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Jesus’ Believers ‘Give As They Purpose In Their OWN Hearts:’

The aim of this discussion is not to turn believers into greedy graspers, but to free New Testament believers, who are staggering under the yoke of unscriptural, legalistic, ceremonial laws: Gal. 5:1. 

To give freely, “AS WE PURPOSE IN OUR HEARTS,” or as the Holy Spirit leads us, is part of every believer’s life in Christ, (2 Cor. 9:7!)  But Jesus does NOT compel His believers to ‘tithe,’ or to ‘give until it hurts,’ etc.! 

However, our offerings, which provide for those in real need, are love in deed and truth.  This kind of charity is agapë – a requirement of the Moral or Royal Law of Love towards our fellow man.  For as long as believers live on earth, God’s Moral Law of Love will remain unchangeable: (Jam. 1:14-20; Mt. 28:20b.) 

The old, (outward, ceremonial, ritual, or) Old Testament Law, which pertained to the old temple dispensation, as we know, is quite another matter.  During the New Testament dispensation, Jesus became the “Mediator of a better (New) covenant…  for if that First (Old Testament) covenant was faultless, then no place would Have been found for a second covenant…  In that He says, ‘A New Covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete.  Now what has become obsolete and old is ready to vanish away,” (Heb. 8:6-13.) 

The Old Testament, Ceremonial Law commanded Old Israel to pay tithes, (plural), while the Old Testament principle of giving alms was agapë, (Godly love,) and part of the Moral Law of love.  In reality, Old Israel was supposed to remain a Theocracy, or a chosen, God-ruled people.  God Himself was their God and King first.  And so, Old Israel’s tithing was actually their Theocratic taxes, (as God ruled them through the Levitical priesthood,) and part of Old Israel’s outward, Ceremonial, or Ritual Law.  God’s Old Testament government, (the priesthood of the Old Testament temple,) were suppose to use these tithes or taxes to govern His Theocracy, and to fulfil His Ceremonial Law in the physical temple. 

The tithes of Old Israel amounted to about 30% of each Jew’s income: 10% for the upkeep of the Levitical priests, the leaders of God’s old ‘church’ or temple, (which was also His Theocratic parliament); 10% to support the national feasts and about 10% for charity, (Old Israel’s ‘welfare fund.’) 

To cheat with the tithes was to rob God, [their King and Government], of His taxes.  To steal is a transgression of the Moral Law.  Committing tax evasion against God, their Direct Government, was a serious offence.  The Law prescribed that any transgression of its statutes would bring Old Israel under the entire cursed state or cursed position of Deut. 28. 

 

The context of the much abused Mal. 3 is Mal. 2: 

God was admonishing His backslidden PRIESTLY PARLIAMENT when He said in Mal. 2, “I will send the curse upon you and curse your blessings… For a priest’s lips should guard and keep pure the knowledge of My Law, and the people should seek instruction at his mouth…  But you have turned aside out of the way; you have caused many to stumble by your [false, twisted] instruction in the Law; you have corrupted My covenant with the people… [The leaders perverted God’s truth and made it into manmade doctrines to profit themselves.] You do this with double guilt, covering My altar with tears, shed by your wives, whom you divorced that you might take heathen wives, and with your crying out because I do not regard your offering any more…  Yet you ask: Why does He reject it?”

The false doctrines, idolatry, greed, adultery and sexual perversion of this backslidden, Old Testament, PRIESTLY GOVERNMENT is the context of Mal. 3:8-9, where God earnestly warned, “Will a man rob God?  Wherein?  In tithes and offerings. [My taxes and supplement charity for the poor.] You are cursed with a curse…”

The corrupted Old Testament, parliamentary priesthood were the ones who were misusing and squandering God’s taxes.  They were the ones defrauding their King - even robbing Him of His alms, which they collected from the citizens of Old Israel, but neglected to distribute among the poor.  Yet the weightier of their sin was their blatant disregard of God’s Royal Law of agapaö (love for God,) and agape, (love for people.)  They have leapt into perversion of the Holy Scriptures; idolatry, disobedience, adultery, divorce and robbery, but they were still asking: ‘Lord, why do You reject our offerings?’ – Mal. 2. 

Their deliberate transgression of the Moral and Ceremonial Law brought them under the entire curse of Deut. 28, which is why God cursed these religious leaders “with a curse.”

 

God was NOT addressing blessed, New Testament believers: 

By confusing and fusing the Old and New Testaments, which are two different dispensations, wolves in sheep’s clothing have indoctrinated Jesus’ blood-bought, New Testament disciples to believe that they should pay the tithes or taxes of Old Israel to ‘earn’ blessing from God.  Otherwise, according to this blatant lie, God ‘curses them with a curse’: Gal. 2:21. 

It is an unchangeable fact, as Paul explained in Gal. 3:10-14, that New Testament believers already live in a state or position of blessedness through their faith in, and acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus Himself ‘became a curse’ so that His sincere believers could ‘inherit all the blessings of Abraham.’ 

Sincere believers are born again from a state of damnation and cursedness, into this position of salvation and blessedness in Christ.  Thus they ‘inherit’ the entire state or position of blessedness which the old patriarch of faith in God, Abraham, had enjoyed in Him. 

As the entire old, ceremonial law pertained to a completely different dispensation, (the Old Testament temple-era which Jesus came to fulfil, annul and destroy,) the old prophet Malachi was not speaking to New Testament, blessed believers in Christ, (Gal. 3:10-14.)  The Old and the New Covenants or Testaments will forever remain two completely different dispensations. 

 

Jesus never commanded tithing: 

Jesus never commanded New Testament believers to adhere to the Ceremonial Law of tithing, as New Testament ‘tithing’ cannot rescue fallen humankind from their desperate position under the curse of the Law, (Gal. chapters 2 & 3.)  In the same way Jesus never commanded that animals must be sacrificed to atone for sin, as believers of the New Covenant live under an entirely different dispensation from that of the Old Testament Israelites. 

If the clergy chooses to keep one law, (tithing,) to ‘earn’ blessing from God, they must keep the entire Ceremonial or Ritual Law, and thereby proclaim that they do not need the Lord Jesus and His complete atonement. 

They then actually reject the grace of God in Christ – Gal. 3:10-14; Gal. 2:21. 

The only New Testament Law which Jesus and His disciples ever commanded was the Moral Law of Love for God and fellow man, which naturally relates to offerings, but never mentions tithing – accept in the view of those who abuse Scripture non-contextually to reinforce their manmade dogmas of greed, (Mt. 22:37-40; 2 Cor. 9:7; Rom. 8:14.) 

Believers already pay personal taxes, sales taxes, petrol-, toll-, property taxes, etc.  Governmental taxes are compulsory, (as were the tithes of Old Israel,) because they pertain to our physical life on earth, and governments are responsible before God to use these taxes to govern the country’s secular structures and welfare services, (1 Pet. 2:13-14; Mt. 22:21.) 

God will certainly not expect us to pay the taxes of Old Israel as well! 

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