This weekend at Granger we finished up the "I Love the 80's" series, here are my takaways from this weekend, "The MacGyver Plan"- Do a lot with a little.... You can watch it
here....
- The mission/vision God has for the church is huge- God's plan for resourcing this mission is through the tithe (giving 10% of our income)
- Mark answered 3 common questions, What is the tithe? Why would anyone tithe? What happens with the tithe?
- Only 1 in 9 people at Granger tithe- I wonder... what would happen if 2 people in 9 tithed? How much more could continue to be done?
- Favorite quote: "Casual anything won't change anything"- If we're casual in our faith, marriage, business/work, exercise/eating plan, etc... that won't git' er done
- For kids, take 3 jars, put 10% in one for God, 10% in another to save, the rest to spend- start teaching them early... (I want to do this..)
- The tithe is 10%- that's literally what it means... (We need to look at our monthly number and make sure we're not at 8 or 9%)
- There's always a part of me that "cringes" when sitting in a service like that- I'm so sensitive the stigma of churches asking for money- I want people to get it... I want them to know it truly does change one's life to give.... I'm glad we shoot it straight... I just wonder how people process it....
- I believe the church is the hope of the world- what if we did all give? What if governments world-wide didn't need welfare programs because the church had is covered? I want to be part of that...
- With the time change, I went to a service I rarely go to.. I slid in a row near the back only to realize I was sitting behind the very person my brother said to "look for" sometime at church only a few days earlier... hmmm... odd service, out of 1000 plus in the service I sat right behind them... we have a cool God....
2 comments:
• The mission/vision God has for the church is huge- God's plan for resourcing this mission is through the tithe (giving 10% of our income)
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That is a strange statement in light of the fact that OT tithes were never used to convert us Gentiles or even allow us to participate in their worship.
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• Mark answered 3 common questions, What is the tithe? Why would anyone tithe? What happens with the tithe?
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(1) What is the tithe? “Money” and “shekel” are very common in Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch and are even required for many worship activities. Yet money is never included in any of the 16 texts which describe the contents of the tithe which cover 1500 years of Bible history. The true biblical tithe was always only food from inside Israel which God had increased by His miracle. It did not come from the hands of men who were carpenters, fishermen or tentmakers and from those who lived outside of Israel.
(2) Why would anyone tithe? Not just “anyone” qualified to tithe. In fact if you as a Gentile Christian had attempted to tithe in Jesus’ time both you and it would have been rejected.
(3) What happens with the tithe? Or, better, what “happened” to the OT tithe? Read Numbers 18:21-24. The first whole tithe went, not to the priests who ministered the blood, but to their Levite servant-brothers. The Levites were the carpenters, tentmakers, artisans (Numb 3), ushers, choir, musicians, builders, maintenance men, bakers, soldiers, treasures and politicians (1 Chronicles 23 to 26).
They, in turn, gave a tenth of what they received to the priests. That, my friends, is not done today. And, to make it worse, those who received the tithes (Levites and priests) were not allowed to own or inherit property. That is not done today either. I have identified over 25 legitimate tithing principles from God’s Word and none of them are followed by any church today.
Russell Earl Kelly, author of Should the Church Teach Tithing? A Theologian’s Conclusions about a Taboo Doctrine
Russ-
Thanks for your input- it's been great to press deeper into this issue (including some emails that have come in direct to me)... I look forward to checking out your site a little further and appreciate the dialogue- Because of the barrage of conversation on this subject, I hope to post parts of these items in the next 24 hours- Mark
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