Going to Jesus

Daily Thoughts

 Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:

• Collection

  Thoughts for the Morning Thoughts for the Evening Random Thoughts

• Month

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• Day

  01-01 Fasting and Feasting 01-02 Why Did Jesus Send Them Away? 01-03 Did The Animals Talk? 01-04 Chosen to Love and Bless 01-05 No Evolution in Christ 01-06 Why was the Ethiopian Eunuch Baptized? 01-07 Angels 01-08 Angels and Cherubim 01-09 An Eternal Kind of Life 01-10 Why Some Do Not Testify 01-11 Paul’s Tribe and Name 01-12 Tithes and Offerings 01-13 Jesus and Animal Sacrifice 01-14 Treasures From the Old and New 01-15 Rejoicing in Weakness, Part 1 01-16 Rejoicing in Weakness, Part 2 01-17 Needing God 01-18 “Beside Himself” 01-19 Jesus, The Stumbling Block 01-20 Evolution and Restoration 01-21 Fasting in Spirit and Truth 01-22 Stumbling Blocks 01-23 Getting Past Things 01-24 A Warm Bosom 01-25 Too Much Debt 01-26 Confessing Christ For Profit 01-27 The First Catholic 01-28 The Opposite of Single 01-29 “No Good Thing Will He Withhold” 01-30 “If I Didn’t Know” 01-31 “If God Wants You To Give”

 

Thought for the Morning
1-12

Tithes and Offerings

Good day Pastor John,

I was having a thought on tithe and offering of late, so I decided to tell you, because I know you will be of good help to me in such issue.

If worshiping God now is all about in Spirit and in truth, and warfares are of the spirit, holy communion of unleavened bread, robes for worship, eight-day circumcision, water baptism, anointing oil and the likes are of the flesh, and things of the past, (in fact, irrelevant), why is tithe and offering still relevant? I see no connection of it to worshiping God in Spirit and in Truth.

Just wondering and pondering over it, and I need your help to avoid matching the lines through my thoughts.

Thanks for the help.

Regards,

Frank, Nigeria

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Hi Brother Frank!

Good question.

The issue is, was God’s commandment for His people to support His servants with their tithes and offerings a moral commandment or a ceremonial one? Moral laws were strengthened, not done away with, by the sacrificial work of Christ. True enough, bringing tithes and offerings deals with natural substance - earthly money and goods, but then, so does “love your neighbor”, when we get practical about it.

The answer to whether or not the commandment for Israelites to bring tithes and offerings to God was a moral or ceremonial law is found in the answer to another question; namely, “If we do not bring God His tithes and offerings, then which commandment have we broken?” And the answer to that is found in Malachi 3:8, where God tells His people that they have robbed Him by failing to bring their tithes and offerings. And we know that stealing is a moral offense. There is nothing ceremonial about God’s commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”

Brother Frank, reasonable, godly people, would do something like bring tithes and offerings to God even if He had not required them to. Saints working together like that makes web sites possible so that people in foreign lands, such as yourself, can hear the truth of the gospel and be delivered from Christianity! God’s system of tithes and offerings is the most reasonable, practical system for the propagation of the gospel that can be devised. If there was something better, God would already have come up with it.

Pastor John