Survey Reveals Which Pastors Get Paid Most

Mary Andersen »

Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:48 pm Agree: 3   Disagree: 2

You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the LORD of hosts,

“ If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
11 “ And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the LORD of hosts;
12 And all nations will call you blessed,
For you will be a delightful land,”
Says the LORD of hosts.

When speaking of a curse it says: Even this whole nation. It says: tithes (plural - the Israelite theocracy had 3 tithes under the law), if it's meant for Christians, then why don't we also pay a tithe every 3 years for the poor.

It speaks of God blessing crops. And of a delightful land. Christians have no land which was just given to them. They are not a nation in that sense.

The curse is on the nation of Israel as a whole, and not on individual Israelites. And the blessings are for Israel as a nation, not individuals. Jesus says that God makes his blessings rain on both the good and the evil. So why are the evil being blessed if they don’t tithe?

God created the Israelite theocracy. He gave the Israelites an inheritance of land for free. He expected the children of Israel to support the tribe of Levi which had no inheritance in the land with a tithe (Levi made up about 10% of the population), and also support the poor, which were Israelites who had sold their inheritance, only to get it back in the Jubilee year. I never saw a Christian get his land back in the jubilee year after he sold it.

This quote is not speaking to Christians, who are not a nation. And it's not speaking to office workers, but those who lived off the land which God gave them.

The New Testament speaks of men giving as they have purposed in their hearts, and that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. If someone is too poor to tithe, I don't think he'll be doing it cheerfully if he can't pay his rent.

I thought the Old Law was crucified to Christ's cross.

Survey Reveals Which Pastors Get Paid Most

Mary Andersen »

Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:35 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 2

In the Middle Ages all men tithed, they had to by law. If they did not tithe they could get into a lot of trouble. But at the same time these same men died of starvation and disease. The plague wiped out 30%-40% of Europe. Where was God's blessing? They were definitely tithing. You have to realize that the promises associated with tithing might only have been valid for the Old Testament Israelites of the Old Covenant Law. Jesus told us that as Christians we would have many trials. Maybe some of the promises are only fulfilled after death. I think that the promises surrounding the tithe, which were made in Malachi 3:8 are for the nation of Israel as a whole, and not for individuals. Individual who tithed would suffer just like any one else, but if the nation of Israel, which was a God created theocracy, followed the laws of God, then God would bless them as a whole.

So this whole gospel of prosperity is not biblical. Jesus said: blessed are the poor. James said: Woe to you rich. Jesus said that you will have the poor with you always. And that the widow's 2 mites were worth more than all that the wealthy poured in. And never forget that Jesus said that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

I'm not saying all rich men are evil, or that they are horrid sinners, or that no rich man will be saved. Jesus said all things are possible with God. I'm just saying that these things don't exist in the Bible for no reason. Yet modern day preachers sweep them all under the rug as if they don't exist.

John Wycliffe (also spelled Wyclif) is one of the great heroes of the Christian faith, but few people know that he preached that giving to the clergy is no different than alms. He believed that people could deny the pastor the tithe if the pastor was living in sin. This was outrageous at the time, because tithing was the law in England, and the Church was rich. Wyclif denounced clerical wealth, and said that they don't care for the poor, and that because of them many men are forced to steal just to feed themselves. And so the blame for their theft went on the clergy who fleeced them. Just like Paul accused the Jews of his time of being responsible for the blasphemies of the gentiles against God, because the gentiles saw how many Jews lived their lives and blasphemed the God of the Jews for it.

Pastors should have a salary. Many of them work very hard. But they should stop this tithing stuff right now!!!

Survey Reveals Which Pastors Get Paid Most

Mary Andersen »

Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:22 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 2

I think Pastor should have a salary. But they should not be super rich like John Hagee, or Joel Osteen. And Protestants, especially Baptists, should never mention the word tithe in church. It violates their historical distinctives. Let me explain to you why.

In early Christianity the only thing the first bishops wrote about was free will offerings. And they said that the rich should give more than the poor and take care of the poor. In early Christianity there was a great emphasis on the poor. But that is no longer true. It's more about the rich now.

Yes, the Ante-Nicene fathers, also known as the early church fathers, men like Ignatius, Irenaeus, Origen, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, etc., only talked about free will offerings. It was not till Christianity was an established state religion, in the 6th or 7th century, that the whole idea of tithing enter the church. It became a way for the nobility to get good jobs for their children. Top bishops, abbots, and popes were all members of the nobility. And they wanted to live well. So they looked over the bible and found tithing in the Old Testament and decided that they deserved the tithe which the tribe of Levi got in the Old Testament. They invented a new way to make money and they added it to Christianity, just like the Catholic Church added the papacy and auricular confession. This is an addition to the word of God for New Testament believers.

During the Reformation many people wanted to get rid of the tithe. Some reformers had little or nothing to say about it. Some thought that it should only be followed because it was part of the civil law, and not because it was a mandate in the Bible for New Testament believers.

The first founders of the Baptist church, men like John Smyth, Thomas Helwys, and Roger Williams denounced the preaching of tithing because they saw the corruption it caused in the Anglican (Episcopalian) church and the Romand Catholic Church, and they wanted to avoid that. They were afraid that it would create a wealthy clergy who lusted for money. Many early Baptist pastors refused to be paid for preaching and had other jobs which they lived off of. But then after 1870 the need to fund missionary societies created a new need for funds. And so the Baptist Church recreated the tithe.

Just read the book In Pursuit of the Almighty's Dollar by James Hudnut-Beumer, a professor of American religion at Vanderbilt University. It tells about the history of money and Protestantism in America.