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Frank Chase Jr
a book bubble about
Kleptomaniac
Christian Books & Bibles
Author Insight
Paying Tithes in the Bible
Matthew 23:23 has been the bread and butter of the pro-mandatory monetary tithe proponents for centuries. But if you read the verse closely and in context, Jesus only identifies mint, dill, and cumin as the tithe the Pharisees paid. It is amazing how preachers try to disassociate the tithe from the law and try to remake it into a monetary requirement. This excerpt proves the only tithe the Messiah referred to in Matthew 23:23 was crops and cattle from the land of Israel. As a Bible student, the question that should be asked of every pastor who teaches monetary tithing is who authorized him or her to change God’s land and livestock tithe law to include money as a tithe requirement? The answer in this excerpt is clear. Paying tithes in the Bible never included any form of money. And anyone who pays money as a tithe does so in opposition to scripture and the teachings of Paul and the entire first century Ekklesia. The tithe law was annulled based on Romans 10:4, Heb. 8:13, Eph. 2:13-18 and Col. 2: 14-17. When Jesus said Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, he was speaking of temple taxes and not tithes. We know this because God said the tithe belonged to the Levites.
Book Excerpt
Kleptomaniac
In Matthew, the eatable tithe of mint, dill and cumin the Pharisees and scribes offered is worthless because it was without a commitment to judgment, mercy and faith. When tithing is taught as a requirement to receive a blessing, it is an error. The context of Matthew 23:23 refers to tithing under to the law and this is what the Pharisees followed. So the next time you hear tithing was before the law, you know the preacher or teacher is contradicting Jesus by trying to disconnect tithing from the law. Here’s the problem with preachers who use Matthew to prove God wants Christians to tithe 10 percent of their income. The Pharisees did not give 10 percent of their income; they gave a tenth part of their homegrown garden spices and herbs. In fact, the law did not require tithing homegrown spices. It was the Pharisees who deemed it fit to implement tithing spices as an additional requirement of the law. They believed that if it grew from the earth and was stored, God wanted a tithe. Now the question is, were the Pharisees herding cattle and growing crops as farmers and ranchers who actually paid the tithe in Israel or did they have other professions?In Matthew 23:23 Jesus addresses the Hebrew people living under the Roman government. The text speaks of an agrarian tithing system and non-Jews were not a part of the situation. Therefore, money is not even suggested in the text. Before accepting cash flow tithing as authentic in the New Testament, die-hard tithers and tithe proponents must answer a question. When did Yahweh change his mind and convert the agricultural, livestock, and flock tithe to money? They must provide chapter and verse proving God changed his mind about the land-based tithe. Then they have to prove with chapter and verse where Jesus took tithes from his disciples and His followers. The point is: God never converted the tithe to money, so who did?The process of changing the tithe to money happened over a long period. As the church and state become bedfellows in the eighth century under Charlemagne, he formed the unified Holy Roman Empire in the sixth century. During this time, the church added more bishops, monks and enforced tithing through secular law. When Charlemagne died, the empire broke apart and tithing hit rock bottom. However, future leaders revived tithing in the Roman Catholic Church and it reigned supreme as a mandatory practice. As the reformation took place, churches found new ways to support themselves. As new denominations grew, money tithing crept into the process and by the 1800s, agricultural, herd and flock tithes decreased. Money tithing increased, and as more and more churches taught tithing first as a voluntary principle, it transformed into a mandatory requirement to support ministry, although, it was not by God’s command.77 It is important to note that the Old Covenant /Old Testament was still in operation in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The New Covenant/ New Testament Ekklesia (assembly) did not start until the Book of Acts.To obtain a sense of how the tithe was reinterpreted, all one has to do is look at how the word church was inserted into modern biblical text. The word church does not mean a building that people visit, rather, it represents groups of believers or a congregation. This mistranslation of a secular Greek word “Ekklesia” is backed up by history because during the translation of the KJV, King James gave the translators fifteen rules to follow; one of these rules was to keep the old ecclesiastical word church and not translate the original language to the correct word, which was congregation. The word church is not a translation but a secular ecclesiastical term that is not Hebrew, Greek, nor English as it relates to God’s people; furthermore, it has forever changed the thought process of people and the true meaning of what we call the body of Christ.78 If the word church is a mistranslation of the Greek word “Ekklesia,” it is no wonder that tithing money is also a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “maaser,” and turned into something other than its original meaning.
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