I am assuming that you desired no response, but I did.
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Pretty stinging indictment on the Church in America
- Thread starter SemperFiDawg
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I am assuming that you desired no response, but I did.
Miguel Cervantes
Jedi Master
I love the satirical form of this publication.
Though there is a foundation of truth behind their satire.
http://babylonbee.com/news/church-cease-references-god-effort-boost-attendance/
Then on something related to tithing they posted this piece. Priceless.
http://babylonbee.com/news/oakland-churches-scramble-recruit-derek-carr-tithing-comment/
Though there is a foundation of truth behind their satire.
http://babylonbee.com/news/church-cease-references-god-effort-boost-attendance/
Then on something related to tithing they posted this piece. Priceless.
http://babylonbee.com/news/oakland-churches-scramble-recruit-derek-carr-tithing-comment/
hobbs27
Senior Member
I love the satirical form of this publication.
Though there is a foundation of truth behind their satire.
http://babylonbee.com/news/church-cease-references-god-effort-boost-attendance/
Then on something related to tithing they posted this piece. Priceless.
http://babylonbee.com/news/oakland-churches-scramble-recruit-derek-carr-tithing-comment/
The members that give the most have the most say in many churches. I can't verify if this is true, but Ive been told, there's a large Methodist Church in north GA that can only play traditional hymns during worship service because a very wealthy man left a lot of money in a trust to them on the condition that they never change the style of music. If they play anything else.. They lose the trust money... He's controlling with money after his death... Amazing.
gordon 2
Senior Member
About judging. Judging and being judgmental becomes evident to social scientists in early school age children--age six to 11.
Some of the fears of this age group include: school, being alone at night, catastrophes, physical harm, failure in school, ghosts and witches, being caught in a lie, divorce or separation of parents, being a crime victim, pain, evil persons...
Source: Elaine Polan, Daphne Taylor. Journey Across the life Span, Human Development and health Promotion
If I understood correctly judging others is a very early ability in individual human development. It is established in the individual before puberty. And I suspect it is forged partly due to the fears of this age group. In other words it is not very adult in makeup.
Personally I tithe so that the gospel is preached and the body built up. As for charity, I donate.
I try to reward the threshing mule the best I can, but no more than a carpenter's wages. As for charity, I give half the carpenter's wages and sometimes ten times this amount-- or, I have no fixed amount. I don't expect my home church to do social work or carry the poor, but I expect its members according to their abilities to advocate for the poor, or for those who suffer injustice, to those who have as their mission or task the maintenance of peace and freedom in the land.
To be fair to medium-large congregations, it is my understanding that some of them are the result of amalgamating smaller churches in order to lessen expenses for the saints. I was reading this week that half the working population (millions) is/are paycheck to paycheck...
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SemperFiDawg
Political Forum Arbiter of Truth (And Lies Too)
How dat "advocate" taste?
Just kidding
I don't doubt that regarding the paycheck. A wise old lady told me something onetime, way back. " I don't care how much you make, it takes all of it." It's true for most, but why? To a large degree it's due to our choices. I know many who you could give a million dollars to and they would be right back where they were in a year, just because of the choices they make.
gordon 2
Senior Member
Yea, one of the choices in this life it that choice " for better and for worse" choice which is really a stab in the unknown to where two become one flesh. Like many choices made some are hard to unmake especially when those choices have fathered children.
Would our Lord favor percentage of our labors or that which Malachi calls offerings in righteousness--as of old.
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
When I pray on that which Abraham offered to Melchizedek the king of Salem and to another king his people and goods I have to ask, " What was his motives?" To which I find in the whole account was to do what was right for its own sake.
Far for me to preach, but Abraham did not have to go hunting for his dispossessed kin and risk his own liberty. Once he had taken hold of the captives, he returned some of them who were not of his kin with their treasure to their former king. Abraham did not have to do this as the king said that Abraham was in his right to keep the people and their treasure. Yet Abraham returned what the robbers had stolen to the original lord.
When Abraham sat before Melchizedek he had returned his kin to his former fortunes and lands and had reestablished a people to their king... for no other reason that it was the right thing to do.
What I assume he tithed with was that which he kept from the robber's own purse or of his own resources. If he himself had been guided by robbery at this point having learned evil from his brother's enemy and poisoned by his success when Abraham sat with Melchizedek he could have "relieved" all the bread from him, instead of taking his share of its breaking.
So was Abraham's tithe an offering in righteousness? I think so. I think also that, "as in the former years" refers to righteousness as was Abraham's. The percentage here seems less important to me than the motive for giving.
The motive stems for what Abraham knew was right according to what he understood contributed to freedom and peace as opposed to commanded convention. And I suspect that this was part of the reason why Abraham was a man favored in God's heart... they were at least in part like minded.
In some ways, and this is very superficial, Abraham was like our fathers and mothers who went to war in the 2ed WW. They did not go for personal gain and not out of convention, they did not go to take away people from their homelands--but just the opposite they fought at considerable risk and gave of themselves what was right so that people could return to their own homeland in peace and that generations to follow would break bread in peace where the rule of law was right and just not unlike the hope they had and saw in the heart of their redeemer.
---------------
Now all this aside, I have difficulty in seeing that it is the role of the church to provide social services in lieu or to relieve the taxpayer's purse or in fact to steer a people away from insolvency, or to shore up a prized political way of life... But I'm still trying to understand.... so not all is clear...yet. I am certain that we have bridges to build in our world, but I'm not sure what they should carry and that which they should link....? I seem to have learned ( perhaps incorrectly) that a church with too much fat can sin to watch its people be carried away in this "here old world" and the only service they return is to point out that to suffer now is due that "our home is in the world to come". So I still have questions... And when I tithe I have all these questions in my heart. I cleave to God and know I'm just a man amongst many.
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Miguel Cervantes
Jedi Master
So how are Old Testament rules and examples relevant in todays New Testament society, where the law has been fulfilled and boundaries on tithing no longer apply?
Either you tithe out of OT duty to do so, or you tithe out of NT faith, that it is not required but you freely and willingly do so as a show of that same faith.
Modern day tithing should be between you and God, not you and the corporate structure of the church.
Either you tithe out of OT duty to do so, or you tithe out of NT faith, that it is not required but you freely and willingly do so as a show of that same faith.
Modern day tithing should be between you and God, not you and the corporate structure of the church.
Israel
BANNED
They only asked us to be mindful of the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. When Cephas came to Antioch, however, I opposed him to his face, because he stood to be condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself, for fear of those in the circumcision group.…
gordon 2
Senior Member
So how are Old Testament rules and examples relevant in todays New Testament society, where the law has been fulfilled and boundaries on tithing no longer apply?
Either you tithe out of OT duty to do so, or you tithe out of NT faith, that it is not required but you freely and willingly do so as a show of that same faith.
Modern day tithing should be between you and God, not you and the corporate structure of the church.
If modern day tithing should be between you and God why do you intervene to teach others to tithe according to your relationship with God?
Joseph Hart 1712-1768
Hart's motto after this time was: "Pharasaic zeel and Antinomian security are the two engines of Satan, with which he grinds the church in all ages, as betwixt [between] the upper and the nether [lower] millstone. The space between them is much narrower and harder to find than most men imagine. It is a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen; and none can show it us but the Holy Ghost."[3] Source wiki on Joseph Hart, minister.
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Miguel Cervantes
Jedi Master
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If modern day tithing should be between you and God why do you intervene to teach others to tithe according to your relationship with God?
You mean when someone says it is scriptural and insists on that being backed up by old testament law, while claiming salvation through Jesus Christ who gave His life to free them from that law and cover their sins for all eternity?
Did not Jesus himself set an example for us how we are to live? Did Jesus himself not intervene by fulfilling those OT laws and covering our sins for all eternity?
Was his sacrifice not enough?
gordon 2
Senior Member
I don't wish to rehash this but my understanding is that what was fulfilled in those laws was not a sure cleavage to the letter of the law, but a sincerity towards the spirituality of the law. ( Not a motive of sacrifice towards the fulfillment of the law, but now one sounded from righteousness as this is God's will from the get go-- or the foundations of the world.)
I personally don't think fixed percentages apply... especially that a saint's heart is tempered initially, but also progressively, by our Lord's sacrifice and his continuing ministry. A few stabs at the wrong place will dull the heart... and a return to the stone often is in order. Therefore the law of tithing ( if there is such a thing) cannot be fixed as it takes time to learn of one's freedom to learn from God and from man not so much. But from this freedom saints tithe lean and fat for many reasons...
Some say there have been changes from this to this:
--From this: Do not have any other god before God.
Do not make yourself an idol.
-- To this: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
And how great is the supposed law of tithing compared to the greater commandments of Christianity? I know that I often wonder if to love the self is not the same as loving one's neighbor? Or that I am my neighbor? And if this is not all upside down thinking? Do Christians today rob God by preferring to pay 10% to the church in lieu of 35% to governments. Is the motivation from their wallet or from their relationship with their creator ?
Acts 6:2“It is not desirable that we neglect the word of God to serve tables. 3 So, brothers, select from among you seven men of good reputation,[h] full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we will put in charge of this need. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5
What was the motivation behind what the church decided in this case? That the word of God be neglected to serve tables? "Men of good reputation ...we will put in charge of this need*" *to feed the widows. Do the men of good reputation need to minister to this need from the church today? Is the church still to devote itself to prayers and the ministry of the word...especially before works of charity?
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Miguel Cervantes
Jedi Master
Exactly correct, as I have stated previously in not so many words, or perhaps more.
hobbs27
Senior Member
I don't think it does, but I haven't seen anyone suggest Christians are to behave in a manner that would not support the moral laws.
Having gone through your posts in this thread, we would have to discuss the following (on which we appear to disagree) before we could reasonably discuss my post:
What is the law?
How is the law to be interpreted?
What is the Old Covenant?
What is the New Covenant?
How did Christ fulfill the law?
What is the tithe?
To what does antinomian refer?
The chances of getting around to Antinomianism this year, or in this life, seem minimal.
hobbs27
Senior Member
Would you accept this definition? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomianism
And this: https://www.gotquestions.org/antinomianism.html
And this? https://www.theopedia.com/antinomianism
Tithing is not a moral law. It was a law given to the Jewish tribes of land to support the Levites which had no land but were given the duties of priesthood.
gordon 2
Senior Member
Moving right along....
Thus, classic Methodist commentator Adam Clarke held, "The Gospel proclaims liberty from the ceremonial law, but binds you still faster under the moral law. To be freed from the ceremonial law is the Gospel liberty; to pretend freedom from the moral law is Antinomianism."[7] Contemporary Evangelical theologian J. I. Packer states that Antinomianism, "which means being anti-law, is a name for several views." [8]
Source Wiki, Antinomianism.
Thus, classic Methodist commentator Adam Clarke held, "The Gospel proclaims liberty from the ceremonial law, but binds you still faster under the moral law. To be freed from the ceremonial law is the Gospel liberty; to pretend freedom from the moral law is Antinomianism."[7] Contemporary Evangelical theologian J. I. Packer states that Antinomianism, "which means being anti-law, is a name for several views." [8]
Source Wiki, Antinomianism.
gordon 2
Senior Member
Yes but to be fair it was also a way to feed the poor... Or in other words the items of sacrifice ( tithing?) were not only for the priests but also for the poor.
Nehemiah, 8: 2 2 And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.
Nehemiah, 8:10 Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
hobbs27
Senior Member
Gordon... My eyes are burning and swollen with sleeplessness due to my recent work schedule. I'll be gone to sleep by the time you can respond to this hopefully, but my question is.
Is Nehemiah 8 concerning tithes or a feast Sabbath?
gordon 2
Senior Member
Well I asked a Rabbi once if the ancient temple sacrifice was only for the priest and he told me that it was common tradition to share it with the poor. So Nehemiah 8 is definitely a feast, but from what I understand not out of place as to sharing with the poor: " send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared:". So if you understand that the temple items of sacrifice are tithes to upkeep the temple and the priesthood, then I would understand and agree that it is a tithe-- but also it was used to help the poor. I'm not certain what the relationship is between helping the poor and tithing...? Someone?
