Where exactly the UPCI got tithing from?

[diakonos]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Si. Es verdad.

Details

[Tithesmeister]

Originally Posted by diakonos

Details

Just in general, there was this willingness to catch a breeze from many winds of doctrine. They were enamored of things that were weird. This translated into fellowship with some pretty sketchy characters or a class of characters that professed to have divine revelations that sometimes defied scripture. And I’m not just talking about tithing. People like William Branham. UPCI and Pentecostals in general have been prone to ignore the “know they who labor among you” in favor of the blab it and grab it, word of faith type of ministers. And accountability has been scarce.

Isn’t it interesting that they will claim Azusa Street as their birthplace? But don’t mention that the revival was trinitarian? Most oneness preachers won’t eat or fellowship with trinitarian believers but they will wax eloquent about the Azusa Street Revival. I’d be embarrassed to admit how old I was before I discovered that Azusa Street was a trinitarian revival.

[diakonos]

lol. Now back to the topic…

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

In light of this information, does it make sense what I said about the Pentecostal tithes being the equivalent of the Catholic “indulgences”?

Catholic Indulgences are close to 70 in number. Reason being it’s everything from communion to making the sign of the cross. In short its works to obtain special favor from God, or remission of sins. Any church that practices even going to a prayer meeting could correlate to a Catholic indulgence.
But, what I assume you are referring to would be the practice of giving offerings to buy loved ones out of purgatory? Churches who believe in tithing are doing it because they believe in it as Biblical. Trying to find the path of entry into the Pentecostal movement is still a bit cloudy. Mormons were part of the Great Awakening, yet teach tithing. Pentecostals emerged from the Great Awakening and initially taught no tithing, but opted for free will with no obligation. Later it seems that they ended up with tithing. Yet, Charimatics combined both tithing/free will offerings by giving you make God obligated to give you an increase. Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Which is then interpreted to mean if you give a certain amount it will be multiplied back to you.

The churches which believe in tithing aren't pathologically lying to their people. It’s what they believe. As the plethora of other beliefs which they believe which you may not believe.

As far as selling indulgences I haven’t seen that in any Apostolic or UPCI church.

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Just in general, there was this willingness to catch a breeze from many winds of doctrine. They were enamored of things that were weird. This translated into fellowship with some pretty sketchy characters or a class of characters that professed to have divine revelations that sometimes defied scripture. And I’m not just talking about tithing. People like William Branham. UPCI and Pentecostals in general have been prone to ignore the “know they who labor among you” in favor of the blab it and grab it, word of faith type of ministers. And accountability has been scarce.

Isn’t it interesting that they will claim Azusa Street as their birthplace? But don’t mention that the revival was trinitarian? Most oneness preachers won’t eat or fellowship with trinitarian believers but they will wax eloquent about the Azusa Street Revival. I’d be embarrassed to admit how old I was before I discovered that Azusa Street was a trinitarian revival.

Yet, there were different veins within American Christendom. While you had the extreme of the Dowieists in Zion Illinois, and Azusa Street freak shows, there were those who maintained a logical approach to the New Testament church. The United States has always been a hot bed for cults Osho Rajneesh whose followers built an entire city for their guru. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Alexander Dowie, Judge Rutherford, and Frederick P. Lenz III. Name the religion and in the United States we have a guru, or religious leader ready and waiting to lead the blind into a ditch.

We naïvely believe that buy typing out long chapters of scripture that people will change their minds. Yet, it’s more complicated than that. We are neck deep in churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, and cults.

Even Karate dojos have senseis which teach some insane stuff.

All I’m saying is Pentecostal is the island we’re located on. Yet, they are closer to the strait gate than others.

[Tithesmeister]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Catholic Indulgences are close to 70 in number. Reason being it’s everything from communion to making the sign of the cross. In short its works to obtain special favor from God, or remission of sins. Any church that practices even going to a prayer meeting could correlate to a Catholic indulgence.
But, what I assume you are referring to would be the practice of giving offerings to buy loved ones out of purgatory? Churches who believe in tithing are doing it because they believe in it as Biblical. Trying to find the path of entry into the Pentecostal movement is still a bit cloudy. Mormons were part of the Great Awakening, yet teach tithing. Pentecostals emerged from the Great Awakening and initially taught no tithing, but opted for free will with no obligation. Later it seems that they ended up with tithing. Yet, Charimatics combined both tithing/free will offerings by giving you make God obligated to give you an increase. Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Which is then interpreted to mean if you give a certain amount it will be multiplied back to you.

The churches which believe in tithing aren't pathologically lying to their people. It’s what they believe. As the plethora of other beliefs which they believe which you may not believe.

As far as selling indulgences I haven’t seen that in any Apostolic or UPCI church.

Brother, this is a good conversation. I appreciate your perspective. I confess that I am not any authority on Catholicism. You seem to be pretty knowledgeable so I will defer to you on the details. But allow me to clarify what I believe to be some of the similarities of the Pentecostal tithe to the indulgences of the Catholic Church.

Both doctrines seem to be false or at best weak as far as scripture goes. Both may also be founded on good intentions. (Which pave the road to Hell, allegedly).
Both are (or have been) used to raise massive amounts of money through deception.

The looove of money is the root of all manner of evil brethren hah!! Maybe I’ll just preach!

More similarities: When needs arise of a financial nature, as tends to happen at some point, whether you’re Pentecostal or Catholic, the temptation is to squeeze money out of the sheep. On the other hand, when everything is going well and the sheep have heavy coats of wool, the temptation is to give them a good shearing. You really don’t kill the beast of greed, by feeding it. It’s just human nature.

So about five hundred years ago the Catholic Church needed money. St. Peter’s Basilica needed a major renovation and remodel. Of course to any good Catholic, this was a worthy cause. To add further urgency to the situation, Pope Gregory decided to include the design and construction of his sarcophagus in the renovation budget and construction efforts. So now we have the ego of a narcissistic leader involved, a building program, (which is famous for making people give more than they can afford) and the belief that God is definitely deserving and in full approval of the building of a temple for His glory. The only problem is, how to pay for it. Fortunately, (or perhaps by “Devine inspiration” some cardinal came up with a plan to finance the deal.

We have these indulgences. They are valuable instruments. Let’s sell them. Problem solved!

And they did. And they financed a construction project that lasted about 125 years and produced a truly beautiful structure. Now to be fair, I don’t believe they ever taught that you bought salvation by purchasing an indulgence, but if you happened to believe it did, they might not try to correct you in your misunderstanding. I still remember, I believe it was in tenth grade world history class the poem that went like this: “As soon as coin in coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs”. Of course I was appalled at the implications. Of course I also wasn’t catholic, so it made it easier to be judgmental. I was Pentecostal and we were above all that!

So now we (Pentecostals) have this situation. We need money. We have leadership that needs supporting. (Not that they are too good to work of course, but they need to focus ALL their time and effort on the Lord’s work). Plus we need a bigger, more beautiful building for the glory of God, and we have need to build an organization as well so that we can further spread the gospel. And we need airplanes to fly over there because if “Jesus was here today He wouldn’t be riding a donkey “.

How we gonna raise all this money we need? Anybody got any ideas? (Somebody always does). The false doctrine of tithes is already in place. The sheep are due for shearing . And although many don’t go so far as to teach that tithing is a salvation issue, there are some who do (even who have been on here).

Is this seeming familiar to anyone? Are we making the same mistakes that the Catholic Church made five hundred years ago? Are we going to get the same results? (It didn’t play out well for the Catholic Church). Are we going to tell a bunch of lies, and expect God to be proud of us because we are doing it for His glory?

Let me know what y’all think.

[Tithesmeister]

Brother Benincasa,

I understand that we’re on this Pentecostal Island and we may well be doing better than the Catholic Island. But I can’t do anything about the Catholic Island and possibly can’t do much about the Pentecostal Island either. But I can at least tell the truth as I see it. I get what you’re saying but I’ve gotta at least try. We give power to our leadership (more than we should in my opinion). But we should hold them accountable. They don’t want to be held accountable. Surprise, Surprise.

In relation to the Original Post, the root is corrupt in regards to the tithe doctrine. What sort of fruit are we to expect?

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Brother, this is a good conversation. I appreciate your perspective. I confess that I am not any authority on Catholicism. You seem to be pretty knowledgeable so I will defer to you on the details. But allow me to clarify what I believe to be some of the similarities of the Pentecostal tithe to the indulgences of the Catholic Church.

Both doctrines seem to be false or at best weak as far as scripture goes. Both may also be founded on good intentions. (Which pave the road to Hell, allegedly).
Both are (or have been) used to raise massive amounts of money through deception.

The looove of money is the root of all manner of evil brethren hah!! Maybe I’ll just preach!

More similarities: When needs arise of a financial nature, as tends to happen at some point, whether you’re Pentecostal or Catholic, the temptation is to squeeze money out of the sheep. On the other hand, when everything is going well and the sheep have heavy coats of wool, the temptation is to give them a good shearing. You really don’t kill the beast of greed, by feeding it. It’s just human nature.

So about five hundred years ago the Catholic Church needed money. St. Peter’s Basilica needed a major renovation and remodel. Of course to any good Catholic, this was a worthy cause. To add further urgency to the situation, Pope Gregory decided to include the design and construction of his sarcophagus in the renovation budget and construction efforts. So now we have the ego of a narcissistic leader involved, a building program, (which is famous for making people give more than they can afford) and the belief that God is definitely deserving and in full approval of the building of a temple for His glory. The only problem is, how to pay for it. Fortunately, (or perhaps by “Devine inspiration” some cardinal came up with a plan to finance the deal.

We have these indulgences. They are valuable instruments. Let’s sell them. Problem solved!

And they did. And they financed a construction project that lasted about 125 years and produced a truly beautiful structure. Now to be fair, I don’t believe they ever taught that you bought salvation by purchasing an indulgence, but if you happened to believe it did, they might not try to correct you in your misunderstanding. I still remember, I believe it was in tenth grade world history class the poem that went like this: “As soon as coin in coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs”. Of course I was appalled at the implications. Of course I also wasn’t catholic, so it made it easier to be judgmental. I was Pentecostal and we were above all that!

So now we (Pentecostals) have this situation. We need money. We have leadership that needs supporting. (Not that they are too good to work of course, but they need to focus ALL their time and effort on the Lord’s work). Plus we need a bigger, more beautiful building for the glory of God, and we have need to build an organization as well so that we can further spread the gospel. And we need airplanes to fly over there because if “Jesus was here today He wouldn’t be riding a donkey “.

How we gonna raise all this money we need? Anybody got any ideas? (Somebody always does). The false doctrine of tithes is already in place. The sheep are due for shearing . And although many don’t go so far as to teach that tithing is a salvation issue, there are some who do (even who have been on here).

Is this seeming familiar to anyone? Are we making the same mistakes that the Catholic Church made five hundred years ago? Are we going to get the same results? (It didn’t play out well for the Catholic Church). Are we going to tell a bunch of lies, and expect God to be proud of us because we are doing it for His glory?

Let me know what y’all think.

Let me first comment on "Sobald der Pfennig im Kasten klingt, die Selle aus dem Fegfeuer springt" attributed to Johann Tetzel; "as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul out of purgatory springs." Actually, it's here say, and the first we hear of it was from Martin Luther recorded in his Ninety-five Theses. Yet, even Luther doesn't attribute this saying to Johann Tetzel. What I personally believe, what is happening, is Luther condensing his thoughts on what he views the Catholics believed on indulgences. History must be taken with a grain of salt, well, maybe a lot of salt. Here we have an enemy of the Catholic church giving his side of the story. Yet, here is a good example. Martin Luther goes to seminary, then visits Vatican City, and is changed. He then starts to read his Bible a fresh. The UPCI as well as other Restorationist movements record Luther as the first ray of light back to Truth (Search for Truth Bible study teacher's manual) But was he really a lamp lighter? Or was he just being used for politics' sake? It's all debatable. Yet, Luther against the Papacy. A man of the people. Armed with Truth. Catholic Mystery Babylon, and an Antichrist Papacy. Yet, the Catholics are still with us, and the Reformationists splintered over and over again. If Luther were to look at what had become of his movement his head would swim. hundreds of denominations with a little bit of Catholicism, little bit of Protestantism. With those denominations fiercely defending doctrines as Biblical. Some baptizing in Trinitarian formula, some saying a liturgy over the neophyte in baptism. Some pour, sprinkle, submerge three times in the name of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, each time they dunk. Some baptize the individual forward, some backward, others baptize the candidate straight down. Yet, all believe they are telling the truth. If we said they were liars or maliciously lying to boot, these folks would be shocked.

But that is just Protestants and the denominations which follow.

In Pentecost One God Jesus Name we too have a plethora of different beliefs.
A virtual archipelago of groups fellowshipping, or looking to find others of like precious beliefs.

Yet, back to money root of all evil tithers. Pope Gregory and indulgences, looking to build bigger barns? Yet, we can't fault someone who believes that tithing is scriptural. They don't lord over God's heritage. They aren't hoarding the wealth of the saints they preach to. They aren't sending out pictures of starving street children playing in sewers to coerce the churches into sending funds abroad. While they sip Pina Coladas on the beach. They believe tithing is scriptural, and while you may cut and paste verse after verse with heartfelt desire. They just don't see it. Again, they aren't liars, they aren't soul hustlers, messengers of Satan or ecclesiastical pimps. They just don't see what you see.



But, lets see where the problem might really be seated. Pope Gregory? It's leaders, the Jim Bakers, Jerry Falwells and a some other bad apples across the board. Individuals taking advantage of the sheep. You did mention wolves in the clothing of the sheep. They're the problem. Not some old brother and sister sacrificing their entire life to a work and teaching tithes. I get what you are saying totally, but having a discussion is one thing. throwing everyone in the meat grinder together is another. I have ground some up in the past. Only to get older and find out some went under the wheels unjustifiably.

Still, they're all not intentionally lying or trying to purposely mislead everyone.

Right?

[Tithesmeister]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Let me first comment on "Sobald der Pfennig im Kasten klingt, die Selle aus dem Fegfeuer springt" attributed to Johann Tetzel; "as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul out of purgatory springs." Actually, it's here say, and the first we hear of it was from Martin Luther recorded in his Ninety-five Theses. Yet, even Luther doesn't attribute this saying to Johann Tetzel. What I personally believe, what is happening, is Luther condensing his thoughts on what he views the Catholics believed on indulgences. History must be taken with a grain of salt, well, maybe a lot of salt. Here we have an enemy of the Catholic church giving his side of the story. Yet, here is a good example. Martin Luther goes to seminary, then visits Vatican City, and is changed. He then starts to read his Bible a fresh. The UPCI as well as other Restorationist movements record Luther as the first ray of light back to Truth (Search for Truth Bible study teacher's manual) But was he really a lamp lighter? Or was he just being used for politics' sake? It's all debatable. Yet, Luther against the Papacy. A man of the people. Armed with Truth. Catholic Mystery Babylon, and an Antichrist Papacy. Yet, the Catholics are still with us, and the Reformationists splintered over and over again. If Luther were to look at what had become of his movement his head would swim. hundreds of denominations with a little bit of Catholicism, little bit of Protestantism. With those denominations fiercely defending doctrines as Biblical. Some baptizing in Trinitarian formula, some saying a liturgy over the neophyte in baptism. Some pour, sprinkle, submerge three times in the name of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, each time they dunk. Some baptize the individual forward, some backward, others baptize the candidate straight down. Yet, all believe they are telling the truth. If we said they were liars or maliciously lying to boot, these folks would be shocked.

But that is just Protestants and the denominations which follow.

In Pentecost One God Jesus Name we too have a plethora of different beliefs.
A virtual archipelago of groups fellowshipping, or looking to find others of like precious beliefs.

Yet, back to money root of all evil tithers. Pope Gregory and indulgences, looking to build bigger barns? Yet, we can't fault someone who believes that tithing is scriptural. They don't lord over God's heritage. They aren't hoarding the wealth of the saints they preach to. They aren't sending out pictures of starving street children playing in sewers to coerce the churches into sending funds abroad. While they sip Pina Coladas on the beach. They believe tithing is scriptural, and while you may cut and paste verse after verse with heartfelt desire. They just don't see it. Again, they aren't liars, they aren't soul hustlers, messengers of Satan or ecclesiastical pimps. They just don't see what you see.



But, lets see where the problem might really be seated. Pope Gregory? It's leaders, the Jim Bakers, Jerry Falwells and a some other bad apples across the board. Individuals taking advantage of the sheep. You did mention wolves in the clothing of the sheep. They're the problem. Not some old brother and sister sacrificing their entire life to a work and teaching tithes. I get what you are saying totally, but having a discussion is one thing. throwing everyone in the meat grinder together is another. I have ground some up in the past. Only to get older and find out some went under the wheels unjustifiably.

Still, they're all not intentionally lying or trying to purposely mislead everyone.

Right?

Sure you’re right. I think I said pretty much the same in a previous post. Some are intentionally deceiving, others are sincerely wrong. I don’t think it’s the same, but unfortunately they both bring us to the same place. So for those who deceive out of ignorance, the antidote for ignorance is knowledge. I’m trying to inoculate them. For the others? I’m trying to protect the sheep FROM them.

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Sure you’re right. I think I said pretty much the same in a previous post. Some are intentionally deceiving, others are sincerely wrong. I don’t think it’s the same, but unfortunately they both bring us to the same place. So for those who deceive out of ignorance, the antidote for ignorance is knowledge. I’m trying to inoculate them. For the others? I’m trying to protect the sheep FROM them.

But here’s the flip side. What if I said the sheep don’t want to be saved? They don’t want the vaccine? They only see the bringer of knowledge as an intrusion. You see, it takes two to make a relationship. The leadership and the led. Remember Jesus said, if the blind lead the blind they both fall into a ditch. It’s like this an evangelist goes to a church, he preaches to the congregation and starts to present some teaching other than what is taught by the pastor. While the teaching might have book, chapter, and verse. It’s not what is taught by the pastor, the presbyter, the general superintendent, or their organization. Brother and Sister Foofoofnick are on an Internet forum. While on the forum they watch two posters have a hair pulling contest concerning a teaching. A teaching forbidden by their church. While they understood the scriptures, even figured out how everything fit perfect logic. They still won’t accept it. You see, there is more to the whole Church situation than book, chapter, and verse. It’s a community. It’s a family. Their ministry means a lot to that couple who read the debate on a forum. But, when the computer is shut off the two posters stuck in a ecclesiastical cat fight aren’t in their church family. I think I said this before, it’s a little more than just handing out golden manna of the word. The bigger picture is that people like their church. Love their church family, and love their pastor and his family.

Not trying to discourage anyone from bringing forth what they believe. Just don’t be surprised when they nod their heads. Amen loud and clear. Then turn around and still reject the vaccine