Maybe because they read the Bible and saw that what churches call “tithing” bears no resemblance to the Old Testament Tithe — in form or purpose — and that there’s nothing of it in the New Testament at all.

Now, of course Christians should support their Church and its clergy. But are Christians duty bound to pay 10% of their income – even 10% of their “Gross Income” – to their church, and if they neglect this are guilty of “robbing God”?

Barring personal or corporate covenants to the contrary, the answer is: “Absolutely not!”

The Tithe instituted by God through Moses in the Old Testament had a specific ceremonial function. It was first and foremost a symbolic act with ritual rather than economic significance. What is more, it was never the means by which the Israelites were to finance the Temple and the priesthood. (Lev 27:30-33, Num 18:21-32, Deu 12:1-19, 14:22-29, 26:1-15) The Tithe is part and parcel with the sacrificial system, the Sabbath, and the Kosher laws; it is as relevant to us today as the Tabernacle cult, Levites, and the hereditary Aaronic priesthood; as significant and obligatory as circumcision. But most importantly, the Tithe was inextricably bound to each Israelite’s inheritance in the Promised Land. At risk of giving away the ending, all of these have been fulfilled in Christ.

Unfortunately, the Old Testament Tithe all too often “interpreted” and preached without any regard to what the Bible actually says on the matter. Modern misconceptions, convention and convenience are the sole basis for how tithing is preached from today’s pulpits.

But this is how the Biblical Tithe actually worked:

Once they had settled in the Promised Land, Israelites were to remind themselves of the days Israel spent wandering in the wilderness, and more importantly how God had given them the Promised Land as their inheritance. This memorial celebration was to be conducted at the annual harvest festival, the Feast of Tabernacles.

The essential preliminary to the feast was this: during the autumn harvest, Israelites would mark and consecrate every tenth yearling kid, calf, and lamb to come in from the field, and every tenth basket from their crop, and every tenth jar of wine, oil, and honey. These and these alone constituted their tithe, which would be used to supply the Feast of Tabernacles with the actual feast.

It should be noted – contra most modern preachers – the Tithe was never Paid “Off The Top”. It was not paid with the first tenth or with the best tenth. The Tithe was paid by sortition: every tenth basket (ephah) of crops, every tenth jar (bath) of wine and olive oil, and every tenth lamb, kid, and calf, as follows, 1-2-3-4-5-7-8-9 for me, 1 for God; 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 for me, 1 for God … and so on, until the baskets or cattle ran out, and if they ran out somewhere before 10, God didn’t get the last one. (It was a sin though to contrive to fix the lot, stacking the deck, so to speak, so that the Tither, rather than God, determined which baskets, jars or animals went to God, and which were kept.

 It should be noted that it was just as much a sin to fix the results so that God received the best as it was to fix it so that He received the worst goods and animals. Simply, every tenth bushel or animal to “pass under the rod” belonged to God.) If an animal or item the owner did not wish to part with was among those so consecrated, he could redeem it with cash for its full value plus 20% - but the cash was NOT paid to the local Levites or to the Tabernacle, or to the Priests. It was used to buy other acceptable animals and produce.

Two years in a row, Israelites would take those consecrated animals, baskets, and jars to the Tabernacle with their whole family to join all Israel for the Feast of Tabernacles. If the journey was too far, they were to sell their consecrated animals and produce for cash, and take the cash with them to the Tabernacle.

When they reached the Tabernacle, Israelites pitched a tent or built a hut in which they’d camp out for the full week of the festival. If they were redeeming any of their animals or produce from the Tithe, or had converted their Tithe to cash, they would now use all that money to purchase kids, calves, lambs and produce from the locals, so they could bring these as their offering at the feast.

On each of the seven days of the festival, they would go to the Tabernacle and join the rest of Israel in the day’s feast. On one day of the festival, they would take all their Tithe to the Tabernacle where the priests would slaughter the animals and offer up God’s portion (the blubber, the blood, and the organs) on the altar. The rest would then be shared out among all of Israel, the choice portions of every animal going to the High Priest and the priest who slaughtered it. Anything that was not eaten that day was taken outside the camp and burned – no leftovers! At the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, the people returned home, much fatter.

Every third year, however, rather than take their Tithe to the Tabernacle, they would take it to the nearest town, and store it there for the Levites and the poor. The Levites and the poor would then take the best tenth of this and take it as their Tithe for the Feast of Tabernacles that year.

At no time was any of the Tithe used to finance the Tabernacle or the Priesthood, apart from the animal hides that went to the priests who did the slaughtering. Every third year, 9% of the harvest was set aside to feed the Levites and the poor (but not the priests). All else – ALL ELSE! – was either eaten communally by all Israel at the Feast, or it was burned.

Ultimately, it seems modern expositors have missed the entire point of the Tithe. In its context in the Pentateuch, the Tithe was not about financing the Temple or the Priesthood or even the Levites. It was the economic analog of the Sabbath.

We must remember that the Israelites of the Exodus and the Conquest did not need to be told to work; they needed to be told to rest. Likewise, they did not need to be told to save (i.e. hoard), they needed to be taught to splurge and share. Their existence had for generations been a desperate one, with famine always crouching at the door, having to work until they dropped from exhaustion, hoarding every crumb as a hedge against future starvation. They needed to be taught to live in celebration, not desperation. They needed to be taught to share, not hoard. Most of all, they needed to be taught to trust that God would still be there tomorrow.

Also, the Tithe had certain particulars that seem always to be missed if not deliberately ignored by modern preachers and expositors:

NOT 10% of Income! The Tithe was never paid on “Gross Income”. It was never even paid on “Net Income”. It was paid only on “the fruit and the flock” – agricultural produce at the harvest including honey, wine and olive oil, (but not milk) and the increase (the yearlings, not the breeding stock) in sheep, cattle, and goats (but not chickens, geese, horses, donkeys, camels, game, fish, etc.). Neither wages nor profits from trade and investment were ever subject to the Tithe, nor were windfalls, gifts, or inheritances.

No Cash! / Food Only! The Tithe could not be paid in cash; it could only be paid with the actual crops, sheep, cattle and goats, though a man could buy the goods or animals back at 20% above their value, the same penalty assessed in the Guilt Offering. (The Guilt Offering required full restitution plus a 20% penalty.) Many preachers and expositors attempt to justify the current preference for cash, stating that people were to pay the tithe in agricultural products because theirs was a barter system with no cash money; but this baseless assertion is clearly rendered ridiculous by everything the Bible has to say on the subject: if there was no “cash” why then the commandments NOT to pay in cash, and how to redeem your offering with cash plus 20% of the offering’s value?

The Tithe Offering Only Made Annually! The Tithe was not paid on a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly basis. It was paid once each year at the Autumn harvest during the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Tithe was completely distinct from the two other harvest festival offerings commanded by God – the first at the dual festival of Passover & the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the second at the Feast of First Fruits (a.k.a. Pentecost) that followed fifty days later. These two festivals, however, just required a token offering, not a tenth of income or produce, and this offering was not part of the Tithe. (The token offerings were these: the Sunday after Passover the first sheave of wheat from ones fields was to be presented as a Wave Offering; fifty days later, on Pentecost, two loaves of bread were also to be presented as a Wave Offering. The latter, the “first fruits” of the wheat harvest, had to be made from two-tenths of an ephah – about two quarts – of the most finely ground pure white flour, made exclusively from the semolina, the choice grains at the heart of the wheat kernel.)

The Tithe was also totally independent of and separate from the offering of all other firstfruits and firstlings. By Divine Decree, the firstborn male of every female, human as well as animal, belonged to the Lord. Also, the first ephah (“basket”) of any and all crops, and the first bath (“daughter-sized jar”, i.e., a filled jar not too heavy for a daughter to carry) of wine and olive oil, also belonged to the Lord.

Wages, profits from trade, not to mention game, fish, poultry and dairy products were not tithable, and in fact are specifically declared to be unacceptable sacrifices to the Lord. (The sole exception here are turtle doves, which the poor could bring as a substitute in the Burnt Offering and Sin Offering – but these could never be given as part of the Tithe.)

The Tithe was never paid “Off The Top”: As stated, the Tithe was paid by sortition: every tenth bushel or animal to “pass under the rod” belonged to God.

The Tithe was paid on the gain (i.e., the net increase) only: seed and breeding stock (the investment roll-over and operating capital) were exempt.

The Tithe was NOT paid TO the Priests, nor to the Tabernacle or, in later times, the Temple. Two years in three, Tithes were “paid” by taking them to the Tabernacle where the Tither was to use his Tithe – a tenth of his harvest and a tenth of the increase in his flocks – to hold a massive feast of thanksgiving to which the whole community was invited, especially the priests, the Levites and all the poor. 

In other words, the purpose of the Tithe was not to finance the Temple and its staff, but to celebrate God’s bounty in the Promised Land and it was to be celebrated in community. Essentially, the Israelite farmer, rancher, and vintner was to dedicate a 10th of his annual produce to one massive Thanksgiving Day feast, to be held sometime during the seven day celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles – and they were to enjoy it while camping out in tents or thatch cabanas set-up in the vicinity of the Tabernacle/Temple, along with the rest of Israel – one vast Jewish Jamboree!

Every third year the Tithes were set aside in toto for the local Levites and the local poor, aliens, widows and orphans for their sustenance, administered out of a community chest. On an annualized basis, that works out to 3⅓% of the harvest. From that 3⅓%, the best tenth of that (⅓% of the harvest) was to be handed over by the Levites to the priests for their sustenance, who in turn were to give the best tenth of their portion to the Altar.

I don’t know of many Protestant churches where the payroll for the sextant, secretary, organist, deacons, et al. along with the budget for aid to the needy, is nine times that of the pay for the pastoral staff, nor where the combined pay for the associate pastors is nine times that of the Senior Pastor. I don’t know of any churches where the congregation tithes (or really “thirtieths”) to the sextant, the organist, the choir master, the Sunday School teachers, et al., who then tithe on that amount to the associate pastors who in turn tithe on that to the Senior Pastor. On your life, you can bet that in every church in this country the moneys are collected at the top and doled out from the top down as the those at the top see fit. While this may be a necessary or at least reasonable way to run an organization in these times, this is clearly not a model based on the Old Testament Tithe.

The Tithe was one instance of the Thanksgiving Offering – one of the two sub-categories of the Peace Offering, the other sub-category being the Fellowship Offering. When ever any Peace Offering was made, both the officiating priest and the High Priest were honored with the choice portion of the offering, but they and their family members were required to eat their portion in community at the feast, and it was a sin to enjoy these apart from the offerer and his guests – though, in the case of a Fellowship Offering, leftovers were allowed, so long as they were eaten in the next day. But in the case of the Thanksgiving Offering – which included all Tithes – the whole of the sacrifice, including the priest’s portion, had to be consumed that very day; all leftovers were to be incinerated – a fact which again indicates a provision for a shared celebration and against personal use.

It was the Levites and the Priests – not the people – who were to Tithe with the best 10% of what they had received (but only on their portion of the tri-annual Harvest Tithe, not on all their “income”). 

The people were never required, or even asked, to give “the first tenth” or “the best tenth”; as was pointed out earlier, they were only to give every tenth bushel, jar, or animal, as these came in. (The misunderstanding that they were to bring the best and/or the first tenth comes from the confusion of the Tithe with the Law of First Fruits: the Tithe was on every tenth bushel or animal, whereas the First Fruits were quite literally the firstborn male of every female, the first basket of ones crop, and the first jar of ones vintage.)

Finally, and most tellingly, the Tithe was specifically and inexorably bound to an Israelite’s Inheritance In The LAND, not his labor.

This is the significance of “the tenth”. Virtually every expositor knows the significance of 7s and 10s in the Pentateuch, but in this matter they seem to be entirely blind to the symbolism. As Seven, or “the seventh”, signifies a spiritual, emotional, and existential fullness, so ten or “the tenth” signifies a terrestrial and physical completeness; the former stresses the vertical, the latter stresses the horizontal. Both have the sense of plenitude, fullness, and perfection, that “nothing is lacking”, that all that belongs is present in abundance. Just as an Israelite was to consecrate every 7th day as a celebration to the Lord in community, so was he to consecrate every 10th lamb, kid, calf, jar of wine, and bushel of the fruit of The Land FOR a celebration to the Lord in community. And, like the Sabbath itself, man was not made for the Tithe, but the Tithe for man.

Following on that observation, it is amazing that generations of interpreters have repeatedly stumbled over the real point of the divine decree that seals God’s instructions on the Tithe celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, along with His commandments on the two other pilgrimage festivals of Passover/Unleavened Bread and Pentecost. God decrees through Moses:

Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD. Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning. Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

The injunction against yeast is not an injunction against some symbol of insidious corruption, but against simple puffery – an injunction against inflating ones grain offering to look more substantial than it is, hence “the yeast of the Pharisees” that Christ so railed against: their perversely inflated show-righteousness without inner substance. More striking is the seemingly strange command: “Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.” Since 1933, scholars trapped in an excessive literalism have thought this to be a prohibition against practicing a supposed Canaanite fertility rite – the existence of which is supported by much conjecture and no direct evidence. What we must recognize is that this is in fact an ancient proverb – like “Don’t cross your bridges until you come to them.” In its context it becomes entirely clear what it means: the purpose of the festivals, and the Tithes and offerings that supported them, is to nourish God’s people, not stew them alive.

There was also significance to “the year of the Tithe”, the command to set aside the Tithes every third year for the Levites and the poor. The significance of the third year is like that of the third day. As the seventh day and the seventh year signify a time of fullness and rest, “Shabbat Shalom”, so the third day and the third year both signify a day of salvation, a Divine act of deliverance from raging, chaotic and desperate circumstances.

It is also essential that we understand that the Tithe was completely bound up with The Promised Land itself – both the land part and the promised part. What was tithable was the fruit of THAT Land (crops grown there, animals bred and grazed there) – it was the Land God had promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; it was the Land that God had given to them, a Land flowing with milk and honey; a Land filled with houses and cities they did not build, and vineyards and orchards they did not plant, a Land with stocked granaries and larders they did not fill, a land which God would and did deliver into their hands, He Himself taking it from the inhabitants, against whom the Israelites had no hope of defeating in their own strength. The Land had been distributed by Divine Decree among the children of Israel (except the Levites) as their inheritance, and even if one sold it, it was to be returned to that individual or his heirs every Jubilee year. The Harvest Tithe every third year had been, likewise, allotted to the Levites as their inheritance in the Land, not as compensation for services rendered. Virtually all Levites, most of whom worked at the Temple only two weeks each year, supported themselves primarily by working as craftsmen and shopkeepers in their towns, or farming the town commons. By the time of Ezra, the same was true of the priests. Most tellingly, no Tithe was “paid” until after the Conquest, forty years after Moses had set down the instructions for it.

Profits from the sale of handicrafts were not tithable, 1) because these were not the produce of their God-bequeathed inheritance, and 2) because men made them, and they were therefore, presumably, tainted – unlike flocks and crops: men cannot make a seed grow into a tree, nor can they make two sheep into a flock; only God can. Similarly, profits from trade (buying low, selling high) were especially not tithable because these were just profits from speculation, i.e., it was profiting from the relative desperation of others – “motivated sellers” and “motivated buyers”. Finally, wages were not tithable because these too were not the return on ones inheritance, but rather reflected ones own alienation from his inheritance – if one still was in possession of his allotment, there would have been no need to take on a job as a hired laborer. Also, such wages were obtained not by faith (putting something in the ground and then waiting and praying for several months that something might come of it) but by faithlessness, i.e., the selling of ones own life for one day in return for a sure but miniscule payoff – and consequently, whoever had so sold their own labor, had necessarily sold it cheap: no one ever gets paid “what they’re worth”, for if they were paid what they were worth, what would be the profit in employing them? An employer must necessarily pay an employee less than he’s worth if he’s to make any money himself.

We must also understand that “wages” are not “profits” or “gain” – wages are just compensation, a swap of labor for cash or goods, a transaction in which there is no more “profit” than when two neighbors swap five dollars worth of sugar for five dollars worth of salt. Profit is only possible where there is risk; an employer takes the risk, the employee is going for the sure thing. Biblically, the wage earner profits nothing as “the workman is worth his hire” – that is, it’s an even trade. Moreover, in the labor for pay deal, the laborer is arguably taking a loss, not profiting: the best that can be said is that he’s converting something that can’t be stored (his day’s work) for something that can be, but he necessarily sells his labor cheap in order to have something he can keep at the end of the day.

What is especially important about the Tithe is that everything that was tithable had to have been 1) buried, and then reaped and threshed, 2) pruned and then pressed and crushed, or 3) birthed, raised and then butchered in its prime. I trust I do not have to spell out the significance here to the Christian.

What about Abraham and Melchizedek? Yes, Abram gave 10% of the booty from one battle (in which he had been outnumbered over 1000-to-1) to Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High…and the other 90% to the king of Sodom. Not exactly a precedent mandating laborers give 10% of their total compensation to their church’s coffers every payday.

And what about Jacob? Yes, Jacob, of his own choice, and in desperation, vowed to God, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.” Please note, 1) this was not paid to any clergy or religious establishment, but was presumably consumed in a communal feast of thanksgiving before the Lord, 2) the vow was undertaken voluntarily, 3) it was presumably fulfilled not on a weekly or even annual basis, but rather Jacob fulfilled his end of the bargain AFTER God had come through and returned him home safely – twenty-eight years later!

But doesn’t God say if you don’t pay your full Tithe to the clergy you’re robbing God? Doesn’t He say that He’ll bless you with even more if you Tithe faithfully and in full? Well, in a word … No! First of all, as has been shown, “The Tithe” was not 10% off the top of anyone’s and everyone’s income from any and all sources, and secondly, it was not to be paid to the Church or the Christian clergy, nor even was it to be paid to the Temple or the priesthood. The passage from which this misinterpretation comes is found in Malachi – and that prophet was addressing the Levites and the Priests. The problem was not that the people were not paying their tithes in full. The problem was that the Levites were taking the best of the tri-annual Tithe for themselves and giving the worst tenth of what they’d received to the Priests, who were in turn sacrificing the worst tenth of that on the Altar, rather than the best as God had decreed. Thus the offense was that of the religious leaders and not the laity, and it was an offense not of quantity but of quality.

What’s more, nowhere does God promise to reward Christians materially in this life for their faithful financial support of their church – that’s “the Prosperity Gospel” which is a grotesque and pagan perversion of the Gospel. It reduces God to an idol to be bribed with goodies so as to get more goodies for oneself. That’s not the New Covenant. That’s not even the Old Covenant!

How then were the priests and the Tabernacle financed? Why, with other gifts and offerings, of course. The priests were fed, in part, from the Grain, Sin and Guilt Offerings (of the people, but not from their own) at which they presided – any male member of the priest’s family could partake of this food with him, but not the women. The priests and all their family would also enjoy the Fellowship Offerings and Thanksgiving Offerings with the offerer and the rest of his guests. The officiating priest also received the hide of the sacrifice. Similarly, the High Priest and his sons were likewise fed from the Grain, Sin and Guilt offerings of the other priests, but not from his own. In other words, the priests were primarily paid on a piece-rate, given honorariums for services rendered.

But by far and away the largest source of income for the priests was the consecration of “the first fruits” and “the first born”. The firstborn male, man or beast, of every female, belonged to God. In the case of men and unclean animals, each firstborn had to be redeemed by a cash payment of five silver shekels paid to the Tabernacle/Temple treasury. (In New Testament times, fifteen centuries later, five silver shekels was roughly the value of one week’s wages for the typical able-bodied man.) The firstborn of all clean animals were given over to the care of the priests when they were eight-days-old, and were reserved for the daily and special sacrifices, from which the priests would receive their God-ordained portion. Also, in the category of First Fruits, “the best” of the “first fruits” of the harvest, that years vintage, and that year’s oil, were to be given to the Priests. Perplexingly, with the sole exception of the first sheave of wheat from ones fields, and two cakes baked from the finest flour of the first wheat harvested (finest in the sense that it was made from the choice grains, the semolina, ground extremely fine), nowhere does God specify what constitutes the first fruits or the units of measure to use. Since one was to give the best of the first fruits, that implies that it was not merely the very first thing harvested; “the first fruits” were probably all the relevant produce brought in during either the first day or the first week of the harvest. As for the units, it seems likely that, originally, for dry goods it was the best ephah or perhaps as much as one homer (a donkey load – about 6-7 ephahs), and for wine and olive oil, it was probably the best bath. This may not seem like much per Israelite, but we must remember that, in the time of Moses, there were ONE HUNDRED TWENTY THOUSAND able-bodied, non-Levite adult men to every ONE Priest – a ratio that would be almost doubled with the incineration of Nadab and Abihu. By the time of the conquest, the number of priests would have increased substantially, though we have no exact count: Aaron had two surviving sons who, in forty years, may have produced as many as a dozen sons each, and a gross of grandsons, leaving the smallest ratio at about 1800 able-bodied, male, non-Levite Israelites for each priest.

(If we take the census tallies of the Book of Numbers literally, one must conclude that the priests were an extremely fat lot – which was exactly God’s intent. A major part of the priestly role was to harken back to the days of Adam in the Garden: Adam, who was fed on a labor-free diet of fruits and nuts, and milk and honey, probably looked nothing like Michelangelo’s Adonis, let alone the ultra-cut pretty-boys of Calvin Klein ads; the real Adam must have been a real porker – at least until he had to start really working for a living. When one considers the ancient association of blubber with the soul and essence of the man or beast it came from, from whence we find God’s absolute demand that the body-fat as much as the blood of the sacrifice belonged to Him, the intended and desired corpulence of the priests becomes even more understandable. It is surely no coincidence that the very word for “create” in Hebrew literally means “to make fat.”)

If the Tithe were still in effect for Christians (which it cannot be, as there is no Tabernacle to bring it to, no Levites to pay it to, and no inheritance in the Land of Israel to pay it from) then the offering of the Firstfruits would also be in effect. Yet I know of no Church that asks, let alone requires, its members to donate a week’s wages for the birth of their first son, and another weeks wages for the first pup of their dog and the first kitten of their cat.

It must, however, be re-emphasized that Christian clergy are not the New Covenant equivalent of the Levites or the Priests, your church is not a Christian version of the Temple or even the Synagogue, and likewise neither the Tithe nor Firstfruits have been carried over into the New Covenant as a financial duty to one’s church. The New Covenant fulfillment of the Levites and Priests is Christ, just as He is the New Covenant fulfillment of the sacrifices, the High Priest, the Tabernacle, and the Ark of the Covenant … and all who are in Christ are, with Him, the New Covenant fulfillment of all of these.

The Old Testament Tithe was calculated – EXCLUSIVELY! - as every tenth ephah, bath and yearling lamb, kid and calf, yielded from an Israelite’s inheritance in the Land, consecrated to and for a festival of celebration to the Lord, a shared communal feast of that inheritance’s bounty. But, for the Christian, Christ is our inheritance. How then should we tithe? And to whom?

The fecundity of our inheritance is not measured by wages, windfalls, and profits, but by an outpouring of supernatural Love and Grace! What is required is an Agape Feast in its fullest and most spiritual sense. He who is forgiven much, loves much! And also, To him who much is, much is expected! This is the mystery of the Kingdom of heaven, the Talents of the parable of the Talents, the Minae of the parable of the Minae, it is the pearl of great price, it is the bread that comes down from heaven:

 it is the Love and Grace of God, in word, in flesh, in deed, and in truth. This is true Eucharist, in which the true disciple reproduces his Master by laying down his own life for the lost sheep, shedding his blood that many might find redemption. The Master said, “This is My body which is broken for you – do THIS in remembrance of Me.” … and the disciple does, not in the breaking of bread but in the breaking of his own body for others, that he may declare with Paul, “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” 

This is the fruit that Christians are suppose to produce, and it is a fruit that is fruitless if it is not first buried and then shared, shared with God’s servants and with the destitute, shared in celebration and community, so that its seed may take root and flourish all the more. It is about the bounty of reproductive Grace.

Finally, remember there is The Church — the Body of Christ, the congregation of all believers — and then there is your “church”, a chartered 501-C Corporation with trustees, managers, and employees. Do not confuse the two! Consecrate everything you possess and everything you are to the Body of Christ as you co-labor in the vineyard of God, sharing freely, graciously and joyously with all your fellow members, counting nothing as your own. But to your “church”, be it St. Whoever’s, The First Sectarian Church of Hometown, or Deer/Elk/Fuzzy-

critter’s/Willow/Oak/brook/creek/stream/lake “Community” Church, give judiciously and responsibly as you would to any Charitable Not-for-Profit Organization: demand open books, a public payroll, regular audits, and, most especially, results.

One final note: If someone is so naïve as to ask, “Should I tithe on the Net or the Gross?” correct him in love, explaining what Christian “Tithing” is supposed to be. If the pastor encourages him to pay on the gross with the inane, smug, and trite slogan, “Well, do you want God to bless the Net or the Gross?”, fire the pastor! Not just for his horrendous incompetence as an exegete, but even more so for just being plain stupid: anyone with half a brain knows the Gross is irrelevant – it’s the Net that matters!