A discipleship student reported attending church and hearing something she called “way off from what I have been taught my whole life.” The message was on tithing. Why do we tithe? My Her answer, she said, is “I want to be obedient to the Lord and what he commands.”
“Apparently,” she said, “I am wrong.” The teacher that dsy had said that God told the Jews in the Old Testament to give their 10th. Which was from their produce, not money. Since we are now a “believer in Christ “, we are to follow the New Testament which does not require you to tithe. She said, “That goes against everything I knew about following Jesus. Is this teaching true and people who give their tithes are basically giving money away?”
My response: “I tithe. That’s my opinion.”
As I thought about her question and what she’d heard I begun from a place of grace: Jesus said, “A NEW command I give you: Love one another.As I have loved you, so you must love one another.By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 14:34-35
It is a new command. It does not eliminate OT commands, unless expressed as doing so, as when Peter was told by God that dietary rules were no longer religious mandates. We operate under dietary standards now more by availability, culture, preferences, and health considerations. Similarly, with Christ’s invitation to Gentiles to come into the kingdom, the requirement for bodily circumcision was removed in favor of the spiritual imagery of circumcision of one’s heart, preached by Christ. All of the hundreds of small legalistic rules the priesthood overlaid on the Ten Commandments, like doing no work on the Sabbath and ritualistic cleansing laws, Jesus explicitly set aside. The OT priests had interpreted the letter of the law in a way that burdened people by being carried out in such a rigid and punishing physical realm manner.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”
She replied, “Thanks for clarity.”
I continued, “Jesus’ fulfilling of the Letter of Law was to bring it fully under the authority of the Spirit of the Law….. to reflect God’s intent in the highest, most virtuous interpretation, not in Word alone, but in Word AND Spirit, the fullest expression of the Law. Jesus said,” you have heard it said (letter of the Law alone, as interpreted and carried out by man) but I say to you, if you even…..(equalizing covetousness of the eyes with adultery, equalizing cursing another with murderous assault.). Christ doesn’t dismiss the law (as values understood and carried out by men), but He raises them to a higher standard that reflects the virtues of God’s motivations and character.
It is a case of taking the lesser humanly understood, minimum standard based on a set of good values to an even higher, more exalted, godly standard that raises conduct to the level of virtuous, even holy living.
God moved humanity from a simple level of “obey my word”, i.e., “don’t eat this specific fruit” in the Garden, to “keep these basic laws” , i.e., the OT laws Moses gave the people, to “live a life guided by my Spirit” reflecting God’s own character revealed in Christ. Even so, the higher standard of the more intimately communicated Spirit of the Law will always be consistent with His Word, which in the OT represented the Letter of the Law. Unless God, in Christ, has explicitly released us from some specific aspect of the Letter of the Law, the Spirit of the Law will never be contrary to it.
“In Word and Spirit” is the way Christ told the Samaritan woman all people would worship when Messiah comes, and for those of us who have the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in us, we receive that Word along with the Spirit of Jesus. Where we worship is no longer decreed, but we are to worship in all ways, every day, wherever we are, and with one another. Worship becomes the character of EVERYTHING we do because it is in accordance with both Word and Spirit in the highest, heavenly standard and expression.
That is the beginning of living a life that brings glory to God, gain to others, and fills us with the goodness of God to live in alignment with His will.
The OT’s defined standard for loving others cited in Matthew 22:37-39 was “love others as you love yourself” … not a bad standard. It makes us consider others as having as much value as we consider ourselves to have. And if you’re loving God rightly (v.37), then this should be a natural follow through. That’s the earthly, physical standard for living a life God accepts as obedience to the Word.
But Jesus elevated it to the heavenly standard, the Spirit of the Law, when he gave a new commandment (not an alternate or substitute, just a new, higher standard: “love one another as I have loved you…..” which is also as the Father loves Christ, and in fact, loves all of us! That’s how we are to love one another. We can only accomplish that as the Holy Spirit of God, through Christ, shows us how. This is love perfected, agape love, selfless love, as God loves. Humankind had to see it in the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ to begin to understand how high and wide and deep and far the love of God truly is and that, by following Christ we can love that way, too.
Jesus did not say, “Don’t tithe.” He said, “Give sacrificially,” ….above and beyond, give until it hurts. Give like the good Samaritan. Give like the poor widow, Give like the born-again Zaccheus, Give like Joseph of Arimathea. Give cheerfully of all that you have. It all belongs to God. Serve Him with all of who you are and all of what you have. A tithe, in my opinion, is but a paltry minimum established to remind us whose we are and to honor Him by serving His kingdom’s purposes fully, gratefully, and generously.
CBB. 5/6/26