Gary North

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all (Gen. 14:18-20).

This is the first reference in the Bible to the tithe. The context of this reference is significant. Foreign kings had invaded the land of Canaan, where Abram was living, and they carried off his nephew Lot. Abram gathered together a fighting force and pursued the kings and defeated them. Upon his return, he met with a priest, Melchizedek.

Melchizedek served bread and wine to Abram. This is the first reference in the Bible to what became the Lord's Supper in the New Testament. Melchizedek then blessed Abram. In response, Abram paid a tithe to Melchizedek.

Several important issues can be seen in this passage. First and foremost, Melchizedek was a priest. He had the God-given authority to serve a sacramental meal to Abram. He also had the God-given authority to bless Abram. In response, Abram paid him 10% of the goods he had extracted from the defeated kings.

The payment of a tithe to Melchizedek was an act of public subordination. Abram was a priest in his own household. Whatever sacrifices he offered, he offered a priest. God later asked him before to sacrifice his son, Isaac. This would have been the act of a priest, had God required him to execute his son. Instead, God provided a ram for Abram to execute.

In this case, the household priest Abram paid a higher priest, Melchizedek, a tithe on the increase that Abram had gained as a result of his victory over the kings.

Nothing more is said about the requirement of the tithe until God gave His law to Moses. God required that the farmers of Israel to pay 10% of their net production to the Levites (Num. 18). The Levites were the priestly tribe of Israel. They did not receive any portion of the conquered land that had belonged to the Canaanites. Instead, they were to receive 10% of the net agricultural production of the nation. This was their inheritance.

In the book of Hebrews, the author says that Jesus Christ is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He is not a priest according to the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law established a specific tribal priesthood: the Levites. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews specifically says that the priesthood of Melchizedek was superior to the priesthood of the Levites. The symbolic subordination of Abram to Melchizedek was proof of the fact that the Levites, as a priesthood, are subordinate to Jesus Christ.

Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.

Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham: But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises.

And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better. And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him (Heb. 6:20-7:10).

A TOKEN PAYMENT

Christians owe 10% of their net increase to the local church. They owe this, not because the church is the heir of the Levitical priesthood, but because the church is the agency of the church covenant. The church covenant is a specific grant of authority by God to an institution. The church has the right to baptize people in the name of Jesus Christ. It also has a responsibility of administering the Lord's Supper. Because it performs these two fundamental rites, it is entitled to 10% of its members' net income.

It is sometimes argued that Christians in the New Testament do not owe 10% to God, by way of the local church. Very few people in the congregation pay this to the local church. What did Jesus say about the requirement of the tide? He said specifically that it is required, and much more besides the tithe. He could not have been any clearer.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone (Matt. 23:23)

The payment of 10% of our net income is a way for us to acknowledge that we are under the jurisdiction of a God who provides blessings to us.

Melchizedek blessed Abram. He also provided bread and wine for Abram. Only after Abram received the bread line and the blessing that Abram pay 10% to the priest. It was not that Melchizedek had in some way earned this 10%. It was a public acknowledgment by Abram that Melchizedek was a true priest of God.

Abram understood that he owed 10% to God. The means by which he could make the payment was the presence of a priest. The priest demonstrated that he possessed priestly authority by giving Abram bread and wine and a blessing. As soon as Abram recognized that Melchizedek possessed this authority, he paid 10% to Melchizedek.

Notice that Melchizedek had not earned the 10% by means of the bread and wine and the blessing. He was owed the 10% because he had the lawful authority to present Abram with bread and wine and a blessing. This was not an economic arrangement; it was a judicial arrangement. Melchizedek did not earn 10%; he was owed 10%.

Why do we owe God 10%? We owe Him because He is the Creator, and as the creator, He is the ultimate owner.

God has established what used to be called a sharecropping system. The sharecropper is provided with land, seeds, tools, and possibly a place to live. He has no capital of his own. He is completely unproductive without capital.

Someone with capital makes an arrangement with this individual. The arrangement is that the individual will grow a crop, and he will pay a percentage of the crop to the person who supplied the land, seeds, and tools. It is common in a sharecropping arrangement for the owner to receive 30% of the output of the field. God has graciously consented to collect only 10% of the total output of the capital which he has supplied to his people.

A salesman who got to keep 90% of the sales money, turning over only 10% to the company, would regard this as the best possible arrangement he'd ever heard of. You could recruit as many salesman is you wanted on these terms.

God asks us to give him 10% of our net output. Yet we find that individuals are unwilling to pay God is 10%. A salesman would be happy to do this, but Christians are unhappy to do it. Why is this? Because they really do not regard God is the ultimate owner of all things, including themselves. They do not see themselves as operating as sharecroppers on somebody else's property, using somebody else's tools, and living in somebody else's house. They do not see God as the gracious provider of capital to people who come into this world with nothing, and depart from this world taking nothing with them. All He asks is that His people acknowledge the nature of the arrangement by paying 10% of their net output to his church. This is not because He needs the money. This is not because He could not fund of the church in some other way. This is because He wants public acknowledgment of those who are under his covenant that they are subordinate to Him, and that the church represents Him in history.

BUDGETING FOR THE TITHE

In budgeting, we first have to decide what the net increase is. If we invest a certain amount of money at the beginning of the year, and we collect interest through a year, we owe God 10% of the interest, not 10% of the money that we deposited in the bank. God does not tax capital. He taxes the increase provided by the capital.

Once we decide what the net increase is, we allocate 10% of this as a payment to the local church. This is God's payment, and we pay God first. This is how we acknowledge that we are under His authority as members of his church. It is a token payment.

We owe everything to God. But God, in His grace, requires us to pay only 10%, which is a token payment, as a symbol of the fact that we understand that He owns it all, including us.

Symbols are important. This one is a mark of subordination. In much the same way that a lower-ranking person in the military salutes a higher ranking officer, so do we pay a tithe to God's church. The superior officer in the military has the right to command that his subordinates go into battle and risk their lives. Most of the time, officers do not do this. Most of the time, nations are not at war. Most of the officers in the military do not serve in the front lines, and this is true also of those under their authority. But, occasionally, an officer gives a command to an individual to risk his life on the battlefield. The mark of his authority to give such a command is the salute. The salute says, in effect, "I will do whatever you command, sir." The officer returns the salute, which is an acknowledgment on his part that he says that he is responsible for making such a decision. No one says all this verbally, because no one has to. Everybody in the military knows that this is the nature of hierarchy in the military.

When we pay 10% to God, we are saying that God has full ownership of our lives. He owns it all. He may never ask us to sacrifice all that we own, but He has the uncontested legal authority to do so. By paying a tithe to the local church, we are acknowledge that God possesses this degree of authority over us.

Most Christians say that they believe that God possesses such authority over them, yet they do not pay a tithe to local church as a symbolic act of subordination. Abram made this symbolic act of subordination to Melchizedek. Jesus Christ is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Yet His people, who receive the blessings promised by God to Abram, refuse to pay their tithes to the church, as if they did not have the same obligation that Abram had in the presence of Melchizedek.

While the manifestation of the subordination is economic, the nature of the subordination is judicial. Jesus Christ died at Calvary in order to meet the judicial requirements of God's law. It was this death that kept Adam and Eve alive. God looked forward in history to the death and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ. He told Adam and Eve that there would be a future seed who would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). Jesus Christ is that promised seed. So, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a judicial payment. It was not a matter of money; it was a matter of a judicially required sacrifice.

Similarly, the tithe is not about God's need for money. The tithe is about our need for atonement. We do not buy our atonement; we acknowledge that the atonement has been made on our behalf. This is not primarily an economic transaction; this is primarily a judicial transaction. We should not treat the tithe as an economic arrangement. It has economic implications, of course. This is why it is resisted. But the supreme issue is judicial, not economic. It is symbolic. The symbol is very important.

It is a tradition for men to give a ring to his wife at the marriage ceremony. If the wedding ring were made of stainless steel, it might arouse some talk. The fact of the matter is this: whatever he spends on the ring is merely a token of what is going to spend on her. The amount of money that he turns over to her in his lifetime is a whole lot more than any ring might cost. The ring is a judicial matter; it is not an economic matter.

This is how we should look at the tithe. It is an acknowledgment of a specific kind of obligation: a covenantal obligation. It has to do with God's establishment of a specific covenant outside of which there are no blessings that stretch into eternity. The church offers bred and wine, just as Melchizedek did. This is a symbolic token of a judicial promise. The promise is of eternal life. We do not buy bread and wine. We do not by the favor of God. We knowledge that God, in his grace, has provided salvation to us. This is the meaning of the tithe.

The first order of business, which of course is not business, is the allocation of the tithe in the family budget. Everything else comes second. You start with what you owe God as a symbolic token of what God has given you.

Grace precedes law. It did in the garden of Eden, and it does in your life.