Is Tithing Biblical?

In the Church today it is very common for pastors to teach that Christians are obligated to pay the tithe ordained in the Law of Moses. I have heard many people claim that this command is still binding to believers today:

Numbers 18:21: “And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. …
24 But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as a heave offering unto the Lord, I have given to the Levites to inherit: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.”

Furthermore, it is taught that the curse of Malachi rests upon those that will not pay this tithe:

Malachi 3:8: “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

However, is this really true? Are Christians commanded to tithe, and are believers cursed if they do not give their local church ten percent of their income? I think it is long overdue for these questions to be asked.

Before I answer them, however, let’s look a little more at the context of these passages. We need to understand what the tithe actually was before we can explore whether or not it applies today.
 

Background

In Numbers chapter 8 the Lord lays down a series of ordinances regarding the Levites. The Levites were given the job of taking care of the tabernacle:

Numbers 8:19: “And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the service of the children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation, and to make an atonement for the children of Israel: that there be no plague among the children of Israel, when the children of Israel come nigh unto the sanctuary.”

The reason the Levites were given this job is because in the Old Testament, before Jesus came, the Israelites were not allowed to interact directly with God. This was because they (like everyone else) were sinful and unholy, and if they approached God in their unholiness they would die. In order to save their lives the Lord appointed the tribe of Levi to take care of the tabernacle. The Levites were then divided into two groups: Aaron and his sons were made priests and became responsible for offering the sacrifices, and the rest of the tribe was charged with taking care of the tabernacle (and later, the Temple). The Levites were the only ones authorized to serve in the tabernacle. The Lord was quite strict about this:

Numbers 18:22: “Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin, and die.
23 But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance.”

In other words if you were not a Levite you could not serve in the tabernacle, and the penalty for breaking this commandment was death. Your eligibility was determined by your ancestry. Later temples had an outer court that non-Levites could enter after they had purified themselves, but even then they could not enter the Temple itself. Even the high priest (the oldest son of Aaron of each generation) could only enter the Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement on behalf of the people, and before he enter a sacrifice was first required to cleanse away his own impurities (Heb. 9:7).

Even if you were a Levite the requirements for being involved in the service of the tabernacle were very strict. As Numbers 8 and Leviticus 21 explains, not only did the Levites have to be of the tribe of Levi, but they had to be of a certain age (starting at 25 and forcing mandatory requirement at age 50), have no physical handicaps (Lev. 21:17-21), and abide by certain purification laws. These were the people that interacted with God on behalf of the nation of Israel. Simply put, you had to do things God’s way and you had to do things precisely right or God would strike you dead. There was no leeway for error or personal flair. Nothing less than absolute holiness and perfection could enter His presence. (Incidentally, those requirements have never changed; the only reason we can enter God’s presence is because we are clothed in Jesus’ righteousness. His absolute perfection cleanses us of our sins and grants us entrance to Heaven. Those who try to enter on their own merits, or apart from Jesus, will find themselves damned. There simply is no other way.)

All of this brings up a question: if you are a Levite serving in the Temple then where does your income come from? When the land of Canaan was given to the Israelites the Levites were not given a portion of the land as an inheritance (Numbers 18:20). Instead they were to dwell in a series of cities throughout the land of Israel (Joshua 21). The tithe was given to them as their inheritance (Numbers 18:24). Since they were full-time priests and were given no land on which to grow crops, this tithe was their livelihood. The Levites depended completely upon it. When the people neglected to provide this tithe the Lord became angry, which can be seen in Malachi 3:9 (quoted at the beginning of this paper).

The system that God established in the Old Testament could be described like this: the Israelites were not holy enough to interact directly with God. In order to save their lives the Lord took one of the tribes of Israel and dedicated them to serving in the tabernacle on behalf of the people. Since they were dedicated to the Lord’s service God gave them no inheritance in the land; instead, the Israelites were to give the Levites one tenth of their crops (Lev. 27:30) and the Levites were to live off of that.

This situation changed dramatically when Jesus died on the cross and rose again. Jesus has replaced the Levites as our bridge to God. We no longer need a high priest to offer yearly pleas for us in the Holy of Holies, for Jesus has finished our salvation. Hebrews 9 and 10 explains this in great detail, and I will only quote a portion of it here:

Hebrews 9:11: “But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. …
24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;
26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Christians no longer need a class of Levites to interact with God on their behalf because Christ’s death has consecrated us as a nation of priests:

Hebrews 10:19: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
20 By a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh;”

Revelation 1:5: “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the price of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

1 Peter 2:9: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that He should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light:”

It is very important to realize that there is no longer a tribe of Levi ministering to God on behalf of His people. Jesus has bridged the gap between man’s sinfulness and God’s holiness once and for all. Christians are a royal priesthood, able to boldly approach the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16). In the past this would have brought instant death but Jesus has changed that forever.

Pastors today minister to the body of Christ but they are not Levites. In order to become a Levite you had to be able to prove the purity of your lineage (that is, present documented evidence that all your forefathers were from the tribe of Levi), you had to be ordained in a certain way, and you had to meet certain physical characteristics. The Levites were pointing the way to what Christ would accomplish in His sacrifice, and that sacrifice has been made. Pastors today do not approach God once a year to atone for the sins of their congregations. They do not sacrifice animals on behalf of anybody. Their job is completely different from the Levites.

It is also worth noting that tithes were to be brought into the Temple. This can be seen in Malachi 3:10, in which the Lord says “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house”. In the Old Testament God did not dwell within His people. Instead the glory of God resided in the Holy of Holies in either the tabernacle or the Temple. When the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies once a year he was going before the actual presence of God to intercede on behalf of the nation. God Himself dwelt within the Temple in the Holy of Holies, which can be seen passages such as 1 Kings 8:10-11. The reason that Jews no longer offer sacrifices today is because they have no Temple. Modern Jews do not tithe either because tithes had to be given to the Levites and there are no Levites today.

As Christ predicted when talking to the woman at the well (John 4:21-23), Christians do not gather at a single Temple in order to approach the presence of God. This is because Christians are temples of the Living God, for God dwells within us, not inside a building in the Middle East:

1 Corinthians 3:16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

 

Conclusions

It should be apparent by now that it is impossible for Christians today to tithe according to the Law of Moses. The tithe had to be offered to the Levites (Numbers 18:24), and there are no Levites today. Christ has fulfilled the sacrificial system and brought it to an end. Even if there were Levites still around it is not possible for Christians to bring tithes into the Temple because there is no Temple – Christ dwells within us, making our bodies the temple of the Lord (1 Corinthians 3:16).

This point is worth emphasizing because it is easily glazed over. It is impossible for Christians to offer the tithe that the Lord instituted in Numbers 18. It cannot be done. The only people that were allowed to receive the tithe were the Levites, not random Gentiles from your local community (or even random Jews, for that matter). The job of Levites was to offer sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins; pastors today do not do anything remotely like that. Pastors are not the same thing as Levites.

The curse and blessing of Malachi 3 simply cannot be applied to modern Christians. God was concerned about providing the Levites with a livelihood, but that group of people no longer exists. God no longer has a Temple in which goods can be stored and given to a priestly class. That entire system is gone. Even if Christians wanted to bring food into the Temple it isn’t possible because there is no Temple anymore. The death and resurrection of Jesus changed everything.

To put it as plainly as possible, Christians today cannot tithe as instructed in the Law of Moses. It is not possible. They can give a portion of their income to their local church, yes, but that is not tithing. Tithing involved giving to Levites and there are no Levites around. It involved bringing food into the Temple and there is no longer a Temple. Have you ever known anybody to give a tenth of their income to a Levite? The truth is that no one has tithed according to the Law of Moses for many centuries. You cannot simply swap out pastors for Levites and churches for the Temple. The New Testament simply does not allow this (which we’ll get into a bit later.)

Given this, are Christians required to give a tenth of their income to their local church? It should be clear at this point that giving a tenth of one’s income to the local church is not in any way similar to the tithe specified in the Law of Moses. Pastors are not Levites and the local church is not the temple. Is there a command stating that all Christians must give ten percent of their income to support their local body of believers? I believe the answer is no and that the New Testament model is quite different.

Some would argue that there are other examples of tithing apart from the Law of Moses. Take Jacob as an example:

Genesis 28:20: “And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, if God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.”

This passage has been used to support tithing but I believe it actually does the opposite. If Christians are required to tithe then why is Jacob offering to tithe if he returns in peace? After all, if God already required Jacob to give a tenth then this whole vow is meaningless! This is only a gift if Jacob was not required to give it. Plus, how did Jacob give the offering to God? There were no priests in those days because Levi had not yet been born – much less Aaron or the other priests. Jacob, a shepherd, must have sacrificed one-tenth of his flocks on an altar. He did not give the animals to his local tabernacle. Are Christians to take their money into their backyard and burn it, as Jacob did? I’ve never heard anyone suggest that, but it’s worth noting that the animals that Jacob gave did not go to support the local priesthood – they were slaughtered and probably burned. (It’s worth noting that the tithe in Scripture was always a portion of crops or animals, not money; Lev 27:30-32 is a good example of this. There was a monetary tax called the temple tax but that was completely different from the tithe.)

What is entirely missed is that Jacob’s entire vow shows how little faith he really had in God. God has already given Jacob fabulous promises but instead of believing them Jacob tried to bribe God, saying that if God lived up to His end of the bargain Jacob would pay God back for it. Jacob’s tithe was intended to bribe God into fulfilling His promise. Is that really an example that Christians should follow?

Another example appears in Genesis 14:

Genesis 14:18: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.
19 And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:
20 And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.”

After Abraham returned from conquering the armies that had attacked the king of Sodom he gave a tenth of the spoils to Melchizedek. Some would say that this proves that Christians are required to tithe, but it should be noted that Abraham gave tithes. If they were required then he would have paid them, which is quite different. A gift is not required – it is given freely. If it is required then it is payment of a debt, not a gift. Nowhere in this passage is it even suggested that Abraham was required to do what he did.

Some would support the idea of mandatory tithing through this verse in Matthew:

Matthew 23:23: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and arise and cumin, and have omitted the weighter matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”

Jesus seems to be supporting the idea of tithing, but this actually makes sense. After all, at that time Jesus had not yet died and so the Mosaic law was still in force. Jesus had to perfectly fulfill the entire Mosaic Law, and He did. (It’s worth noting that Jesus also commanded the lepers He healed to show themselves to the priests; should those healed of skin cancer do that today before re-entering society?)

If Christians were really required to give a tenth of their income to the local church then one would expect that fact to be mentioned somewhere in the New Testament, but it’s not. Let me give a few examples. In Acts 4:32-5:11 the Bible talks about the financial support of the new church. Instead of tithing Christians gave everything they had:

Acts 4:34: “Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
35 And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”

Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property and gave part of the proceeds to the church, but lied and said they were giving the entire amount. The Lord killed them for their lying and hypocrisy, but it is interesting to notice what Peter said:

Acts 5:4: “Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? …”

Nowhere did Peter even hint that they owed a tithe on it to the church. This would have been a great place to mention that fact, if it is indeed doctrine, but the passage is silent.

Another passage that has been used to support tithing is this one:

1 Corinthians 16:1: “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.
2 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.
3 And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem.”

It is important to notice that Paul is asking the Corinthian church to gather together a sum of money that he can send to destitute people in Jerusalem. This is not being collected for the support of the local church, nor is any amount or percentage specified. Paul is simply asking the Corinthians to get together and provide for the needs of their brothers and sisters in a distant country. This is not at all the same thing as being required to give ten percent of your income to the local church. Once again, if tithing was required this might have been a good place to mention it, but it wasn’t mentioned.

In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul talks at length about giving, including these famous verses:

1 Corinthians 9:9: “For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?
10 Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. …
14 Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.”

Yet in this entire chapter Paul never mentions tithing! If Christians are required to give a tenth of their income to the church this would have been a fabulous place to mention it, but no verse makes that claim. Such a teaching is entirely absent from this rather lengthy discussion of giving – and, in fact, from all other discussions on giving in the New Testament.

The answer to this riddle can be found in 2 Corinthians 9, which says this:

2 Corinthians 9:6: “But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully,
7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were required to give a tenth of their crops and herds to the Levites. Anything that they gave above the tithe was a freewill offering, but the tithe was required. If the tithe was withheld God promised curses and famine, and if the tithe was given God promised blessings. The tithe was not a gift.

In the New Testament things are completely different. God simply wants us to give as we have purposed in our heart, out of love. There is no fixed amount specified, nor does it say that a tenth must be given to the local church before anything can be given to other causes. God wants us to have a heart to meet the needs around us and to give cheerfully out of love. The real issue is the heart, not percentages.

Today Christians are called to a much higher standard. Everything that we have belongs to God, and we are stewards, not owners, called to use what we have been given for the honor and glory of God. All of our wealth and energies and hopes and dreams are to be focused on the Lord’s kingdom. God doesn’t want a tenth of us; He wants all of us.

Christians should look at the financial resources they have been given and use them wisely for the Lord’s glory. This does not just encompass tithing, but everything that is done – paying bills, raising children, investing in education, buying groceries, and so forth. Christians are not divided people, with a secular side for dealing with the world and a religious side for serving God at church. Can God not be glorified when we pay our debts? When we raise our children? When we instruct others in wisdom? When we provide for those in need? When we bring the gospel to those who need it? God made the oceans, and the rivers, and the trees, and the fields, but too often Christians view life as being mostly secular with a few religious moments here and there. Being a Christian isn’t something you just do at church; it’s the way you live your life. It affects how you manage your money, what entertainment you choose, what you do with your free time, how your raise your children, and how you treat your neighbors. There is no such thing as the secular for a child of God. The Lord has laid a claim to every facet of life, and there is a time for everything.

God wants us to love and enjoy Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to be passionately devoted to following Him and loving our neighbors. That is what life is all about and that is all that life will ever be about for the rest of time. God does not want a tenth of us; He wants all of us, devoted completely to Him in every way.

It may be that some can give more and others can give less; in the parables some servants were given more talents to manage than others. God is not nearly as concerned about the amount as He is with the heart. That is what it is really all about.