Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 11/2/2007

Question
QUESTION: Malachi says how God blesses for tithing:

And pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. “ And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” says the LORD of hosts; and all nations will call you blessed, For you will be a delightful land..."

Why does God say that you will be a delightful land? Is he talking to Christians? Christians are not a nation, they have no land as a nation. Why does he say that all nations will call you blessed? Is He talking to the nation of Israel? If so, then he is not talking to Christians.

If you look closely it says that God will bless crops, not office jobs. But I'm not a farmer. God said this because He gave the Israelites an inheritence of land for free, and those who had this inheritence had to pay taxes off it to God according to the law, to support the theocracy God established. Who received the tithe? The Levites who had no inheritence, and the poor had sold away their inheritence until the time when they got it back in the Jubilee year. But I never heard of any Christian farmer getting his land back in the jubilee year after he sold it.

Can you argue with these observations?

-Josh

ANSWER: Hello again Josh,

Just like I said in several other posts.... YES! It is Israel with all the ceremonial and covenental implications.  I believe though that there are New Testament applications that are different than Israel.  If you do not believe in titheing.... fine.... so long as you are fully pursuaded before God.

In Christ
Pastor Don

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi,

I'm glad that you mentioned the thing about being fully persuaded before God. I thinking that sub-consciously in a lot of these messages which I have sent you I want to change your mind to my way of thinking and I thought that I could do that with good arguments. Or at least I was hoping that you would validate my opinions. But alas, to no avail. Yet I am totally persuaded before God even if you don't validate my opinions, it's just that it feels good to have a pastor agree with you. Although I've had other pastors agree with me, I thought I might be able to just get one more to do it. I'm just having a hard time finding a church where tithing is not preached. I don't know of any churches in my area which are evangelical which do not preach, or at least talk about tithing. I guess I can go to a Jehovah's Witness Church, or even a Catholic Church. I know that they don't preach tithing. But somehow I think that would be wrong because most of everything else they teach is wrong.

Thanks for your help: Josh

Answer
Hi Josh,

Do not strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!  No one ever went to Hell because of a disagreement on tithes.  Some denominations mix the Bible with tradition and thus people do not hear the gospel that saves.  It would be unwise to leave a church that embraces the Bible, but teaches tithing, only to go to a church that does not hold the Bible to be the perfect and only source for faith and practice.

In Christ
Pastor Don