What Are Tithes?

The practice of giving tithes has been around since the Old Testament. Because tithing involves giving to the church, it is sometimes confused with the word “offering”. Tithes and offerings may both be about giving money to the church, but these two are actually different, and you can’t just use the terms interchangeably. 

A tithe is the ten percent of your income that you give to God. In the context of the Old Testament, since people were farming or involved in agriculture, they were expected to give ten percent of their first fruits (Deuteronomy 26). However, in our context, money is more applicable since most of us are not farmers or involved with agriculture. 

What Are Tithes?

Tithing was first instituted as a law during the time of Moses (Deuteronomy 12:5-6 But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; 6 there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.; Deuteronomy 14:22-29) for specific purposes. For one, tithes given to the Lord are also used to provide for the needs of the Levites, the priests God said do not have allotment or inheritance since their inheritance is God himself and they are called into priesthood full-time. Therefore, these Levitical priests cannot work to earn or provide for themselves. While we may tithe for this reason, our hard-earned first fruits are indeed hard to give when we can use the money for ourselves or our families. However, the Bible tells us to never test God except regarding this particular aspect. Only in (Malachi 3:10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.) will you find God telling His people to test Him on that, and they will see that blessings from heaven will be poured out on them.

What Are Tithes?

What Are Tithes?

The sad reality in churches these days is that giving tithes is often neglected. Tithes are given less importance, and because of it, churches suffer. God instituted tithing for a reason—it’s for the needs of the church, which does the work of the Lord on a full-time basis. Aside from that, first, it is a commandment of the Lord.  And if it is a commandment of God, we ought to obey it regardless of how much it hurts our pockets to give ten percent of what we receive. Whether we earn more or less, it has the same noticeable effect on our finances. But tithing also allows us to give back to God what is His and trust that He is indeed faithful and will provide for us and all of our needs. As what Jesus said, we should not be anxious about what we need, but rather, we should seek the things that are above. Seeking what is above involves tithing. If God was able to provide the perfect sacrifice for our sins, His Son, how much more our earthly needs?