Last time we looked at the OT background of the tithe – both where it has gospel roots and where it is a command of the law. What the OT stories confirm is that while the law doesn’t save, it . . . → Read More: Stewardship 6: A Cheerful Giver.]]>

Here are the links to the prior posts in this series.
post #1.
post #2.
post #3.
post #4.
Post #5

Last time we looked at the OT background of the tithe – both where it has gospel roots and where it is a command of the law. What the OT stories confirm is that while the law doesn’t save, it does reflect the will of God for his people.

This time I want to jump right into the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 8-9. The Corinthian congregation is an interesting parallel to today’s world. Corinth was a wealthy Roman colonial trading port city. It lay on key sea-ways as well and key over-land routes. The aristocracy of the city was based on wealth and not land. In the Corinthian letters Paul scolds them for their separation even during the Lord’s Supper into social stratum layers based on wealth (1 Cor 11:17ff). The old city of Corinth which the Roman’s had destroyed was such a cesspit of vice that the noun Corinth became a verb meaning to fornicate. A “Corinthian girl” was a euphemism for a prostitute. This adventurousness also extended to the religious realm where every type of mystery cult and philosophy could be found. It is in the Corinthian letters that Paul addresses meat sacrificed to idols (1 Cor and the warning not to marry unbelievers (2 Cor 6:14-18).

In 2 Cor 8:1-15 we have what might be the capital campaign. The gentile church was taking up a collection for the church in Jerusalem. Paul praises the Corinthians for their initiative in starting a collection, but the initial push has stalled. Paul is sending Titus and encouraging the collection to be finished. And here we have the two step. Paul does not want the offering to be a law, but wants it to spring from the gospel.

The core of Paul’s advice is in 2 Cor 9:6-11.

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

Here Paul states clearly what we have been following in this series with two added thoughts. The repeated themes: 1) He who supplies seed to the sower…will supply and multiply. The goal of stewardship is to recognize and trust God’s providence. 2) Doing so is a matter of faithfulness – you may abound in every good work. 3) Firstfruits are important – decide what you are giving in your heart first. The two new parts are the relation of sowing to reaping and the joy in cheerfulness. Cross reference for a second Luke 6:38. I want to be clear here. Jesus and Paul are not preaching a prosperity gospel. This is not a proclamation that giving to the church reaps material blessings. But, a part of the Christian life is being generous, is being a person given to grace. We have received grace, we should be willing to live that grace. If you want a gracious, graceful and full of grace church and community, a good place to start is your monetary support of it. The second point Paul adds is being cheerful about it. And that is not something you can really fake. God loves a person who can support the mission of God happily and not out of compulsion.

Practically I think we can look at this a couple of ways. First, if you are always hesitating in your offering and worrying about not having enough, you are not giving cheerfully. Reduce the amount until you are cheerful about it. But if you find that your spiritual life and church are somewhat empty don’t be surprised. You reap what you sow. In money matters challenge God. Not to give you the Mercedes Benz, but to give you a cheerful heart. You will be surprised at the response. God is not outdone here.

A second way to think about this is the sanctification walk. First pursue faithfulness. Faithfulness defined by the law is the tithe. We are not under the law, but the law is a good starting point. (Should the graceful response be less than the compelled response?) If that seems too steep at first, ok. Decide in your heart and challenge God in this area. Make a firstfruit offering and ask God to help your cheerfulness grow in this area. The life of a Christian is not under the law, nor is it instantaneous. Taste the truth here. God wants us to know and trust his providence. Will a time of testing come in these matters? Yep, probably. There will be times when you are giving a lot and never seem to be reaping anything. But most of the American church is far from that point. We are baby Christians in these matters. Babies don’t get tested like that. And there is no testing given us that we cannot withstand.

I’m out of space here. I’ll come back to this next week and do some wrap-up and clean up.

First the caveats. McKnight is a big-tent evangelical. He has a new book to sell. My sympathies lie with McKnight’s general bent. Last caveat – Luther said a lot of . . . → Read More: It’s about the gospel…]]>

This post from Scot McKnight strikes at a theological nerve. It is the latest and most clear in an grouping of posts.

First the caveats. McKnight is a big-tent evangelical. He has a new book to sell. My sympathies lie with McKnight’s general bent. Last caveat – Luther said a lot of things, most of them polemical, but if you want to get a real sense of the core of his faith, you read his sermons and hymns.

I don’t think I’m stretching something to say that “That old time religion” just doesn’t seem to be working. And I think we can say that regardless of what side of any of the various schisms you are on. (For conversation’s sake I’m really talking about the American church and not the global south.) With that fact, a believer is confronted with a few unappealing choices: God has chosen to pass over this time and place (verse of horror Amos 8:11), this time and place has rejected the word (verse of horror Heb 6:4-5), we have bent the Word in the easiest way to our own liking (Matt 5:19, 2 Tim 4:3).

I would in general skip that first choice because of Pentecost and the parable of the Sower. In this age the Word of God is thrown extravagantly, the Spirit has been poured out. I don’t think that second one can be ruled out. But if we take that seriously, we need to redouble our efforts. If we think that is the case, it might not be too late yet. Maybe the Lord will relent (think the story of Hezekiah, Isa 37:15-38:7). The letter to the church in Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22) is key. The third one is what Scot McKnight is getting at. And he is pointing at all the various schisms.

To the religious group mainly represented by the old mainline protestant and the “cafeteria” catholics the gospel has become about the word justice. It is a gospel of social justice. This is tougher for me because it isn’t my native tribe, but they have “proof texts” and the spirit of the OT prophets. To the religious group represented by the various bands of evangelical bible churches and the denominations of a more theological bent (LCMS, PCA) the gospel is all about justification. (Hence McKnight’s quotation about Luther, a Luther quote that proudly lives around these parts). Both groups have bent the gospel. It is still possible to hear the word from both, but not at a full throat-ed roar.

The effects of that bending are: the frozen chosen and the unholy saints. (And a bunch of people who just don’t seem to have ears.) Just a little challenge here. How many calls for help or action or the church doing something in a congregation focused on personal salvation go unheeded? If a preacher walked into a church and said you need to tithe (at a minimum) so that this church can fund {a soup kitchen, a free preschool, a missionary, fill in the blank good of the kingdom} what kind of reaction would he get? Similarly if a preacher walked into a mainline church and started preaching chastity (Matt 5:27-30) and the evil of divorce (Matt 5:31-32) how fast would he or she be removed?

Now look for a second at “A Mighty Fortress”. We sang that this past week – Reformation Sunday. Why was the reformation so strong?

No strength of ours can match his might, We would be lost rejected
But now a champion comes to fight, whom God himself elected
You ask who this may be? The Lord of Hosts is he.
Christ Jesus, Mighty Lord, God’s only son adored
He holds the field victorious.

Luther’s preaching and hymns were all about Jesus. Jesus defeating sin, death and the power of the devil. Jesus the Lord. The same way that there are two natures in one Christ. The gospel is not just about justification. It is not just about social justice. The gospel is about Jesus. A Jesus who would say – “be holy” (Matt 5:48) and “my yoke is easy” (Matt 11:30) or “come all who are heavy laden” (Matt 11:28) or John 3:16.

Scot McKnight likes 1 Cor 15. For a statement of how we live that Jesus gospel I like Paul in Phil 3:10-16. “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection…not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on…if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”

In our prior posts we talked about three things: 1) Stewardship or how we use our possessions is part of the sanctified . . . → Read More: Stewardship 5: The Tithe – where it comes from and what it means]]>

This is a link to post #1 in this series.
This is a link to post #2 in this series.
This is a link to post #3 in this series.
This is a link to post #4 in this series.

In our prior posts we talked about three things:
1) Stewardship or how we use our possessions is part of the sanctified life. Christians strive to be faithful in their walk with God.
2) A key part of faithfulness in stewardship is the concept of “firstfruits”. The offering to God comes from the first part, not the remainder.
3) The final goal of stewardship is for Christians to recognize and trust God’s providence.

Now in this post I promised to look at some brass tacks. One of the toughest words to mention in many churches is tithe. What is a tithe and why is it so contentious? Simply put, a tithe is a tenth or 10% of the income or increase in any given period. As we will see, in its original usages, the time period was usually a harvest season. Probably your grandfathers, could still relate to that. I remember my grandfather’s stories of bringing in the tithe at harvest season. For him that meant dropping a large check into the plate once a year after he had delivered the crop to the mill. He would joke about 90% of his rural church’s offerings coming in on three Sundays. By the end of his farming career with the advent of futures much of that had changed. More so with regular salaried work, but I do wonder given the increase in freelancing and other forms of self-employment if the next generations will look more periodic in income.

But none of that explains the source or purpose of a tithe. The Ur-stories or deep bedrock stories of the tithe come from Genesis. Abraham in Gen 14:20 is reported to have given a tenth of the spoils of war to Melchizedek – the priest of God Most High from Salem (Ur-Jerusalem). It is interesting the writer of the book of Hebrews in the new testament also mentions and interprets this story in Heb 7:1-10 where Melchizedek is a picture of Christ. So, the first recorded tithe is from Abraham – the father of all the faithful – to an obvious Christ figure. It was given as a recognition of victory and who the victory came from. The second Ur-story of the tithe is Gen 28:22. Jacob, on the run from Esau after tricking his Father, sees his vision of the ladder. But the real import is not that image but the promise and the response. God promises Jacob the same thing he had promised the other patriarchs – descendants, land, and blessing. When Jacob awakes he is a new person in regards to God. A boy who had grown up in the tents of the Patriarchs declares – “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it”. Jacob has received the promise and now believes it. The first thing Jacob does in the morning is build an altar and make a vow to return a tenth a tithe. The response of faith is worship and faithful stewardship. A tithe or 10% becomes a symbol of that faithfulness.

Now that isn’t the only place a tenth or a tithe appears. In Leviticus 27:30-34, as part of the Sinai covenant, God claims a tithe or a tenth of the grain and the tenth of the herd. Since everyone was a farmer or a herdsman that is a tenth of all produce. This tithe was given to the Levites – the priest clan. Levi did not receive an allotment of land when Israel entered, but instead lived dispersed as the local priests. (This is found in Numbers 18:20-32). The Levites themselves were not spared the tithe. They gave 10% to the Aaronic (what would become the Temple) priesthood. Also look at Deut 14:22-29 where some regulations regarding the tithe are put in place. At the initial gift all Israel shares a festival meal. The remains (i.e. the majority) is for the Levites. But, every third year, from that tenth the Levites were to care for the aliens, the fatherless and the widows. Unlike the tithes of Abraham and Jacob, these tithes were part of the Law of Sinai.

None of that mentions the offerings commanded as part of the sacrificial system. Those are listed in the first 5 chapters of Leviticus: Burnt offerings, grain offerings, fellowship offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. Those were in addition to the Levitical tithe and were given directly to the temple. They were also largely consumed in the altar fire, although parts would be saved for the temple priests.

So, that is an OT overview of tithes. When stewardship is being talked about, churches talk about tithes because it is deeply grounded in the Old Testament. We take the law as the way that God intended things to be. We cannot fulfill the law, but it is still good and wise. The law demands a tenth of the income for God. Read Malachi 3:1-12 to get a glimpse, even at a late prophetic date, what God felt about those tithes. Not bringing them in was stealing from God. So the tithe was a part of the law, but it was also a part of the gospel. Abraham was not commanded to give 10%, nor was Jacob. Both freely brought 10% as a response to the grace of God.

There are a bunch of smaller questions regarding the tithe that often get asked. A popular one: Is it on the gross or the net? That makes sense in a modern salary world. And you can read about God warning about a second tenth being taken by the government in 1 Samuel 8:15-17, but that Kings’ tithe doesn’t remove the responsibility for God’s tithe. The OT tithe is clearly talking about the full harvest or the gross. 10% would be given to God, some would be taken in taxes, some would need to be set aside as seed for the following year and the rest consumed.

I’ve gone exceedingly long here, so I will continue next time with a new testament view. Review Acts 5 and the story of Ananias and Sapphira, take a quick look at Matt 23:23, but focus on 2 Cor 8-9, with the core passage being 2 Cor 9:6-11.

But Ein Feste Burg is not . . . → Read More: Hymns We Sing – Reformation Day Edition]]>

You all know the big Reformation Day Hymn – A Mighty Fortress is Our God. If you want to start a real fight, ask a Lutheran which tune is the better – the Bach setting or the original Luther. Parson and Parson’s mother disagree on this. It’s not a pretty fight.

But Ein Feste Burg is not what I want to talk about. Instead I want to talk about a more obscure yet more numerous genre of hymns that Luther loved to write. This Reformation Day the choir is going to sing a couple of verses from Lutheran Service Book #766 – Our Father, Who from Heaven Above during the offering. The congregation will echo the same hymn at the close of service with different verses. This is a great example of a catechetical hymn. By that I mean it is a hymn that is teaches to music. Like A Mighty Fortress, words and tune are by Luther.

The Small Catechism – the short basic teachings of the Christian Faith by Luther that he thought everyone should have memorized – contain the 10 Commandments, the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. It was quickly expanded to include baptism and the Lord’s Supper and Confession (or the office of the Keys). It all fits in a few page or one “poster sized” wall hanging. Printing a catechism poster was one of the first uses of the printing press at the time. The head of every household for a couple of pennies could have the catechism in his home to teach both the basics of the faith and reading.

This hymn takes up the Lord’s Prayer.  The Choir is singing 1 & 5 over the offering.  The congregation will be singing 1 & 9 at the close of service.

Observe how each stanza begins with a petition from the Lord’s prayer, and the rest of the verse answers – “What does this mean?” Luther would follow a similar format with:
Baptism – #406, To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord
10 Commandments – #581, These Are the Holy Ten Commandments
Creed – #954, We All Believe in One True God
Confession – #607, From Depths of Woe I Cry to Thee

We don’t do that much anymore. In fact you could say that catechism style teaching is out of vogue. Asking a question, writing or memorizing the answer and building upon it in another Q&A seems to break our post-modern sensibility. As Steve Jobs would say – don’t just accept the dogma which is accepting someone else’s thinking. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was conflicted about that. At some level a catechism is invaluable. It gives you a starting point. Bloom’s taxonomy and all knowledge starts somewhere. Even Steve Jobs didn’t question Wozniak’s circuit board layout. I guess the synthesis I’d come to is a combination. Instead of the endpoint it too often became, the catechism is a start. We used to accept the memorization of Luther’s answers as proper catechizing. Now, its a good start, but you need to make the answers your own. That is the task of the disciple and of the Christian life – that we can truly say: Amen, so shall it be to “Make strong our Faith in You”.

Ask yourself what is the summary or shorthand for the gospel. Go ahead, think for a second, what is the gospel…… My guess is that most would answer something like: the forgiveness of sins.

That is good news. It is gospel. But is it the full gospel or even a good summary?

If . . . → Read More: Sin, death and the power of the Devil – post 2]]>

First post in series.

Ask yourself what is the summary or shorthand for the gospel. Go ahead, think for a second, what is the gospel……
My guess is that most would answer something like: the forgiveness of sins.

That is good news. It is gospel. But is it the full gospel or even a good summary?

If forgiveness is the gospel, where does the story start and where does it end? If I think of the gospel purely in those terms it starts when I sin and it ends with a sacrifice on the cross. Can you see anything missing in that or slightly off?

Here is my list. First it starts with us – the finite driving the infinite. We sin so God reacts. That doesn’t seem right. Second, in that scenario there is absolutely no need for the resurrection. All you need is the perfect sacrifice. [The resurrection might lend credence to the sacrifice i.e. be proof that it was accepted, but it is not necessary.] Third, the story doesn’t seem to go anywhere but a repeating loop. I sin, God forgives, I feel good until I sin again. Rinse, Wash, repeat. That is one of the most boring and mocked lines ever. If you are trapped in that boring story, no wonder some Christians just want to be raptured. Is that really all the gospel is?

I did a simple search on the word forgiveness in the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). Take a guess as to how many times the word forgiveness is used in the gospels? Go ahead, even with having read the above take a guess…7. There are seven passages in the gospels that use the word forgiveness. Let’s widen it a little bit and include the verb forgive, not just the reception of forgiveness but the action of forgiving. That adds another 17. Total mentions in the gospels of forgiveness – 24. So it is not unimportant. And some of those passages are key understandings, but 24 mentions in four books can’t be the sum total. Ask a different question. How many times in the gospel is life mentioned? 72 verses. Three times the number of verses as forgiveness.

If you start in genesis 3 with the fall you only need to read until Matthew 27. But that is a shortened gospel. The scriptures start with Genesis 1, with God creating life. They end in Revelation 22 with God re-creating the heavens and the earth and the River of Life flowing from the throne. The gospels include a resurrection and one of them the ascension. The gospel, the good news, is something more. The gospels tell a bigger story.

Two verses from the Gospel of John. John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 17:3 – “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you , the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

God created you. But the thief – Satan, our accuser – came to steal you and kill you and destroy you. Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men (Rom 5:12). The gospel is that Jesus Christ has come to give life, life in the full. You might ask what is this life? The sent one’s answer – that you might know God. The life of the world to come is build around the throne of God and the lamb in the midst of their people (Rev 22:1-2). That life starts now. Those waters of life flowed in baptism. The church, the people of God, gathers around Christ – body and blood.

We might know God not just because Jesus has forgiven us, but also because he has won our victory over death that covered all and cast that thief into the pit. Sin, death and the power of the devil have been broken through the advent of the Kingdom of God. More on that next time.

In the last post we looked at the question what does faithfulness in stewardship look like through the story of Cain and Abel. We came to the . . . → Read More: Stewardship 4: The goal of stewardship]]>

This is a link to post #1 in this series.
This is a link to post #2 in this series.
This is a link to post #3 in this series.

In the last post we looked at the question what does faithfulness in stewardship look like through the story of Cain and Abel. We came to the conclusion that “firstfruits” were a big part of faithfulness. What firstfruits represent is faith in God to be a God of abundance to his people. It also represents the understanding of the final source and purpose of all good gifts.

One quick geeky sidebar about that last sentence. Aristotle’s causes: material, formal, efficient, and final, can be helpful here. While the efficient cause of our having good stuff might be our labor and work, the final cause is the aim or purpose. We have good stuff so that we might recognize God’s providence. We can ignore that and turn inward and use it all for ourselves. We can claim other final causes: have fun, die with the most toys, measure who is the “better man”. But God’s purpose is to build a people, to build the Kingdom of Heaven. What we have been given not only sustains us, but directs us toward faith. Our stewardship lets us be part of the final cause. God has invited us to work with him in building the Kingdom.

Now I want to turn to Jesus’ example of how God looks at this. You can read either Mark 12:41-44 or Luke 21:1-4. These are parallel stories of the Widow’s mite. The simple summary is that all kinds of rich people were giving all kinds of money to the temple and they would probably be doing so ostentatiously. The widow quietly comes up and puts in a penny. Jesus calls out the widow as having given more. Why? That is not true on just a counting basis. But God was never after raw numbers. For all we know Cain could have been a much better farmer and his altar full of stuff. God wants faithfulness. The final cause of stuff is to produce recognition of God’s providence. He wants us to trust his providence. The widow, in giving all she had, demonstrated her complete and total reliance upon God’s providence.

One of the first crises in the church was over exactly this recognition. Read Acts 4:32 – 5:11. All the believers in that first congregation shared everything. Before you lose it about not being communist, let me say that I agree with you. This is not practical and it didn’t stay practical for long in Acts either. The church at that time consisted of: the Apostles, those who had witnessed the resurrection, and the Pentecost converts. If you had a church of pure saints – that would work. We have a church of sinner/saints. A lesson that they will learn. Even that church didn’t make that work. But God still supports the underlying theology.

The Acts 4 church shared everything. They were like the widow in expecting God to provide. Then comes a man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira. They didn’t share that trust to the same extent. But they felt that they had to fake it. So, like Cain who was giving out of a sense of duty and not faithfulness – they gave a certain amount pretending to be everything, but withheld a part for themselves. Peter’s words to Ananias and Sapphira clarify – “Didn’t the land belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?…You have not lied to men by to God.” The problem wasn’t the size of the offering, but the manner in which it was given. Ananias didn’t feel comfortable with 100%. And that would have been ok. Complete trust in God’s providence is a final cause. It is where we are heading. We’ll only see glimpses here. The final purpose of stuff is to learn to trust God’s providence. We are all at different points. The larger point from Ananias and Sapphira is to be open and honest with God.

Stewardship is part of the Kingdom, it is part of the gospel. The law brings death. It brought death to Abel through Cain. It brought death to Ananias and Sapphira. The gospel brings life. Stewardship is not finally a duty but an invitation to experience abundant life.

In the next post I’m going to look strictly at pragmatics. From this post you should recognize that setting specific numbers on these things is pointless. The idea of faithfulness and where each person is at in their walk differs greatly. But the law is still useful as a rule (3rd use). It is the way God intended things to work. So we will be looking at OT “tithes and offerings” and trying to see what they tell us about things like gross/net, percents and where does it go. If you have a concordance, just look up the word tithe and the word offering and scan the verses listed.

First, he has a great hold on the difference between preaching and teaching. Preaching is about proclaiming. Teaching is about exploring. You can teach from the pulpit, but it better be a secondary feature. . . . → Read More: Breadth and Depth…Creating a People that Love the Word]]>

Here is Ben Myers, Aussie Prof and preacher, on a problem with one of my favorite things, the lectionary.

First, he has a great hold on the difference between preaching and teaching. Preaching is about proclaiming. Teaching is about exploring. You can teach from the pulpit, but it better be a secondary feature. Second, he is absolutely correct that the lectionary presupposes a certain familiarity with the church year and its rhythms as well as the broad sweep of biblical history. Often times you are presented with the question do I spend 3 of my 12 minutes explaining (i.e. teaching) this church year, or would that be better used proclaiming the text? Third, he strikes too close when he mentions that preachers often pick themes based on connections that truthfully only highly trained people see. For me the connection between texts has to be hit over the head blatant to use more than one of the readings for sermon basis. The connections are the stuff for bible study with two-way communication.

Here are the “buts”. A minor first – in the reformed tradition the canon of the bible is set and as Prof. Myers says, “confessed to be divinely given”. As a Lutheran, our confessions never set the canon. We accept as inspired the books the church always has, but the order isn’t set in stone. That is why Luther could grouse about James and others about Revelation. The second but would be bigger. I don’t see it as part of my calling to teach a people so that the lectionary is profitable. Man wasn’t created for the lectionary, but the lectionary for man. If you are catechizing (fancy would for teaching) a people with little baseline knowledge, one of the first questions is where do you start? Do you need to know the OT to be a Christian? I think that is analogous to: do you need to be a Jew before you are a Christian? Acts 15 answered that with a no. A rough confirmation class taught me a few things there too. For me, the proclamation story is the story of Jesus found in the gospels. The goal isn’t to make the lectionary profitable although that might be a secondary outcome. The goal is to form a people who love the Word.

Last thought, to me with the Revised Common Lectionary (which we use a form with minor alterations just because we are who we are) you have the ability to do much of what Prof. Myers wants without leaving the cycle. You just do it from the Epistle lessons. For example during this past year we read continuously through 1 Peter and Romans. I preached on 1 Peter for 5 weeks and Romans for two groups of 4. Both of those works rest heavily on the OT as well. As Christians, we read the OT through the NT. We recognize and make use of the OT to support the gospel, but many of the things in the OT are signs and symbols that the fulfillment of has come. We proclaim the fulfillment. We can teach the larger story in less precious places than the Sunday pulpit. But that requires a people who love the Word.