This Sunday, I'll be teaching the children the story of the widow who gave her last two coins in offering to God.
Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, "Truly, I tell you, this poor wedow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on." Luke 21:1-4
Be Cautious When Judging the Offering of Others
Anyone standing by and watching the widow present her offering might have thought poorly of this woman. We see it on Sundays at church too don't we? The offering plate goes by and a person reaches into their pocket and tosses a few singles and some change or maybe a ten or twenty in. If you are a regular attender at church then chances are at one point or another you've judged a person for that. After all, a tithe or 10% would obviously be more than twenty bucks a week right? Here you are giving an actual tithe and they are sticking in enough to buy a pack of gum.
But unless you really know all of the details of someone's life, you may have really misjudged them. In our day, this widow put in around $2.50. From that outside, that looked incredibly uncaring. To Jesus, it was an amazing act of worship and faith. Jesus knew that this was all the money this woman had. When you judge a person for their offering, you may be gravely mistaken. What if they give a whole month at a time or by automatic withdrawal and the change you see them putting in is over and above a tithe? What if they just hit an extremely rough financial time and the change you see them give is really more in God's eyes than you gave?
I'm not saying you shouldn't lovingly encourage a friend to give more if you know them well and think they can grow in this area. I am saying we all need to guard our hearts from the quick judgments we tend to make based on the very little information we tend to have.
Give Til It Hurts
This woman sets an amazing example for us. If she can give to God out of her poverty, then we are truly left with no excuse. We tend to come up with reasons to justify not giving money to God at church. I'm a teen without a job, I don't have to tithe yet. I'm a broke college student, God understands. I won't be able to pay the bills if I give 10% to God. Gas prices go up, tithe amounts go down. I use my money in other good ways, God sees my heart so I don't have to give to the church.
Let me just be real and honest with you. Where you put your money is an amazing indicator of what is most important to your heart. Jesus said it this way, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:21) Excuses like these ultimately just reveal one thing, God is not a priority to you.
All of us need to regularly look at our income, our spending, and our tithing and ask the question, "Am I honestly giving sacrificially to God? Am I just tossing Him chump change or am I actually giving til it hurts? I think that needs to be our standard of giving. Give til you hurt. If it doesn't hurt, its not sacrificial.
When we see this widow giving, we are just plain left with no excuse. Our money is ultimately a blessing from God. We need to choose to honor Him with it. If it comes down to a choice between having cable TV or honoring God, we need to honor God. If we can either go out to eat with friends after class or save that money so we can tithe this Sunday, we need to be willing to miss out.
So while I'd discourage you from judging the way others tithe, I'd highly encourage you to judge the way you are tithing. Where do you spend your money? How much are you giving to God? Is it anywhere near 10%? What can you give up in order to give more generously to God? Does your money reflect that God is a priority to you? I'd encourage you to spend some time in prayer, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in this matter, and follow the conviction He lays on your heart.
Ultimately, the way we give generously reflects our understanding of and desire to live out the Gospel. God generously gave His Son and has not withheld a single good thing from us. We are called to generously give back to Him and to the church to continue the cause of the Gospel.
Thanks, this topic is one that I've been thinking about for a while.
ReplyDeleteYou gave the example excuse of a teen without a job. If a teen doesn't have a job, where would the money be coming from then? Unless they have an inheritance, the only other place I can think of is from their parents. But is it alright to use "your" money for tithing if your parents aren't Christian(and in some cases against Christianity)? My thoughts behind this are that the parents are the ones who worked hard for the money and whatever they give to their child for a specific purpose hardly seems like something that should instead be used for another purpose. I'm not talking about general allowance that some kids might get.I'm talking about the money that parents give to a child to spend..for lets say school fees or lunch money. Should a child sacrifice a tenth of their books or meals? I think I've known some people who fasted for religious reasons and giving up 1/10 of their food money wouldn't be too hard. Getting back on track, accepting money from a non-Christian-supportive source and using it for tithes seems a bit unjust in a sense. Not only is that not honoring the will of your parents, but isn't that uprooting the meaning of tithing? -Sacrifice should come from us, not our parents? I guess this is something I've been pondering about for a while, not sure what to make of it. Thanks Mark!
Good question Andrew. As always, with things that aren't totally spelled out for us in the Bible such as this, my recommendation is to pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. I praise God that we don't have to guess at this stuff but we really do have a Wonderful Counselor to guide us.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts when I mentioned the teen without a job were of my own experiences when in junior high and high school. I always had money on me for one reason or another. It wasn't always a lot, but it was something. Whether it was birthday money or some other gift or just money my mom gave me to go out with my friends, I had my own personal use money. That was the sort of money I was thinking of. It would still be a sacrifice from the teen because the teen has the potential to get whatever with that money. If he gives it to God, he is sacrificing that movie ticket or CD or whatever.
When we talk about the specific situation of a teen who has been given money by his unbelieving parent and told specifically to use that money for school books and meals only, then I would recommend honoring your parent and doing that.
Christy and I have actually thought a bit about this, especially when we were getting married and got a lot of wedding gifts. For our wedding, we received cash gifts. We also had some relatives from other states give us a specific amount of money so that we could guy buy something specific from them like a table because it would be impractical for them to buy us a table in their home state and send it to us. The questions we wrestled with were, "Do we tithe off of the gift money?" "What about the specific money gifts?"
In the end, we decided to tithe off of the general money gifts and not the money given for specific things (unless we had money left over after the specific purchase). Our reasoning was that we don't tithe off of a toaster someone gives us, so why tithe off of the money they give us to specifically buy a toaster? In addition, the friend has given us money and told us what to do with it, as opposed to the other group just giving money and trusting us to do as we will with it. After we thought it through, we also prayed about it and felt that this was pleasing to God. Those are my thoughts. Make sense?
Thanks Mark. Here's some follow up questions:
ReplyDeleteI thought about while reading about taxes for my finance class. Money may not be something for us to create desires for, but what ever we have, we are suppose to remember to use efficiently and effectively to be good stewards. Because their are many ways to use money to serve God other than through tithing, one may want to keep track of how much they offer at church so they can allocate their resources among other causes. That being said, would it make sense to deliberately give your child a part of your money that you did count for offering because you know your child is going to offer 10% of that after receiving it?
2) Do missionaries tithe? I figured since they pretty much give up their whole life to the cause of directly spreading the Gospel and furthering the cause, it doesn't seem to make much sense to give up 10% of what they already give. or no?
3) You mentioned the excuse, "I use my money in other good ways, God sees my heart so I don't have to give to the church." I was just wondering if you could specify why giving to the church is so important? Does funding missionaries count as giving to the church? If there is a time when we feel lead to start or finish something costly in the name of Christ, for example, paying for a stranger's surgery so their life can be saved but the bill is exorbitant and really leaves you handicapped for the next year or few, should we continue to give the same amount to the church as before? Or is this something that is different for everyone and we just have to feel it out and pray for the right answer?
4) To make the list even longer... I remember listening to Mark Driscoll rebuking some people for going to a church and not giving offering. In my case, I'm related to more than one church for different activities. If one church really seems to be on it's feet, has a lot of adult followers, and seems to be steadily expanding, is it reasonable to give offering to the other church that doesn't have as much money and is comprised of more young adults/students?
In the OT, there was more than 1 tithe. 10% was the minimum. Freedom in Christ is sooooo good.
ReplyDeleteIt should not hurt to give. It is a joy! For God loves a cheerful giver.....