Did Jesus ever actually command tithing — or did the church invent a financial obligation Jesus never imposed on anyone?

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  Liam1mo ago

  I'm a pastor and I'll be honest with you all: the reason tithing gets taught as hard law in so many churches is because churches have mortgages. Full stop. The theology got shaped around the financial need. I'm not proud of how widespread that is. We should be teaching radical, joyful generosity — 2 Corinthians 9 — and trusting the congregation. Instead we guilt-trip people with Malachi and wonder why they leave.

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• A

  Avery1mo ago

  okay so Malachi 3 is written to the priests of Israel about temple offerings of livestock and grain. your church is not the temple. your pastor is not a Levite. the direct application people make from that passage to a Sunday offering plate is one of the most creative interpretive leaps in modern Christian history.

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  Priya1mo ago

  The fact that most prosperity gospel churches hammer tithing hardest while their leaders fly private should tell you everything you need to know about who the doctrine serves.

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• Q

  Quinn1mo ago

  Been wrestling with this for twenty years. Here's where I land: Jesus raised the bar on everything — lust becomes adultery, anger becomes murder, love your enemies. If the bar on money went DOWN from 10% to 'whatever feels cheerful,' that would be the only place in the Sermon on the Mount where discipleship got easier. That doesn't ring true to me. Give generously. Give sacrificially. Give until you feel it. Maybe 10% is the floor, not the ceiling.

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• O

  Omar1mo ago

  I grew up in a church where if you missed tithing you were told you were 'outside the covering' and bad things could happen to your family. I was 19 and broke and terrified. That is spiritual abuse dressed up in a budget shortfall. It took me years to disentangle generosity from coercion.

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• Q

  Quinn1mo ago

  Here's what nobody wants to say: the early church in Acts shared EVERYTHING. They sold property. They had no private reserves. If you want to argue 'biblical giving' the tithe is actually the moderate conservative position. The radical position is way more uncomfortable and almost nobody preaches it.

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• M9

  Morgan 921mo ago

  The tithe is literally in the Old Testament. Malachi 3:10. 'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.' You want to rob God, go ahead. I'll keep my 10%.

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• ZS

  Zara S.1mo ago

  If you disagree that the tithe is a human institution protecting human institutions, explain to me why the percentage never changes based on someone's income, why the poor are expected to give the same fraction as the wealthy, and why the destination is almost always the organization that's asking. I'm genuinely waiting.

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• Z2

  Zara 211mo ago

  Theologically speaking there were actually THREE tithes in ancient Israel — the Levitical tithe, the festival tithe, and the poor tithe given every three years — which works out to closer to 23% annually. The church picked the most convenient number and called it biblical. I'd love to see the 23% sermons. I will not hold my breath.

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• R

  Ravi1mo ago

  He was speaking to Pharisees who were still under the Mosaic covenant before the cross. The audience matters enormously. You can't just lift a statement Jesus made to Torah-observant Jews in 30 AD and transplant it into a 2024 church budget without doing some serious hermeneutical work first.

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• EL

  Elena L.1mo ago

  Abraham gave a tenth of war spoils ONE TIME voluntarily and people turn that into a binding covenant obligation. Jacob said he WOULD give a tenth IF God blessed him first. These are not commands. These are stories. Reading them as legislation is exactly the kind of eisegesis pastors warn you about in seminary and then ignore on stewardship Sunday.

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• N_

  Nina _x1mo ago

  I give more than 10%. Always have. But I give to people I can look in the eyes — my neighbor who lost his job, the single mom at school, the food pantry down the street. I haven't given to an institutional church in four years and I have never felt closer to what Jesus actually described. If that makes me unbiblical, I'm at peace with it.

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• T

  Theo1mo ago

  when a doctrine is consistently abused in consistent ways across consistent contexts it might be worth asking if the doctrine itself creates the opening for that abuse. im just saying. 'its not the teaching its the teachers' stops being convincing after the thousandth identical scandal

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• O

  Omar1mo ago

  The 'Jesus never commanded it' argument cuts both ways though. Jesus never commanded a lot of things we treat as obvious. He never commanded hospitals or orphanages either but Christians built them because the Spirit of what He taught pointed that direction. The question isn't 'did Jesus say the specific number 10' but 'what does faithfulness with money look like?' And I think most of us know we're not there.

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  Drew1mo ago

  Every time I see a comment like the one above from the 'honest pastor' I wonder why he's still cashing his check from said mortgage-driven institution. Either it's wrong or it isn't.

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• Q

  Quinn1mo ago

  It's true. Look up the scholarship on it. Randy Alcorn, R.T. Kendall, even some conservative evangelical scholars acknowledge the tithe system was more complex than 'give 10% on Sunday.' The simplification is a modern pastoral convenience.

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• J

  Jordan1mo ago

  I tithe not because I'm scared of Malachi but because it disciplines me. It's the one practice that physically reminds me every month that my money isn't actually mine. Whether or not it's a command, it does something to my soul that I'm not willing to give up.

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• S

  Sam1mo ago

  Whether it's technically 'commanded' by Jesus or not, the principle of giving back to God a portion of what He gives you is woven through the entire Bible, from Genesis with Abraham giving a tenth to Melchizedek before the Law even existed. The 10% isn't arbitrary. It's a recurring pattern across thousands of years of Scripture.

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  Kofi1mo ago

  I never knew about the multiple tithes thing and I've been in church my whole life. If this is true it completely changes the conversation and somebody owes a lot of congregations an explanation.

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  Riley1mo ago

  the word 'tithe' literally means tenth. if youre not giving 10 percent it is definitionally not a tithe. you can make an argument for generous giving all day but just call it that. the church took a word that means a specific amount and started using it to mean whatever number makes you feel good about yourself

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  Noah L.1mo ago

  You're conflating abuse of a doctrine with the doctrine itself. Bad people weaponize good things. That doesn't make the thing bad.

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• E_

  Elena _x1mo ago

  Matthew 23:23 — Jesus literally says 'you should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former' while talking about tithing mint and dill and cumin. So He DID affirm tithing. Settle down everybody.

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  Sam1mo ago

  The problem with that approach — and I say this gently — is that it's entirely feelings-based and self-directed. The church, whatever its flaws, creates accountability and sustained community support. Your giving might be beautiful and still be missing something about what gathered worship and shared life are supposed to produce.

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  Jamie1mo ago

  Nope. Hard disagree with the whole framing here. The question isn't whether Jesus commanded exactly 10%. It's whether Christians have an obligation to support the work of the church financially. Obviously they do. Call it a tithe, call it an offering, call it whatever you want.

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• H

  Hana1mo ago

  That is genuinely the most honest and compelling defense of tithing I've ever seen in one of these threads. I don't fully agree but I respect it.

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More debates people can't stop arguing about