Reprinted with permission from CT Pastors (Fall 2021), a publication of Christianity Today.
A church my wife and I were part of for 14 years regularly served a meal after its Sunday service. Everyone was welcome, there was no charge, and we relied on volunteer help and contributions. A number of homeless people from the neighborhood regularly participated.
One week, one of them approached me, aware of my theological training. He told me he knew he was “supposed to” tithe, but he just never had any extra money. Would it be okay, he wondered, if he contributed food toward our dinners instead and didn’t worry about percentages? I assured him it would and thanked him for his generosity and concern.
Why did I give him such assurance? After all, don’t the scriptures teach that God’s people must give 10 percent of their income to the Lord’s work? Should I have found out if this man was working, even part time, and suggested he make sure his contributions of food represented 10 percent of what he made?
Or why didn’t I teach him about Malachi 3:9-10, in which God berates Israel for robbing him, followed by the command to “bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house”? God continues by challenging his people to test him to see if he “will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”
In my own experience over the decades, my sense is that not as many American churches insist on a tithe as did a generation ago – but, of course, plenty still do. The history of the belief and practice of giving 10 percent back to God is a fascinating one. The 20th-century conservative Christian emphasis on tithing stemmed largely from the efforts of Chicago businessman Thomas Kane, who distributed pamphlets promoting tithing to as many as 75 percent of the evangelical pastors in the country during the last quarter of the 19th century and prompted a number of writers to pen a series of larger, influential books on the subject.
Today, trends and views on tithing differ, though not necessarily due to greater theological clarity. For example, a 2017 Lifeway survey found that 83 percent of Protestant churchgoing adults and 72 percent of Protestant pastors said they believe tithing is a biblical command that still applies today. Interestingly, though, nearly half of churchgoers in Lifeway’s survey reported that, in practice, they gave less than 10 percent to their church. An older Barna study indicates the number of tithers was much lower, finding that 12 percent of born-again Christians (and 5 percent of the American population at large) tithed.
Does the Bible Teach Us to Tithe?
What are we to say about Malachi 3:9-10 and the other key texts that appear to promote a fixed percentage? To begin with, “the whole tithe” for ancient Israel actually amounted to 23⅓ percent of their annual income. The Mosaic Law prescribed three tithes – one for the work of the Levites and priests in the tabernacle and temple, one for the expenses of the annual festivals, and one every three years for the poor (Numbers 18:20-28; Deuteronomy 12:17-19; 14:22-29; 26:10-16). Together, these totaled 23⅓ percent.
Because the needs of the poor were ongoing, the tithe for them was eventually prorated so that a third was required annually, at least by Jesus’ day and probably already earlier. In our contemporary context, some have argued that our taxes help the poor and we no longer celebrate the Jewish festivals, so only the tithe for the Lord’s house and its ministers remains. But no amount of secular tax helps the poor in the context of religious giving and God’s service, and no Christian buildings or property today correspond directly to the sacred places of Israel. Jesus is the new temple (John 2:19), and holy space now appears wherever people worship him “in the Spirit and in truth” (4:24).
Moreover, as with any understanding of the role of Old Testament teachings in the New Testament age, we must take New Testament teaching into account. The only place where a tithe is commanded in the New Testament involves Jesus rebuking the hypocrisy of certain scribes and Pharisees who tithe “mint, dill and cumin” but neglect “the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness.” He then adds, “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23).
The context of this teaching provides clarity. Jesus had not yet died, been resurrected, or sent the Spirit to inaugurate the New Covenant. In this sense, the Law was still in effect. Of all people, the religious leaders should still have been obeying it and recognizing the priorities it promotes. To determine enduring patterns of Christian giving, however, we need to observe what Jesus teaches. Nowhere in the New Testament do we read that any fixed percentage is incumbent on Christ’s followers.
A New Testament Vision for Giving
In fact, what we find in the New Testament actually suggests that different Christians should give different percentages or portions of their income to the Lord. In a trio of texts that appear in close proximity in Luke 18:18-19:27, Jesus tells the rich young ruler to sell all that he owns and give it to the poor, he commends Zacchaeus for giving up half of his possessions and restoring fourfold to those he defrauded, and he praises the faithful servants in his parable who invest their master’s money in order to make more for him. Clearly, no one size fits all.
In the most extended passage on money matters in scripture, II Corinthians 8-9, we discover numerous principles that can be generalized to many contexts of Christian giving. Paul particularly praises the Macedonian Christians’ generosity, and even sacrifice, despite their comparative poverty (8:1-5). He challenges the wealthier Corinthian Christians simply to fulfill their previous pledges (v. 10-11) at whatever levels they might have been made.
Verses 12-15 explain further. One’s gift “is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.” To require the very poor to give 10 percent may create undue hardship for them. Lest anyone think that Paul is echoing the extreme demands Jesus made of the rich ruler, Paul explicitly states that he is not asking rich and poor to trade places. All that would do is change who was rich and who was poor, but there would still be materially needy people.
Instead, Paul tells the Corinthians to give from their surplus, but to be ruthlessly honest about how much is surplus. He specifically says, “Our desire is … that there might be equality. … The goal is equality” (8:13, 14). The word for “equality” here has also been translated “fairness” (ESV) or “fair balance” (NRSV). Paul is not envisioning a situation where everyone has identical resources, but where extremes of wealth and poverty are erased. Just like the Israelites gathering the wilderness manna, no one should have “too much” while some have “too little” (v. 15, quoting Exodus 16:18). No fixed percentage could ever adequately define what is too much or too little for all people in all situations of life.
A “Mine” Mentality
The greater danger of a “one size fits all” tithing requirement, however, is not that lots of people are forced to overextend themselves. Rather, it is that those who actually do give 10 percent may too readily imagine that they have done all they need to. I’ve heard one popular speaker and pastor tell his audiences, in essence, “Give 10 percent. Give it to your local church. When you’ve done that, you’ve fulfilled your obligation for Christian giving. The other 90 percent of your money is yours to do with as you please.”
At least two problems with this approach emerge. First, we are called to be good stewards of 100 percent of the resources with which God entrusts us. From the Garden of Eden onward, humans, as God’s image-bearers, are to steward the entire material world according to his good designs (Genesis 1:26-31; 2:15). A “90 percent is mine” mentality doesn’t reflect a mindset that views Christ as Lord over all one has; further, it isn’t spiritually healthy or life-giving.
Second, the substantial majority of Christians do not tithe. Average churchgoer giving to Christian ministries (churches, nonprofits and so on) in the US alone over the past 70 years has fluctuated from between a little over 2 percent to somewhat under 4 percent. The needs of the world require much more than what the church is currently giving. If many refuse to give even close to 10 percent, those who can do so should seriously consider giving more than 10 percent.
Yet even if a noticeably larger percentage of Christians were to start giving more, the principle remains that the New Testament teaches generous and even sacrificial giving. All other things being equal, the believer who makes $200,000 a year but gives only $20,000 to the Lord’s work is not demonstrating anything like the sacrifice or generosity of someone who makes $20,000 a year and gives $2,000 of it to Christ and his cause. Both may be the same percentage, but one represents a much greater sacrifice.
Here is where the principle of what has been called a “graduated tithe” makes much more sense. In a graduated tithe approach, those who have a higher income consider giving a higher percentage. And a family whose income increases from one year to the next (more than the cost of living) is invited to consider increasing the percentage they give. This sort of approach may well be what Paul had in mind in I Corinthians 16:2 when he wrote, “Each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income.”
The pastor I mentioned who believed our giving responsibilities ended after 10 percent had, nevertheless, made one accurate observation. It is important to keep in mind that God does not object to our using some surplus income to acquire good things for ourselves or our loved ones. An underutilized text to this end is I Timothy 6:17-18. Paul frames these two verses with commands for generosity. In between, though, is the important descriptor that God is someone “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” When I can honestly say before God that I believe I am giving generously from what he has blessed me with, in full view of all the world’s needs, then I do not have to live as austere a life as possible. I am also free to enjoy his good creation so long as that enjoyment is not characterized by extravagance.
Giving Mentors
When pastors model these giving principles, the impact is powerful. My own views on generous giving were significantly shaped by pastors who mentored me in my early adult life. In the first two churches my wife and I joined after getting married, both senior pastors modeled giving 25 percent of what they earned back to the Lord’s work. We hadn’t known anyone did this. They talked about what they did only very occasionally and without boasting, but enough so that people knew it was possible and even desirable to do so.
I am grateful for their pastoral example and their willingness to serve as mentors by being candid and open about their own priorities in giving. Early on, my wife and I committed to try to follow their example. We started at 10 percent and, ever so gradually, increased that amount of giving over the years. At the height of our income-earning years, we often managed to give 40 to 50 percent to our church and to parachurch organizations that focused on some of the ministries scripture prioritizes.
Today, as we edge ever closer to full retirement, we are able to still give 30 percent or more. We do have unique financial circumstances, thanks to an inheritance from my grandfather, that makes this much more possible for us than for many people. Nonetheless, I am convinced that plenty of Christians could give more than 10 percent. Once it becomes a habit, one barely notices what one has given up.
And I’m also convinced that, for the homeless man at my church, offering a portion of his food represented a generosity that could never be measured in percentage points, but was pleasing to God and a blessing to the church.
Craig Blomberg, distinguished professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary
