Responses to article:
Is Tithing Scriptual for New Testament Christians?
by Ed Priebe
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Talk about starting an uproar, this is one subject that will do just that. After all, how will these pastors who have $100,000.00 saleries make it if no tithes come in. How can these muli-million dollar churches pay for their new 15 million dollar organ? It goes on and on. Yet, these same churches never seem to do anything for the family that just lost their dad. You are 100% correct.
I have done a study on tithing as well. I started to ask questions about it. I was told that all I needed to know was that the church believes in tithing. I responded by asking, OK then lets see whay Jesus said about it. They asked me to leave.
The church in America is cursed today because they have made church a money making profit saving business. But then what can you say about a church that willingly falls under the supervision of their state because of the 501C3 status? But that is another story huh?
Good site, good information, and good job. Tell the truth, regardless of where it gets you.
Roger Waters
Roger Waters <rogerwaters515@hotmail.com>
Marion, In USA - Apr 27, 2004
Hi, I read your article with much interest, but I had a question about something you mentioned. You say that in Halley's handbook he mentions that tithing was reinstituted in the 300's AD. I checked by handbook but it doesn't mention this last part at all. I have a revised version. Is yours the same? Please respond. Thank you.
Alberto
Alberto Castrillon <acastrillon585@cs.com>
- Sep 22, 2003
In-house Editor's reply:
Thank you for bringing that to our attention.
The quote from Halley's should have been in the sentence preceding the one you mentioned. Due to an editing over-sight, we placed the quote marks in the wrong places. That section has now been corrected to read:
Halley's Bible Handbook, page 769, in the section, The Five Patriarchs, says:
“By the end of the 4th century the Churches and Bishops of Christendom had come to be largely dominated from five great centers, Rome,
Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria, who Bishops had come to be called Patriarchs."
It was during the patristic (Patriarchal) times, beginning in the 300's AD, that tithing was reinstituted. Three centuries of Imperial persecutions
had ended with the conversion of Constantine in 312 AD. The church was suddenly catapulted into a position of power. The building of
churches, which had been only occasional before now, happened on a large scale.
The "Westminster Dictionary of Church History" agrees that the patristic era was when the tithe was reinstated. It says in the section on Tithes,
page 824:
"From patristic [Patriarchal] times churchmen stressed that ... all Christians were morally obliged to tithe their entire income."
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