I read with dismay a recent Spectrum Bot article titled, “Wait! Let’s Look at That Again: Tithe.” [1] As you can read below the author suggested that Christianity has been divorced from Judaism and has thence left behind most of its trappings. I agree that this is the case in most instances but I don’t agree that this is a good thing for Christianity.
Looking at tithing on its own is leaving aside the whole issue of what is continued from the Older Testament to the New Testament, as even the author has intimated, so here I look at the larger issue, which has a direct bearing on tithing. To quote Mr. Reifsnyder:
“Tithe is purely an Old Testament concept. It is not a Christian obligation. Tithe was an integral part of a unique social and religious order in ancient Israel. Then an entirely new order emerged. And the financial system of tithe did not carry into Christianity.
As a general rule, virtually nothing Jewish carried forward into Christianity.
Jesus came. Everything changed. The priests were gone. The sacrifices were gone. The feasts were gone. The dietary restrictions were gone. The law was gone. Circumcision was gone. The temple was gone. The tithe was gone. The whole thing — gone.
“But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.’ The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter” (Acts 15:5, 6, emphasis added).
And after they deliberated, they said:
“For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality” (Acts 15:28)
The “Jerusalem Council” decision refuted the demands that deluged new Christians to keep the law of Moses. The disciples and apostles did not acquiesce to the demand of “the party of the Pharisees.” So, everything else? Gone.”[2]
What! Really! I no longer need to keep the Sabbath, or refrain from taking the Lord’s name in vain? I can now sleep with my neighbour’s wife, pillage his stock and land, and turn my parents out of the house? Things really have changed, big time!
Let me quote the key part of this thesis and then we can check each item again.
Jesus came. Everything changed. The priests were gone. The sacrifices were gone. The feasts were gone. The dietary restrictions were gone. The law was gone. Circumcision was gone. The temple was gone. The tithe was gone. The whole thing — gone.
Who says everything changed? The New Testament certainly does not say anywhere that “everything changed.” Firstly, the priests were not gone. What happened was, as Peter suggests, and as our author has quoted him, we all became priests in the new era.
“you yourselves are…to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).
Certainly the sacrifices were gone, because the book of Hebrews expressly says these many sacrifices were superseded by Christ who “appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Heb. 9:26. Cf. Heb. 7:27, 9:12)
We keep the Passover feast, now in memory of Jesus sacrifice (we simply changed the name to the Lord’s Supper), and we usually keep the harvest festival (thanksgiving Sabbath), as a non-essential festival, while Pentecost (first-fruits) is still celebrated by some Protestant confessions. So possibly the three biblical festivals (Exodus 23:14–17) remain since there is nothing that suggests they don’t continue.
The dietary restrictions are not gone, since there is no explicit statement to say they no longer apply. Jesus statements do not focus on a health aspect but a moral aspect, and since it is only common sense to follow health restrictions to prolong and celebrate life fully.
“The law was gone” is the most amazing four-word statement any follower of the law-giver, Jesus, could propose. If you propose this, you are demolishing the whole Judeo-Christian tradition in one fell swoop. As I mentioned earlier, it means, in essence, that you no longer need to respect God or your fellow man. If you are basing this proposal on the Jerusalem council conclusion, you need to look carefully at that statement in context. It surely cannot mean that the entire law of Moses, and especially its central pillars are wiped aside by one single-sentence statement from Acts 15:28?
The first thing to note from the passage in Acts 15 is that the main issue was over how we are saved. Acts 15:8-11 makes this plain when Peter, on behalf of the entire council, says,
"And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them [the Gentiles] the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. ...11 On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:8,9,11)
And verse 10 summarises their conclusions that new Gentile believers were not to be yoked with keeping the law as a means of salvation, since no one had ever been able to comply with this burden.
"Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?" (Acts 15:10)
This issue in the early church is about the transition of thousands of disparate Gentiles into the mainstream of God’s people. It was a difficult issue because all of a sudden there were many thousands of converts into the ranks of God’s people, where before there had been a trickle of proselytes into Judaism. This is what necessitated the council and this extraordinary statement. It was a statement meant to smooth the way into Christianity for people who had no background at all in the faith.
The first thing that the council did was to make it plain that salvation was by grace alone through faith. And after Paul and Barnabas spoke, James quoted Amos 9 to the effect that it prophesied that the Gentiles would come into Israel, as many other Old Testament texts taught. Amos said that God would rebuild the “house of David” that had fallen into ruin,
Amos 9:12 (NRSV) — 12 in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name, says the Lord who does this.
Amos (and Simeon, if not the whole council) saw the remnant of the Gentiles coming into the rebuilt house of David. The Jerusalem council wanted to smooth the way by initially suggesting some bottom-line restrictions that were essential for the time being, since the bulk of Mosaic law would be taught as time went on,
Acts 15:21 (NRSV) — 21 For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.”
It would be the height of incredulity to suggest that the sum total of Christian laws to be kept after Calvary should be limited to “abstaining only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood”?
Circumcision, as a mark of a believer, was gone, because Paul, as an apostle and spokesman, said it was gone.
1 Corinthians 7:19 (NRSV) — 19 "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything."
We have simply substituted baptism for circumcision as a sign and sacrament of our acceptance of Christ’s death and resurrection on our behalf.
And the last part of this text puts paid to the incredible notion that we only need to avoid fornicating, not eating the meat of strangled animals or those offered to idols, and not drinking blood. None of these would concern us moderns much except fornication.
Paul, who is sometimes quoted by modern evangelicals (hopefully only those without any education), as saying that the Mosaic law is dead and buried for Christians, “nailed to the cross,” – Paul is adamant in a dozen places that the law is,
Romans 7:12 (NRSV) — 12 ...holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
When he posed the rhetorical question “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”
Paul's response uses perhaps the strongest Greek negative available to him, me genoita (μὴ γένοιτο). “By no means!” the RSV says. The KJV says, God forbid! Don’t even go there! or Hell, No! is possibly closer to a good translation of μὴ γένοιτο.
The Temple was not “gone.” Jesus himself claimed to be the temple in person when he said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. ...But he was speaking of the temple of his body.” And as we, his followers, are “in Him,” and become one with him in some mysterious way, we also become his spiritual temple in the New testament. 1 Corinthians is speaking collectively here:
1 Corinthians 3:16 (NRSV) — 16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
The whole thing — gone! What Principle Do We Apply Here?
So if “the whole thing” was not “gone,” then how do we know what was “gone?” Look at Romans with me.
Romans 11:1–2 (NRSV) — 1 "I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew."
Not even Israel was “gone”, according to Paul. But according to many Christians Israel was rejected by God because they rejected his son, the Messiah. It’s certainly true that those who rejected the son were automatically excluded from Israel, but Israel remained as God’s called and predestined people, as Paul is here intimating when he uses the word “foreknew.” For this word, like “called” and “predestined” is part of the vocabulary of election.
In Romans 9-11 Paul teaches clearly that those in Israel who rejected Israel’s Messiah were “pruned out” of the olive tree that represented Israel, and the Gentiles who turned to God were “grafted” into the same olive tree. The olive tree is Israel, there’s no getting around that. You can say “spiritual Israel” or “New Israel”, although there is nothing to suggest this in scripture – it is always simply Israel.
So if Israel remains God’s elected people, then just as surely the “commonwealth of Israel,” and the “covenants of promise” with its commandments, remain as well, as Ephesians makes plain.
Ephesians 2:12–13 (NRSV) — 12 "remember that you [Gentiles] were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."
And not only were we gentiles bought “near,” but Paul says,
Ephesians 2:19–22 (NRSV) — 19 "...you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God."
So the gentiles become part of Israel and are now the “holy temple” as well.
On this count tithe is certainly still part of the “commonwealth of Israel” of which all Christians should consider themselves citizens.
The principle I would like to propose for deciding what is gone and what is not, is that if Jesus or the New Testament specifically says something is gone then of course, it is gone. But otherwise it remains for God’s people, Israel.
In this case, the sacrifices and the physical temple are gone, since Hebrews says they are gone because of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. Paul says circumcision is gone as a marker of God’s people (we simply exchanged it for baptism).
But, on the other hand, we all became a holy priesthood and spiritual temple, and we have the great privilege of living by the eternal ten commandments, following a healthy lifestyle and returning the Lord’s tenth.
So, far from the whole thing being gone, a small handful of things are gone, and the rest was transformed or reinvigorated to serve a living Messiah who had died, been resurrected and who is now reigning as “Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever.” (Rom. 9:5)
[1] Wait! Let’s Look at That Again: Tithe. E Reifsnyder, Spectrum, Dec. 4, 2019) https://conversation.spectrummagazine.org/t/wait-let-s-look-at-that-again-tithe/19444
[2] Ibid.
Image source: www.bptnews.org/5-2_salvation-old-new-testament/
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