Episode 782 Tithes and Offerings
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 782 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Ryan England with core matters and the blue collar culture podcast. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure is to live out your calling.
[00:00:20] Having the ability to grow yourself and your business is key and way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.
[00:00:38] and I would argue it's because that's part of getting our hearts right. When we have that relationship with God, it's part of recognizing what Marcus and I talked about on Monday, about how none of it belongs to us anyway. And because of that, by doing that every single week, every single month, every single [00:01:00] year, whatever it is for you.
[00:01:03] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling. In the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world
[00:01:34] And today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in others. I talk with you about the difference between a tie and an offering. I share why tithing isn't only a quote old Testament thing, and I share why tithing helps to change our heart. Marcus. And I talked a little bit about giving and about the church's relationship with giving and tithing on [00:02:00] yesterday's episode.
[00:02:01] But I wanted to dive into it a little bit more today. We have in most churches and most places that you go to worship you'll see different parts of the service. Now I was raised Methodist and I belong to a Methodist church. Today. And we have a part of the surface called ties and offerings.
[00:02:23] You'll see that in different churches named different things, but it's that area or that part of the church worship service where we pass the plate, or we ask for people to give in some way. And I would say that there are a lot of misunderstandings about that part of service. And I think a lot of people think of it as well.
[00:02:48] What we do there is this is the time where we pay for the church building, or we pay the pastor salary or we give money to the church so that they can keep the lights on and provide [00:03:00] services for us. We think of it as almost a transactional relationship. Like you're paying for the service of the church.
[00:03:09] Other people will talk about we use this money to fund various missions and activities of the church, maybe to do some sort of outreach or some sort of food ministry or something like that. And honestly, these are both somewhat true at some level in that the church does need money to run. The church does need money to pay salaries.
[00:03:30] The church does need money to do missions, but that's not really the focus. You'll also talk about, you'll hear people talk about well, tithing and offering is in part done to change our heart, to make us into a more generous person. And I would argue that that's also true at some level it's definitely something that God calls for us to do because of the change it makes in our being.
[00:03:57] And it's a chance to give back to [00:04:00] God, a small portion of the gifts that he's given us to recognize the blessings that God has poured out on us and give it back in some way, why does it happen? It usually happens in a church service in a special place. It usually happens after. The time of confession after a period of time, when we reconcile ourselves with God, and it usually happens after some recognition of what we would call the passing of the peace or indicating times of peace, which we often use as the time to greet our neighbors.
[00:04:38] But it's really a period. To reconcile ourselves with other members of the church. So we've taken our heart and we've looked at God and said, please forgive us. We've looked at each other and we've said, Hey, we recognize each other as community and we're together in this. And then we give our ties and offering because we're supposed to have our [00:05:00] heart right.
[00:05:00] First. Before we give to God, let's also clarify this. What's the difference between a tie and an offering. They're both giving, but they're not the same thing. The word tie actually means a 10th. It means giving a 10th of all the increases that God has given to you. That's how it's described in the Bible.
[00:05:27] And what's an increase. Y'all argue about this all the time. If you don't believe me, just go look it up on the internet. They'll ask about, should we tie the off of the net or should we tie off of the gross, top line revenue, bottom line revenue? What about if somebody gives me a gift like a birthday gift?
[00:05:44] Do I tie them on that? There's all these arguments around that. But the truth is that ultimately, if everything you're given comes from God, then everything that you're giving belongs to God. And that means that a 10th of everything [00:06:00] given to you by God should be given over to God as a sign of worship of obedience and commitment to God.
[00:06:08] And an offering. An offering is something that you give to God beyond the tithe. So I will hear people talk about I only tied 5%. You technically can't tie the 5% you would be giving 5% a tie this by definition, a 10th. It's an offering in that case and offerings normally would be above and beyond the tithe.
[00:06:34] So if all you can afford to do air quotes around that is give the tithe, then don't give an offering. Do the tie then said that's how it's supposed to be set up, but keep in mind an offering. There's some level of discretion in how often, how many and how much to give an offing offerings. But it is something that God often puts on our hearts [00:07:00] to do.
[00:07:00] And if we honor God, we often need to give offerings beyond the ties. But both are given freely to God. They're both a form of worship. There's something that we do to honor God and to recognize that everything that we have comes from God, the important part is the heart relationship we have with it. If we're giving grudgingly, if we're giving out a fear, if we're giving out of anger, if we're giving, because we feel like we have to, that's not really what we're called to do.
[00:07:36] The other thing I hear people argue about is this a old Testament or new Testament thing? Because most of the passages that we use to talk about tithing is found in the old Testament and that's under the law under the covenant. And it says, people will say Jesus freed us from the law.
[00:07:55] And therefore we don't have to tie that command has gone, but it's also [00:08:00] very clear if you read the words of Jesus that. Jesus says to follow all of the commandments of the old Testament, all of the commandments of the law, including the commandments to give freely of our ties and offerings. It's implied in there that this is part.
[00:08:18] Of what we were supposed to do. And I would argue it's because that's part of getting our hearts right. When we have that relationship with God, it's part of recognizing what Marcus and I talked about on Monday, about how none of it belongs to us anyway. And because of that, by doing that every single week, every single month, every single year, whatever it is for you.
[00:08:44] By giving that over. You begin to recognize it's not mine. Anyway. Thanks for listening.
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