Deep Apostolic Teachers?

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Timmy

I've heard it taught that if you are poor, you may be poor because you don't tithe. Further, if you start tithing, even if you think you can't afford it, God will bless you. "You can't afford not to tithe!" they like to say. This teaching is usually accompanied by amazing stories. (Like a lot of teaching! )

If all that they say was true about tithing... Christians who tithe would be among the most wealthy and prosperous people on earth. But, if memory serves me correctly, a report a couple years back showed how those most dedicated to tithing are on average ranging middle class to poverty level. It seems that those who are most in need fall prey to this idea because they desire God to bless them and lift them out of poverty.

Everyone wants a quick fix blessing.

[Aquila]

Most Christians in the first century were among the servant class. Jewish Christians no doubt continued to tithe to the priesthood in the Temple until the division between Judaism and Christianity became firmly established. However, Gentile Christian communities spread throughout the entire Middle East. Remember, for nearly 300 years Christians didn't meet in large buildings or have a large "organizations". Instead, history shows us that they met in houses, civil squares, barns, cemeteries, caverns and caves. With so many Christians coming into the faith... where did Christians store all the money, produce, livestock, etc. that would have been tithed to them??? It would have taken a massive storehouse like that found in Jerusalem. But we don't find it in archeology or history. We don't see it in Scripture either. We read how tithing WASN'T practiced within the church up until the time of Cyprian. Cyprian wanted to institute an Old Testament style tithe to support a professional priesthood to combat heresies. In fact, Cyprian tried to impose tithing on Carthage, and it was vehemently REJECTED. The Council of Macon tried to force tithing on Christians again, and it was REJECTED. The history on this is CLEAR. The Roman Catholic church eventually instituted tithing THROUGH the royalty ruling various governments. It was a "church and state" institution, a religious "tax" that became enforceable under law in the Middle Ages. It went to support the priesthood and to build massive cathedrals... and to pay off state officials who allowed the church to enforce the tithe... with fines and sometimes brute force if necessary. Even the Catholic Encyclopedias explain this...

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912 edition only) says, “In the beginning .. [provision] was supplied by the spontaneous support of the faithful. In the course of time, however, as the Church expanded and various institutions arose, it became necessary to make laws which would insure the proper and permanent support of the clergy. The payment of tithes was adopted from the Old Law, and early writers speak of it as a divine ordinance and an obligation of the conscience. The earliest positive legislation on the subject seems to be contained in the letter of the bishops assembled at Tours in 567 and the Canons of the Council of Macon in 585.”

In the NT we see Christians giving cheerfully of what they had to give as they purposed in their own hearts. We also see them sharing their entire lives and property. Essentially, early Christians gave 100%. If there was any need among them, they sought to meet it as a congregation. They didn't pay their 10% and go home leaving a brother or sister to catch the bus. They'd have raised funds to buy them a car... or someone with two cars would have given one car.

The Christian life actually requires MORE than tithing.

[Aquila]

Also consider that the following conditions applied under the Law:

(1) non-food items could not be tithed;
(2) clean wild game animals and fish could not be tithed;
(3) non-Israelites could not tithe;
(4) food from outside God’s holy land of Israel could not be tithed; (5) legitimate tithing did not occur as a regular practice when there was no Levitical priesthood;
(6) tithes did not come from what man’s hands created, produced or caught by hunting and fishing.

[Aquila]

Really, all one has to do is do some historical research on the history of tithing through the ages to see how tithing was rejected time and time again until the institutional church partnered with the staste to force this religious tax on the people. After the Protestant Reformation, some churches continued to partner with government to receive tithes. As the separation of church and state took hold, churches took the practice as a private religious practice and so we have tithing as it is understood today.

Think about it... imagine living as a poor land owner struggling to make it by and hearing how the local land baron was partnering with the diocese in order to require a "tithe" of all your land, income, crops, and livestock. The tithe wasn't seen as a blessing down through history... unless you were a Catholic Bishop or some class of royalty that the church paid in order to have a right to enforce the tithe with brute force if necessary.

[Aquila]

Some interesting, more detailed, history on tithing...

Historians usually agree that, not until A.D. 567, five hundred and thirty seven (537) years after Calvary, did the Church’s first substantial attempt to enforce tithing under its own authority appear in history! The Council of Tours in 567 and the Council of Macon in 585 enacted regional church decrees for tithing and excommunication of non-tithers, but did not receive authority from the king to enforce collection through civil decrees. It is significant that tithing did not emerge historically until the church became powerful in the secular realm. Even at this late date tithes were still only food. Eventually the Roman Church even refused to administer last rites if it was not given wealth or land in wills.

Between 774 to 777 the Frankish king, Charlemagne, destroyed the Arian Lombard kingdom which separated his empire from northern Italy. After his defeat of the Lombards, Charlemagne’s unopposed rule included northern Italy and Rome. By quoting the Mosaic Law as its authority at a Church synod, the pope finally convinced Charlemagne to allow enforced agricultural tithing in support of the fast-growing parish system of churches. In 785 Pope Hadrian attempted to impose tithing on the Anglo-Saxons. In appreciation of his church support, on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, the pope crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, thus making official the renewed “Holy” Roman Empire.

In 906 King Edgar legally enforced food tithing in England. In 1067 and 1078, at the Church Councils of Gerona, and in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, tithing was increasingly applied to all lands under Christian rule. All citizens, including Jews, were required to tithe to the Roman Catholic Church. A typical peasant was giving the first tithe of his land to his secular ruler or landlord (which was often the church) and a second tenth to the church outright. In 1179 the Third Lateran Council decreed that only the pope could release persons from the obligation to tithe, and he exempted the Crusaders.

[Aquila]

The point is that all these modern day "tithe advocates" have romanticized the doctrine of the tithe and divorced it from it's history... because there isn't any history of a tithe being required of a believer for nearly the first 400 to 500 years of Christianity. In fact, history shows that until the church gained political points with local governments, every effort of councils to institute a tithe were vehemently rejected.

And where there is history of a required tithe (beginning in the Middle Ages) we see the church using political savvy to make it happen and then using excommunication and brute force to enforce it. In fact, the overthrow of the tithe features prominently throughout the Revolutionary period. I praise God that my people of beloved Ireland abolished the tithe in 1871.

Historically speaking, the tithe doctrine was often a brutal and oppressive doctrine.

[Aquila]

Two of the larger false doctrines with us today that originated in the Roman Catholic Church are the doctrines of the Trinity and that of the Tithe.

[Sean]

Okay you tithe teachers....I know you are ticked off at me, but forget about me right now and PLEEEASE read what AQUILA recently posted.

He is posting the facts that you guys must act upon. Just back up and read his last several posts and LEARN!

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Sean

Okay you tithe teachers....I know you are ticked off at me, but forget about me right now and PLEEEASE read what AQUILA recently posted.

He is posting the facts that you guys must act upon. Just back up and read his last several posts and LEARN!

Notice how even you admonish that they read a more sensible position backed with facts. This was my point to you originally. When people start throwing condemnation everything gets emotional and logic goes out the window.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Notice how even you admonish that they read a more sensible position backed with facts. This was my point to you originally. When people start throwing condemnation everything gets emotional and logic goes out the window.

Well, I got this subject so stirred up, that I got you engaged with these great posts. It all comes out in the wash. I have been showing facts brother. Go back and show me where I havent.(other than the harsh rhetorical facts).

I got tired of men like John Archovio going around from church to church telling them that the non tithe teachers are going straight to hell, when in reality, it is the tithe teachers themselves that are under this very condemnation of teaching this false doctrine.


We just come from a different side of the tracks with our run-ins of this stuff.

I will not try to woo them into our camp. I found that "smooth" talk does not win folks like "direct" talk. Most folks I have won to the Lord from established religions "hated" me at first, then "loved" me after the ripples subsided.

When a believer in false teaching thinks there is a possibility that they will be lost(as I suggested), the seed has been planted. It will never go away. Truth will haunt them as the seed germinates until something is done.

Brother, that is the best way to "unchurch" and "rechurch" folks these days(direct words,not compromise ). It also works the same way with the oneness crowd.