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“Do I have to tithe?”

“Do I have to tithe?”

DECEMBER 16, 2022

/ Programs / Key Life / “Do I have to tithe?”

Steve Brown:
Do I have to tithe? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. So, here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing today?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing really good. Mainly because you’re here.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, that means we can do this, right?

Steve Brown:
I mean, I sit in front of his microphone and have all morning and was the only one talking. And when you walk in, and this has been true not only about this broadcast, but about a lot of things. When you show, I feel better.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man.

Steve Brown:
I just want you to know that.

Pete Alwinson:
Cause you like to share the blame when there is blame to share.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
But with you, there’s never blame to share.

Steve Brown:
Oh never,

Pete Alwinson:
Never

Steve Brown:
it’s my fault. That’s Pete Alwinson, and as I’ve told you a number of times, go to ForgeTruth.com check out, there’s a lot of stuff there, video and audio, and a podcast. Especially if you’re guys, they let women look in on it, on occasion, but it’s mostly a guy thing. And if you’re in Central Florida, you’ll want to be involved in one of the most important ministries going on right now in Central Florida, and it’s called Forge. That website is ForgeTruth.com and as you know, Pete comes in and has been doing it for years, every Friday we sit down and we answer questions and we love your questions. If you have a question, you can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, press the right button, record your question, and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

if you’re in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can send your question e-mail to [email protected] and the only dumb question is the one you don’t ask. And by the way, if you can help us financially, please do. This is an expensive ministry and most people who benefit by it because we give a lot of free stuff away. Most of the people who benefit by it are not able to help us. So, when you help us, if you can, you help others too. And they will rise up and call you blessed, as well as I will do the same thing. Be generous as you can. If you can’t, we understand. And by the way, you can give on your phone. You can text Key Life at 28950 and follow instructions. As I said, if you can’t, we understand. Why don’t you pray for us?

Pete Alwinson:
All right.

Steve Brown:
Can’t hurt.

Pete Alwinson:
Can’t hurt at all.

Steve Brown:
And then we’ll answer questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good. Our Great Father, what a joy it is to come into your presence at the end of the week, to come into your presence and to know that you hear us. What a powerful thing it is, that you do here, the prayers of the righteous, and we know that we’re righteous because of Jesus’ righteousness given to us through faith in him. And so we rest in your presence right now for a minute and we ask that Lord Jesus, you would continue to show your power and mercy in our lives, that your grace would overwhelm us and it would continue to shape the way we think, feel, and act in all of our relationships. Father, we come to you and ask that even this week-end that your grace in the gospel would be so powerfully preached by our teachers and preachers and priests and worship directors that everything that has done as we gather together and Lord, call us together, may we get together, but everything we do will honor and praise you. And now, we just commit this time of Q&A to you. We ask that, Lord Jesus, you would be with our listeners in every way, shape, and form. And use this in all of our lives. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s first thing go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I would like to know, if you can tell us about tithing.

Steve Brown:
Well, that was short and sweet.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Pete, tell me everything

Pete Alwinson:
about tithing

Steve Brown:
in five minutes or less. You lose your salvation, first the Bible teaches it.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Right, right. Old Testament. Does it carry over to the new?

Steve Brown:
God doesn’t change his mind.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay, so the good principle here is that the New Testament doesn’t discontinue it. So, it’s enforced still.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And don’t make it such a big thing that it eats you alive. I have a friend who has a, and he’s doing quite well, but his wife is a really committed Christian and she gives everything away and he said, Steve, I’m thankful for the tithe, if it weren’t for the tithe, she’d give the house away. So, the tithe means you get to use 90%, you probably ought to give God 10%.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Okay. If you don’t do it are you going to lose your salvation?

Pete Alwinson:
You’re not going to lose your salvation. As a matter of fact, the New Testament really goes, adds to all that clarifying that he owns us, we’ve been bought with the price. He owns everything that we have. And that we ought to give generously and just ecstatically.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
So, generosity, sort of builds on tithing as a starting point.

Steve Brown:
I agree. Pete said, my mentor said, I get you confused sometimes. Fred Smith said, if you’re a rich man and you’re only giving 10%, you’re robbing God. But as soon as he said that, he laid a law out, that he probably shouldn’t have. I think what you said about giving generously, or in the Greek, hilariously, is where we’re called to be. And 10% is helpful. You know, a lot could be said about that. I have a friend who says the 10% included the taxes. And so, if we give more than 10% of it, we’ve done all we’ve got to do in the Old Testament, under the theocracy. Or that the 10% was so they could have a party. It wasn’t so they could feed the poor. On and on. You can start splitting errors and you miss the point.

Pete Alwinson:
You miss the point.

Steve Brown:
It’s a great goal.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is. And in the one line that the apostle Paul quotes of Jesus, that is not in the gospels.

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Steve Brown:
It really is.

Pete Alwinson:
Isn’t that a powerful statement?

Steve Brown:
And you know, you and I have lived long enough to, you know, I can remember when we first started giving and 10% meant we were going to sink financially, that was nonsense. We weren’t going to sink financially because of 10 %. But we started at one or two and then they added more to it till we got up to 10. Now we’re way over that. And then, I had a friend said, you can’t do that. If somebody’s committing adultery to you, do you ask them to cut back a little bit at a time? You’re supposed to give 10 %, well, he was making a rule out of it too.

Pete Alwinson:
There you go.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Just let him love you and then give because he has.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. If you let grace sink in, you will not, not give. I mean, grace just motivates every character virtue and giving is one of them. Generosity is one of them.

Steve Brown:
God just told me that it wasn’t 10%, it’s 15%. And you’re supposed to send 10% to your church and 5% to Key Life.

Pete Alwinson:
I’m okay with that.

Steve Brown:
That works for me.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. It’s in the footnote of my Greek text here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Steve Brown:
All right. This is an email. What’s the difference between spirit and soul?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. You know, we talked about that a little bit. We don’t get that question as much.

Steve Brown:
No, we really don’t.

Pete Alwinson:
Some of these other questions we get a little bit more. You know, I would just say that the Hebrew idea is really the idea of we’re material and immaterial, and that that is the human nature. We are a living soul. We’re body and soul. That’s why in the eternal state, We will have bodies. And so, I think Paul is, when he says your spirit, soul, and body, he’s talking about all, all y’all, all of you is going to be preserved.

Steve Brown:
You know, you get some teachers like Watchman Nee, who is, has a lot of cool things, I mean, he’s in heaven now. And everything he says now is accurate, but you’ve got to be, I used to read Watchman Nee and I understood the English sentences, but I felt like I was drowning cause I just couldn’t grab like body, soul, and spirit and to separate those things. And I think that can be a hopeful teaching tool the way Paul used it. Just don’t go overboard on it. Don’t make too many separations. When God did Creation, he didn’t give a soul, he created a soul.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
The word is nephesh and it means that were one.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Body and Soul.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. We’ve got those, both.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And you can get into error. And there have been others. Thankfully, I didn’t understand much of Watchman Nee when I read him.

Steve Brown:
Well, I understood the English. That was not the point. It just, it didn’t resonate with me very good. I think it did a lot of people though.

Pete Alwinson:
I think you’re right. I think you’re right.

Steve Brown:
This is an interesting question. If I love the Lord my God, with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, how can I possibly have any love left for my family, friends, and unbelievers?

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
I never heard that before.

Pete Alwinson:
I never have either.

Steve Brown:
Listen, it’s the love of God that makes possible the love of your friends and neighbors and family and unbelievers. If you’re not loving God and he’s not, you’re not allowing him to love you. You don’t have any to give to anybody.

Pete Alwinson:
I love that. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
You can’t love until you’ve been loved and you can only love to the degree that you have been loved.

Pete Alwinson:
So, the the loving, yeah. So, the loving God part then comes when you fully allow him to love you. And when he fully loves you, then you’re loving from the overflow.

Steve Brown:
You know, one of the problems, we have a lot of pastors on our mailing list, and sometimes we get letters from pastors families who say that the, that they’re not getting the attention that they should get because their husband, father is serving God, and I want to think he’s doing it wrong. Give me his name, I’ll write him and pray that he gets the hives because as a matter of fact, that family stuff has to do with God. You’re walking with him, that love and compassion that you’ve received is shared, starting with your family.

Pete Alwinson:
I love it. That’s your first ministry.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. There you go. What do you think of Jehovah’s Witnesses? I think they’re wrong, but I like them.

Pete Alwinson:
They’re the some of the nicest people you’ll ever want to, and the most tenacious.

Steve Brown:
Oh man, I wish I could get Presbyterians that committed.

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
They’re just wrong. But they think I’m wrong. So, we’re,

Pete Alwinson:
And where they’re wrong is they’re wrong on the deity of Christ.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And they’re wrong on the means of salvation. They add works in there.

Steve Brown:
I know. And those are important,

Pete Alwinson:
crucial,

Steve Brown:
central, crucial things. So, now you know, and if you’re Jehovah’s Witness, repent. If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness and you’re angry, don’t send us letters. We’re not going to change. And neither are you. Got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.

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