Tithing is the practice of giving a tenth of your income to God's work, rooted in Old Testament law, where Israel's tithes funded temple worship, community feasts, and care for the poor. Christians disagree about...
Tithing is the practice of giving a tenth of your income to God's work, rooted in Old Testament law, where Israel's tithes funded temple worship, community feasts, and care for the poor. Christians disagree about whether the ten percent figure is binding today, and the New Testament never commands it for the church. Most careful teachers treat the tithe as a well-worn starting point for planned, regular giving rather than a tax.
The most quoted tithing text is Malachi 3:10: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it." As The Tithe Question explains, that verse addressed Israel under the Mosaic covenant, where the storehouse was a real set of temple chambers feeding the Levites who led the nation's worship. And the law actually describes three tithes, one for the Levites, one for family festivals, and one every third year for the poor, totaling something near twenty-three percent. Anyone claiming the Bible plainly commands exactly ten percent has already simplified the text.
The misunderstanding runs in two directions. One camp treats ten percent as a legal toll, calculated precisely, paid grimly, with the remaining ninety percent regarded as entirely their own. The other camp says "we give from the heart" and, in practice, gives whatever is left over, which is usually nothing. The New Testament cuts through both. Paul writes, "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). Giving is decided in advance, proportional to income, and regular. There is no stated percentage, and the ceiling comes off entirely; Jesus praised a widow who gave everything. Ten percent looks less like a finish line and more like an on-ramp.
The tithe works best as what The Giving Floor calls a floor: the percentage your household gives before anything else is allocated, in any month, at any income. For many families that floor is ten percent, honored for its long history. For a family in crisis it might start at two. What matters is that the number is written down, treated as a minimum rather than a maximum, and paid first, in the firstfruits order laid out in Firstfruits: The Order of the Money Matters.
This week, put one hour on the calendar. Read Malachi 3:10 and 2 Corinthians 9:7 aloud as a household, decide your giving floor, and write it into the budget with the date and both signatures. Settle the number so the debate stops postponing the generosity.