Re: They have no shame
 

1 Corinthians 9:13 what was the share of the altar?

How much did they partake from it?

Re: They have no shame
 

10%
Is God's safety net, for both the tithe payer and the Ministry.

Re: They have no shame
 

A quick guess, which I think I can safely back with Scripture, is the ministers at the altar partook of a portion of the animal sacrificed there. Usually the shoulder, if memory serves.

They also got to take a handful of every batch of grain offered, before they were turned into cakes.

Re: They have no shame
 

God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and the only way He can make sure there's a safety net in the Kingdom of God is if people give ten percent of their earnings, before taxes?

That's making God completely dependent upon His people to overcome all greed, stinginess, fear, and whatever else keeps people from giving, not to mention, indirectly approving of coercion, fear-mongering, and manipulation by those who use such tactics to squeeze 10% out of those who otherwise wouldn't multiple their income by 0.10, just to get to the ones who freely give a tenth of their earnings, and those who teach the need for a tithe without being greedy shysters.

I think by His grace, God can overly and abundantly do above all that we ask or think without depending upon us to make certain we divide our weekly and biweekly paycheck.

If God allegedly created such a system for the New Covenant, then everywhere that His system is being bucked or abused, the safety net is non-existent, meaning what? Poor God's hands are tied because His people won't get with the program?

We read in the Scriptures that God even enriches the evil with wealth in order to make use of that wealth to bless the poor (Proverbs 13:22).

How much more can God enrich the righteous, with or without anyone tithing?

I know a guy in the Church who never tithed once, and he's the most financially well off person I've ever met and come to know in the Church.

He doesn't give ten percent to the church. He opens his wallet and bank account every day wherever there is a need, some times to the tune of thousands of dollars. Not a penny of it crosses the church offering basic, besides an occasional small offering.

And guess what? He's got more money that he knows what to do with. Why? Nothing to do with ten percent. Everything to do with faithfully supplying the financial needs of saints and sinners wherever he finds them, and God is blessed and pleased, and so, prospers him.

Re: They have no shame
 

They were to take their living from the things of the temple.Which were the tithes and first fruits, oblations, and presents in money or goods, thither brought. The Levites had no other way of living and supporting their families. So, they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar; Therefore the priests with the Levites in their ministry, had varying duties; some slew the sacrifice, others sprinkled the blood; some took away the ashes, others laid the wood, others brought up the parts of the sacrifice which were slain, skinned, and cut up, laying them on the altar. Yet these partook with the altar, some parts the altar devoured, being consumed by fire upon it; but then there were other pieces which by law were reserved for the priests, and upon which they and their families lived, the food of the altar. Therefore as it was but just and equitable that persons so employed should be maintained out of the revenues of the temple and altar. Here Paul teaches that they that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. So from the tenth of all Israel gave unto the priests, it was parted among them to all the priest, as every man had need.

Re: They have no shame
 

This post was to teach us what? That religion is messed up, and that bad people do bad things? Forget money, that is the least of the problems in religion. Manipulation and control of people's trust where not money is taken, not one dime, but people are manipulated to the point where they have taken their own lives, Guyana, Waco? Sexual abuse as in Moses David Berg, and the Children of God. Listen we can all paint grim pictures of horror stories, but still Jesus commended a woman who took her last mite and threw it in the plate, and He always pointed out the rich hypocrites. So, Daddy Warbucks was blessed while he dropped a folded dollar in the offering box? Jesus says he already has his reward. Yet, God makes the rain fall on the just as well as the unjust. Nah, the giver will always be blessed if he or she does it as led by God.

Re: They have no shame
 

The purpose of the post was, in not so many words, to exhort us all to stop treating giving like it's a talisman to ward off evil. It was said that the tithe is a safety net, as if the reason God asks of us to give is for our own spiritual and financial protection.

Too many people give because of what they get or want to get out of it. The say it's more blessed to give than to receive, so they give, hoping for the blessedness, and not because it's the right thing to do. They think if they give, it obligates God to do something. It doesn't. God protects and provides for us out of love and grace, as our Heavenly Father, not because we earn His favor against the evils and ills of the day and age in which we live, by giving.

Our financial offerings aren't protection money.

One, little, misunderstood, abused verse out of Malachi regarding the devourer, and an entire false doctrine is created regarding how God intends to bless us, as if tithing is the only way God will protect our financial interests and needs.

That isn't love and grace. That's racketeering.

Re: They have no shame
 

A much more thorough answer, with which I agree.

The question then becomes, what does Paul mean when he writes about "they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel"?

- Is he meaning every saint in the church who evangelizes a soul?

- Does he mean a stationery pastor who preaches and teaches from a pulpit on a weekly or semi-weekly basis?

- Or does he refer to itinerant evangelists and apostles like himself and Barnabas (1 Corinthians 9:1-6), who have left EVERYTHING behind (the point I keep making!) in order to be slaves to Jesus Christ and God the Father?

A servant of the Gospel who has left EVERYTHING behind has the right to financial remuneration, to cover the costs of those things with which Paul wrote he should be content, which namely, are food and clothing (and an allusion to travel expenses).

And while such servants have the right (not to a tithe of a church's collective income to pay for a house and a car and a boat and a fill in the blank) they could, as Paul, forego that right and work with their own hands to be an example, so the ministry be not coveted.

There are undoubtedly some called of the Lord men doing exactly what I've just described. But many are the men in pulpits who teach and preach several times a month, counsel some more, pray and study, and maybe visit the sick or imprisoned, and they expect a big time salary for it at the end of the day, and they demand the church tithe to make sure they get that salary (not to mention pay for the building and pulpit that allows them to minister to earn that check).

These are things men of God are called to do, with or without any financial help from anyone. Millions of so-called "lay ministers" do just what I wrote above, without seeing a dime from anyone, from any portion of the tithe in their church, and they do it faithfully, because God and their calling demand it of them. Woe to them, right?

And many are the one who threaten to resign and not minister to anyone if the tithes decrease and they become forced to take a secular job.

No way, no how is that what Paul intended for anyone, then or now, to understand, when he wrote 1 Corinthians 9. Paul did secular work as a leather worker, and ministered and evangelized at night, pulling double duty for years, without complaint.

And yet all sorts of full time ministers who do no secular work can't compete (not that they should try/take my meaning in context) with even barely a hint of what Paul and Barnabas, and later, Paul and Silas were able to accomplish, and they worked full time secular jobs to provide for themselves and their team of fellow-laborers in the Gospel!

Re: They have no shame
 

Yeah. I know of a pastor who stated that only x amount of families tithe on a regular basis. He then stated that there were plenty of churches that would want him as their pastor. He said that his family was NOT going to suffer. They would move on....
He also stated that he considered only being available to those that pay tithes.

From the man that preached against hirelings. Some kind of irony.

Re: They have no shame
 

A survey of tithing in Christendom's history (very interesting):

http://www.tithing-russkelly.com/id15.html