Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 10/29/2007

Question
Here is a great book: In Pursuit of the Almighty's Dollar
Here is a website which talks about it and even lets you look over the table of contents and some parts of the book. It tells the history of tithing in American Protestant Churches.

http://books.google.com/books?id=MSCMJ0BNIJ0C&pg=PP1&dq=in+pursuit+of+the+almigh...

I did a little research into the history of the Baptist Church. One of the things I discovered was a Baptist distinction up until the Civil War was the fact that till 1870 Baptists as a denomination (for the most part) did not preach tithing. Roger Williams, the founder of the state of Rhode Island, was dead set against preaching about tithing. He feared that it would create a clergy where men entered the ministry not because God called them, but to make money. Back then many ministers had second jobs, and some refused to take a salary for preaching, because they thought it wrong to make money off doing the Lord's work.

I'm not saying that ministers should not be paid, just that Baptists historically were against tithing till 1870, when missionary societies got big and needed funding.

To preach tithing in a Baptist Church actually means to historically leave the Baptist roots and distinctives, as they were held up till 1870. The first Baptist Church was established in 1612. 1612-1870: that's 258 years. 1870-2007, that's just 137 years. Tithing has only been preach half as long in Baptist Churches, than the opposite view was preached.

Just thought you might like the information. Thanks: Josh

Answer
Hi Joshua,

Thank you for the information and book.  I do not embrace doctrine because it is baptist doctrine.  I embrace doctrine because it is what I understand the Bible to teach.  I call myself a Baptist because in my studies, the Baptists seem to hold the same major truths that I see out of the Bible.  It is interesting to find out what Baptists believed years ago, but it is the Bible, not history that I have to wrestle with and study in order to come up with my own personal convictions.


1 Corinthians 2:4-5
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:  5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.  

The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.
I hope that this makes sense to you.

In Christ,
Pastor Don