Hebrews Lesson 81 March
8, 2007
NKJ
Hebrews
We are in Hebrews 7. Last time I
pointed out that as we begin this section, the shift is to the high priesthood
of Jesus Christ. The high priesthood of
Christ is based analogously on the high priesthood of Melchizedek. The argument
in this section on the part of the writer of Hebrews involves a group of Jewish
believers who come out of Judaism. Many
of them it seems came out of a background of the Levitical priesthood, a
background of serving in the temple.
They are questioning the superiority of Christ and the superiority of
Christianity over the ritual of Judaism.
The main section that begins here in chapter 7 extends down through
chapter 10 is the focal point of the whole epistle. This is where the largest doctrinal section
is found - in chapters 7, 8, 9 up through
Now the question that would come into their minds is the question - how
can Christ be a priest when He is not of the tribe of Levi and not a descendent
of Aaron? Under the Mosaic Law, the high
priest had to be to trace his genealogy all the way back to Aaron. The priest
who served in the temple had to be of the tribe of Levi and had to be able to
prove their genealogical link back to Levi.
There were those who returned from captivity who came back from
So what the writer of Hebrews is doing is answering the question ahead
of time. One of the things that marks a
good teacher is that a good teacher understands his audience. A good teacher understands the kinds of
questions that people may ask. He
figures out what they are going to be ahead of time and tries to answer
them. There are a lot of times when I as
a pastor understand that there are people who come to this congregation who
come from all manner of different backgrounds.
We have new people who come to be a part of this body of believers. They come from many different
backgrounds. Some come from Bible church
backgrounds. Some come from Methodist
backgrounds. Some come from who knows
what background. They bring a load of
questions with them.
I remember one time when I was teaching through the spiritual life when
I was at one church. There was a lady in the church who had grown up in a
family that was seriously committed by multiple generations. By that I mean that their great grandparents
where the original charismatics in this country. So she had grown up in the entire environment
of heavy charismatic teaching. Almost
everything that I said as I was teaching through this even though she had been
under my ministry and under another doctrinal pastor’s ministry for 5 or 6
years before that. The first time it was
really coming together in her thinking.
There was a contrast between what she was hearing me teach and what she
had always heard and always been taught coming out of that charismatic
background. So I had to pay attention to
that and in my teaching I had to make a point of contrasting what I was
teaching with what charismatics taught.
Now that didn’t apply to most of the congregation.
But you can’t over here on this side of the congregation and say, “This
doesn’t really interest me.”
You don’t know. There may be 5 people over here who are really wrestling
with certain things. As part of our
congregation here, I don’t spend a lot of time interacting with what Roman
Catholic theology says. But, 90% of the
people up in the congregation at
A good teacher anticipates the kind of questions that people either will
ask or ought to ask. So that is what is
going on here. He is anticipating the
question - why should Jesus have a priesthood and a high priesthood that is
superior to or even legitimate. He is
not a Levite and He is not a descendent of Aaron. So the writer argues that Christ’s priesthood
is based on the order of Melchizedek.
NKJ Hebrews 7:1 For
this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham
returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,
The first three verses explain that connection. We learned that he was the king of
NKJ
Hebrews 7:2 to whom also
Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated "king of
righteousness," and then also king of
To Melchizedek, Abraham apportioned a tenth of everything. The old English word for that (a tenth) is
tithe. It is from this use of the word a
tenth in the Bible that we get this idea of tithing. There are so many churches today that practice
tithing and talk about tithing. You get
a lot of confusion over the whole issue of Christian giving, the whole ministry
of giving and what tithing is all about.
So the thing that happens there in that one event is that Abraham gave a
tenth part of everything (not just what he had taken) but all the spoils from
the defeat of the four kings and he gave a tenth of it to Melchizedek. That is
the point of a tithe. A tithe when you
look at the Old Testament was that an individual was paying tribute to someone
in authority over them in recognizing their superior position. We have historical examples under the reign
of Hamurabi in
The other night in Genesis in our study of Joseph, we talked about how
Joseph at the end of 7 years of famine took the land, allowed the people to
sell land to the government. The
government bought it with grain so that the people were able to survive. Then it leased the land back out to the
people as tenant farmers and they gave 20% of their produce back to the
government.
I pointed out from one example that I knew about anecdotally that that
is a standard example for tenant farmers even today – to give 20% to the
landlord and landowner. They keep the
other 80% of that.
Morgan came up after class and said that is pretty much the royalty fee
to landowners where you have an oil well on the property. That is an oil lease. They get 20%. These kinds of numbers – 20%,
10%- had a tremendous history because they were round numbers and easy to
figure. The giving of a tithe from
Abraham to Melchizedek was part of his recognition of the superior place,
superior position of Melchizedek. That is the point that the writer of Hebrews
is bringing out in this section.
Now in the second part of verse 2 it goes on to read…
Melchizedek means king of righteousness. Melchi is a derivative of melek
which is the Hebrew word for king. The
“i” there puts it in a genitive of relationship. Zedek is the root for righteous. That makes the king of righteousness. He is also the king of
He goes on in verse 3 to explain…
NKJ
Hebrews 7:3 without
father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor
end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
This means that there is no record of his family. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t have any
father. It is not saying that. It does not say that he didn’t have a
mother. There are people that come along
and say that this must have been the pre-incarnate Christ because he didn’t
have any parents. No, he was a human
being. He had to be fully human to
function as a priest. If he was the
pre-incarnate Christ without being true humanity then he could not function as
a priest. You can’t have the pre-incarnate Christ functioning as a priest
because He isn’t incarnate yet. That is
a real simple argument. There are always
people who want to fight and die on that particular hill and they haven’t
thought it through very well.
Genealogy is important if you are going to prove your Levitical and
Aaronic connections.
The Bible doesn’t reveal when he was born. The Bible doesn’t tell when he died for the
purpose of setting him up to be an analogy, a type for the future ministry of
Christ.
But he resembles the Son of God.
Now that very statement that I pointed out last time means that the prototype
for the Melchizedekean priesthood is the Son of God, not the other way
around. It is Melchizedek who resembles
the Son of God, not ultimately the Son of God who resembles Melchizedek.
Then we come to verse 4.
NKJ
Hebrews 7:4 Now consider
how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth
of the spoils.
Now we are back to the word tithe. The word tithe is used several times
in these verses. From verse 4 down
through verse 10 the word tithe is used several times – 5 or 6 times as you go
through that particular section. That
tells us that this tithe is part of the focus of the writer.
So we need to stop and take a little time in our study of Hebrews to
show what this is all about. There are
many, many churches in
We don’t start with dispensationalism and say, “That doesn’t fit our system.”
No, the system comes from the Scriptures. Because the Scriptures draw these
distinctions between the Old Testament and the New Testament between the law
related to
To come along and say, “We are going to take things out of this body of
law that applies only to the nation
We all know that there are people who seem to be headed that way. That is another story. You can’t take the laws of one national
entity and apply them to another national entity even if their constitutions
are extremely similarly. You can’t take
the laws of
So we have tithing in the Mosaic Law. Wait a minute! The concept of tithing antedates or precedes
the Mosaic Law. You have two references
to tithing in Genesis. The first is
given here in Genesis 14.
In Genesis 28:20 we read:
NKJ Genesis
28:20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be
with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and
clothing to put on,
This is at
NKJ Genesis
28:21 "so that I come back to my father's house in
peace, then the LORD shall be my God.
NKJ Genesis
28:22 "And this stone which I have set as a pillar
shall be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to
You."
Now this is at the ancient
Canaanite city XXX. This was
They went, “Hummm.”
Nobody had an answer. There is no structure there. So we don’t know how or to whom he gave
it. How did he do this? What is the mechanic? We don’t know. The only thing that is in the land at that
time is the Canaanites… Now I could
speculate and say that Melchizedek must have had an heir. Just as Melchizedek was the priest-king of
There is no legal mandate
saying, “Jacob, if you want to be blessed spiritually you need to give 10% to
God.”
There is no legal mandate
anywhere. There is no mandate in Scripture
anywhere. Out of the blue they just do
it as an act of gratitude and worship to God.
It is purely a voluntary event that is a gracious response to God’s
blessing in their lives. They are not discovering the law of tithing so that
they can tap into God’s miracle spiritual ATM machine in the sky which is kind
of how the health and wealth guys do it.
If you give 10% God will bless you and He will return it 100-fold. You will get wealthy.
I remember some years ago I talked to an extremely discouraged individual
who had given 6 figures to the church almost every dime he had because the
pastor told him that God would give him a 100-fold return. There are hundreds of people who get duped by
that. They are not discovering some law
of tithing that is going to tap into God’s ATM machine. They are responding in gratitude to God. They
are not expecting anything in return. It
is simply an act of devotion to someone who is their superior. It was a cultural thing to do and they knew
that God was their superior.
The only giving amount that is specifically prescribed by God pertains
to the famine in
Then we come to the Mosaic Law.
NKJ Leviticus
27:30 'And all the tithe of the land, whether of the
seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's. It is
holy to the LORD.
So 10% of your cows belong to
the Lord - 10% of your sheep, 10% of
your fruit, 10% of your grain, 10% of your money. Ten percent of everything belongs to the Lord
and was holy to the Lord. That means it
was set apart to the Lord. That is what the word holy means – to be set apart
to the Lord.
Now there were three different tithes in
I often want to ask people. “Which tithe is this that you are talking
about?”
The first tithe under the Mosaic Law supported the bureaucracy of the
theocracy. The priests and the Levites
were the administrators of the theocracy.
Theocracy is a word that means God rules. God was the head of the government. You might say God was the executive
branch. God ruled. It was the priests and the Levites who
carried out the administration of the kingdom and their center of focus was
around the tabernacle initially and then later the temple. So the first tithe was designed to support
the bureaucracy of the theocracy, the sons of Levi. Numbers 18:21-30. It was to the sons of Levi
for an inheritance in return for their service which they performed the service
of the tent of meeting.
This sets a precedent historically that those who serve the Lord in a
full time capacity have a right to be supported by God’s people
financially. That principle of course
was carried over and in the pastorals.
Paul talks to Timothy about the fact that the elder who teaches well and
rules well is worthy of double honor. He
talks about the fact that you shouldn’t muzzle.
He uses the analogy of not muzzling the ox. In other words pastors and Christian workers
should be well paid so that finances don’t become a distraction for them. I can’t tell you how many pastors have to
work or they don’t make enough. I
commend people in this congregation. We
are setting a precedent the way that we are handling the pastor’s
conferences. We are supplying the
financial resources for many of these men to come to subsidize their airfare
for students in many cases. We subsidize
their hotel rooms so they can come and stay without being a burden to
them. Some of these men don’t get paid
enough and their churches don’t have enough resources to fly them here and put
them up in a hotel and to take care of them for the time that they are here. We are doing a tremendous job in subsidizing
many of these men so that they are able to come and so that finances are not an
issue. During the conference for those
who are pastors, for those who are students, for those who are missionaries or
full time Christian workers we provide lunch on Monday (just about everybody on
Monday). On Tuesday we provide lunch for
all the out-of-towners. We are taking
them over to Goode Company for some
So the first tithe was 10% that went to support the sons of Levi because
of their work in the tabernacle and later in the temple.
A second tithe (I find this interesting) was for a national celebration
of the grace and generosity of God. It
is described in Deuteronomy 14: 22-24.
There were tithes and offerings and sacrifices and free will offerings
that are mentioned in Deuteronomy 14. This second 10% was used to support this
national feast.
I like to have fun with this. God
in the Old Testament was very physical, very graphic, and very literal in the
way He handled things. In the process of
revelation as you go from the very beginning to the New Testament God teaches
doctrine in very concrete terms and illustrations and examples. You have the visual training aids of the
tabernacle. You have the bronze
laver. You have the tent of
meeting. You have the table of
showbread. You have the
candlestick. You have the altar of
incense. Inside you have the Ark of the
Covenant. All of these things are
designed to visually teach very abstract doctrine. So God sets up with these concrete images and
you have historical events that are used to teach specific things. So we come to this particular event and its
purpose was to give the nation a barometer to evaluate their spirituality.
Let’s say they go through a period of 10 or 20 years and they are tremendously
obedient. They follow the Sabbath, the
sabbatical year law. They are very
obedient. The people are responsive to
doctrine. They are very positive. God is going to bless them materially because
that is what He promised them in the contract of the Mosaic Law.
“If you will obey Me I will bless you abundantly. You will be extremely fruitful. There will be rain, not too much and not too
little. It will be the right
amount. Your crops will be
abundant. There will be an overabundance
of food and resources. Everything will be
taken care of.”
So 20 years goes by and you come to your annual feast. You take 10% of the gross national
product. You have got all kinds of
money. You can go out and you can get
the finest caviar and you can buy the finest prime beef for steaks and
roasts. You can get the highest quality
vegetables – not like the stuff you can get at the grocery store.
I remember when I was a kid our next door neighbor was a fruit
wholesaler. His name was also
Fruit. I thought that was fun. He would bring us these avocadoes that were
like small melons. They were
enormous. You couldn’t buy them at the
grocery store. They were restaurant
quality produce. That was when I first
learned that there was a quality of produce that is much better than what you
get in the grocery store. So they could
buy the highest quality of produce and the highest quality of meat. If they had beer, they had microbrews. They didn’t have Budweiser and Schlitz. They were getting good micro brewed beer. And
they had beer. That is what a strong
drink offering was in the Old Testament.
They didn’t know how to distill beverages so they weren’t bringing
single malt Scotch. They had good beer. That is the Hebrew word for a strong drink
offering.
I often used to kid a friend of mine who enjoyed wine.
He said, “When Jesus catered to the plebian tastes of the people at the
wedding of Cana He gave them wine. But
when God wanted something to drink in the Old Testament He wanted a beer.
Strong drink offering! So they
would bring the finest micro brewed beer and the finest of everything. They would have a tremendous party. Let’s imagine that 20 years goes by and we
have a time of spiritual regression – a time of spiritual apostasy. They worked through the sabbatical year. They never take the Sabbath Day off. God begins to discipline them. The rain begins to disappear. They go through a time of drought and a time
of famine.
The next thing you know, twenty
years later they are going to have their feast and they think, “Remember when
we were kids – back in the good old days?
We used to have these great parties and now we are stuck here with
Buckhorn beer and Lone star and all we can afford is
Do you know what
“That is all we can afford. We
can’t have very much. All we can do is
go to Luby’s and get some carry out from there, but that is the best that we
can do. I wonder what happened.”
See this is a very visual, very material barometer of spirituality. All of a sudden, maybe we aren’t doing what
the Lord wants us to do. That is what it
was designed to show. So every year
there was a second tithe of 10% for a national celebration sort of like the 4th
of July with fireworks and everything else.
It was a celebration of the grace and generosity of God. So that means 20% now for you national income
tax. It was mandatory taxation.
Then each third year there was another 10% was to be given for use in
supporting the Levite, the alien, the orphan and the widow. That is those who were destitute, those who
couldn’t take care of themselves, those who were older, those who couldn’t
work, and those who didn’t have any parents.
It was a social safety net. There
was a level of welfare in a sense to provide for those who were less
fortunate. So, there was 10% every third
year. That meant that you have 23 1/3 %
taxation. That was mandatory. So when you talk about tithing, which 10% are
you talking about? If you are going to
do one, you have to do all three. That
is the basis from the Old Testament.
But you see the Mosaic Law also recognized freewill or grace
giving. You had mandatory giving and you
had freewill voluntary grace giving. Remember
before the Mosaic Law there were two tithes that were voluntary grace-based
gifts. Just because they were 10%
doesn’t mean that they were establishing a hard and fast precedent. Now you also have within the Mosaic Law
freewill and grace giving. So you are
going to give 23 1/3 to the government in order to take care of all of these
other things and to the temple as part of your ordinary taxation. But now you are expected to give above that a
freewill or grace offering to express your personal gratitude toward God and
thanks that all has He had done. This
could take you up to 30 – 35- 40-50 %of you income. Some of it was under mandatory principles and
some under freewill or grace giving.
NKJ
Proverbs 3:9 Honor the
LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
NKJ
Proverbs
This has to be understood within the context of the Mosaic Law and God’s
promise of blessing related to their giving.
NKJ Proverbs
11:24 There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
And there is one who withholds more than is right, But it leads to
poverty.
This is a person who gives, a person who is grace oriented, a person who
doesn’t hold on in a miserly fashion to every dime that comes in. He shares it to help others.
He avoids his responsibility. He
is too tight to do what is right.
In other words, he may keep the money but there is no happiness in his
life.
Moses raised money for the building of the tabernacle and to provide all
of the gold and all of the jewels and all of the silver and everything that was
used in the construction of the tabernacle through a freewill offering. Exodus 25:1-2 in comparison with 35:5, 21.
NKJ
Exodus 35:5 'Take from
among you an offering to the LORD. Whoever is of a willing heart, let
him bring it as an offering to the LORD: gold, silver, and bronze;
The emphasis here is on personal volition. It is up the individual to make a decision to
understand what the issues are to make a decision that they are going to give
at whatever level they choose. It is
comparable to the New Testament principle.
NKJ 2
Corinthians 9:7 So let each one give as he purposes in his
heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.
It is an individual decision and not a mandatory contribution. Then there are other passage such as Leviticus 22:28, 23:38,
27:30, 31, Numbers 15:3, Deut 12:6, Ezra 1:4, 3:5. These passages all emphasize freewill on
grace giving.
So you had required giving which is analogous to national taxation. The state has a right to tax the
citizens. Jesus supported this. When He was asked about the drachma tax He
took the thing and said…
NKJ
Matthew
Jesus authenticated the validity of a national entity to tax its people
for the support of the government. So
that is required giving. Freewill giving
was to be a matter of independent individual choice and decision. The amount is left up to the worshipper.
Now we come in the Old Testament to a particular passage that is
frequently quoted by preachers when they want to manipulate people into giving
more. This is in Malachi 3. Now there has to be a little background
understanding or isagogics on Malachi.
Malachi is probably the last book written in the Old Testament. Malachi is a prophet. He is coming to the people who are in
apostasy and challenging them with their spiritual apostasy because they are
failing to obey God in completing the building of the temple and fulfilling the
rebuilding of
NKJ Malachi 3:7
Yet from the days of your fathers You have gone away from My ordinances And
have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you," Says
the LORD of hosts. "But you said, 'In what way shall we return?'
NKJ
Malachi 3:8 "Will
a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed
You?' In tithes and offerings.
God responds, “In your tithes and contributions.”
There are your two categories – mandatory tithing and contributions of
freewill offerings.
“You are robbing God by not applying the law and giving.”
NKJ
Malachi 3:9 You are
cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation.
NKJ Malachi 3:10
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open
for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there
will not be room enough to receive it.
What does God mean “to put Him to the test”?
That is exactly what the next verse says.
You can’t understand that verse if you don’t understand the Levitical
laws and mandates. In Leviticus and
Deuteronomy God said that if they obeyed the law He would bless them and
prosper them materially and physically with the abundance of produce. It was an agricultural society. God uses this extremely concrete, graphic way
to demonstrate how He will bless them if they are obedient.
God is saying, “Why don’t you test it?
You know what the law says to do.
Test me and I will pour out blessing from the windows of heaven. They are going to open. But, where do you understand that?”
The principle is found in the Mosaic Law. God is not talking to the Assyrians
here. He is not talking to the
Romans. He is not talking to the
Greeks. He is not talking to the
Egyptians. He can only say this to the
Jews because only the Jews have a contract with God which stipulates that “If
you obey Me, I will pour out blessings on you.”
So you can’t take this out of context and apply it to the Greeks or the
Romans or the Babylonians or the Egyptians or Americans in a Baptist church in
the South or in a Methodist church in the North or the Episcopal or Anglican
church in England because they are not Jews living in the land under the Mosaic
Law. It is a total fragmentation of
Scripture to try to interpret it that way.
When we come to the word storehouse, the word storehouse is the Hebrew
word that refers to the temple. That was
in the ancient world the local bank.
They didn’t have a Comerica or Wells Fargo or Wachovia or whatever. You didn’t have that in the ancient
world. You had the temple. That often served as a place of banking
because the priest served as the guards.
So the temple was the treasury.
When people brought their money to the house of the Lord, they were not
building a church. There is no
application there. They are taking it to
the temple because that is where the tithes were to be taken in terms of the
Mosaic Law. You can’t interpret this
any other way. If you don’t understand
Leviticus and Deuteronomy you can’t properly interpret this. That is what we have today. People take this completely out of
context.
So the national bank for storing tithes was the house of God which is
referred to by the term the house or in this case the storehouse. God had chastised them already because they
had failed to bring their tithes to the storehouse.
In the Church Age we are no longer under the Mosaic Law. Romans 16.
Christ is the end of the law. The
Old Covenant (which we will see in Hebrews 8) has been superceded or replaced
by the New Covenant. Hebrews 8:13f. When he said a new covenant, he made the
first obsolete. It doesn’t mean he made
the first in reference to sacrifices obsolete because Christ has now died on
the cross. It doesn’t say that he made
the first obsolete in reference to the ritual in the temple because Christ has
come and replaced that. It is the whole
law. It is all or nothing.
If you go down to your mortgage company or to another mortgage company
or a bank and you redo your mortgage, are they going to take pages 1 and 2 and
keep those in affect, and just modify 3 and 4?
Is that how it works? No, they
write a whole new contract. You replace
the old one with a new one. Since you
bought that house 20 or 30 years ago, the laws have probably changed. You are going to have to get a whole new
contract. You can’t just replace two
paragraphs. That is what is happening
here.
You can’t go back into the Old Testament and say, “Well, part of the
Mosaic Law continues and part of it doesn’t.”
It is an all or nothing proposition.
So let’s look at some key principles.
First of all, giving even und the Mosaic Law was not a part of the
spiritual life or the means of spiritual growth. That is how that should be understood. Even under the Mosaic Law it was not part of,
or a means to spiritual growth. It was a
result of spiritual growth. I don’t give
to grow. I grow and I realize what God
has done for me and express my gratitude to Him.. It is the outworking of genuine grace
orientation and gratitude in the soul for everything that God has
provided. Giving isn’t a means to
grow. It is the result of growth.
Second, grace does not mean you don’t have an obligation or
responsibility to give. I understand
this. People who come out of a
legalistic, tithing-based church go to the other extreme when they go to a
grace oriented church.
“They never talk about money.
Isn’t that great? I don’t have to
give anything. I go to this church. They have a box in the back and if I come in
the side door I never have to deal with the fact. I can keep all of my money now. Isn’t that great?”
Grace doesn’t mean that you don’t have an obligation. Grace doesn’t mean it is free either. Salvation is free to you, but it cost God
something. There is no free lunch. It is always amazing. Most of you are conservatives. You believe that there is no such thing as a
free lunch. How many Christians are
conservatives? There is no such thing as
a free lunch. Let’s get rid of welfare. Let’s emphasize personal responsibility. Then they go to church and think it is a free
lunch. There is no such thing. Grace isn’t free. It is free to you. There is obligation. There is no mandatory payment. You don’t have to come in and pay $10, $20,
$100, $500 in order to get the Word. It
is free. But that doesn’t mean that
there is no obligation or responsibility as God has prospered you to
participate in the financial responsibilities of local church and missions and
various ministries so that you can have a sense of personal blessing and
promise. You are involved in that ministry.
You are part of God’s means of letting that happen. Grace doesn’t mean it is free - just that
there is no obligation.
We have come to tithing in the New Testament. Tithing is mentioned in the gospels only in
reference to the legalistic practice of the Pharisees. That is the only time you have the word
tithe. They were legalistic. Now when you and I look at the Pharisees, we
look at the Pharisees through the lens of the negative critique of the New
Testament. But if you were a Jew living
in the first century, nobody was better.
No one was more moral, righteous, or upright than the Pharisees.
That is why when Jesus said, “If you are going to get into the
It wasn’t condemning them for their legalism in that statement.
He was saying, “You think of them as the best that human beings can
be. You have got to be a whole lot
better to get into heaven.”
They had a reputation for morality and for being spiritually
mature. But in Luke
The Lord taught in contrast that giving was to be a private matter,
between the believer and God. Once that
dollar, once that check for $1,000 or $10,000 leaves your hand, you don’t have
any right to talk about it anymore. You
are giving it to the Lord. How this
church uses it, how this ministry uses it, how that ministry uses it, whatever
they do with it, you turn a blind eye to it and walk away. It is amazing how many people - especially
people who have more money to give - can’t get passed that.
They will give $10,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 then if that ministry or
the church doesn’t do what they think they ought to do and they say, “Well, you
know I gave you that money and I have some say in it.”
You may look at it and say, “Well, you are changing your philosophy of
ministry. You are not doing the things
you used to so I am not going to give any more.”
That is your responsibility. But
the person who gives doesn’t have a string attached to that money so that they
can come in with the money and dictate policy and procedure. That happens a lot.
I know of a case recently where someone who was extremely generous and
large giver was challenged on that particular point and went ballistic. He didn’t understand it. When you give as unto the Lord that means
that once it leaves your hand, it is gone.
I remember a church that I attended for many years, had a split back in
the 70’s. There was a man that sat in
front of me.
I remember my mother asking him, “Are you leaving?”
He said, “No. I have given so
much money to the church I have got to stay here and make sure it is used
right.”
I was about 19. I thought,
“Hum. That is not grace giving.”
NKJ Matthew 6:2
"Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before
you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may
have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
This is why I personally do not think that it is a good idea to have
name plates. This is a good time at the
beginning of a church to talk about this.
You go to a lot of churches and they say you have a plate on the back of
a pew. This was given in memorial to
so-and-so or this is Miss Sally Wainright Sunday School room. They have plaques around the church when
people give money.
The first church I ever pastured in got in a hole financially in the
depression. They had the church about
half built and they ran out of money.
There was one couple in the church.
Her husband had died.
She said, “I will come in and I will pay for the rest of the building of
the church. The only requirement is I
want you to name the church after my husband.”
I am just glad the guy’s name wasn’t something like Adolph or
Frank. The guy’s name was Paul so it
sounded biblical. Nobody really knew
that. They thought the church was named
after the Apostle Paul. But, it
wasn’t. It was named after Paul Naskey
down the street. Just imagine what his
name could have been It could have been Claude Union Church. You never know. So, people do these things. There should be a policy from the beginning
that you don’t do any of that. Giving is
supposed to be between the individual and the Lord. There shouldn’t be any mark or any plaque or
any recognition. The only recognition
that matters is from the Lord. According
to this passage is that if you get your reward from people, that’s it. The Lord is not going to give it to you. I would rather get my recognition to the Lord
rather than people.
NKJ Matthew 6:3
"But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what
your right hand is doing,
NKJ
Matthew 6:4 "that
your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will
Himself reward you openly.
I make it a policy. I have no
clue what anybody gives. I don’t ever
look at anything. I don’t know what
anybody gives to the ministry. I don’t
know what anybody gives to the church.
It is none of my business. I
don’t want to know. I don’t want to ever
know. I don’t have a clue. But I know pastors who know exactly, to the
penny, how much (It is on their computer at church.) every person in the church
gives. That is standard operating
procedure in many, many churches
We will stop there and come back to it next time. We will come back to the New Testament
teaching on tithing. There is no tithing
in the New Testament. It is all
grace.