How should Christians give to the church?
Question 11093
The question of how Christians should give to the church touches on stewardship, worship, gratitude, and the practical reality that local churches need financial resources to carry out their mission. It is also a question where popular teaching has often imported assumptions, whether from the Old Testament tithing system or from the prosperity gospel, that the New Testament does not straightforwardly support. What Scripture actually teaches about Christian giving is both more liberating and more demanding than most believers realise.
The Old Testament Tithe
The tithe, a tenth of income given to God, is deeply embedded in the Old Testament. Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils of battle to Melchizedek (Genesis 14:20). Jacob vowed to give a tenth to God (Genesis 28:22). Under the Mosaic Law, the tithing system was formalised and was, in fact, considerably more than ten per cent. The Levitical tithe supported the priests and Levites who had no land inheritance (Numbers 18:21-24). A festival tithe funded the family’s participation in the annual feasts (Deuteronomy 14:22-27). A charity tithe, collected every third year, supported the poor, the alien, the fatherless, and the widow (Deuteronomy 14:28-29). When all tithes are accounted for, the Israelite’s total obligation was closer to twenty-three per cent of their produce than the simple ten per cent that modern tithing sermons typically describe.
The tithe was part of the Mosaic covenant, binding on Israel as part of their theocratic arrangement with God. It functioned as a form of taxation supporting both the religious establishment and the social welfare system of the nation. Malachi 3:8-10, the text most frequently cited in tithing sermons (“Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me… Bring the full tithe into the storehouse”), was addressed to a specific covenantal situation: Israel’s failure to fulfil their covenant obligations. To apply Malachi 3 directly to New Covenant believers without accounting for the dispensational shift from the Mosaic economy to the Church age is hermeneutically careless.
What the New Testament Teaches
The New Testament never commands Christians to tithe. This is a significant silence. Jesus mentioned tithing only in the context of criticising the Pharisees’ meticulous tithing of herbs while neglecting weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23). He did not abolish tithing for Israel under the Law, but neither did He impose it on His followers as a binding obligation of the New Covenant.
Paul’s most sustained teaching on giving is found in 2 Corinthians 8-9, where he writes about the collection for the impoverished Jerusalem church. The principles he establishes are striking in their freedom and their seriousness. Giving is to be voluntary, not under compulsion: “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Giving is to be proportional, according to one’s means: “For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have” (2 Corinthians 8:12). Giving is to be generous, motivated by the grace of God: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). And giving is to be regular and planned: Paul instructed the Corinthians to set aside money “on the first day of every week” (1 Corinthians 16:2).
The Macedonian churches, whom Paul holds up as a model, gave “beyond their means, of their own accord” (2 Corinthians 8:3). Their giving was not calculated by a percentage but overflowed from gratitude and a genuine desire to share in the ministry. This is the New Testament pattern: not a fixed percentage imposed from outside, but a heart transformed by grace that gives freely, generously, and with joy.
The Prosperity Gospel Distortion
The prosperity gospel has turned biblical giving into a financial transaction with God. The teaching that giving triggers financial blessing, that “sowing a seed” obligates God to provide a material “harvest,” and that the measure of your faith is the size of your offering has no basis in the New Testament and does considerable spiritual and financial harm, particularly among the economically vulnerable. God’s blessings are real, but they are not a return on investment triggered by the right financial behaviour. The believer gives because God has given; the motivation is gratitude, not expectation of material reward.
Practical Wisdom
Is the tithe a useful guideline? Many Christians find that giving ten per cent of their income is a helpful starting point for developing a habit of generosity. As a guideline, it has practical merit. As a binding law that determines whether a Christian is “robbing God,” it misrepresents the New Covenant and imposes an obligation the New Testament does not impose. Some believers, particularly those in financial hardship, may give less than ten per cent and should do so without guilt, because God looks at the heart and the proportion, not the number. Others, particularly those with greater resources, should recognise that ten per cent may be far less than the generosity the gospel calls forth. The widow’s two coins (Mark 12:41-44) were worth almost nothing in monetary terms, but Jesus commended her above the wealthy donors because she gave out of her poverty. The measure of biblical giving is not the amount but the heart behind it.
So, now what?
Christian giving is an act of worship, not a legal obligation. It flows from a heart that has received the immeasurable gift of God in Christ and responds with joyful, voluntary generosity. The local church is the primary recipient of the believer’s giving, because it is through the local church that the ministry of the Word, the care of the body, the support of the vulnerable, and the sending of the gospel are sustained. The believer gives regularly, proportionally, cheerfully, and generously, trusting that the God who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply what has been sown (2 Corinthians 9:10). The question is never “What is the minimum I owe?” but “What does gratitude look like in the way I handle what God has entrusted to me?”
“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthians 9:7 (ESV)
