Tithing and the Church

by Gary North

Book Overview

Men owe God ten percent of any net increase of their income. But which institution lawfully collects the tithe in God's name? The answer today is what it was when Abraham paid his tithe to Melchizedek... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0930464702
• ISBN13: 9780930464707
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Inst for Christian Economics
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Gary does exegesis!

I own most of Gary North's books, and just about all of them have good stuff in them. I'm not always thrilled with Dr. North's exegesis in his economic commentaries on the Bible, where the biblical text is often used as a springboard to discuss scads of interesting topics, but the Biblical text itself sometimes is not very deeply explicated. I guess Dr. North would reply that it's a result of focusing on economic dimensions. Be that as it may, in this book Dr. North does a pretty decent job of explaining, from the biblical text, why tithing is still obligatory for Christians today, and why the tithe should go to the local church. Dr. North could have done even more, of course, and the reader is encouraged to carefully study and meditate on the pertinent biblical texts, rather than simply reading this book. Now that R. J. Rushdoony has gone to be with the Lord, the criticisms of Rushdoony have, in a certain sense, lost some of their importance. In another sense they are still as important as ever because there are a lot of Christians out there to whom Dr. North's criticisms continue to stick. R. J. Rushdoony and his followers are most certainly not among them, but many Christians today reject tithing on the grounds that is "legalistic." I wonder how many people can see the irony in that: such a rejection is itself susceptible to the same charge of legalism in reverse. The anti-tithers claim that tithing amounts to a "downgrading" of New Covenant standards because, they assert, it tends to create the misperception that 90% belongs to us, when in fact 100% belongs to God. In other words, they try to take the moral high ground. People who argue along these lines usually say lofty-sounding things about true New Covenant giving not being limited to "only" 10%. It's almost as if their approach results in the church prospering, whereas the tithers would fetter it. But a recent article in Christianity Today (posted June 6, 2003) discusses a Barna Research Group study that shows only 6% of born-again Christians donate 10% or more of their income to churches. This means that at least 94% don't feel tithing is obligatory. Now, of the 6% who do donate 10% or more of their income to churches, how many are people who think there is no longer any obligation to tithe, but they do it anyway? Probably they would fit into a phone booth. What this means is, people who argue against tithing find that donating 10% of their income to the church is an onerous burden. Oh yeah, we modern Christians are long on "grace," but short on gratitude. Is it any wonder the church is scorned among the non-believers in modern America? Why should non-believers take the church seriously when even Christians don't?

To Tithe or Not to Tithe, that is the question

OUTSTANDING. Do you go to church, are you a Christian. Save yourself the time of wondering, buy this book. It is great, and will help you to look at the Old Testament as you should as a N.T. Christian. It is totally worth every cent.

The tithe belongs to the local church

Gary North makes a strong case from the scriptures that the whole tithe belongs to the local church. North argues that the institution which has a monopoly on the sacraments is the institution that has a monopoly on the tithe, as it was in Abraham's day. The first half of the book makes his case very well. However, the second half of the book is mostly a criticism of R.J. Rushdooney's position that the tithe does'nt necesarily need to go to the local church. I felt that using half of the book to detail this criticism was unnecessary to his arument. I give tha first half of the book 5 stars, but the second half 3 stars. The first half is worth the purchase price and I recommend that you buy it for that.