How Does the Old Testament Mesh with the New 8
What does God think about your money?
‘Tithe’ is translated from the Hebrew maaser, meaning a ‘tenth’. Abram was giving Melchizedek a tenth of his ‘first fruits’, i.e., a tenth of the increase of his wealth, that he had gained from the spoils of the war from fighting to free Lot. (see part 7)
Abram was honoring God for His favor that gave him victory, and he placed his faith in Him, rather than worrying about how much he kept in his wallet. He put God first.
Nowadays, most tithing is given in the form of money because that is the modern system for measuring wealth. But money is an alluring thing. People work for it, gamble for it, or even steal it. Some even make an idol of it, and their obsession over it has brought countless lives to ruin.
Yet money itself has been given a bad rap. Money itself is neutral. It is only a medium of exchange, whose value is determined only by what a society agrees it should be. What it is not, is ‘the root of all evil’, a commonly misquoted Scripture. It is the love of money that is at the root.[1]
Money, (indeed, all forms of our abundance), is a gift from God:
“…remember that the LORD your God gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm his covenant he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.” Dt. 8:18 CSB
Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength. 1 Chr. 29:12 AMP
Not that we are sufficiently qualified in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency and qualifications come from God. 2 Cor. 3:5 AMP
Moreover, God wants us to enjoy our gifts, that we may draw joy from living out our unique lives:
And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. Ec. 3:13 NLT
So, what about this tithing thing? Why does God want your money? He certainly doesn’t need it. However, Jehovah opens all the doors and creates all the opportunities for you to get yours. He only wants you to honor that with a 10th of any increase in your prosperity.
Why? He wants you to give that portion back to Him to remind you that God is the source of all your abundance. You are, in essence, giving back to Him what was His to begin with. You are honoring Jehovah for His giving – keeping Him in remembrance and enhancing your relationship with Him:
“I am the one who answers your prayers and cares for you. I am like a tree that is always green; all your fruit comes from me.” Ho. 14:8 NLT
“If they listen and obey God, they will be blessed with prosperity throughout their lives. All their years will be pleasant.” Job 36:11 NLT
And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:19 CSB
That first ten percent is God’s money. And He holds your act of tithing as a holy (sacred) act:
“One tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the fields or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD and must be set apart to him as holy.” Lv. 27:30 NLT
It fills Jehovah with dismay when we don’t willingly tithe to Him, as we see when He reprimanded the Israelites through the prophet Malachi:
“Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’”
“You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me.” Mal. 3:8 NLT
(‘Offerings’ is translated from the Hebrew olah, which means ‘sacrifice’).
When you tithe, you are exercising your faith in God. He doesn’t need your money; He wants your faith, by showing your obedience to His will. In fact, here is a Scripture, (the only one in the entire Bible), where God asks you to test Him on His promise:
“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, “l will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! Mal. 3:10 NLT
This passage is also related:
Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your crops (income); then your barns will be abundantly filled and your vats will overflow with new wine. Pr. 3:9, 10. AMP
So, for your 10% investment, Jehovah gives you a 100+% over the term of your lifetime.
There is a caveat, however. God does not just pour abundance on you by happenstance. He only blesses you with your desires, if by receiving them, they will increase His purpose in you, towards furthering His kingdom.
Furthermore, God works with you, not just for you. You must express the talent He imprinted in you, to lay claim to your abundance, and you must express it with integrity:
Lazy people are soon poor; hard workers get rich. Pr. 10:4 NLT
Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but he who gathers gradually by [honest] labor will increase [his riches]. Pr. 13:11 AMP
Also, when God sends blessings your way, they come to you adjoined with a responsibility to be a good steward of them:
…generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity. Is. 32:8 NLT
Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all that we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good.
They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. 1 Tim. 6:17 – 19. NLT
You can’t out-give God. He gives you more than enough abundance so that you can share it with others, which in turn, serves Him:
“Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.” Lk. 6:35 NLT
As above, Jesus also tells us to give discretely, rather than publicly in a prideful manner:
Be [very] careful not to do your good deeds publicly, to be seen by men; otherwise you will have no reward [prepared and awaiting you] with your Father who is in heaven.
So whenever you give to the poor and do acts of kindness, do not blow a trumpet before you [to advertise it], as the hypocrites do [like actors acting out a role] in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored and recognized and praised by men.
…they [already] have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor and do acts of kindness, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing [give in complete secrecy], so that your charitable acts will be done in secret; and your Father who sees [what is done] in secret will reward you. Mt. 6:1 – 4. AMP
All of God’s abundance is good, and He wants you to have it. There is a danger though. It happens if your focus shifts from your gratitude for His riches, to the riches themselves:
Trust in your money and down you go! But the godly flourish like leaves in spring. Pr. 11:28 NLT
“Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.” Lk. 12:15 CSB
Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”[2] Heb. 13:5 NLT
The danger of making an idol out of your money is that it separates you from God:
…people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. 1 Tim. 6:9, 10. NLT
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” Lk. 16:13 NLT
Even worse, when you are separated from God, you risk the loss of your salvation:
“…all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced.” Mk. 4:19 NLT
“…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man [who places his faith in wealth and status] to enter the kingdom of God.” Mt. 19:24 AMP
Tithing is about giving what you are able to give. If you have money, pay God first. Should you pay your bills first, you will never tithe, and your blessings will diminish.
Maybe you don’t have money, then give the gift of yourself in worship. Give the gift of your time and talents: Mentor a child. Teach God’s word. Help others move through the difficulties in their lives. Volunteer at church, etc.
When you use your resources to further the Kingdom, (to improve the spiritual lot of others), are you not blessed and expanded? When we help others grow in God, we can’t help but blossom ourselves.
And in the same spirit, we tithe to the church because it’s doing Jehovah’s work. You become a facilitator of that work – advancing the Kingdom.
Every material and spiritual gift from God is a wonderful and marvelous thing. All we must do is remain grateful, share our abundance, and keep our focus on the greatest treasure – God Himself:
Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. Ga. 6:8 NLT
“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” Mt. 6:19, 20. NLT
Indeed, our greatest treasure is expressed in our spiritual journey – beginning with our acknowledgement of God’s redemption through Christ:
For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 1 Pt. 1:18, 19. NLT
Your ultimate abundance is found in God. When you stay with Him, everything is taken care of. He wants you to have the fruits of His earthly abundance, (including money), because it’s one of His ways of showing you, His love. He just doesn’t want the fruits to have you.
Tithing may feel like a sacrifice, and it is. However, it honors God, spreads love and salvation all over the planet, and opens the door for you to have more people to play with, in eternity…
[1] 1 Tim. 6:10
[2] Dt. 31:6 & 8
Building Better Americans 125
How Does the Old Testament Mesh with the New? 7
- Humankind’s first record of self-edification:
If we return to the history of the descendants of Noah’s son, Ham, (Gn. 10:6 – 10.), we learn that one of his grandsons was named ‘Nimrod’, which in the Hebrew means ‘We will rebel.’ He is the first person in Scripture to have a ‘kingdom’, part of which was in the land of Shinar (Babylonia):
At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. Gn. 11:1, 2. NLT
Being that the kingdom was Nimrod’s, he would have played a leading role in convincing his subjects to corporately sin against God. How so?
They said one to another, “Come, let us make bricks…let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a [famous] name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered [into separate groups] and be dispersed over the surface of the entire earth [as the LORD instructed].” Gn. 11:3, 4. AMP
How are they sinning? One: they are defying God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, and to cover the entire Earth. (See Gn. 1:22 & 28, and 9:1 & 7.) Two: in so doing, they are separating themselves from God, and three: they are indulging in pride (self-adoration).
Pride leads to many problems:
Though the pride of the godless reaches to the heavens and their heads touch the clouds, yet they will vanish forever, thrown away like their own dung. Job 20:6, 7. NLT
And when they cry out, God does not answer because of their pride. Job 35:12 NLT
For he breaks the pride of princes, and the kings of the earth fear him. Ps. 76:12 NLT
Pride leads to disgrace… Pr. 11:2
Pride leads to conflict… Pr. 13:10
Pride goes before destruction… Pr. 16:18 NLT
“I, the Lord, will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their sin. I will crush the arrogance of the proud and humble the pride of the mighty.” Is. 13:11 NLT
God’s will cannot be successfully thwarted:
Now the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one [unified] people, and they all have the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do [in rebellion against Me], and now no evil thing that they imagine they can do will be impossible for them.”
“Come, let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) go down and there to confuse and mix up their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the surface of the entire earth; and they stopped building the city.
Therefore the name of the city was Babel – because the LORD confused the language of the entire earth; and from that place the LORD scattered and dispersed them over the surface of all the earth. Gn. 11:5 – 9. AMP
At some time in the future, God will restore a single language to His children when the Gospel is told to all people.[1]
From this point on, i.e., following Gn. 1:1 – 11:9, the focus of Genesis shifts from being about humankind’s predilection for depravity, to how they may grab ahold of their redemption.
It begins by establishing the lineage of Abram (who will become Abraham). There were 10 generations between Adam and Noah. There are an additional 10 generations between Noah’s son, Shem, to Abraham,[2] (the first Hebrew).
This is our first introduction to Abram:
Terah fathered Abram…Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans, during his father Terah’s lifetime…Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Gn. 11:27, 28 & 31. CSB
- The First Hebrew
As we’ve just seen, Abram, (Hebrew for ‘high father’), settled in the city of Haran (modern-day Turkish city of Eskiharran), with his father, his nephew, and his wife. When Abram reaches the age of 75, he receives a direct call from Jehovah Himself:
The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.
I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” Gn. 12:1 – 3. NLT
Like with Noah, Jehovah is entering into a covenant promise with Abram (the ‘Abrahamic covenant’) – promising him land (Canaan), making him a ‘great nation’, (Israel), raising his stature (as the father of faith), and covering him with His blessings.
Furthermore, God’s blessings upon Abram will pass through him as well – blessing all of God’s children around the globe.
We don’t know why God chose Abram. We do know that Abram took Him at His word, and in his obedience, he made his first act of faith – to gather his wife, Sarai, and his nephew, Lot, and a few servants and left everything that he ever knew, and trusted in God, that He was sending him to a better place.
At his advanced age, Abram and his retinue embarked on a 1500-mile trek to a place that they’ve never seen:
When they arrived in Canaan…the area was inhabited by Canaanites. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to the LORD… Gn. 12:5 – 7. NLT
Unfortunately, soon thereafter, our ‘father of faith’ suffers a human-type lapse in said conviction, when Canaan is struck with a famine. Instead of believing that God would provide for them in this calamity, He gathers Sarai and travels to Egypt, which was not experiencing famine.
To add insult to injury with regards to the strength of his faith, as they approach the Egyptian border, Abram turns to Sarai and says:
“Look, you are a very beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife. Let’s kill him; then we can have her!’ So please tell them you are my sister. They will spare my life and treat me well because of their interest in you.” Gn. 12:11 – 13. NLT
And it all came to pass. Palace officials bragged about Sarai’s beauty to Pharoah, and Sarai conveyed the lie; and she became part of his harem. And Pharoah gave riches to Abram.
There has been a lot of scholarly debate about these proceedings. Was Abram only concerned with himself?
The outcome certainly seems like his plan worked. Was having Sarai tell a lie a sin? Again, if she had not, there was a good chance Abram would have been killed. Did Abram force Sarai to commit adultery? Not if it was forced upon her. It would be tantamount to rape. The Torah infers that the adultery took place, the Christian translation does not.
God Himself puts an end to this dilemma by pouring plagues upon Pharaoh’s palace. Pharaoh in turn, booted Abram and Sarai out of Egypt. There was no sign of repentance on Abram’s part.
This fiasco demonstrates that even the ‘father of faith’ had a slip-up. He gave in to the fear in his flesh. Let’s think about this. If the Bible’s number one example of faith can blow it, we can understand how we may fall short as well.
Instead of berating ourselves when we do, (which hinders our ability to receive God’s love), it is a far better approach to ask Jehovah to strengthen us, to be able to step back into faith. He will never let us down. It’s not about how often you fall; it is about your willingness to get back up…
Abram and his retinue return to Canaan:
So Abram left Egypt and traveled north into the Negev (a desert region south of Judah), along with his wife and Lot and all that they owned. (Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold)…they pitched their tents between Bethel and Ai, where they had camped before. Gn. 13:1-3. NLT
Lot…had also become very wealthy with flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, and many tents. But the land could not support both Abram and Lot with all their flocks and herds living so close together. Gn. 13:5, 6. NLT
Gallantly, Abram tells Lot to go pick out land that he prefers; and then Abram will be sure to put the required distance between them, so that each of their husbandries could thrive:
So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the LORD. Gn. 13:12, 13. NLT
After Lot leaves, Jehovah speaks to Abram – reiterating His covenant with him:
After Lot had gone, the Lord said to Abram, “Look as far as you can see in every direction—north and south, east and west.I am giving all this land, as far as you can see, to you and your descendants as a permanent possession. And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted! Go and walk through the land in every direction, for I am giving it to you.”
So Abram moved his camp to Hebron and settled near the oak grove belonging to Mamre*. There he built another altar to the Lord. Gn. 13:14 – 18. NLT
*(One of Abram’s allies.)
Lot gets kidnaped:
About this time war broke out in the region…The victorious invaders then plundered Sodom and Gomorrah and headed for home, taking with them all the spoils of war and the food supplies. They also captured Lot—Abram’s nephew who lived in Sodom—and carried off everything he owned. But one of Lot’s men escaped and reported everything to Abram the Hebrew. Gn. 14:1 & 11 -13. NLT
When Abram heard that his nephew Lot had been captured, he mobilized the 318 trained men who had been born into his household…he divided his men and attacked during the night. Abram recovered all the goods that had been taken, and he brought back his nephew Lot with his possessions and all the women and other captives. Gn. 14:14 – 16. NLT
After Abram returned from his victory…the king of Sodom went out to meet him…And, the king of Salem and a priest of the God Most High…blessed Abram…Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods he had recovered. Gn. 14:17 – 20. NLT
From the Hebrew Bible perspective, king Melchizedek was not a Hebrew, but a God-fearing man. Nonetheless, he occupied both the office of king and priest, as did Christ. He was thought (in rabbinic legend) to be Shem, the son of Noah (see Ps. 110:4), whom God was going to make the first high priest. But, because he blessed Abram without first blessing God, the priesthood was given to Abram instead.
Diverging to the Christian viewpoint, Melchizedek was the preincarnate Christ (see Heb. 7), which was why Abram submitted to him. Notice too that Abram gave a tithe to the high priest. Here, we need to pause, and root out what that meant…
[1] Zep. 3:9
[2] Gn. 11:10 – 26.