Manna & Mammon
Daniel Propson on the Wisdom of Giving a Tithe to the Lord
For many years, when the subject of tithing came up, I laid low. Many of my fellow Christians seemed rather uncompromising about it, thinking that every Christian ought to tithe a full ten percent of his income, no excuses.
I didn’t disagree to their faces, of course; they had the Scriptures to back up their claims. I had—what? A few petty rationalizations, at best. I could cite circumstances that would justify withholding a full ten percent (to pay for an unanticipated surgery, for example), but this line of reasoning was no good; my friends weren’t out to deny me my needs. So in the end, the brutal fact staring me in the face was this: I didn’t need a tenth of my income; I kept it because I wanted it.
Moreover, my own church’s attitude toward tithing confused me (and still does). Like many other churches, mine seemed rather casual about this whole “offering” business. The word “tithe” never came up, and no one spoke of the necessity of giving to the church. It was as if the concept of giving one’s first fruits to the Lord had been blotted out of the Scriptures and replaced with the kindly injunction, “Just give what you can spare—that is, if it isn’t any trouble.”
But tithing is trouble. If it weren’t, God wouldn’t have to ask us for it.
As time went on, I became ever more convinced that the Lord wanted my life to be totally devoted to him, and that giving “my” money was a necessary expression of this devotion. He who has freely given all to us has commanded us to give back. If we do not obey, how are we better than thieves? The man who does not tithe is in danger of becoming corrupted. He risks becoming like Judas, a man of such reckless audacity as to think that stealing from the moneybag of the living God could win him any lasting gain.
Living on Manna
Tithing a full ten percent forces a man to face up to his attachment to material things; it draws out the battle in our souls between manna and mammon. Given how absorbed most of us are in financial concerns, given how hard we work for our money and how tenaciously we cling to it, money becomes a battlefield on which the Lord challenges us to show our mettle.
Therefore, when we offer our lives to God, we must not be astonished if, first of all, he demands of us our money. If we will not part with it, how are we different from the rich young man who would not impoverish himself even to follow God himself? Money may be the mote, or even plank, in our eye that blinds us. If we are not willing to part with one of every ten dollars for the Most High God, of what account are our earnest attestations that he is our all? What are we willing to give, if we refuse this token?
Tithing also presents us with the opportunity to express our faith in the body of Christ, which is—as the Bible teaches—the Church. Put your money where your mouth is, they say. Surely we would not deny our money from Jesus suffering before us in the flesh, so how can we deny it to his people?
It is in giving that we receive. This truth is a lens through which we might see the Incarnation: Christ, who gave up every ounce of his life for us, was raised up in incomparable splendor, receiving blessing from his Father. Just so, when we give what the Lord requires of us, we will find blessing. This blessing exists in Paradise, but it can also become a temporal reality—as Jesus promised that those who give up their houses for his sake will receive houses in this present age (Mark 10:30).
Daniel Propson is an English teacher at Lincoln High School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He and his wife attend St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Detroit, and are members of the Word of Life community in Ann Arbor. They live with their two young children in midtown Detroit.
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