The question sometimes arises, “Who should pay tithes and make offerings?” As to the first part, the answer is simple: Everyone should pay tithe who has any tithe to pay. If a person’s income is small, of course his tithe will be correspondingly small; and should there be a person with absolutely no income, dependent entirely upon charity for subsistence, of course he would have no tithe to pay.
But that would not be the case with anyone having a reasonable degree of health. We are not speaking now of professed Christians merely; every man is under obligation to pay tithe, whether he makes a profession of religion or not. “The tithe is the Lord’s,” and should invariably be returned to him, no matter in whose hands it may be found.
This distinction may be made, however: Worldlings have never confessed that they have obligations to God, nor agreed to honor him in the matter of tithes, or otherwise; but Christians profess to honor God, which includes the payment of tithes, and therefore while worldlings are guilty of robbery (Malachi 3:8), Christians who fail to meet their obligations, add to robbery the additional crime of falsehood.
The matter of offerings is of course left largely to the individual. For some, an offering of a few cents would involve more sacrifice than the gift of a thousand dollars would for another. Should the man with ample wealth give a hundred dollars without having to make any sacrifice, it would not be so acceptable in the sight of Heaven as would a few dimes from one who had to deprive himself of some necessity in consequence of his gift.
“For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a man has, and not according to what he has not.” (2 Corinthians 8:12)
But while each individual must use his own judgment as to how much he will give, the obligation to make offerings rests upon all; for the Lord, through the prophet Malachi, accuses his people of robbing him in the matter of offerings; but the withholding of offerings could not be called robbery if the Lord had no claim on us beyond our tithe.
There can be no exceptions to the general rule that all should make offerings, for it would seem to be impossible to find a person in more reduced circumstances than was the poor widow mentioned in Mark 12:42. She had only two mites (less than half a cent) in the world, yet she gave, not one tenth merely, but the whole of it; and we do not read that the Lord condemned her in the least for this act.
God Promises to Bless
A common idea is that if a man gives freely he will impoverish himself. The trouble is that men leave God out of their calculations. Dr. Clarke, in his comment on Acts 15:10, includes the payment of tithes, etc., in the ceremonial law—the “yoke of bondage”—and artlessly says:
Had not God, by an especial providence, rendered both their fields and their flocks very fruitful, they could not have borne so painful a ritual.
Well, that is just what the Lord promises to do for those who render to him his due.
“Honor the Lord with your substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase; So shall your barns be filled with plenty, and your presses shall burst out with new wine.” (Proverbs 3:9-10)
Again he says:
“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 3:10-11)
It is “the Lord of hosts” that makes this promise; certainly he has the power to fulfill it; and who dare say that he will not keep his word?
The wise man said,
“There is that scatters, and yet increases; and there is that withholds more than is meet, but it tends to poverty.” (Proverbs 11:24)
There can be no doubt but that many who bewail their (in most cases imaginary) inability to assist in the cause of God, owe their pecuniary embarrassment to the fact that they are not willing to make this sacrifice and help with what they have. A notable instance of this is described in the Bible.
In Ezra’s Time
We learn from the book of Ezra that the people who at the command of Cyrus, went up from Babylon to Jerusalem to build the temple, became discouraged on account of the opposition brought to bear against them, and abandoned the work for several years. Added to this opposition was a severe drought, which cut off their crops, depriving them of even the necessaries of life.
Of course under the circumstances they could not be expected to give time and means for the building of the temple, and they very naturally concluded that the time had not come for the Lord’s house to be built (Haggai 1:2). They doubtless reasoned as follows:
“If the Lord wanted his house built now, he would give us the means with which to do it.”
“Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but there is none warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:3-6)
Then the Lord gives the cause of this terrible want:
“You looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and you run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land.” (Haggai 1:9-11)
Read also chapter 2:11-19. In this instance the people thought that the hard times was a sufficient reason for not building the temple, when the hard times came solely because they had not gone ahead with the work of building.
The Lord now promised them that from this time he would bless them, if they would take hold of the work; and to assure them of his ability to give and to withhold prosperity, and also of his right to receive homage, he said,
“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.” (Haggai 2:8)
The apostle Paul said in regard to the subject of giving:
“But this I say, He that sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which sows bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” (2 Corinthians 9:6)
There are many who have proved the truth of this, and who know that it pays to take God into all their calculations, and in all their ways to acknowledge him; for, as Paul continues,
“God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8)