Transcription
[music] Three biblical secrets about tithing your church has been hiding. Do not skip. [music]
You have given faithfully for 30, maybe 40 years. Every paycheck, every bonus through job losses, medical bills, and seasons [music] when the offering felt like it came out of grocery money. You gave because you believed God required it. Because you were told Malachi 3 made it non-negotiable. Because questioning it felt like questioning God himself.
But what if the version of tithing your church taught you was never in the Bible to begin with? What if the very scripture used to demand your obedience was being pulled from a context that had [music] nothing to do with you? Stay until the end. What you are [music] about to see in God's own word will change everything.
If you are ready to discover what God's word actually says about tithing, type [music] I. Give freely in the comments right now. Say it again. I give freely. Like this video, subscribe to this channel, and stay until the very end. The final section reveals something about your giving that most believers will never hear from their own pulpit. And it starts with this. [music]
Section one, God never asked for your paycheck, not even once.
You have been giving 10% of your income your entire adult life. Every paycheck, every bonus, every tax return. You gave it faithfully [music] because you were told that was what God commanded. And you believed it because you trusted the people standing behind that pulpit. But here is what they never showed you.
Open Leviticus 27:es 30-32. Read it slowly. All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's. And every tithe of herds or flocks, whatever passes under the rod, shall be holy to the Lord. Seeds, fruit, livestock, that is the complete list of what God called a tithe. Not salary, not wages, not the check you deposit every Friday.
And this was not an oversight. Money existed in Israel. Abraham paid 400 shekels of silver for a burial cave. [music] Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver. The temple tax was collected in coins. The monetary system functioned perfectly. God knew what money was. He simply never asked for it as a tithe.
Because tithing was never a financial tax. It was a food distribution system. Deuteronomy 14:es 28-29 makes this impossible to misread. Every third year the tithe was brought out and laid in the towns. The Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow could come and eat and be filled. It was grain. It was provision. It was social justice built directly into the covenant.
If you were a carpenter in ancient Israel, a fisherman, a merchant, the tithe law did not apply to you. It was designed for an agricultural society where the land belonged to God. So the honest question is this. If the biblical tithe was never money, never a percentage of wages, never a mandate for tradesmen or laborers, then what exactly has your church been collecting all these years? [music] And whose tradition were they really defending?
If you have not typed I give freely in the comments yet, this is your last chance. Say it right now. I [music] give freely. Stay until the very end of this video. The final section contains the one truth about your giving that most pastors will never stand up and preach. But before we get there, you need to hear about the verse that has been used against you your entire church life and what it actually means.
Section two, the curse that was never yours to carry.
You have heard it your entire church life. Will a man rob God? It has been read over you like a verdict. It has been declared from pulpits with the weight of divine judgment. It has followed you home on Sunday afternoons and sat with you at the kitchen table when the bills were spread out and [music] the math did not work. And every time you could not give 10%, that verse found you and it made you feel like a thief standing before God.
But here is what no one told you about Malachi 3. Context changes everything. Malachi was not writing to you. He was not writing to a struggling family in America trying to keep the lights [music] on. He was writing in approximately 450 years before Christ. After the Israelites returned from Babylonian exile, the temple had been rebuilt. The sacrifices had been reestablished. But something was deeply wrong.
God was not angry at the people in the pews. He was angry at the men behind the pulpit. [music] Read Malachi 1:6 carefully. God directs his rebuke to you, O priests, who despise my name, not the congregation, the priests. The religious leaders had turned the altar into a business. Malachi 1:es 7 and 8 describes them offering blind, lame, and sick animals on the altar, keeping the best for themselves. They were stealing from the storehouse. They were withholding the food that was supposed to feed the Levites, the widows, and the orphans. That is who the curse fell on. Corrupt leaders robbing the poor while wearing religious robes.
And then Galatians 3 verse 13 closes the case entirely. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. Every curse attached to the old covenant was carried to the cross by Jesus. He drank it completely. He left none of it for you. [music] You are not under that curse. You never were. The verse used to frighten you into giving was never addressed to you and was fully absorbed by Christ 2,000 years before you ever heard it. What has been preached over you as condemnation, was always meant as a confrontation to corrupt priests. And it is time you knew the difference.
Section three. [music] The priesthood ended. So did the tithe.
When Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross, something happened in the temple that no human hand caused. Matthew 27:51 records it without commentary. The veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Not from bottom to top. [music] From top to bottom, a divine declaration that the old system of access to God had been permanently replaced by something better. something final, something that made the entire Levitical structure obsolete in a single moment. [music] And that matters more to your wallet than you have ever been told.
Hebrews 7:12 states it with the kind of clarity that should have ended this debate centuries ago. [music] For when the priesthood is changed of necessity, there is also a change of the law. Read that again. When the priesthood changes, the law changes with it. And the priesthood changed completely. It moved from Aaron to Christ, from the tribe of Levi to the order of Melkisedc, from imperfect men, offering repeated sacrifices to one perfect high priest whose single offering was sufficient for all time.
Numbers 18 21 established the original arrangement plainly. The [music] tithe was the salary of the Levites. They received no land inheritance because their inheritance was temple service. The people supported them with 10% of their agricultural produce. It was a perfect system for that covenant, that priesthood, that era. But that priesthood ended at the cross.
Jesus became the only mediator between God and man. 1 Timothy 2 5 leaves no room for interpretation. There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind. The man Christ Jesus, not a priest, not a pastor, Christ alone. Your pastor is not a Levite. He is not a mediator. He is a servant, an elder, a shepherd of the flock. 1 Peter 5:3 [music] is explicit that church leaders must not lord it over those entrusted to them. There is no separate priestly class in the new covenant. There never was. The tithe belonged to a priesthood that no longer exists. When Christ took his seat at the right hand of the father, he did not transfer the Levitical system to your church staff. That is not theology. That is tradition dressed in theological language. And you deserve to know the difference.
If you have not subscribed yet, do it right now before we go any further. Drop your first name and your city in the comments below. Whether you are watching from Nashville, from Charlotte, or anywhere else across this country, let us know you are here. You are not alone in asking these hard questions. Seeing where this message is reaching reminds every single person watching that there is still a remnant seeking truth. And that leads to a question your church never wanted you to ask.
Section four, God owns everything. Your church owns a mortgage.
God does not need your money. That is not an opinion. That is scripture. Psalm 50:es 10 through 12 makes it unmistakable. Every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine in all its fullness. >> [music] >> The God who owns everything that exists has never once been dependent on your bank account to accomplish his purposes.
But your church has a mortgage. Your church has a staff payroll. Your church has a building campaign, a media budget, an expansion plan. And none of those things fund themselves. This is the uncomfortable reality that explains everything. The mandatory tithe doctrine did not survive into the 21st century because it is biblically sound. It survived because it is financially necessary for institutions built on a model that requires constant [music] predictable income. The Old Testament tithe stripped of its agricultural context and reattached to your paycheck became the perfect mechanism. Reliable, guilt enforced, scripture branded.
Jesus warned about exactly this pattern in Matthew 23:4. He rebuked the religious leaders of his day for loading heavy burdens on people's shoulders that they themselves were unwilling to carry. Burdens that served the institution while crushing the individual. That warning did not expire with the first century. Paul, who had every apostolic authority to command financial support, chose a different approach entirely. He worked with his own hands as a tentmaker in Acts 18:3. He did this specifically so he would not be a burden to the churches he served. He had the right to receive support. He chose not to demand it. There is a devastating contrast between that posture and a system that threatens curses to ensure collection. The question you have every right to ask is this. If the tithe truly belongs to God, why does withholding it only ever seem to create a crisis for the institution and never forgot himself?
Section five. You gave for decades and something still feels wrong.
You have been faithful. That is not in question. You showed up every Sunday. You gave every week. You served on the committees, attended the prayer breakfasts, volunteered for the fundraisers. By every external measure your church used to evaluate a committed believer, you qualified. And yet somewhere underneath all of that activity, something has felt hollow for a long time. You have not said it out loud because saying it feels like a betrayal. But the emptiness is real and it has a name.
Hosea 4 verse 6 identifies it with the kind of precision that only scripture can deliver. [music] My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, not lack of effort, not lack of attendance, not lack of giving, lack of knowledge. When what is being taught from the pulpit is incomplete, when the full council of God has been quietly replaced by institutional priorities, people starve spiritually even while they appear religiously active. They are consuming every week and being nourished by almost nothing. [music]
Jesus confronted this directly in Matthew 15:es 8 and 9, quoting Isaiah against the religious leaders of his day. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Worship built on human tradition rather than divine truth does not fill the soul. It was never designed to. [music] The widow in Mark 12 gave everything she had. Two small coins. Jesus honored her above every wealthy giver in the temple that day. Not because of the amount, because of the heart behind it. She gave from genuine devotion, not from a system that demanded a percentage and called it faithfulness. [music] That distinction is everything. Giving that flows from obligation produces religious activity. Giving that flows from a transformed heart produces spiritual life. [music] If you have been doing the first for decades while wondering why the second should be happening by now, you are not failing your faith. You were being fed the wrong thing and your soul knew it. [music] Long before your mind gave it permission to say so.
If you have made it this far, you are already in rare company. Most people click away the moment truth starts costing them something. but you stayed. That tells me you are someone who values what scripture actually says over what is simply comfortable to hear. And that kind of discernment is exactly what God is calling his people back to. Do not stop now. What comes next is the evidence that will silence every argument for mandatory tithing once and for all. Because Paul had every opportunity to command it, and he never did.
Section six. Paul wrote 13 letters and never commanded a tithe.
Paul wrote 13 letters to the early churches. 13. He addressed sin, division, false doctrine, marriage, spiritual gifts, resurrection, and the return of Christ. [music] He covered nearly every area of Christian life with apostolic authority and specific instruction. And in all 13 of those letters, he never once commanded tithing. Not a single time. That silence is not accidental. It is theological.
What Paul did teach about money is found in 2 Corinthians 9:7. [music] Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. Three phrases in that single verse dismantle the entire mandatory tithe system as he has decided in his heart. Not as the institution is calculated from his income. Not reluctantly. Which means giving that produces reluctance is not what God is asking for. Not under compulsion. Which means any system that uses guilt, fear, or the threat of a curse to produce giving is operating in direct contradiction to what scripture commands. [music]
The early church in Acts 2:es 44 and 45 practiced something far more radical than tithing. They sold their possessions and distributed to anyone who had need. That was not 10%. That was everything. And it was entirely voluntary. When Ananas and Safh were judged in Acts 5, Peter made the principle explicit. While the land remained unsold, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? The money was theirs. The giving was their choice. The sin was the deception, not the amount.
This is what terrifies institutions built on mandatory giving. Because a congregation that understands 2 Corinthians 9:7 cannot be guilted. They cannot be cursed into compliance. [music] They cannot be manipulated by carefully selected Old Testament passages read without context. They give freely, generously, and [music] wisely. And they ask questions about where the money goes. A church that preaches the full New Testament picture of generosity produces people who give more, not less. But it also produces people who cannot be controlled. And for some institutions, that is the real problem.
Section seven, God sent back the envelope. Here is what he [music] wanted.
There is a moment in scripture that should stop every churchgoer cold. A moment where God looks at his people's offerings, their sacrifices, their religious observances, everything they brought to him with dutiful hands and he says, "I do not want any of it." Not because they gave too [music] little, because they missed the point entirely. Isaiah 1:es 11-13 records it without softening. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord, I have had enough of burnt offerings? I do not delight in the blood of bulls or lambs or goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts? [music] Bring no more feudal sacrifices. The offerings were still coming. The rituals were still running. God had already stopped receiving them because the people giving them had hearts that were far from the God they were performing for.
Then Micah 6 verse 8 delivers the answer with the kind of simplicity that makes religious complexity look exactly like what it is. He has shown you oh man what [music] is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God, not a percentage, not a transaction, a life. Jesus confronted the Pharisees in Matthew 23, verse 23, for tithing down to the herbs in their garden while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness. They were meticulous about the amount and completely empty in the heart. And Jesus called it exactly what it was, hypocrisy.
Romans 12 verse one reveals what God has always been after. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. [music] Not 10% of your income, your whole life, your time, your attention, your compassion, your presence with people who are suffering. That offering cannot be put in an envelope. It cannot be calculated on a giving statement and it is the only offering scripture says God finds reasonable.
Section 8. They called it faith. It was stealing your peace.
It sounded like hope. That is what made it so effective. In the 1980s and 1990s, when many of you were building your faith, raising your families, and trying to make sense of a complicated world, a message arrived. That message seemed to connect scripture directly to your deepest desires. God wants you blessed. God wants you prosperous. Sew into this ministry and reap a 100fold return. It felt biblical. It felt encouraging. And for millions of sincere believers, it felt like finally someone was preaching good news.
But here is what that doctrine did to you over time. [music] When the harvest did not come, when the debt remained, when the health crisis arrived anyway, when the financial breakthrough never materialized, the system had a ready answer. You did not have enough faith. You did not sew enough. You held back from God. And that is why he held back from you. The doctrine that promised peace handed you a life sentence of self-examination and spiritual inadequacy.
Instead, Paul wrote from a Roman prison in Philippians 4:es 11 and 12 and said something that prosperity theology cannot accommodate. [music] I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry. [music] Paul was not describing failure. He was describing freedom, a peace that functioned in poverty and in plenty because it was anchored to Christ and not to circumstances.
Jesus himself had nowhere to lay his head in Matthew 8 20. He depended on the support of others. He died with nothing. If material wealth were evidence of God's blessing, the son of God was the most cursed man who ever lived. That conclusion is impossible. which means the entire framework was wrong from the beginning. 2 Corinthians 8:9 reframes it completely. Christ became poor so that through his poverty you might become rich. The richness he purchased was not a bank account. It was forgiveness, peace, access to the father and eternal life. That is the inheritance. And no offering envelope ever purchased a single piece of it.
Section nine. The verse used against you was never about you. [music]
For decades, that question has been aimed at you like a weapon. Will a man rob God? You heard it and you felt it. The weight of it, the accusation embedded in it. And whether you gave or could not give, whether you were faithful or struggling, that verse followed you like a verdict that had already been handed down before you ever walked through the door.
But you have now seen what scripture actually says. You have seen who Malachi was written to. You have seen that the curse fell on corrupt priests who stole food from widows and orphans, not on sincere believers trying to honor God with what little they had. You have seen that Christ absorbed every curse of the law at Calvary so completely that Galatians 3:3 leaves no room for any of it to reach you. [music]
So hear this clearly. You were not the one robbing God. You were the one being robbed. James 2:6 indents exactly this pattern. [music] You have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and drag you into court? The poor were not the problem in James' day. The ones using religious systems to extract from the poor were the problem. And any doctrine that takes the genuinely struggling, the families living paycheck to paycheck, the widow on a fixed income, the believer carrying medical debt and tells them they are under a divine curse for not giving 10% is not reflecting the heart of God. It is repeating the sin of the corrupt priests. Malachi condemned.
Luke 4:8 tells you exactly what Jesus came to do. He was anointed to preach good news to the poor, not good news conditioned on their ability to give. Good news in the middle of their poverty. Grace that did not wait for their financial situation to improve before it arrived. You are not a thief standing before God. You are a child standing before a father who gave everything for you before you had a single dollar to offer in return. [music] That is the gospel. Everything else was someone else's agenda dressed in borrowed scripture.
Section 10. [music] One decision separates obligation from real freedom.
Everything you have heard in this message comes down to one moment. Not a moment somewhere in the future when you have had more time to think about it. This moment right now. [music] Because what you do with what scripture has just shown you is not a minor adjustment to your Sunday routine. >> [music] >> It is a decision about whether you will continue living under a system that was never meant for you or whether you will step into the freedom that Christ purchased at an unimaginable cost.
Galatians 5:1 does not leave room for a middle position. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Paul wrote those words to believers who were being pressured to return to the old covenant law by people who insisted the old system was still binding. His answer was not gentle. Do not go back. What Christ freed you from was not meant to be reinstated under new management.
This freedom is not a license to stop caring for others. The believers in Acts 2 who gave radically and joyfully did not give because a percentage was demanded. >> [music] >> They gave because they had encountered the living God and their hearts had been permanently changed. That is the only kind of giving that reflects genuine transformation. And transformation is what a true encounter with grace always produces.
Second Corinthians 9:7 is the standard of the new covenant. Give as you have decided in your heart, not reluctantly, not under compulsion, with joy. That single verse replaces every guilt-driven sermon, every curselaced ultimatum, every carefully calculated percentage that was never part of the covenant you actually live under. Joshua told the nation of Israel in Joshua 24 verse 15 to choose this day whom they would serve. That command still stands. You can continue carrying a burden scripture never placed on you or you can give freely, wisely, and joyfully as someone who understands what grace actually cost. The decision is yours, and it is the only financial decision that will matter on the day that counts for everything.
You have just done something most churchgoers will never do. You sat with the hard questions. You measured what you have been taught against what scripture actually says. You looked at a doctrine that has followed you for decades. One that made you feel like a thief before God every time your finances were tight. And you let the Bible speak for itself.
Here is what God's word has shown you. The tithe he commanded was never your paycheck. The curse in Malachi 3 was never addressed to you. It fell on corrupt priests who stole food from widows and orphans. And Christ absorbed every last trace of it at Calvary. The priesthood that required the tithe ended the moment the veil was torn. Paul wrote 13 letters [music] and never once commanded it. The offering God actually wants cannot be put in an envelope. And the prosperity gospel that promised you a harvest in exchange for your seed was never the gospel at all.
You were not failing God when you could not give 10%. You were being failed by a system that needed your money more than it needed your freedom. And now you are free, not free to be stingy, free to be genuinely generous, free to give as your heart decides, without reluctance, without compulsion, without a curse hanging over your head. [music] 2 Corinthians 9:7 is your standard now. and grace always produces more than law ever demanded.
Do not let what's stirred in you today go quiet by tomorrow. The questions this message open deserve to keep being answered. That is exactly why Bible wisdom spirit exists. Every video on this channel is built to give you what most pulpit are no longer willing to deliver. The biblical truth that protects your soul, sharpens your discernment, and replaces religious obligation with genuine faith. Subscribe to this channel right now if you have not already. Then keep watching. The videos recommended for you next will continue what was started here. Because truth is not a destination you arrive at once. It is a road you choose to stay on every single [music] day. And you have already proven today that you are someone willing to walk it.