What does the Bible say about Christian tithing?
Tithing appears in the Bible before the law, inside the law, and on the lips of Jesus — yet the letters written to the first churches never once ask a Christian to hand over a tenth. That gap is where the whole question sits: was the tenth a permanent rule, a temporary arrangement, or a floor that grace was meant to rise far above?
The tenth in Israel was only the beginning
Commentators point out that reading Israel's law as a flat ten percent misreads it. Between the Levites' tithe, the festival tithe, the tithe for the poor, the gleanings left in the fields, the firstborn, and the sabbatical year, the demand was much heavier:
Jacob on GivingThose best able to judge in the matter calculate that the godly Israelite would give one third or more of his total produce for the year, as a matter of course, as his ordinary duty — before he even began to give voluntary offerings, freewill offerings, thanksgiving offerings, vows, and so on.
Anyone using Israel as a model, then, is arguing for far more than ten percent, not for a ceiling of it.
Walter LickleyNote further that the tithe was only the ordinary thing. On top of it were the offerings, sacrifices, the first and the best!
Abraham and Melchizedek: Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7
The earliest tithe in Scripture is often used to argue that tithing predates the law and therefore outlasts it. One writer examines the actual details of that scene:
Michael VogelsangIn this passage, the first reference to tithing in the Bible, Abram gives Melchizedek a tithe of the best of the goods taken in war. Notice that this was not from Abram's personal possessions, but goods taken from conquered nations... And this single, unparalleled, never-to-be-repeated event is supposed to prove that Christians should give ten percent of their annual salaries — not once, but year after year after year?
Hebrews 7 does return to that tithe, but the argument it builds from it is about rank, not about budgeting. Melchizedek, a priest-king who appears without recorded ancestry, receives from Abraham and blesses him:
Hamilton SmithSo in the person of their father Abraham, the priests of Aaron's order paid tithes and received the blessing, instead of receiving tithes and dispensing blessing. And as dying men they paid tithes to One of whom it is testified that He lives.
"Will a man rob God?"
Malachi 3 is the sharpest tithing text in the Bible, and it is regularly preached at Christians. Commentators do not dismiss it — they read it as God dealing with a nation whose withholding exposed selfishness, and whose obedience He promised to meet with blessing.
Michael VogelsangIn Malachi 3:8–9 the people of Israel were charged with robbing God by not paying tithes. God made it clear in no uncertain terms that they were not prospering materially because they were selfish... Is tithing still the way of Christian giving, as some teach? It is noticeable that in the New Testament Christian converts were never asked to tithe anything to the church.
What replaced the fixed percentage
Jesus does mention tithing — He tells the scribes and Pharisees they tithe mint, dill and cumin while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness. What the New Testament puts in place of a set figure is a different measure altogether:
Morrish Bible DictionaryA definite tenth or fifth is not enforced in the New Testament, but liberality is urged. "God loves a cheerful giver." He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully... Paul told the believers to lay by for the special collection he was making for the poor "as God had prospered" each. God required of them according to what they had, and not according to what they had not.
The tenth is too small a claim
The deepest objection raised is not that tithing asks too much, but that it asks too little — it lets a person treat the remaining ninety percent as his own.
F. W. GrantFor a Christian at least the whole principle is a mistake. You are not to ransom nine-tenths from God by giving one. You are bought with a price — you and yours. In a double way, by creation and redemption too, you belong, with all you have, to God.
That is why Paul's model givers in 2 Corinthians 8 start somewhere other than their wallets:
F. B. HoleThey did not give a tenth of their income and leave the remaining nine-tenths to themselves; nor did they even say, "I will give nine-tenths." They said, "I will give myself to the Lord."
Free — but not casual
Removing the percentage does not lower the bar. 1 Corinthians 16:2 sets giving that is planned, regular and scaled to income:
F. B. HoleSystematic giving is advocated as opposed to haphazard. Proportionate giving is also what God expects — in proportion to the prosperity which God Himself may have given. In Jewish days God fixed the proportion at one tenth. He has not fixed any proportion for us who are under grace; but depend upon it, we shall hear something pretty serious at the judgment seat if we fall below the standard set by the law.
Yet the freedom is real, and pressure would spoil it:
A. PridhamLet giving be regarded by believers not as a necessity, but as a privilege... In a dispensation of pure grace, none are obliged to give, except by the sweet compulsion of His love. There are no taskmasters in the house of God.
Fixing your own proportion
Practically, commentators recommend deciding a share in advance rather than giving from whatever survives the month.
Jacob on GivingIt is strongly recommended that whenever our income comes in, a proportion be put aside, and that whenever our income rises we let the first part of that increase go to the Lord's service... If it be asked what the proportion should be, the answer is, "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart."
Summary
- Origin — the tithe belonged to Israel's law, where a faithful Israelite's required giving reached a third or more of his produce; the tenth was the floor, not the total.
- Ownership — grace does not claim a percentage. Bought by creation and redemption, you and everything you have already belong to God; a tenth would buy back the rest.
- Order — the New Testament fixes no figure but fixes a method: first day of the week, planned, set aside at home, in proportion to how God has prospered you.
- Attitude — no taskmasters, no compulsion, no quota. What God loves is the cheerful giver, and love always delights to give.
- Outcome — no rule, but no excuse either: commentators warn that falling below what the law demanded will not go unnoticed at the judgment seat.