Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 The village church, sermon Q and a pastor Michael, here with you. I'm in the studio with pastor Craig. We have preached a message out of Exodus on stewardship. And today we're going to answer it questions about tithing, which in a pastor Craig, it's a fairly controversial issue for some people to get emotional about this. And so I, I enjoy talking about generosity because
Speaker 2 00:00:28 You enjoy talking about uncomfortable. I love awkward conversations and um, oh, there's a scab. Let me pick, oh, you know me. So,
Speaker 1 00:00:36 Um, all right, so let's, let's start with just a, a basic question. And this is what we're going to go after is tithing required for Christians. Now let me just context. Generosity is good, right? Absolutely mandated. Like whoever, if you're a follower of Christ, we are to be generous with our time, our treasures,
Speaker 2 00:00:53 Our talent, blow your mind for a second. I don't mean to take a rabbit trail on this, but in, in, but I, I don't mean to in Romans, in Romans 12, it gives all, uh, it gives a bunch of the gifts of the spirit. This blew my mind. When I, when I found this out, uh, it gives a, you know, a gift of prophecy, the gift of leadership, that gift of all kinds of different gifts in there, right? And these are gifts of the spirit that we would typically take classes for what your gifted, but in there there's a gift of generosity or it's actually a gift of giving. Yeah. It's a gift of giving. And when I, when I discovered that I started thinking of myself, a gift of giving that is interesting. And it says, if you have the gift of giving, give generously.
Speaker 2 00:01:33 So there's a part of, I think some people, I know some people in my life, they can touch something and it turns to gold, they got the Midas touch, right. They could sneeze and make money. It's, it's just a gift that they have. Right. And it's not like they're there they're shysters or anything. They're just, they're just good at what they do. Those people have a tendency. If they're believers to give, uh, to individuals, to, to, to, uh, organizations that are helping, you know, needy people or, or even to the church. And they always have a tendency to give generously. And so I would say yes, uh, I think there is a, God gives us the ability to be givers. And if we have the gift of giving, especially we should give generously. Yes. Would you say
Speaker 1 00:02:14 It's a requirement for everybody to be generous? Yes. Okay. But some
Speaker 2 00:02:18 People have the ability, I think, to be more generous than others, for sure.
Speaker 1 00:02:21 Yeah. And I mean, you don't even have to have a lot of money to have the gift of generosity. Absolutely. Yes. I am married to a giver. We had no money when we were married and she just kept giving stuff away. And I was like, why? Like, she'd go to the store and buy a whole bunch of stuff. I'm like, why did you buy all this stuff? And she's like, I'm giving it away. Nice. And I'm like, we don't have it. Where'd my shirt go. Yeah. Right now it's like, but like you, can't, it's interesting when you, when you're with somebody who is a giver it's you just can't stop it. So right now here's the question, right. So I know it's good to be generous. I know. Like, we'll just assume it's, it's the default tithing and giving money to the local church you go to is a good right. Expected thing. When is it okay for me not to tie, when is it okay for me to hold back my money from the church? Um, I'm sure there's a Panorama of reason. So what you give one, I'll give one and we'll go back and forth.
Speaker 2 00:03:05 There, there, there are good occasions to not give, and there are bad occasions to not give them. It's really difficult to give a yes or no answer to this because so many people come from so many different experiences, even that are watching us today. Um, for instance, uh, if you're going through a financial difficulty, you you've lost your job, you got into a situation. You didn't intend, somebody stole from you. You know, there's, there's all kinds of different situations. And instead of going into debt in order to keep your commitment to, I would go to the church leadership, have a meeting with them and just say, listen, I made a commitment to give. I made a commitment to you and to God, to this church. And I just want to be straight up and let you know, I got to hold back for a little while until I get on my financial feet.
Speaker 2 00:03:45 Otherwise I'm going to be digging a deeper hole for myself that is not pleasing to the Lord and will put my family in a, in a jeopardy situation. So, um, so there are situations where I think you can pull back from giving, but you need to be honest about why you're pulling back. Like if you're pulling back so you can save up for a boat. Um, then, uh, and then I would say, you know, maybe, maybe that's not the right reason. Again, if you want to use the boat for ministry, then you know, well, what would you say, would you say that there are times you should pull back and give
Speaker 1 00:04:15 Me, um, if you lose your job? Um, I would say, yeah. Pull back from giving. Um, if you, could you say that you should still give something? Um, yeah. If you lose your job. So, so this is how my brain would work, right? Like, uh, if you can't get financially, I'm already thinking about times towns treasures, right. I'm thinking about not just money, I'm thinking about my time, thinking about my skills. Like how do I bring all of me to my community, to the body of Christ? I think when people think about giving, they think more organizationally, I'm thinking more familiarly. Um, I'm thinking about this as my family. And, um, like when I give financially, um, that allows that single mom to have a women's Bible study and the church that allows the brother community care collective to go in and serve our community.
Speaker 1 00:04:56 You know, I mean, like it allows the lights to come on the heat to work basic stuff, you know? And so I think more about it probably as a family. So, um, when people, the moment you put the, put, tie that into an organizational structure, then you're probably going to be a little bit more flippant. But if you think about it, like, no, this is the provision. Um, like you, you and I have jobs. That's how we provide for our family with the way the family of God has provided for us through like the ties and offerings of the church. So, um, so if I lose my job, I'm probably not going to give financially, but I'm going to probably double invest in other ways. Um, if there are ways that I can save the church money by doing things that they're paying for, then I'll jump in and do that for free. Um, so that I can maybe reduce their funds and other places I would get really creative on that personally. Um, I think most people are pretty monolithic and the way they process it is I, as I listened to people, it's like either give her, I don't give. And if I give honestly, and COVID, if I had to give, I don't need to serve. And it's, it's an interesting,
Speaker 2 00:05:50 That's a nuanced, um, topic, and we've had multiple discussions on this, but staying on the same track that you were talking about in the old Testament, it's interesting, the tribe of Levi took care of the spiritual needs of the people. And throughout the old Testament, they weren't allowed to own land. They weren't allowed, they didn't have a plot like Manasseh, FM. They didn't have a plot where they were that they would own because the, uh, everything that the family that all of these other tribes got was meant to be shared with the Levi's so that the Levi's could devote themselves to work, to serving them, to keeping the temple up to sacrifice. Cause that was a full-time job, which is actually
Speaker 1 00:06:28 A priest structure, like Catholic priest structure, their whole life around that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:06:30 Kind of, yeah. That's right. Mentality. Yeah. And sometimes again, nuanced, sometimes you can abuse that, uh, and you can put gold on your ceilings and you could go to that. You could go that Luther had, that was one of his major objections with the Catholic church is that they were requiring this money. They were, they were putting poor people. They were making them even poorer and promising them better standing with God, places in heaven, stuff like that, so that they could get more money for themselves, more money in the coffer. And then they would take that money and they would build the Sistine chapel. So, um, again, no judgment unless you're Luther, but thoughts, but, uh, Zwingli, actually, he knee-jerk reaction to that. He wouldn't allow any shiny thing in the church at all, because those reformers had come out of a church setting where they completely abused people by taking their money, to put this gaudy stuff all over the place, because they looked at that as worship. And so Swingley said, no, we're not going to have any of that. Nothing shiny in the church. Not interesting, nothing shiny mirrors, no mirrors. Definitely. What circumstances would you tell somebody?
Speaker 2 00:07:43 Uh, assuming the default is yeah. Yeah. I would say, um, again, if you're going to be, if you're being honest with God, be honest with your, uh, leadership beyond. If you've made a commitment to give you really do need to have a conversation. Um, but I think you could break those commitments under some circumstances. For example, for example, if your church is not preaching the gospel, if that's good. Yeah. If you're, if your church has taken a direction where they are no longer preaching the word of God, if they are, and again, it's so subjective back to Luther, he was scared of this happening when he transfers when he no, no, no. When he translated the gospel and put it at the hands of people, he was afraid that everybody would be making up their own minds about stuff. And we have a tendency, especially in the American culture to take it upon ourselves, to tell the church and everybody who works in the church, what they're doing wrong, or put them out of business. And there's some of that going on, even in, in our Chicago area today. But in some circumstances, that's, that's the righteous thing to do. Got
Speaker 1 00:08:40 You. Um, have lost your job. Understandable. Um, let's say you, they're not preaching the gospel for sure. Um, they just stopped preaching the word or maybe they start going like in a direction doctrinally that the Bible you're just not okay. Your conscience isn't okay. With, it's fair to say, like, if there are systemic theological issues going on, that it's not just your tithing that needs to see his conversations need to happen and you need probably to begin a departure process needs to see attendants would need to see us at that point. You know? Um, I think what's interesting is the default here. And this is just kind of the assumption, like when Paul writes to Corinth and clauses and just the default is that you're generous. That's like, like I'm going to ask you for money and you're they need it. You know what I mean? It was very practical. It was very like, here's what we need. Here's what's going on. And it was interesting too, like there was giving going on in the church, like there's a whole bunch of like nuance here, but his default was the expectation of, oh, you're a Christian, there's a need, let's go meet it. Yeah. Like that's just
Speaker 2 00:09:37 The default. It is a, it is a default for us to be generous, not just with our tithing, just with our giving, but with, with every area we're supposed to be generous. And the, and the outcome of that is really important. Like sometimes we just talk about this and we say, yes, it should be a part of your life. You should definitely give. And don't, don't go back on your giving. And if your church isn't preaching the word of God to have a conversation and say, listen, I'm funding this. I don't agree with where it's going. I mean, you can get into good conversations by spring boarding off of your, off of your giving, but the end product of your giving. I love this verse. It's one of my favorite is actually still in second Corinthians nine where it says, God loves a cheerful giver.
Speaker 2 00:10:15 There's another verse in here. I actually love more than that one. And it says in verse 12 for the ministry of the service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but it's also overflowing in many Thanksgivings to God. And so there's, there's an idea that, um, when we give it produces, listen to this in verse 11, you'll be enriched in every way in order to be generous in every way, which through us will produce Thanksgiving to God. What we, what we love we fund. And when we do that and we do it in the right way, it causes other people to glorify God. And that should be the, the outcome of everything that we do.
Speaker 1 00:10:57 So as a default, like, I mean, Christians are generous. So we do, we meet needs. We listen to the needs, we fund them time, tones, treasure, whatever it is, we do whatever we can to build the kingdom wherever we're at. And we understand everything got put in us as for him. So is that fair? I agree with that. Absolutely. It'd be funny
Speaker 2 00:11:12 If you disagree though, that would be like,
Speaker 1 00:11:15 All right. So, um, thank you for joining us. We hope this helps you just even process some of this stuff and bring glory to God with your money and your time and your talents, your treasure. We are about building the kingdom no matter where we're at. And so join us. We have more questions on tithing giving all that fun stuff. We'll see you next time.
