Cruden in his concordance stated that the concept of paying tithes did not originate with the Old Testament but that even the most barbarous nations including the Greeks and Romans believed in paying tithes to their false gods and practiced those customs carefully. In the Levitical Law, which is one of the bases of our Christian faith there were three sorts of tithes that God expected from the people:

1. To Levites for their maintenance, Numbers 18:21-24: "Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Hereafter the children of Israel shall not come near the tabernacle of meeting lest they bear sin and die. But the Levites shall perform the work of the tabernacle of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever, throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance; therefore I have said to them, among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance." Numbers 28:26,27, 31: "Also on the day of the firstfruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the Lord at your Feast of Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. You shall present a burn offering as a sweet aroma to the Lord, two young bulls, one ram, and seven lambs in their first year...Be sure they are without blemish. You shall present them with their drink offerings, besides the regular burn offering with its grain offering." Nehemiah 10:37: "To bring the firstfruits of our dough, our offerings, the fruit from all kinds of trees, the new wine and oil, to the priests, to the storerooms of the house of our God; and to bring the tithes of our land to the Levites, for the Levites should receive the tithes in all our farming communities." and Nehemiah 13:12: "Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse."

2. Another sort of tithes were those for the Lord's feasts and sacrifices to be eaten where God chose to place His name at the tabernacle or temple where His arc of the Covenant was stored. Items included in these sacrifices might include oxen, sheep, wine, oil and salt. If distance was too great to bring these items to the temple money could be sent for the purchase of these items which would be eaten by all of the people after a portion was burned as an offering to God.

3. The third sort occurred every third year when tithe for the poor was given so that they might eat in their homes.

The giving of tithes was clearly described in the Law as given through Moses. Nevertheless the concept of tithing existed long before the time of Moses. Abraham gave tithes to Melchizadek, Genesis 14:18-20, "Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High, and he blessed him and said, 'Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into you hand.' And he gave him a tithe of all." Abraham had given this tithe, or ten percent of all of the gain he had made in his efforts, as an offering to God who had helped him in his efforts.

In Hebrews 7:4-10 the writer discusses this thithing of Abraham to Melchizedek,: "Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham; but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better. Here mortal men receive tithes but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives. Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him." In this passage the writer is likening Melchizidek to Jesus Christ since Melchizidek vs 3 was "without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually."

This payment of tithes has been viewed most seriously by God, since in paying tithes we are paying tribute to God our Father. Paying tithes is associated with receiving greater blessings from God in all aspects of our lives, and we have the promise that if we pay the required ten percent to God, then God will make the remaining ninety percent which we are allowed to use at our descretion will stretch further and buy more than the full one hundred percent would have done. After all, all that we have is ours at the benevalence of God our Father who provides everything that we have, the earth, the sky, the environment, water, air to breathe, health for our bodies so that we can continue to work, intelligence to be able to function in a complex world, daily strength to produce and the raw materials required to produce the equipment, build workplaces and to provide the substance with which our jobs are done. In return God requests us to give back to Him for His purposes the ten percent He has established as His tithe. This is not descretionary at our own wills, but a commandment that continues.

It has been argued that after Jesus' sacrifice we no longer live under the law but under grace. To a large extent this is true, in that we no longer offer animal sacrifices for sin since Jesus is our perfect sacrifice who was slain once and for all time at Calvary or Golgotha. All of those animal sacrifices looked forward to Jesus' single sacrifice and we look back to Jesus on the cross as our sin sacrifice. He paid the total price, the penalty for sin, for us, and He was resurrected from that death as the firstfruits of the general resurrection from the dead in which all we believers shall share. In that resurrection Jesus fulfilled the function of the scapegoat for sin which was given as a sacrifice under the law Sins were transferred to its head by faith after which the scapegoat was set free outside the camp to run into the wilderness, taking sins with it. Even so has Jesus taken our sins within himself as our sacrifice that we may not be required to pay for them ourselves through eternal death.

In Matthew 19:16,17 Jesus said that we are required to keep God's commandments: "Now behold, one came and said to Him, Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life" So He said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God, but if you want to enter into life keep the commandments." Many of the specific commandments were fulfilled by Jesus Christ through His substitutionary death on the cross followed by His resurrection from the dead. By faith in Him and His sacrifice we do keep the commandments and no longer are required to sacrifice animals for our sins since Jesus Himself took our sins. We also are freed from other specific requirements such as dietary and other lifestyle restrictions. The New testament, however, makes it most clear that we are required to keep the general requirements such as the Ten Commandments which Jesus states are kept when we keep two commandments , "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.", Matthew 22:37-40.

In Matthew 23:23 Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law; justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone." Here Jesus stated that mercy and justice are focal points of our faith but we are not excused from keeping the other aspects of the law such as paying tithes, and as mentioned before, the Ten Commandments.

Malachi 3:8-12 adresses the paying of tithes, "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground. Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts; and all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts."

This scripture passage clearly promises great blessing to those who will pay their tithes, or ten percent of their income, harvest, increase of flocks and herds or increase of products sold after costs are deducted. God promises that those things that destroy our productivity, "the devourer" will be rebuked for your sakes because we pay tithes and offerings unto God through the Lord's work which is done here on earth. This passage promises that great good will come to all who obey this command of God, and Jesus did not excuse us from keeping this law.

Some Christians hold that the very poor should not be expected to pay tithes because the money they earn is so small. Nevertheless this scripture in Malachi indicates that the poor cannot afford NOT to tithe. If anyone needs their work blessed, to receive blessings, to stay in good health, to find bargains, to be kept from natural disasters and to have "the devourer" rebuked it is the poor themselves. The ninety percent we keep will go much further in the long run than one hundred percent kept for our own use. This is the promise of God, and God keeps His promises. In this passage God says, verse ten, "Try Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it...."

A recent example of a spectacular blessing received by one tithes-payer from God because of faith in His promises occurred during the hurricane Hugo. This householder prayed and claimed God's promises to protect and to "rebuke the devourer" when the hurricane was headed directly to the area where their home was. They claimed the blessing of the 91st Psalm:

Those persons had made the Most High God, through faith in Jesus Christ, their dwelling place. They consistently paid tithes, and they expected by faith for God to fulfill His promise to them to "rebuke the devourer", which in that case was the hurricane Hugo. They placed Bibles opened to the 91st Psalm at all four corners inside their house. After Hugo had passed over all of the houses in their neighborhood were almost totally destroyed except their house which had suffered no damage whatsoever. Not a shingle from their roof had blown off, no window was broken, their flowering plants were intact and no bushes or treees were uprooted on their property as had occurred on all of the properties surrounding them. God had totally protected their property from the ravages of the hurricane because they dwelt in God's secret place of faith and obeyed His Word.

Everyone who places their faith in God and who pays their tithes and offerings faithfully will not all have such spectacular testimonies of blessings, but God has promised us that we shalled be blessed if we pay our tithes. Only eternity will reveal the full extent of God's blessings that we shall have received through obedience to God's commands.

I encourage you to test God's faithfulness to bless you because you pay your tithes and offerings to His cause. As a good stewart of God's money you should find as the depositiry of your tithes and offerings a work that is being faithful to the Lord's commands faithfully to carry the good news of the salvation in the Name of Jesus Christ. God expects you to pay tithes to HIM, which you do when you make your contributions to a faithful Bible-believing work. If you are a member of a church that does not preach active faith in Jesus as our sole source of salvation and that does not have a burden for lost souls as revealed by their efforts to win the lost to Jesus, then God expects you to find a congregation that exhibits their active faith in His Word . It is through such groups who actively practice their Christianity that you truly will pay your tithes to God and can expect His blessing on your life as He promised us. His promises are true and faithful, and you can depend upon Him to keep you both in this life and in the life to come.

If you never have taken the opportunity to receive complete forgiveness for your sins now is the time to receive full forgiveness through the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ whose blood was shed on Calvary's cross for you and your sins. He died for you. If you desire complete security in Jesus' sacrifice please repeat after me, "O God, I confess that I have failed to live a perfect life, I therefore am a sinner. I need to be forgiven by you. I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, in my place. I accept that sacrifice for my sins. This makes me completely forgiven because of my faith in the Name and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Thank you for forgiving me of all of my sins. Thank you for Jesus who now is my Saviour, my Redeemer. I am pure and holy in your eyes from this moment forward because of Jesus. My sins are cast into the sea of God's forgetfullness, never to be remembered against me anymore. I'll live for You in all of my ways and will follow your desire for my life as you help me each day to please you."

If you meant that prayer God accepts you as His own child, washed clean of all of your sins, destined for God's heavenly home when you pass from this earthly life, whether through death or at the time of the Rapture when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to catch us away ever to be with Him in his eternal home of glory and grace.