Tithing, obedience and bad exegesis

Honestly, why do some people - particularly pastors - get so hung up on tithing? Yesterday's daily devotional from Purpose Driven Life (TM) contains this paragraph:

"Often we try to offer God partial obedience. We want to pick and choose the commands we obey... I'll attend church but I won't tithe... Yet partial obedience is disobedience."

And back in August 2009, the same good old Rick Warren went a little further. After quoting on tithing from Deuteronomy 14:23, he wrote:

"We develop spiritual fitness when we honor God by giving him a tithe every week... Why would anybody have to do that? Because God says so and that’s reason enough. If you don’t do it, you’re disobeying God."

Sorry, but that's just wrong, and irresponsibly wrong at that. Tithing is an Old Testament command; the New Testament equivalent is simply giving, and it is not so much a command as a request based on gratitude to God and love and care for others.

Bad exegesis

Failing to tithe is in the same category as failing to follow regulations on sacrifices for mildew infestations

It's plain bad exegesis (not to mention pastorally abusive) to rip a couple of verses about tithing out of Deuteronomy and Malachi and then claim that not following them is disobeying God's command. Tithing is part of the old Mosaic law and relates to the temple-centric structure of ancient Israelite society. Jesus doesn't mention tithing (except in a slightly disparaging passing reference to the Pharisees' habit of tithing herbs); it forms no part of the instructions to Gentile converts in Acts; and even Paul doesn't refer to it. Tithing simply is not a binding command on Christians, and failing to tithe just is not disobedience to God. Full stop.

Picking and choosing

Rick Warren talks freely of the danger of 'picking and choosing' which biblical commands we will obey. But he himself is picking and choosing which Old Testament laws he deems still to apply to Christians.

Failing to give, most importantly failing to love and care - these are the real spiritual problems to address in our lives. Failing to tithe comes into roughly the same category as failing to follow Levitical regulations on proper sacrifices for infestations of mildew.

The cynic in me can't help wondering occasionally whether tithing would be preached on so often if it did not directly financially affect churches and their leaders...

(NB I should point out that this does not apply to the leaders of the church I belong to, who take a very sensible and liberating attitude towards personal giving.)

Is God in the future?

Yesterday I received a daily devotional email from the Purpose Driven Life (TM) with the following lines from Rick Warren:

"The Bible says, even before you were born, God knew all of your future. This means God sees your tomorrow, today. He already sees the things you'll face... God not only knows about the future, He's there in the future."

I realise I'm stepping incautiously out into major heresy here, but I really don't see how it's meaningfully possible for God to be in the future. I'm not convinced that the future has any fixed and objective reality of the sort that anyone - even God - can possibly inhabit, visit or even view.

I would now hastily make these provisos:

1. God can of course state for definite that certain chosen things will happen in the future, for if he has determined that they will happen then no-one has the power to prevent them - unless he should decide to allow them that power. So God could decide that the world will end tomorrow and no-one would be able to stop him.

2. God has all knowledge and all wisdom, and can project and predict all the possible paths and trajectories of every past and present event, action or choice - indeed the course of every sub-atomic particle - as well as their relative probabilities. So he does indeed know all the potential futures as far as they can be known.

3. Following from this, he can of course also steer, shape and influence events and their paths to achieve his purposes. However, I believe that as a general rule he does so in such as way as not to violate the free will and choice of his morally responsible creatures.

4. Finally, much of the future is merely a continuation or repetition of the past. We can all predict certain cyclical aspects of the future - day will follow night, spring will follow winter, adulthood will follow childhood. We can also use the law of cause and effect: current actions will have future consequences, many of which are predictable. And other things simply remain fixed and unchanged for what we term the 'foreseeable future' - e.g. the summit of Everest will almost definitely still be the highest point on the Earth's surface for many years to come.

Of course there are examples in the Bible where God does foretell future events - but these can usually be explained by one of the above provisos. Even Jesus knowing that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed could be God fully knowing the characters, behaviours and habits of all the players in the story (point 2 above) - or it could be something that God determined to happen for some reason (point 1 or 3).

I do not see that an inability to dwell in the future diminishes God's greatness or sovereignty any more than it does that he cannot make a square circle or cannot make 1 = 0. If the future genuinely does not exist except in potential until it ceases to be the future by becoming the present, I would say that it is neither possible nor meaningful for God to dwell in it, visit it or fully know it.

Theologians talk of God being 'outside time', which I accept to an extent (and he is also within time). But the time God is outside (and in) is real, actual time, not merely potential time. God can be in and around all real, existing times and spaces, but I do not believe the future fits in this category.

But as usual, I'm very likely to be wrong and God probably knows I'll change my mind in the future... ;-)