Nehemiah 12:44 –
On that day men were appointed to be in charge of the storerooms for the offerings, the first part of the harvest, and the tithes. They were responsible to collect from the fields outside the towns the portions required by the Law for the priests and Levites. For all the people of Judah took joy in the priests and Levites and their work.
We see the importance of the tithe, it’s not just to honor God but to support the ministry. The Levites owned no land and did not have a way to support themselves otherwise, hence the main purpose of the tithe. If you think about it God does not need substance or money to survive, but the humans working for him do. I know being part of a growing church people get into the money aspect of needs. And this explodes into some interesting discussions concerning the need to tithe.
I don’t question the numbers or the needs, it’s just a simple equation of 10/10/80. Give 10% to your church to support their ministries. Save 10% for lean times and live off 80%. Unfortunately after 50 years I didn’t learn to apply this simple math until recently. Right not it’s more like 10/70/20 …. Where the 70 is paying off debt!! If you can learn this early on in your life, it will be much smoother to manage in the future. All I can say is trust me and God on this.
Now there was one thing that bothered me about this verse, the use of the word “collect”. It almost sounds like these men go out on a “shake down” to force the tithe. I immediately went to my “translation fallback” of the ESV and saw the wording is “gather” which is much more like a willful act. The tithe should never seem forced, but a joyous act of giving. I can personally say it’s not joyous the first few years, but over time that has changed.
A quick personal story that just recently happened that surprised me. I use “online bill pay” to handle my bills. Because of my budgeting many of the bills get entered before the paycheck is deposited (they get paid after the check is deposited … the fun of bill pay). Last month I had paid more bills than there was month and spun into a panic. I did not tithe because there was no money; the “first fruits” had been picked before I could touch them. Well when balancing my account I discovered a deposit that was entered as a check. If you have done this before you know that shows a double negative, the missing deposit and the negative for the same amount. When I discovered this, the first thing that went through my mind was joy for being able to get “caught up”! So trust me on this, you will eventually become a joyous giver!!