A CLOSER LOOK AT TITHING
EXPOSING THE ERRORS
By: Victor T. Stephens
"People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up."
~ George R.R. Martin
WAS TITHING COMMANDED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT? (continued)
Taxes Paid to Caesar
Most people in Western societies pay about 30% of their wages in taxes. Likened to the United States Department of Treasury, some churches operate like a pious IRS agency. These churches are attempting to impose an additional 10% as a religious tax. Some churches go to the extreme of tracking members’ incomes; and sending them bills detailing the amount they should tithe.
"Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money." So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?" They said to Him, "Caesar's." And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." (Matt. 22:17-21)
In this account, antagonistic inquirers attempt to entrap Jesus into adopting a precarious position on whether Jews should or should not pay taxes to Caesar. The taxes enforced on the Jews by Rome had led to some resistance. Thus, if Jesus approved of paying taxes, it would have left Him wide open to the charge that He was in disagreement with Jewish resistance to the Roman occupation and consequently opposed to God as well. Similarly, they were hopeful that Jesus would be in opposition to the tax, as they intended to report Him to the Roman authorities as someone who was making an effort to inflame an insurgency (Luke 20:20).
The inquirers presupposed that there is an unavoidable and dangerous dichotomy between dismissing one’s duty to the government and dismissing one’s commitment to God. However, Jesus declined to challenge the dichotomy as structured by His inquirers. Jesus called them hypocrites. He then requested one of them to supply a Roman coin that is appropriate for paying the tax. One of the questioners presented Jesus with a denarius. The Lord responds by asking them whose portrait and inscription are on the coin. They answered,
"Caesar's." Then Jesus said:
"Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
(Matt. 22:21)
Today this passage is a commonly cited synopsis of the correlation between the new covenant church and secular authority. The church zeros in on verse twenty-one to prescribe the payment of governmental and religious taxes --- with the latter in the form of tithes since allegedly this is what belongs to God.
In this account, Jesus raises the question regarding the coin,
"Whose image and inscription is this?"
Since the coin bears Caesar's image, Jesus is pointing out that it belongs to Caesar. In the same way, today's currency is under the ownership of someone as indicated by the inscriptions on it --- the Federal Reserve System (Government). From the money we earn, we pay back a portion in the form of taxes.
Now, following the language of Jesus, we must ask the following questions: "What belongs to God? Where has God placed his image? Is it on the first ten percent of our earnings?" The answers to these questions are in the four biblical passages below:
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
(Gen. 1:26-27)
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
(Romans 12:1)
"Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."
(1 Cor. 6:19-20)
"And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God."
(2 Cor. 8:5)
As noted earlier, the coin bears Caesar's image. According to the above passages, God has His image engraved on us. That is what Jesus was alluding to. It is the body of the believer that belongs to God. In the words of Leo Tolstoy, he wrote:
"Yes, it should be paid; Give to Caesar what is his, that is, the money, and give your life to God." (Tolstoy, Leo, "Drózhzhin's Life and Death: We Won't Pay!", A Tax Resistance Reader, 2008, Page 223)
Under the new covenant, it is the responsibility of every Christian to give their body and entire life to the Lord. They should devote themselves to God and make every effort to honor Him with all things while zealously utilizing the spiritual gifts the Lord has bestowed to them.
The Pharisees and Tithes
Let us now take a look at Matthew 23:23:
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone."
(Matt. 23:23)
Matthew 23:23 is another favorite proof-text that leaders in the church touch upon to support monetary tithing. They maintain that Jesus had the perfect opportunity to refute tithing. Instead, however, he affirmed tithing for the New Testament. But that is an inaccurate perspective.
Tithing advocates lack understanding of when the old covenant ended and when the new covenant began. Whether this is due to genuine ignorance or purposeful intent, I will not speculate. But whatever the case, they split the Old Testament and New Testament. In other words, they are not considering when the new covenant began.
While Matthew 23:23 is located in the New Testament, the old covenant law --- the Mosaic Law was still in effect. The old covenant temple was still standing, and the Levites and priests were still carrying out their duties. Therefore, the teachers of the law and Pharisees were required to tithe. Jesus was simply supporting the Mosaic Law which embraced tithing already incumbent on the nation of Israel.
The new covenant was not initiated until after the death of Christ in 33 A.D. Consequently, the old covenant law was fulfilled, and the temple along with the Levitical Priesthood was replaced by the bodies of all believers. In essence, the temple became a living entity. With this transition, tithing became nonessential.
Now, as indicated in Matthew 23:23, the teachers of the law and Pharisees were not tithing money, but food items --- mint, dill, and cummin. As we learned earlier, the old covenant tithing law required food substances --- more specifically, fruit, grain, herd, and flock (Lev. 27:30-32). While roughly 1,600 years had transpired from the time God initially commanded tithing in Leviticus 27, there had been no allusion or indication of the definition of tithing to include money. Tithing money today is nothing more than a man-invented concept, and thus, is an outright false doctrine.
