The Blessing of Tithing

I believe in the practice of tithing; let me share a brief history of how I got here, and some Biblical support.

As a young people attendee, we had a couple of good leaders; the one I am thinking of was a hardware/plumber by trade, Clarence Timmer.

He first impressed me with the Malachi 3: 10 verse—a simple conditional promise.

“10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be [p]food in My house, and test 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 a blessing until [q]it overflows.” NASB

I believe Rev Vanderaa also often preached on conditional promises; and it was Mrs Vanderaa who told us ‘we could not make it if we didn’t tithe.’ This reinforced what we had already been practicing.

One big advantage of following a tithing plan is that one doesn’t have to put a lot of time into deciding how much to give, but only where does it go this month. There is real freedom in that.

When you buy a Bible and you give it to somebody who doesn’t have one, you’ve stored up treasure in Heaven. When you support a program that shares the Good News around the world, you have stored up treasure in Heaven. When you help build a church, you have stored up treasure in Heaven. That is the highest and best use of your money.

You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead by investing in people who are going to Heaven.

• from Barna, May 2003: The group that had the highest proportion of households tithing was evangelicals. While that group represents just 6% of the public, nearly 9% of the group tithed in 2002 - roughly three times the national, [But still apathetically small amount.]
• from The Banner, Feb. 2010: "Among other things, the survey found that the median percentage of household income given to the CRC (not including Christian education tuition) is 6.1 percent. Just 21.9 percent of respondents gave 10 percent or more of their income to the church."

...Food for thought...