Several years ago, and after great pain in my life, the Holy Spirit revealed to me, I did not believe much of what the New Testament said. Instead, I believed what my teachers had told me the bible meant. They had twisted the scriptures, I had trusted them, and I had been so very deceived.
It took me many years, going over and over the NT teachings, to get free. I would ask myself ,when I came to a teaching and say "Warren! Do you believe what is written and is it evident in your life.' I tear up to this day. What I found was over and over I had not been applying the passages to my life as I was "saved" and the serious warnings did not apply to me, BUT, I had not finished the race yet. Brethren, it was a war to change my mind and my old nature, and be inline with what Jesus and the Apostles said to do and what they said not to do.
Over the years I sought out the warnings in the NT for myself and was planning a book until I found David Pawson and then Tassos Kioulachoglou had done so. They are very blessed with great minds and passion for the truth.
We are in apostasy. This deception we are in goes back to Paul's warning to us as he was about to die. Men such as Constantine, Augustine, their spiritual offspring and others, quickly devastated the believers with false teaching.
Then the Protestant movement came and Calvinism told the people that Jesus was shredded with whips, went to the horrible cross, suffered in agony and did it to force His bide to accept His grace as she had no choice. This only one of their similarities to Islam..
Paul, about to die, tells Timothy:. (Truly brothers and sisters, does this sound like you and I?)
24“But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.
25“And now, behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, will no longer see my face.26“Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27“For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.
28“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
29“I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
31“Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.32“And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Acts 20 NASB
These verses clearly describe their day and our own. False teachers now overwhelm the pulpits with false doctrines as they fleece the sheep and get wealthy.
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Tithing, Giving and the New Testament Preface
I became a Christian in early 1991 in a home fellowship in Thessalonica, Greece. The fellowship very strongly emphasized the Bible as the infallible and inerrant Word of God and had an equally good balanced view on the Holy Spirit. There I heard for the first time that to be saved it was enough to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). There I heard about salvation by grace, about becoming a child of God, about asking God freely as my Father and receiving from Him. The Mosaic law was no longer valid, I learned. Christ had fulfilled it all. It was such a great time and such a great fellowship. I was born again and believe me it felt like this! Then, on one of the shelves of the fellowship leader and dear friend Dimitris - who was spending, with love, all the time needed to answer the dozens of questions I had - I saw a small book speaking about the “tithe”. I was wondering what was this. The word “tithe” was unknown to me and I hadn’t seen it in my reading of the New Testament (now I was soaking the Word like a sponge, reading and taking in, several chapters per day). I borrowed the book and I started reading. I was startled to find that it was full of Old Testament quotations from the law, supporting that the tithe was still valid and that as a Christian I should give 10% of my income (barely enough at that time to pay my rent and food) to church organizations. I felt pretty guilty after reading the book and this was the first time I felt so in the few months I was a believer. Though we did not apply tithing in our little fellowship (Dimitris, the leader, despite all the time that he was spending with us, young believers, he was also a full time worker plus a student, earning his living with hard work) the question remained. Here was this organization that appeared to have a clear understanding of the Word of God and yet they were preaching about the Old Testament principle of tithing. But, I thought, if tithing was still valid why was the sacrificing of bulls was not valid too? Were not both parts of the same law? I put the matter aside but the questions remained. Since then I changed locations and visited various churches. What I invariably found is that though these churches were in many things different, they had at least one thing in common: they were pointing out the tithing or believed in the law of tithing. The reference to the tithe was less frequent or even absent (though it was the acceptable principle) in big or medium size congregations but very frequent, almost weekly, in small congregations. Apart from that, though our fellowship in Greece didn’t have a budget, many of these churches had budgets that were hundreds of thousand dollars strong! Enormous amounts. However, most of these budgeted amounts were for staff salaries, building expenses and bills. This also didn’t sit well! Didn’t the New Testament say to help the poor? Weren’t we supposed to support missionaries that spread the Word? And yet out of these enormous budgeted amounts, only a meager portion was for missions and almost no portion at all for the poor. That was a second hit. Then early in 2008, I got a question from a reader of my online magazine, the Journal of Biblical Accuracy, concerning this very matter, the matter of tithing. I set out then to see this matter from the perspective of the Word of God and settle this, years old for me, question. This book contains the results of this study. It is done to throw light from the Word of God concerning the validity of tithing and what the New Testament says about giving. How should we give and what were the first century churches supporting with their contributions? I’m fully aware that this book is going to be considered controversial by some. But I also hope that it is going to be liberating for some others, who may have struggled with the same questions as me concerning this matter. It is to them that I would like to devote this study.
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