Tithe Stewardship & Church Tithing

What’s the difference? What do I mean what’s the difference? What’s the difference between giving freely and giving willingly? Maybe there isn’t a difference. I have to admit myself that they both are very similar, but in regards to the definition of how you should give, they are different. The actual dictionary definitions do not explain much of the difference. They both practically use the word in the definition, which doesn’t help. So if we use the bible(NKJV) to help us see the difference maybe we can understand what the difference is.

1 Cor. 9:17 - For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.

Matt 10:8 - Freely you have received, freely give.

The concordance definition of willingly states this:

    1) unforced, voluntary, willing

    2) of one’s own will

    3) of one’s own accord

The Concordance definition of freely states this:

    1) freely, undeservedly

Willingly implies- cheerfully making the choice to do what someone has asked you to do. But it is not obligatory in the fact that you are forced to do it. You don’t have a will when you are forced to do something. Now freely on the other hand implies that the giver wasn’t given a command or asked to do it, but gave it for practically no cause.
Many tithe teachers think that freely in the bible means that we shouldn’t feel that we have to give a tenth, but we should give out of love and because we want to give, and we are under grace now. In actuality though they are explaining willing giving, not free giving. No one is ever forced to give up a tenth of their income. God doesn’t hold a gun to everyone’s head and gives them no choice. if the tithe truly is commanded by God, but He does not force us to do it, then you cannot freely give it. You must willingly give the tithe. Why this is so important to understand is because giving freely has nothing to do with tithing. The bible allows us under the new covenant to freely give the tithe, but we are not under a command to do so. You are free to give any amount that you see fit, including 10%, because there is no exact command from scriptures. Although we have no command in scriptures to give a specific amount, that doesn’t mean that we don’t receive instructions from the Holy Spirit. So, now we are presented with an opportunity to give willingly because there are still commands coming from God about giving.

When the Holy Spirit asks you to give a certain amount, are you willing to give out of love and because you want to give? Do you want to give willingly? It’s your choice.

Satan and his false prophets make big business scamming the church out of money. If only money did grow on trees, then the devil and his televangelists(TBN) would be out of business.

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An article for the Christian Post, titled, “Religious Needs Drive a Market for Borrowing” goes over some speculation about the amount of borrowing that churches are doing lately. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with “churches” borrowing, I just hope that they counted the cost before they go into debt like that. The amount of borowing that churches are doing do not go away over night. They are 30 year mortgages, that would seem in my opinion, outlast the lifetime of some churches. I know my church had started our church with a 16 million dollar facility over a year ago. Now, it’s down to 8 or 9 mil. I hate to say that churches are wrong putting that much money into buildings, because i know there is a need for a safe social place for teens and young adults to hang around. Most of us don’t complain about the money that was put into the YMCA, because most of us don’t think twice that all of the money that was used to support the YMCA came from churches. The YMCA foundation was built to combat the social peer pressure and social illness that worldliness had to offer.

I think this borrowing dangerous, not wrong. Because as i said before, statistics show that the average church organization will not last as long as the mortgage. The other thing that’s dangerous, is that we are banking on future attendance of our congregation. I think our church started sweating a little bit because we had about 3 active NFL players that gave tithes in our congregation when we decided to build our building. Now one of them was traded, another became retired, and the last one i think left. Right after all that happened, it was amazing to hear the amount of time that was spent on teaching about tithing. I don’t really know why the number of tithing sermons became more often. That was just my guess. So anyways, you can see that many churches are somewhat betting on at least the attendance of their people.

I hope things work out for the churches that do spend lots of money, but more than anything, i hope that what they are doing is not all about money, but about people.