8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. (Malachi 3:8-10 ESV)
Tithing is one of those things that is one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted aspect of the Christian faith. I am not here to give anything other than a scriptural response to it either. Depending upon how you read the Law in the Old Testament it can be anywhere from ten percent to a roughly twenty five percent.
The New Testament changes the Mosaic Law into one of a question of the heart. We are to give with a glad heart. I believe the bigger question comes from our scripture today, are we robbing God?
The idea is that we give of our first fruits, we give to God first before we do anything else. Also, we do not see the above scripture as a magic path to more money. The blessings God bestows may not necessarily be financial in nature. The idea needs to be threefold; give with a glad heart, give to God our first fruits and know that God blesses the giver.
As I have written before, it also goes to expect that we are giving from our time, our talents and our treasure. We need to be allocating some portion of all aspects of our lives to God’s kingdom building and to spreading the Gospel.
So, when we give, I think we need to be more focused upon abundant giving, not just giving from our abundance.
