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Article and artwork by Patricia Backora
WHY? What’s in it for him?Plenty! Old Scratch just LOVES church tithing, just like he loves every othermoney-making racket in Religionland. That same devil who haunts Las Vegascasinos parts his hair in the middle on Sundays and wears a pinstripe suit and tieto look respectable enough to con you out of your last widow’s mite withbombastic promises of earthly wealth in exchange for “your sacrificial gift.” Solong as the preacher wears Old Spice, shaves his mustache and clips his hair wayabove the ears and shines his shoes, he CAN’T be a crook, so everything hepreaches must be true. Wonder how much he paid for his suit!Wily preachers COUNT on your ignorance of the Word of God as they convinceyou you’re way too dumb to argue with them, since THEY’RE the ones who wentto cemetery… I mean seminary, to earn their divinity degree so they can give youthe third degree about how much you earned, and whether you’re paying THEMthe grossest percentage of your paycheck. Forget tithing on the net. Nets are forfishermen, not fleecers of the flock selling you a smelly fish story!God’s ideal would be a church similar to the one in the first chapters of Acts,where everybody was just one big happy family of brothers and sisters andthere were no mile-high pulpits with crabby preachers screaming their authoritydown at a building full of benched team players sitting out the game and payingrent on their padded pews. Let’s begin at the very BEGINNING of the Church age,long before the Catholic Church legislated monetary tithing for Christendom in theearly Middle Ages, long after the death of the apostles. You just can’t keep adodgy doctrine down, so tithing eventually infected mainline Protestant andCharismatic churches. Since most traditional Protestant pastors claim to besticklers for the Written Word of God, let’s take a peek at the very FIRST churchcouncil and determine whether it authorizes today’s monetary tithing doctrine.Peter, James and John were seeing a huge influx of Gentiles come into what hadformerly been an almost exclusively Jewish Church. Apparently, God was so
 
eager to save these people and fill them with the Holy Ghost that He didn’t evenwait for them to join Judaism. True, God took the initiative in imparting His goodgifts to these Gentile converts. But surely, some argued, at some point theywould need to also come under all the requirements of Jewish Law including theouchy op men must go through. Can’t you imagine a whole herd of scared menstampeding out the front vestibule if the preacher taught circumcision the sameway they teach tithing?Preachers point out that tithing predated the Law of Moses (two isolated casesare mentioned in Genesis chapters 14 and 28) but neither of these tithes involvedmonetary wages. Abraham gave Melchisedek ten per cent of OTHER PEOPLE’Sproperty after he rescued them from kidnappers.Preacher say God can’t give to you unless you FIRST give to Him? Wanna bet?Who’s gonna go up to God and tell Him His hands are tied unless the preacher’spalm is greased with a little money? Jacob made a CONDITIONAL promise totithe to God LATER and only IF God would FIRST supply his needs, keep him safein his journeyings and bring him back in safety to his home in Canaan. Jacob’stithing vow (if he ever paid it at all) would not be payable for at least twentyyears, when he finally came home to Canaan from Mesopotamia. Preachers whoappeal to Abraham and Jacob’s tithing examples don’t expect you to literallyFOLLOW those examples in the same way. They don’t expect you to bring themten per cent of someone else’s recovered stolen booty or to bargain with God overwhat YOU’LL get out of it before you pay ”God” (the preacher) a solitary cent.Why don’t preachers ever mention that circumcision also predated the Law of Moses? Unless your friendly paycheck chopper gets his cut from referring malesto some doctor performing this procedure, there just ain’t much money to begained from an even-handed enforcement of this OTHER ordinance whichpredated Moses. Instead of circumcising males, preachers SUPERSIZE moneytithes and offerings.
 
Peter, James and John sought the Lord over the question of whether or notGentiles were required to become Jewish proselytes and keep the Law of Moses inorder to remain Christians, or to become Christians in the first place, if Godhadn’t ALREADY saved their souls. Their conclusion: “Let’s not dump the burdenof keeping the 613-ordinance Law of Moses onto those poor Gentiles. If we,being good Jews, weren’t able to keep it and found it a hassle, then surely theseconverted heathens wouldn’t be able to hack it either (Acts 15: 10).The apostles, led by the Holy Ghost, came to this conclusion: Only four (4)restrictions would be placed on the liberty of the Gentile converts:
1.
Don’t eat blood (that would include that creepy “black pudding” (pig bloodsausage) served in British “fry-up” breakfasts.2.Don’t eat animals killed by strangulation.3.Don’t eat foods sacrificed to idols.4.Don’t sleep around outside of marriage.The apostles declared that if just those four things were observed, the newconverts would do well (Acts 15:29). NOT ONE WORD about binding tithing onGentile converts who probably NEVER had paid tithes to their former gods(Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Diana, etc.). Being a Heinz-57 Gentile myself, I’d guessthat the vast majority of people are also Gentiles who would be hard pressed tofind a single drop of Jewish blood in their lineage. Now if James, reputedly themost legalistic of the early apostles, agreed with his fellow apostles that no otherrequirements were to be placed on Gentile believers, then who are modernpreachers to say those apostles forgot to throw tithing into the mix? Whatthey’re really saying is the Holy Ghost also missed the perfect opportunity toorder Gentile converts to start tithing. But the Holy Ghost agreed with theapostles that NO GREATER BURDEN must be placed on the liberty of Christianbelievers than those four necessary things (Acts 15:28).
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tonya1955

This article cannot be used for a witnessing tool, for it cannot be printed correctly, for it runs of the right side of the page no matter what I try to do. I spent more than an hour, and many sheets of paper. If you would be so kind as to e-mail me a copy of this article: at(djone404@nc.rr.com)- it would be very much appreciated;your brother in Christ. And I do have a friend that has been called

reply11 / 21 / 2009
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