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.