Introduction

If we're going to talk about tithing honestly, we must acknowledge that there are no similarities between what scripture teaches and what is actually taught today. There is no biblical precedent or allowance for transforming the explicit biblical examples of tithing into the vastly different system seen in our modern Oneness Pentecostal churches.

1. Scriptural Tithing

1a. Abraham

  • Gave one time after the battle of the kings (Genesis 14:16-20; Hebrews 7:4)
  • From the spoils of war, not income (Genesis 14:11, Genesis 14:16; Hebrews 7:4)
  • Not money, not a system (Genesis 14:20; Hebrews 7:4)
  • No command from God is given in the text
  • Given to Melchizedek, not a local pastor (Genesis 14:18-20; Hebrews 7:1-2)

1b. Jacob

  • Made a conditional vow (Genesis 28:20-22)
  • "If God blesses me… then I will give" (Genesis 28:20-22)
  • Not commanded by God in the passage
  • Personal, conditional, and voluntary (Genesis 28:20-22)
  • No later record in Scripture shows Jacob actually paying this tithe

1c. The Law of Moses

  • Given to Israel only (Leviticus 27:34; Numbers 18:24)
  • For Levites, who had no inheritance (Numbers 18:21, Numbers 18:24; Deuteronomy 18:1-2)
  • Based on food, crops, seed, fruit, herds, and flocks — not money (Leviticus 27:30-33; Deuteronomy 14:22-23)
  • Part of Israel's land, temple, priesthood, and covenant system (Deuteronomy 12:5-6, Deuteronomy 12:11; Nehemiah 10:37-39)
  • Included more than one tithe, not simply a flat ten percent system (Deuteronomy 14:22-29; Deuteronomy 26:12-13)
  • The priests got 1/10 of 1/10, or 1%, not 10% (Numbers 18:26-28; Nehemiah 10:38)

2. Modern Church Tithing

  • Money, not agriculture
  • Ongoing requirement, not one-time or voluntary
  • Given to a single pastor or church
  • It excludes the widows and the fatherless
  • It excludes the temple servants and the singers
  • No temple, no land system, no covenant structure
  • No animal sacrifices or storehouse; not taken in Jerusalem
  • No covenantal commandment or connection to New Testament grace
  • That pastor is not a Levitical priest
  • Even if the pastor was the equivalent of the Levitical preist,

    • the Levitical priest got 1%; the pastor gets 10%

  • No apostolic text, example, or support of any kind
  • Continues to be taken despite being cancelled under the New Covenant Hebrews 7:18

3. Why the Differences?

Pastors do not want to relinquish their main source of income. Most people don't; they do not want to give up their way of life, their money, their homes, their personal hopes, dreams, goals, and their sins. However, that is not how the gospel works. Pastors are not exempt. They need to follow the prescription clearly and firmly established by Scripture, not by tradition, financial and material needs, or any other external factors. Man-made justifications for man-made doctrines will not stand on the day of judgment.

4. The Key Issue

Here's the key issue:

There is not one command or designated obligation found in the Apostolic writings to take or pay the Church tithe.

Not one.

The Apostles never once taught, took, or paid tithes. There is no Apostolic text to support it.

That's why pastors have to go back to:

  • Abraham (one-time event)
  • Jacob (conditional vow)
  • The Law (Old Covenant system)

Because they cannot find it in the New Testament Church.

5. Hebrews 7:18

In fact, the only direct teaching we get about tithing is that it has been CANCELLED:

“For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before…”

— Hebrews 7:18

That commandment includes the Levitical system — the very system tithing belonged to. Here, the writer of Hebrews states explicitly it has been disannuled. Cancelled.

Therefore, Hebrews 7 does not establish New Testament tithing; it explains the replacement of the Levitical priesthood and the covenant system attached to it by the superior priesthood of Jesus Christ. After specifically discussing the Levites’ “commandment to take tithes of the people” (Hebrews 7:5), the chapter declares, “For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before” (Hebrews 7:18). Christ is now our High Priest, and His sacrifice at Calvary replaces the old Levitical system of priesthood, sacrifices, ordinances, and covenant obligations—including the tithing system that supported it. To use Hebrews 7 to preserve mandatory tithing while the chapter is explaining the disannulling of the system to which that tithe belonged reverses the very argument Hebrews is making.

6. New Testament Giving

New Testament giving is different.

“Not grudgingly, or of necessity…”

— 2 Corinthians 9:7
  • Not commanded
  • Not enforced
  • Not percentage-based
  • Not on payday
  • Not on schedule
  • Not in perpetuity
  • Not solely for the pastor

7. Bottom Line

Modern tithing:

  • Is not Abraham
  • Is not Jacob
  • Is not the Law
  • Is not taught by the Apostles

Modern tithing is not Apostolic. It is not supported by or modeled after the Old Testament tithe either. That's why it has to be pieced together from passages that don't actually support the system being preached today. However, the system being preached today does not resemble any form of Biblical tithing. It is entirely extra-biblical and man-made.

8. No Scriptural Support

There are no Scriptures that support converting the biblical tithe from agriculture to money, making it an ongoing requirement rather than a one-time or voluntary act, giving it to a single pastor or local church, or allowing the pastor to receive the full ten percent when the priests only received 10% of the Levites' 10% tithe (or 1%).

Modern pastors are not Levitical priests, and the New Testament church has no temple, land inheritance system, or Old Covenant structure to support such a practice.

Modern tithing also excludes the widows, fatherless, temple servants, and singers who were included in the biblical tithe system.

9. Law, Grace, and Man-Made Commandments

Modern church tithing takes dissimilar Old Testament laws and requirements, borrows the blessings and curses attached to those covenant-specific commands, and then tries to impose them upon believers under Grace.

The result is a perverted gospel that binds believers to a system Christ fulfilled and another system unfounded in scripture and fabricated for personal gain. This is the very definition of "filthy lucre". This is the very act of "blending Law and Grace that Paul explicitly condemned".

10. Malachi 3:8-10

Malachi 3:8-10 is unquestionably the passage tithe-taking pastors resort to most often—and they must go there because no Apostolic text commands the New Testament Church to tithe. They take an Old Covenant warning addressed to Israel, including the threat, “Ye are cursed with a curse,” and apply that curse to the blood-bought Church of Jesus Christ. The result is often fear and intimidation: believers are warned that God will withhold blessings, allow financial hardship, or regard them as robbing Him if they do not surrender ten percent. An Old Covenant curse must not be lifted from its covenant context and used to compel giving from people whom Christ redeemed from the curse of the Law. In fact, this is one of the clearest examples of mixing Law and Grace—the very error Paul warned against in Galatians—so the danger of the curse is not upon believers who refuse an unbiblical tithe, but upon those who place the Church back under a covenant Christ fulfilled.

Furthermore, using the curse of Malachi 3:8-10 given to the Jews under the Old Covenant to intimidate and manipulate the Apostolic born-again children of God is nothing short of extortion in the church of the living God.

Conclusion

Every honest discussion about tithing must begin with the difference between biblical tithing and modern church tithing.

Modern church tithing does not match Abraham, Jacob, the Law of Moses, or the Apostolic Church. It is not Apostolic. It is not supported by the New Testament. It is not modeled after the Old Testament tithe system being appealed to.

The Church should give, but the Church should not be bound by a man-made system that Scripture does not command and the Apostles did not teach.

Pastors should not fear that teaching freewill, New Testament giving will leave them without support. People who give willingly from the heart may often give more generously than those pressured through obligation, manipulation, fear, or guilt. And if people choose not to give, that decision remains between them and God; their unwillingness does not give a pastor authority to impose a percentage, create a compulsory system, or take what Scripture has not authorized him to demand.