In another paper, I wrote about four myths that some believe are taught in the Bible. In this article, I write about two more myths. As before, I will attempt to answer these by examining the Scripture and with sound reasoning. Please see my first paper on this topic, Money Myths from the Bible. The two myths I write about here are:
- If you give, God will give back more
- Tithing Opens the Windows of Heaven
If you give, God will give back more
This is a favorite of the prosperity gospel folks who might refer to it as ‘100 fold return’ or ‘seeding.’ Typically, you see this viewpoint espoused when they are fundraising. However, it is also seems to be a favorite of the ‘tickle our ears crowd’ who really like the good feelings they get from it.1 They use passages such as Luke 6:38, Matthew 17:20, and Mark 10:29-30,2 among others. Another passage used, found in Matthew 13, is the one I will evaluate to see what is actually taught in Scripture.
Parable of the Sower
The parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-9 is used to show that God will give back if you sow in faith. The problem is that in this passage, the ‘seed’ for sowing is the ‘word of the kingdom’, not money. We know this because Jesus explains the meaning of the parable to his disciples in Matthew 13:18-23:
18 “Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil [one] comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. 20 “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no [firm] root in himself, but is [only] temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. 22 “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 23 “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”
Jesus explains the four places where the word is sown starting in verse 19:
- First, we see that the seed is the ‘word of the kingdom’ sown in the heart. The seed is not money or financial gifts, but the Word of God. It is not sown into some ministry or even the church.
- The second place the seed is sown is on the rocky places, in verses 20-21. The man hears, but falls away when affliction arises because of the word. Persecution and affliction comes when the Word of God confronts sinful man. If man rejects God’s Word, it causes pain.
- In verse 22, this hearer falls away because of the deceitfulness of wealth. Does it seem odd that a passage that they say is about getting wealthy says that wealth can be deceitful?
- The last one, verse 23. has the word sown in their heart, which is the good soil. They understand, and the seed, the word of the kingdom, produces fruit. This would be the fruit of righteousness in their lives when they are transformed by the Word of God.
The hundredfold return in this passage is not a return on money. It is a return on the Word of God sown in a person’s heart and the Spiritual fruit born from that word. The hearer referred to as having ‘good soil’, is not led astray and choked by the ‘deceitfulness of wealth’ but is transformed by the Word of God. I share some of my own financial journey in giving in this article: Spirit of Giving.
Tithing Opens the Windows of Heaven
The passage in Malachi 3:8-12 is used to show that if one gives their tithe, God will return an overflowing blessing. I have several problems with this. First, this particular passage is addressed to Israel. The second issue is that some folks make too broad an application of the passage instead of sticking to what the Scripture says. In this passage, Malachi says:
8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed Thee?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. 11 Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it may not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the LORD of hosts. 12 “And all the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land,” says the LORD of hosts.
An additional argument to support this incorrect teaching on tithing, is found in Matthew 23:23. Jesus is thought to support tithing, so I will address the Matthew passage as well in a later section titled, ‘Jesus Teaches Tithing?’.
To: Israel
The first problem is, that Malachi is written to Old Testament Israel, not to New Testament Christians.3 Trying to use the passage to talk about tithing is like trying to use a passage out of Leviticus to explain how Christians today should do animal sacrifices. We don’t do animal sacrifices, nor do we tithe like they did in Old Testament times.
The tithe ceased at the start of the church, when the believers received the promised Holy Spirit.4 When the church started, the Old Testament sacrifices ceased, therefore the Levitical priesthood changed into the priesthood of the believer.5 That is why the tithe is never commanded for believers in the New Testament.
The Tithe
On his website, John MacArthur has a great summary of the tithing issue:
“Two kinds of giving are taught consistently throughout Scripture: giving to the government (always compulsory), and giving to God (always voluntary).
“The issue has been greatly confused, however, by some who misunderstand the nature of the Old Testament tithes. Tithes were not primarily gifts to God, but taxes for funding the national budget in Israel.
“Because Israel was a theocracy, the Levitical priests acted as the civil government. So the Levite’s tithe (Leviticus 27:30-33) was a precursor to today’s income tax, as was a second annual tithe required by God to fund a national festival (Deuteronomy 14:22-29). Smaller taxes were also imposed on the people by the law (Leviticus 19:9-10; Exodus 23:10-11). So the total giving required of the Israelites was not 10 percent, but well over 20 percent. All that money was used to operate the nation.
“All giving apart from that required to run the government was purely voluntary (cf. Exodus 25:2; 1 Chronicles 29:9). Each person gave whatever was in his heart to give; no percentage or amount was specified.
“New Testament believers are never commanded to tithe. Matthew 22:15-22 and Romans 13:1-7 tell us about the only required giving in the church age, which is the paying of taxes to the government.
“The guideline for our giving to God and His work is found in 2 Corinthians 9:6-7: “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully. Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver.” ”6
MacArthur’s summary lays out for us the nature of giving. For a fuller understanding, please see John MacArthur’s sermon on the topic on his website at The Biblical Model for Giving. The link given is to the third message of a 3-part study on the topic. This third message specifically covers the issues of the Old Testament tithe.
Too Broad
The second issue is in applying the passage too broadly, yielding some bad results. Sometimes, when we take the principle of a passage and apply it, we go too far, making is say something that is not intended. That is what some do with this Malachi passage.
For example, one prosperity gospel writer describes the Malachi 3:10-12 passage as “The Sixfold Blessing of the Tithe.” They contort the passage, ‘make it walk on all fours,’7 and come up with six blessings. They ignore the fact that Malachi’s message is to Israel, and specifically about giving so there is food in the storehouse. (The storehouse is a specific area for holding food. It is not the church.) They also expand the meaning of the passage to include every area of one’s life. The writer says that, “The sixfold blessing of the tithe will change your life in every area.” They go on to say, “Giving God the first of anything brings His blessings onto the remainder of that thing.”8 This idea of blessing the remainder is somehow drawn out of this passage. God blessing us when we put Him first is taught in Scripture, but not here.
To be clear, dedicating our lives to God and living for Him, puts Him first -first in everything. That does indeed bring blessing into our lives. Not because we do something such as give 10% of a thing, but because of who God is in our lives. We give ourselves to God first and the rest follows. As 2 Corinthians 8:3-5 says:
3 “For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability they gave of their own accord, 4 begging us with much entreaty for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, 5 and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.”9
This same ‘sixfold blessing’ writer says that the tithe is necessary, “Because it breaks the curse off your finances. Giving the first 10% to God redeems money from the curse of this world’s systems.”10 The problem is that our finances are not cursed unless we are wicked, just as Proverbs 3:33 tells us: “The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, But He blesses the dwelling of the righteous.”
If we are truly Christians, then God has made us righteous. Unless we are acting wickedly in some area and need to repent, we are not under a curse. Therefore we don’t need to break any ‘curse of the world’s systems’ in our lives because God has set us free from that slavery. However, our thinking and lifestyle may need a course correction to align with Scripture, which is an ongoing process in this life.
Jesus taught that when we sin, we are a slave to sin. The good news is that Jesus set us free from slavery! He says, “If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
The curse being talked about in Malachi 3:9, is because Israel was commanded to tithe to fill the storehouse. Israel disobeyed, and it was a curse to them. Obey God, and the curse is gone.
Predates the Law
Another incorrect line of reasoning used by some, is that some things in the Bible predate the law and are ‘universal’ -meaning that they did not end when the law ended for Christians. Someone holding this view would say this, “If something starts before the law, and continues during the law, then it is universal and is still valid after the law ceases.” This way of thinking is not supported in Scripture.
One writer, in an article titled “The Tithe: It’s For Today”, says, “The tithe predates the law and is therefore not nullified by any end or completion to the law.”11
This creates problems in other areas. For example, observing the Sabbath rest predates the law (it started in Genesis12), and animal sacrifices predate the law (also started in Genesis13), but Christians no longer abide by them.14 So just because something predates the law does not make it universal and still valid for today.
Jesus Teaches Tithing?
There is one passage found in the gospel of Matthew where Jesus seems to teach tithing. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus states,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”
The writer just noted above says that the Matthew 23 passage shows that, “Jesus approves and commands the tithe ought to be done.”15 Another writer says of this passage, “Here, Jesus is chastising those who tithe, but neglect other parts of the law. Jesus explicitly states that tithing should not be neglected.”16
I have several things to look at in response to these views on Jesus’ teaching:
Jesus’ Point
First, we don’t want to miss the point that Jesus was making. The leaders of the Jews paid attention to the easier, smaller, points of the law to make an impression. But, they left out the more important, difficult, weightier aspects of the law, and did not honor God. Bible commentator Joseph Benson says, “They observed the ceremonial precepts of the law with all possible exactness, while they utterly neglected the eternal, immutable, indispensable rules of righteousness.”17 Matthew Henry adds, “The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was like the ornaments of a grave, or dressing up a dead body, only for show.”18 Tithing is just one of the issues, in a long list of problems, that Jesus condemns in chapter 23 of Matthew.
Context
In order to understand this passage, we need to know that Jesus is speaking to the people living at that time, including His disciples.19 This is important, because His listeners were still living under the law, and needed to obey it by tithing. Once Jesus died and rose from the dead, which initiated the new covenant, the law and its requirements were fulfilled. As mentioned earlier, the Levitical priesthood ended with the new covenant, ushering in the priesthood of the believer. Therefore the need for the tithe ceased.20
Commanded?
The giving of a tithe is not commanded in the New Testament, but the paying of taxes to government is commanded. Freewill giving is talked about many times in the Bible, flows from the heart rather than being commanded, and the amount is not specified. See the links to other resources I have included in this article for more in-depth teaching on this issue.
Requirements for Gentiles
Also, when the Gentiles were first recognized as part of the church, some thought that they needed to follow the law. In Acts 15, the issue was taken up by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. Certain believers in attendance stated their position saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.”21
The early leadership debated the issue, and after much discussion, the apostles and elders came up with the following to which they all agreed. The last part, as recorded in chapter 15 of Acts says:
28 “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials:
29 that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.”
The early church leaders could have easily included tithing or any other part of the law, but did not. In fact, they were trying to prevent that very thing from burdening the new believers. Part of their discussion included this, spoken by Peter, recorded for us in Acts 15:10-11:
10 “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”
Conclusion
I briefly answered two myths in this paper: If you give, God will give back more; and, Tithing Opens the Windows of Heaven. Both issues can be complex and not well understood. My goal was not to bash anyone, but to try and present clear teaching from the Scriptures. I have written about related issues in my paper, Idol of Prosperity.
I have included two links for more in-depth study on the topic of giving and tithing. For those needing a more thorough treatment of these topics, please check out these resources.
1 The ‘tickle our ears crowd’ are what I am calling the folks that do not want truth and Biblical self-sacrifice, but to satisfy their own desires. They are only looking at what is in it for them. The idea that God wants them to be rich appeals to them and they like the formula they think is in the hundred fold teaching. Paul talks about this idea of tickled ears in 2 Timothy 4:3-4. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.”
2 For a good Biblical answer on these passages, see https://www.gotquestions.org/seed-faith.html 11/25/22
3 Malachi 1:1 tells us it is written to Israel.”The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.”
4 Acts 2
5 1 Peter 2:5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6 https://www.gty.org/library/questions/QA144/does-god-require-me-to-give-a-tithe-of-all-i-earn 11/29/22
7 The first person I remember using this phrase was Chuck Swindoll. He was explaining that a parable in the Bible usually has one main point. But if you try to make it mean other things, and every little thing in the parable means something unintended, then you are ‘making it walk on all fours.’
8 https://www.fromhispresence.com/sixfold-blessing-of-the-tithe/ 11/25/22
9 Emphasis added.
10 See reference #8
11 https://bibleography.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-tithe-its-for-today.html 12/2/22
12 Genesis 2:3 “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” Exodus 20:11 “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.”
13 Started by Abel in Genesis 4 as a freewill offering.
14 Paul argues against Sabbath keeping in Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.
15 https://bibleography.blogspot.com/search?q=matthew+23 12/2/22
16 https://www.crosswalk.com/church/giving/truths-about-the-blessing-of-tithing-even-as-teens.html 12/2/22
17 Benson Commentary of the Old and New Testaments.
18 Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Matthew
19 Matthew 23:1 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples.
20 You can learn more in this sermon by Ronnie Rogers titled God’s Standard for Giving, here: https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/trinitynorman/sermons/99619151347320/ 12/4/22
21 Acts 15:5