Irenaeus an early church theologian

In Against Heresies, Irenaeus wrote, “[The Old Testament saints] offered their tithes; but those who have received liberty set apart everything they have for the Lord’s use, cheerfully and freely giving them, not as small things in hope of greater, but like that poor widow, who put her whole livelihood into the treasury of God.” The Didache (early second century) certainly has Scripture on its side when it counsels, “Do not hesitate to give, and do not give with a bad grace; for you will discover who He is that repays you. . .Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own.”

Why do you need Yeshua if the law is still in effect?

I got this question from a Jewish reader of this blog. How do you answer a question like this?

What about "the poor tithe?"

A friend of mine just posted her recent experience on Facebook about how money is tight and how she felt like she was rationalizing and that maybe it was ok to not tithe just this one week to pay for necessities.

It is criminal that the church has convinced so much of the body of Christ that they must follow the Jewish practice of collecting the Levitical tithe and handing it to the local church. The problem I see is that all of the arguments for maintaining the Levitical (priesthood) tithe are equally valid for maintaining the second tithe AND the poor tithe. The church has carefully left those out.

Nowhere in scripture is the church given authority to collect a tithe. Nowhere in scripture is a pastor/shepherd given authority to collect a tithe.

This friend of mine could have benefitted from the proceeds of the poor tithe. What gives church?

When is it ok to cause “division” in the church?

So, if you believe like I do that tithing is not a new testament principle and that to impose compulsory tithing is sinful… How do you go about getting your church to address this issue? Do you say to your pastor, “pastor I think we are changing the Gospel and we need to stop?” Do you buy him a book about it or what? Will he just write your opinion off? After all he is the professional Christian. Tell me what you think?

Sob stories and arm-twisting

What kind of pressure does the church put on you to give? Should there be any pressure? I normally avoid paraphrases but in this case I thought it was almost humorous the words Eugene Peterson chose.

2 Corinthians 9:6 The Message
"I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm- twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving."

Seems like our churches have become more and more like the gentile courts, where Jesus needed to knock over tables. What do you think?

Give to the local church first?

We recommend that you give to your local church first, then give to ______.

I hear this all of the time, I got to wondering where this idea came from. Is there a Bible story that teaches this or did someone come up with it and it sounded so "right" that we just grabbed ahold of it? I ran a Google search (I know, I know) to see if anybody else had written anything on this topic and it did not seem there was much out there. One article I did find lays out some very interesting arguments about this very topic. I loved this statement Robin A. Brace makes at the end:

"Ministers should not continue to behave as though we were still in the middle of 19^th century denominationalism which insisted on loyalty to the local church alone, rather, pastors should warmly encourage their members to be very aware of world-wide issues facing Christians and the Christian Gospel and should rejoice when their people feel impelled by conscience to support more global Christian endeavors"

 What do you think?

What are we missing out on?

A friend of mine made a post on a social networking site as a response to my opinion that compulsory tithing and the Brian Kluth books were bad for the church. I copied her post and pasted it into a Word document in order to write an intelligent reply (I like to do this so I can use the spell check etc.) By the time I went back to post my response she had deleted the post (out of fear). I have made minor edits to protect her identity. Her post said:

"The discouraging thing is giving us a book to motivate us to tithe is going a little far and to get the it preached at us each week is very up setting. I don't like it at all either. I realize that it would be great is everyone gives as we should. I give when I can but right now it is a widows pence compared to what it was when we both where working and earning so much more. We try to help in other ways when we fall short. But to be reminded that we are not fallowing through as much as they want and get told each week is hard to swallow please keep reminding us that we aren't working, or making as much, don't have insurance , and barley enough to put food on the table, have to ask for family to help and then want to make us feel bad for not giving a larger amount of the little we have. It is enough to make you not want to go to the church we love so much."

I cried when I read this. This woman's family is clearly in financial distress and the one thing that should be her comfort, her joy, her place of fellowship and peace, her church only makes her feel worse.

What are we missing out on? It occurred to me that in the first century church, someone else in the church would have sold a field or done something to give her and her family so that none of them were wanting. Instead we have a building that cost millions of dollars. Seems to me like we are doing church instead of being church.

My family has gone through a bankruptcy, following a month of NICU when my youngest child was born the bills had mounted beyond what we could ever replay. Our church knew about our distress but nobody offered any help. Would this have happened to us if our church was a first century church?