Today, on the third edition of our topic on Giving, we shall be treating a very important yet controvertial subject under our main topic, and that is Tithing or Tithe.

To start with, let us first look at the meaning of Tithe.

DEFINITION OF TITHE

Source

According to Strong's Concordance, the Hebrew word for Tithe is maaser or maasar or maasrah.

Which means tenth part, thus giving its English name as tithe. That means the tenth part or portion.

Tithe therefore means that a tenth of the produce of the earth consecrated and set apart for special purposes.
This is according to Easton's Bible Dictionary.

Leviticus 27:30 (NLT)

"One tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the fields or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord and must be set apart to him as holy.
If you want to buy back the Lord's tenth of the grain or fruit, you must pay its value, plus 20 percent.
Count off every tenth animal from your herds and flocks and set them apart fir the Lord as holy.
You may not pick and choose between good and bad animal, and you may not substitute one for another.
But if you do exchange one animal for another, then both the original animal and its substitue will be considered holy and cannot be bought back".

These were the commands from God to the Jews through Moses.
This scripture is self explanatory and does not contain any hidden truth within it. All that is left of it is its application from the children of God.

BACKGROUND

In the days of the past, when God was dealing with the Jews as His own people, their occupation as at then were mostly farming and animal raring.
But there were also others who were doing other jobs than farming. Some were blacksmiths and goldsmiths, weaving of cloths, fishermen and craftmen etc.
Majority of the Jews were not doing white colour jobs because there were only few at the time such as teachers and doctors.

So God asked them to pay a tenth of their farm produce or animals of the tenth birth.

Which meant that the few who were doing skilled works as I wrote above had to sell their products and take the tenth portion of the value of their income to the Lord as tithe.

So in a nutshell, tithe is a tenth on your income that is set apart only for the Lord and no one else.

TODAY.

In our generation today, so many people do not see the need to give tithes to the Lord yet they still believe that God created the heavens and the earth.
If you believe in the same God who created the heavens and the earth, then why do you not believe in the act of tithing from the same God who commanded it?

Secondly, some people makes the error of giving their tithe to other people or places forgetting that our tithes must be set apart only for the Lord.
You can borrow the Lords tithe as the scriptures above said and pay later with interest but you cannot use your tithe to serve other purposes other than giving it to the Lord.
What I am trying to say is that some people say they will rather give their tithe to the poor or needy or give it to the orphanage homes instead of taking it to the Lord's house.
And that is what I am saying is wrong except on rare occasions such as the commands given in the book of Deuteronomy 14:28-29. And even that there was a clause which is every three years.

God never commanded anywhere else in the bible that you can give His tithe to help someone in need or solve their problems but He said that tithes belongs to Him and Him alone.

The bottom line is that tithes are for God and he decides who we can give to and when. We do not have the will to give the Lord's tithes to whom we please or where we please.

Malachi 3:10 (NLT)

"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple.
If you do, says theLord of Heaven's Armies, 'I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in.
Try it. Put me to the test".

So you see that God specifically has commanded us his children to pay tithes and it must be sent specifically to the Temple and no where else.

People who takes their tithes to the needy or orphanage is not recognized in the sight of God as tithe and as such He does not accept it as your tenth portion to him.

You can give any other part of your income to the whoever you dim fit but you cannot give your tithe to anybody other than the Lord Himself.

If you are a Christian born again by water and blood and you don't believe in the principle of tithing to the Lord but you believe in the principle of taxation to your nation then there is a problem with you.

Source

Jesus Christ said in Matthew 22:21 that;

"Well then, he said, 'give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God'".

Jesus was trying to tell the then Religious Leaders that they are mandated to pay taxes to the government likewise are they mandated to pay their tithes to God.

So He meant that pay your taxes as expected of a good citizen and pay your tithes as expected of Abraham's seeds to God because Abraham paid his tithe to the high priest of Melchizedech.

So my dear if you joyfully pay your taxes to the central government but sees the payment of tithes to the Lord as irrelevant than you are deceiving yourself and that is why God calls us as 'thieves'

Source

THIEVES

Yes, thieves deceives themselves into claiming what belongs to others as theirs.

Mal 3:8 (New International Version)

"Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
"But you ask, 'How are we robbing you?' "In
tithes and offerings.

If we cannot steal the government's taxes then why should we steal what belongs to our creator?

If we believe that the death of Christ has drafted us into the vine tree of God then we must not be deceived that what the Jews (vine) were doing is irrelevant.

Pay your tithe with a joyful heart to the Lord because the blessings you receive are indescribable.

In my next episode, I will vividly discuss the blessings we get when we pay our tithes to the Lord.

God bless you for reading.

I will gladly welcome your questions, appreciate your comments and thankfully accept your upvotes.

@henryyeboah from @sc-g