Some principles for Christian giving
He said: ‘Freely, freely, you have received, Freely, freely give;
Go in My name, and because you believe, others will know that I live.’
(Chorus based on Matthew 10: 8)
A lot has been written to encourage us to give as part of our witness to Christ. Even more has been written to encourage us to fund the church. Let’s go back to first principles.
Live Generously
Go to the lost, confused people … Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. … You have been treated generously, so live generously. (Matthew 10: 7-8)
Our giving is our response to God’s love. We are asked to go out of our way to help others, to give generously of our time and respond to their deepest needs.
All wealth is God’s, not just a 10% tithe
Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. (Deuteronomy 14:22)
Everything comes from you; all we’re doing is giving back what we’ve been given from your generous hand. (1 Chronicles 29: 14)
The Israelites gave a tenth of their produce to support the Temple worship and festivals, and to provide a safety-net for the ‘foreigner, fatherless and widow’. The key though is that it’s not 90% mine, 10% God’s. It’s all God’s. He requires us to use it all well.
Our reward is being a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven
Then the King will say …‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.’ (Matthew 25: 34-36)
Jesus links being a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven to the attitude of those who give freely wherever they see need. In the passage that follows, they express surprise, to which Jesus replies: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.
So how do we work out how much we should give financially?
Sacrificial giving does not mean having to go without necessities. Instead, we should think about others and the needs of our community and be prepared to forego some optional luxuries available to us.
For many on low incomes, giving a tenth to the church would be unreasonable. While you yourself might be prepared to forego necessities, this does not mean that your dependants should go without them. Also, we should not neglect our own health and risk putting avoidable demands on community services.
For many on high incomes, however, giving away a tenth would make no difference to their day-to-day lives. The challenge for them is very different.
For all of us, the key is to ask Jesus what to do next. If we share Jesus’s concern for the people around us, we will want to give freely and not want to waste what we have on things that don’t ultimately matter.