As I saw the above meme template going around, I knew I had to do one with this caption.
“Prosperity preachers when you give 9% instead of 10%”
The best humor pokes at a real problem, but with good-natured laughter and jest. And the American Church's understanding of tithing is often a real problem.
An Illuminating Quote
One of my favorite quotes on tithing comes from the 20th century theologian and preacher G. Campbell Morgan:
"I hear a great deal about the tithing of incomes. I have no sympathy with the movement at all. A tenth in the case of one man is meanness, and in the case of another man is dishonesty.
I know men today who are Christian men in city churches and village chapels, who have no business to give a tenth of their income to the work of God. They cannot afford it. I know other men who are giving one-tenth, and the nine-tenths they keep is doing harm to their souls."
Sheesh. That's quite a word, right?
Ironically, in pursuing the letter of the Law, many of our churches have today forgotten the spirit of the Law.
What Does the Bible Say?
For the Christian, Paul tells us our financial participation in the Church should be born not of compulsion, should demand more proportionally of the rich than of the poor, and should have this principle at its core:
"For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.
It is not that there should be relief for others and hardship for you, but it is a question of equality. At the present time your surplus is available for their need, so that their abundance may in turn meet your need, in order that there may be equality.
As it is written: The person who had much did not have too much, and the person who had little did not have too little." - 2 Cor. 8:12-15
The Message is Clear
What’s funny is that this should be obvious, right? 10% for someone living hand-to-mouth may be the same “proportion” as 10% for someone making $1 million per year, but it’s obviously neither the same in burden, nor in generosity expressed.
One is giving in a way that may dramatically subtract from their quality of life, while the other is giving in a measure that doesn’t impact them in the slightest. Yet many of our churches would deem a millionaire giving 10% as a moral exemplar, and the single mom on food stamps giving 5% as a sinner.
Excuse me, but that’s a load of skubala.
Σκύβαλον: 1. Dung, (Human) Excrement
(especially in the plural, as in Phil 3:8); or with a stronger emotive connotation (and the concomitant shock value), crap, s**t. NT: Phil 3:8* (debatable; may belong under definition 2); Other: Plu. 2.352d; Alex. Aphr. Pr. 1.18; Aret. SD 1.15; Artemid. Onirocr. 1.67; 2.14; Str. 14.1.37; J. BJ 5.571; 5.13.7; PFay. 119.7 (i/ii AD).1
There are excellent arguments to be made that we misunderstand the Old Testament tithe (there were three tithes, and they were only charged to individuals who owned fields or flocks/herds, not wage earners), and/or that the tithe is no longer demanded of Christians, but rather lives of wholehearted generosity, provision for one another, and sharing of excess.
But those arguments don’t even need to be made for you to at least consider that in enforcing what we understand to be the letter of the Law, we must not violate the spirit of it.
Jesus tells us that man was not created for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man. I think we’d do well to apply the same principle here. The tithe was not created to burden our poorest, but to ensure the wealthiest among us provided for the needs of ministry and the poor.
We as the American Church would do well to preach a theology that more fairly burdened our wealthy, and more fairly freed our poor.
Quick note: Thanks for giving this piece a thorough read! This #memewithamessage format is a bit experimental for me, so would you mind letting me know in a comment if:
a) You liked this approach/Substack’s interface for video was conducive to this format
or
b) The interface was clunky for reading and/or you prefer Substack articles to just stick to text and images
