Heaven–a feat which is much more difficult than pulling a camel through the eye of a needle.

The Yoke and the Ease of the Tithe
Despite this clear example given by the apostle Paul in the Macedonians and despite the absolute lack of command given to the church to practice tithing, we in the church today are still bound to this statute given to national Israel under the Old Covenant. And though we forego the restrictions of the Old Covenant on the foods that we eat and the commandments given concerning animal sacrifices, we yet cling to this command given to those who did not eat pork and who slaughtered animals day after day and night after night. Why is this? Whether it be tradition, tangibility, lack of understanding, or the perpetuity of poor teaching, the fact remains that we who are in Christ are clearly called to a different standard than that which was given to national Israel. And though it can be certainly argued that the Israelites were instructed as we are to aid the poor and the unfortunate, the fact remains that the tithe is not the only relic that remains to the church from the Old Covenant with the House of Israel.

Some in the church have recognized this from Scripture, and yet they continue to teach tithing propagating it as a “good starting place.” But is it indeed a good starting place? For what has the law to do with the recipients of the Gospel? Is the slaughter of lambs a good starting place for the slaughter of the Son of God? Are the chains of clean animals a good starting place for the freedom afforded in Christ? Is the rebuilding of the temple of a good starting place for coming to Christ? By no means! For what business have we running to shadows when we have already been granted the Reality? By trading the Law of Christ in loving our brothers for the law of the tithe, are we any better off?

Furthermore, the institution of the tithe has been to some in the church an unnecessary burden and to others an escape from duty. For the apostle writes concerning the end for which we are to give, saying:

For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack” (2Cor. 8:13-15).

In other words, our giving is to be so that there is an equilibrium among the saints. For God has ordained that while some have lack, others will have an abundance so that they might be as their Father in Heaven by giving generously to the aide of those who have lack. Likewise, when the tables turn, those who were in need who then receive wealth can give it in turn to others who have need. By living thus, we demonstrate to the world that we love one another and thus declare the Gospel of our Lord to them by our good deeds.

The institution of the tithe, however, works against this purpose of our Lord, for instead of each giving according to his ability and receiving according to his need, each member is demanded to give a fixed percentage of his income to a local congregation. To some, this requirement is a terrible burden for they need much, and they, instead of receiving from those who have an abundance, are forced to give when they should receive. Contrarily to those who have much, the tithe is a light burden, and they give it while they bask in the ninety-percent that remains “theirs” believing that they have somehow given their due. While the poor among them remain poor, they continue in their “American Dream” lifestyles, looking much more like the world than like their Father in Heaven who gives out of his abundance.

Anti-Tithing: The Call to American Christians
The reality remains that to us who live in America who call ourselves “Christians,” we are all, comparatively speaking, wealthy. When we look at the rest of the world and the extreme poverty that is there, even us who are “impoverished” in this country are rich. When we consider that there are thousands, nay millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who are starving and persecuted, why are we so content to hide behind a law of giving misapplied from the Old Covenant? Are we so unlike the Macedonians who saw not the local church but the church universal and loved that church after the manner which their Savior loved them? Are we so concerned about our own comfort and well-being that we are willing to neglect the tears of our brothers and sisters with empty stomachs and unclothed bodies?

The tithe, my dear brothers and sisters, will not fulfill the Law of Christ. Until God has written that Law upon our hearts and has given us his heart concerning the afflicted, the oppressed, and the impoverished among us and abroad, we shall never understand Christian Giving and the Extreme Joy of the Macedonians. May God give to us the same grace which he bestowed upon them so that we might love our brothers and sisters and might receive that Joy which surpasses all fleshly comfort. Amen.

If you have been indoctrinated properly, you know beyond a shadow of doubt that your tithe is to be of your gross (pre-tax) income, and all of it is to be designated to the general fund of your local church. The only exception to this rule is if the church is in the midst of a capital campaign to build a new structure for their church, then one’s tithe may be designated to that fund without retribution from God.

In spite of what you may have been taught, I am here to tell you that God does not want neither has he asked from you tenth of all your earnings. For you will find clearly in the Scriptures that the tithe is an institution of the Old Covenant, and it, along with bloody animal sacrifices and the observance of feasts, has been fulfilled and deemed unnecessary by the work of Christ.

And though many still claim that a tithe is still a valid institution, even those who teach and practice it do not do it the way that the Law prescribes. For in the Law, there was not one tithe required but several, and these, because of the time and frequency with which they were collected, amounted to twenty-three percent of one’s income not ten percent.

However, my focus is not the Scriptural validity of the tithe, but it is the reason why the tithe is practiced by many today. The reason the tithe is taught in today’s churches is because the church is filled with religious persons who wish to know the minimum number of laws that they must keep in order to please God. With regards to giving, they believe that if they have given their ten percent to God, they have fulfilled their religious duty and thereby justify how they use their remaining ninety percent. Therefore, since they have ingrained in their consciences that God requires only ten percent, they alleviate themselves of the guilt of using their earnings in ways that do not honor God.

However, Christian giving is not so much the amount that one gives or to whom he gives it, but it is how one lives his life. For God does not need our gifts (as if God ever needed anything from us), but he rather desires from us lifestyles, like those of Abraham and Moses (cf. Heb. 11:9,10, 24), that demonstrate to the world that our hope is in God and the Inheritance that he gives rather than in this world. For this reason, Christ says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things [that you need] will be added to you” (Mt. 6:33). For our main concern in this life should not be our material needs, and especially not our comfort and luxury, but it should be seeking after the Kingdom of Christ Jesus, the glorious Kingdom in which he will rule forever.

Therefore, Christian, do not seek to hide behind some past, misapplied Levitical law to make yourself feel as though you are in right standing with God financially, but rather look at all your possessions as a stewardship and as a means to demonstrate to the world that Jesus Christ is glorious and worthy to be treasured above all the world’s luxuries. Then and only then will you please God with your giving and store up for yourself treasures in heaven, “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt. 6:20).

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (Mark 12:41-44).

What do you want said of you at the end of your life, that you gave large sums but a tenth of your life or that you gave a meager amount but the whole of your life? With whom do you think that Christ will be pleased, and which one do you think will have treasures stored up for himself in heaven?

But rather than perpetually play the role as diagnoser of the American Church’s ills and never offer a cure, God through his Word has convicted a number of us locally to form a group that we haved called “The Acts Forum” that is seeking to address two foundational doctrines of Christianity that we believe the American Church has crassly ignored: 1. The selling of possessions and living impoverished lifestyles for the sake of Christ and 2. The daily gathering of saints for fellowship, prayer, and the “breaking of bread.” My hope in writing this post today will be to challenge your minds to think outside the box of the materialism of American Christianity and to encourage those of you with similar convictions to submit your thoughts, talents, funds, and even your lives to help make this a possibility in our country and hopefully, by the pleasure of God, spark a revival to obedience in the American Church.

1. The Selling of Possessions and Living Impoverished Lifestyles
One of the clearest teachings in Scripture is God’s demand for his creature’s to delight in him over the riches of the world. This is even more explicit in the Gospels where every instance that Jesus Christ mentions the action of “storing up treasures in heaven” it is directly tied to the action of “selling all that one has.”¹ Also, whenever Christ mentions the phrase “store up treasures in heaven,” it is not clearly distinguished from salvation in general. As in the case of the rich young man of Matthew 19:16, the man asks, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life,” and Jesus replies, “Sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” And in Matthew 13, in the parable of the hidden treasure, Christ says, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

As I mentioned before, these are texts that we as American Christians have been shrewdly explaining away for decades. We first throw out the “This command is applicable only to the rich young man” excuse, forgetting that most of us probably have more possessions that the rich young man ever did. Then we throw out the “This is a works based salvation” excuse, when James clearly writes, “Faith without works is dead.” And then we conveniently ignore passages like Luke 12:32, 33 where Christ says, “Fear not, little flock [i.e. poor disciples in the context and the Church in the greater context], for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.” Or we ignore examples like the Macedonians who gave joyfully to the saints out of their own extreme poverty (cf. 2Cor. 8:1-6). The testimony of Scripture is there, if we have ears to hear it.

Now I will get to the point, for I know that I am, for the most part, preaching to the choir. What we have seen in the Acts Forum in these Scriptures is not the selling of possessions just for the sake of getting rid of them (though that would be a great start), but it is the selling of possessions to give them to the poor and thereby demonstrate the love of Christ. Because of this, our chief focus is to minimize our consumption so that we might maximize our giving. Looking at all of our budgets, we determined quite easily that the highest percentage of our income goes to housing, and therefore determined that our first project would be to come up with ways to live as cheaply as possible. We have since tossed about ideas that have included the affectionately named, “Church Trailer Park,” and other similar ideas that involve constructing a Church community on a donated piece of land made up of low cost living structures that would cost not a penny more than $30,000 a piece (preferably less). This price point is set for several reasons: 1. To allow people to give more to the Church and to the spreading of the Gospel, 2. To allow people to work less so that they might serve more, 3. To make it so that a mother can stay home with her children instead of having to work to help pay a mortgage, and several others.

2. The Daily Gathering and Communion of the Saints
You might have already picked up on this aspect in the “Church Trailer Park” concept, and it is the idea of a community that consists of members of the Church. In an age of freeways and long commutes, it is quite often the case that we live so far away from other members of our local church that we only see them once or twice a week. The Acts Forum seeks to remedy this by making the Church those whom we go home to not the place where we go on Sunday. In such an environment, accountability and edification would be daily occurrences and would be constant reminders to us that our home is not in this present age.

I would like to challenge you to pray for us who make up the Acts Forum—to pray that God would provide the means and the ingenuity to glorify his Name in America and in the nations through the giving up of material wealth for the sake of the Church and the spread of the Gospel. I would also like to challenge you to get involved with the Acts Forum. We meet weekly (for the most part) on Saturday mornings at Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell, North Carolina for a time of prayer and discussion about the Kingdom. You can stay up to date with the Acts Forum events by joining the Facebook group linked here. Thanks and God bless.

¹ Matt. 6:19,20; 13:44; 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 12:33; Luke 18:22

This Thanksgiving season, I challenge you (as I am challenging myself) to think of and to pray for the saints abroad who do not share in our abundance. I challenge you to think of them as they starve out of their poverty or imprisonment, and to remember their starvation while you gorge yourself. I challenge you to have a broken heart for those saints who for the Gospel’s sake do not get to eat turkey & dressing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc., and to have a broken heart for yourself knowing that those who starve have a better understanding of the Gospel than we who glut.

I would also challenge you not to forget the saints after you have remembered them this week. Remember them throughout the year, and aspire to help them with your abundance. Remember from the Scriptures the Macedonians who gave out of their extreme poverty with great joy to the relief of the saints in Jerusalem. Cannot we who know nothing of extreme poverty sacrifice a bit of what we have to aid our brothers and sisters who are starving, who have no place to live, and who have no clothes on their back?

Our Father in Heaven, you have been most gracious to us in this country. You have given us much more than our daily bread and have provided for us beautiful homes and closets full of clothes. I pray, dear Lord, that our abundance would not be a snare and a trap to us, but that we would look at our riches as gifts to be given to the saints on whom you have set your love abroad. Burden our hearts with their plight for the rest of our lives so that we might love you rightly by loving your saints and thereby store up for ourselves treasure in heaven. Amen.

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—-and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything—-in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you see that you excel in this act of grace also(2 Cor. 8:1-7).

A big problem with American Christianity is that it is all supposing and no practice. We suppose that if we were persecuted for the sake of Christ that we would keep the faith. We suppose that if Christ called us to forsake our family and friends and to follow him that we would drop our nets and follow him. We suppose that if Christ commanded us, like he did the rich young ruler, to sell all of our possessions and give them to the poor that we would. And we suppose that if we found ourselves impoverished, that we would be satisfied with Christ as our portion. At least so we suppose.

Our problem also is that we view these Scriptural “supposals” as the circumstances of a niche and not as demands for the whole. We cannot be persecuted, for example, because we live in a free country. We do not have to sell our possessions, because Jesus was simply making a moral point. And we do not have to worry about being happy in poverty, because, obviously, impoverishment isn’t our calling as Americans.

But then we encounter the impoverished Macedonians. These saints could have easily looked at their poverty and concluded that the Lord did not bless them with the gift of giving. They could have easily been content with praying for the needy saints and with tending to their own physical needs. But they were not content. They heard of the church’s plight and chose to give to the saints according to their impoverished means–that is, whatever little they had in excess. And yet they were not content with that. Scripture says that the Macedonians begged the Apostle to allow them to give beyond their means to the relief of the saints. What does this mean? It means that the Macedonians became creative. They looked at their present impoverished way of living and asked themselves what they could do as a church to consume less so that they might give more. Perhaps they decided that they could live okay on one meal a day instead of two. Perhaps they decided to squeeze multiple families into one home to cut their housing expenses. Perhaps they decided to make do with the clothes on their back though they were worn and torn. Whatever they did, they did it with joy-filled hearts, because they gave all of themselves to God and his purposes.

Now, let’s take a look at ourselves. Do we even give according to our means to the relief of the saints of God and to the spreading of his Gospel? I must confess that I do not, and I am sure that most of us, if we were honest, would admit that we do not. We certainly do not give beyond our means and are, for this reason, robbing ourselves of the same joy that the Macedonians had in Christ alone. Let’s for the sake of our joy challenge each other to be like the Macedonians and to think of creative ways that will minimize our consumption and maximize our giving.