Do Christians still need to tithe?

The Biblical foundation

The old-English word ‘tithe’ simply means ‘a tenth’. So, ‘to tithe’ means ‘to give a tenth of what you have’. Under the Mosaic Law, the obligation for God’s people to give a tenth is mentioned in Leviticus 27:30–33, Numbers 18:21–25 and Deuteronomy 14:22–29. The first passage talks about setting aside a tenth as holy to the Lord; the second, about every tithe being used to support the Levites. The Deuteronomy text talks about setting aside a tenth to be eaten with rejoicing in the presence of the Lord (Deuteronomy 14:22–27) and, every third year, all the tithes being used to support the Levites, foreigners, fatherless, and widows (Deuteronomy 14:28–29). As you might imagine, there’s lots of discussion about how to reconcile these texts. The answer is probably not to add them all together, but to recognise just one ‘tenth’ to be put aside by God’s people — though perhaps for different things in different years. Putting aside even a simple ‘tenth’, however, proved difficult for them (see especially Nehemiah 13:4–13 and Malachi 3:6–12).

But why a tenth?

What’s so special about this particular fraction? Is 10% somehow especially spiritual or holy? Now, it may simply be that a tenth is enough to show you really care about (or honour) something or someone, without being so much that it incapacitates the giver. Hence Abram giving a tenth to the King of Salem in Genesis 14:19-20, and Jacob promising to give back a tenth to the Lord in Genesis 28:22. But there may be a more practical reason. Israel had twelve tribes, one of which (the tribe of Levi) was set aside, without any land, to serve as priests. It was then left to those who did have access to land to support them. Fixing giving at a tenth was a practical way to achieve this. The Levites were relatively small in number compared to the other tribes (Numbers 3:39), so setting aside a tenth was more than enough to cover them and others without access to land (the foreigners, fatherless, and widows), with some to spare for some occasional communal feasting.

Christians live in an age when all that the Levitical priesthood were set aside to do has been fulfilled in Christ. So, it’s not surprising that in all the New Testament teaching about giving and generosity there’s no mention of a flat 10% rate of giving.

But it’s still a question worth asking: how does Christian giving today relate to the 10% benchmark in the Mosaic Law?

The first thing to say (although it would be great to have more data on this) is that it would seem that what Christians actually give in practice today is, on average, significantly less than 10%. It’s way below 10% of our gross income and even below 10% of our net income (again, on average). When we were living in Australia some years ago, there was a church that had calculated that if everyone in the congregation lost their jobs, and yet faithfully tithed their unemployment benefit, then the overall giving to the church would double. I’ve seen survey results from a large church in the UK, where some of the most committed members (in leadership roles of various sorts) gave on average 6.7% of their net income to the church. For the church family as a whole, one should probably halve that figure. At least. Even if we allow that people give to Christian ministry beyond their own church families, we’re still talking about giving rates well below 10%.

This is all in a period of history where — in Western economies, at least — people are vastly more prosperous than they were in the ancient world. This is true even at the lower end of the income distribution. Giving 10% of net income should be within the reach of pretty much everyone. Of course, at the other end of the very uneven income distribution we see in modern economies, rates of giving could potentially be way above this. Some incomes are so huge that someone at the very top end of the scale should be able to give, say, 60-70% of their income or more and still live very, very comfortably.

So, the gap between what we do give and what we could comfortably give is a large one. But before we express shock or outrage, or collapse in a heap of guilt, let me say that the gap may not just be the result of a deficit of generosity. Remember that the principle in the Mosaic Law was giving at 10%: mostly to cover those without any other means of support who had been set apart to serve the community as a whole. A medium-sized church today of, say, 120 ‘giving units’ with, say, three full-time staff members (or equivalent), can cover staff costs with a giving rate just a bit more than 2.5% of gross income (on average). Add to this the other costs involved in running a church, and you get a figure pretty close to the giving rates we see in practice. That is, we tend to give just a little less than what we perceive to be actually needed to make things happen. (‘A little less’ because we do find it hard to be generous, and typically need to be nudged by the church treasurer every year to help balance the budget.) We can maintain the status quo, then, with average giving rates substantially less than 10%.

The question is: should we be content with simply maintaining the status quo?

The answer to this is an emphatic No! We live in a nation where only a tiny fraction of the population can be said to know the Lord Jesus. We live in a world still largely unreached by the gospel. Christian mission has from the beginning been dynamic, never static. It means multiplying the word, multiplying workers — and all of this is costly, in every sense.

Which means it would be good to start closing that gap between what we do give and what we could give, and take giving rates beyond the 10% benchmark in the Mosaic Law.

But the way to achieve this is unlikely to be by targeting the giver’s sense of obligation, duty, or guilt. It’s super-easy to make people feel guilty about their giving (just as it’s super-easy to make them feel guilty about their prayer lives). But it rarely leads to positive change. In any case, it’s manipulative, and we simply shouldn’t do it. Still less should we twist the Scriptures to say that the 10% still stands as an obligation, despite the New Testament evidence to the contrary. Even worse than this would be to tell the wicked lie, as some sadly do, that tithing will give you a many-times over material return in this lifetime.

Rather, remember the observation we made earlier: that we tend to give just a little less than what we perceive to be actually needed to make things happen. So, yes, we do need the gospel-based encouragement to be generous. But perhaps even more than this we need a vastly enlarged vision of what is ‘actually needed to make things happen’. For some, some new Christians for example, this will mean realising that staff costs are substantial, and that an occasional £5 on the collection plate doesn’t really cut it.

But for those already giving enough to maintain the status quo, we need help to think big— to think of national and global mission, the multiplication of the gospel word throughout the world, and the funding and training in ministry necessary to make it happen. 

As someone who has dedicated his life to training people for ministry, you might say that I would say this. But the very reason why I’ve dedicated my life to training people for ministry is because I can see its crucial role in fuelling mission!

So, rather than focus on a particular rate of giving (the tithe), or on the failings of the giver, and even more than a focus on generosity, I suggest we focus on needs: ministry needs, missionary vision, or a call for compassion on the material needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Which, when you come to think of it, is the emphasis we find from Paul in 2 Corinthians 8–9. And Paul’s approach resulted in the Macedonian Christians giving generously in the midst of ‘extreme poverty’ (2 Corinthians 8:2) — which suggests to me a rate of giving somewhat higher than a tenth.

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You can read more from Dr Ben Cooper here: Should Christians ever receive interest?