What this is about
The author of this site wanted to test a teaching he had heard in many churches. It makes three claims. First, a tenth of your income (the “tithe”) is owed to God, not just offered. Second, it belongs to your local church, which is God’s “storehouse.” Third, the poor come only from what you give above that tenth.
His thesis was this: “The New Testament never commands a 10% tithe to the ‘home’ church, and Scripture never puts the needy at the back of the line.” The New Testament does teach generous, regular giving, and it does say ministers should be paid. But it never sets a percentage, never calls a congregation the storehouse, and its earliest record of Christian giving puts the poor at the centre.
What this page is not doing
It is not telling anyone how much to give, or where. It is not saying tithing is wrong; anyone who freely gives a tenth, or more, to their church is doing nothing the New Testament forbids. It is not saying churches should go without support, and it does not judge any church or anyone’s generosity. No living person is named. Related dossiers: Just Give. Don’t Ask Questions. and Have You Opened a Favor Account?
The short answer
- The Old Testament tithe was food, and part of it fed the poor. It was a tenth of crops and animals. It fed the Levites, paid for a feast the giver’s own family ate before God, and every third year was stored in the giver’s own town for “the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow” (Deuteronomy 14:28–29).
- Malachi’s storehouse was the temple’s storeroom. It held grain, wine and oil to feed the temple workers. The curse belonged to Israel’s covenant at Sinai, and the same chapter condemns those who wrong “the widow, and the fatherless.”
- Jesus spoke of tithing to men still under the law of Moses. His point was what they had neglected: “judgment, mercy, and faith” (Matthew 23:23).
- The New Testament never names a percentage. Its first instruction to put money aside every week was for the poor of another city, “as God hath prospered him” (1 Corinthians 16:2).
- The early Church gave freely, and spent first on the poor. “There is no compulsion; all is voluntary,” wrote Tertullian in 197. Later Fathers did urge a tenth, but as a minimum, and one early church order sends the tenth itself to the poor.
- Pay your ministers, and don’t make the poor wait. Scripture commands both. No Bible text, and no tradition the page could find before the modern “storehouse tithing” rule, puts the poor after the church’s share.
The case for the tithe, fairly stated
The other side has real arguments, and the full dossier gives them first. Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek centuries before the law of Moses (Genesis 14:20), so some say the tithe is older than the law and outlasts it. Jesus told the Pharisees they “ought” to have tithed (Matthew 23:23). Paul says that, just as temple workers lived from the temple, “even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:13–14). Several early Church writers urged Christians to give at least a tenth, since Jesus said our righteousness must exceed the Pharisees’. And churches have real costs; many help the poor through their own budgets.
Read in context, each point is true but proves less than it seems. Abraham tithed the spoils of one battle, once, and gave the rest away (Genesis 14:21–24). Jesus spoke to men under Moses’ law, before the cross, in the same breath as telling people to obey “Moses’ seat” (23:2–3). Paul compares ministers not only to temple workers but also to soldiers, farmers and shepherds: the point is that a worker lives from his work, not a percentage. And he then refused his own right to be paid, “lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ” (9:12). The Fathers who urged a tenth called it “but little,” a floor below the Gospel’s call to give everything.
Does the modern rule match the old tithe?
In the law of Moses, the tithe was a tenth of crops and animals (Leviticus 27:30–32). It went to the Levites, who had no land (Numbers 18:21). A second portion was eaten by the giver’s own family at the festivals: “thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household” (Deuteronomy 14:26). And every third year it stayed in the giver’s town for the poor. Six features of the modern rule. Did the old tithe have each one?
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The old tithe shares one thing with the modern rule: it supported those who served at God’s house. It differs in what was tithed, where it went, and above all in this: the poor were inside the tithe, not after it.
Malachi, and what Jesus said
Malachi’s storehouse. “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house” (Malachi 3:10). The storehouse was a set of storerooms at the temple in Jerusalem. Nehemiah, from the same period, tells what happened when they were empty: “the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field” (Nehemiah 13:10). The “windows of heaven” were rain, and the “devourer” was the locust. The promise was good harvests in one land, under Israel’s covenant. Malachi accuses “this whole nation,” its priests first, and just before the tithe passage God says he will judge those who “oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless” (3:5).
The curse. Malachi’s curse is the curse of Israel’s covenant (Deuteronomy 28). Paul says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). The New Testament never threatens a Christian with a curse for giving too little.
What Jesus said. The tithing Pharisee who prayed “I give tithes of all that I possess” did not go home justified (Luke 18:12–14). And just before Jesus watched the poor widow give her last two coins, he warned against the religious teachers “which devour widows’ houses” (Mark 12:40–44). He also condemned “Corban”: using a gift declared to God as a reason not to support your own parents (Mark 7:9–13). The author asked whether “the church comes first, the poor get what is left” has the same shape. It isn’t identical, since it doesn’t cancel the duty to the poor. But it does put a religious gift ahead of a human need on the strength of a rule that isn’t in Scripture.
What the New Testament teaches instead
The New Testament talks about giving a great deal, and never names a percentage. Its measures are “as God hath prospered him” (1 Corinthians 16:2), “according to that a man hath” (2 Corinthians 8:12), “every man according to his ability” (Acts 11:29), and “according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Paul says plainly, “I speak not by commandment” (8:8), and points instead to Christ: “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor” (8:9).
This is not a lower standard. The Macedonians gave “beyond their power” (8:3). The first believers “sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need” (Acts 2:45). The church’s first officers were appointed to feed widows (Acts 6). The one thing the apostles asked of Paul was “that we should remember the poor” (Galatians 2:10). James defines pure religion as visiting “the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27), and John asks how God’s love can live in someone who sees his brother in need and shuts his heart (1 John 3:17).
Ministers are to be paid: “The labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:18). But the only order of giving the New Testament sets is family first, “that it may relieve them that are widows indeed” (5:16). And Paul had the money he collected carried by people the churches chose, “providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men” (2 Corinthians 8:21).
Test the sentence
Here is the teaching’s third claim as one sentence: “Only giving above ten per cent may go to the needy.” Six sources. Does each one support it, tell against it, or not address it?
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In the full dossier the sentence is tested against twenty sources. On the page’s reading, fifteen tell against it, four do not address it, and one supports it: a church manual from the twenty-first century.
Twenty centuries of giving
The first three centuries named no fraction. The Didache, the Church’s earliest manual, tells Christians to give first fruits to their prophets, “as shall seem good to thee,” and “if ye have not a prophet, give them to the poor” (13.4). Justin Martyr, about 155, says that at the Sunday collection “they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit,” and it goes to orphans, widows, the sick, prisoners and strangers (First Apology 67). Irenaeus, about 180, says that Christ, “instead of the law enjoining the giving of tithes,” told us “to share all our possessions with the poor.”
Some later Fathers urged a tenth, as a minimum. Cyprian lamented in 251 that Christians “do not even give the tenths.” Augustine told his people to set aside “a tenth if you choose, though that is but little.” A fourth-century church order says: “You shall give the tenth of your increase to the orphan, and to the widow, and to the poor, and to the stranger.”
Later still, the tithe became law. Church income was divided into four shares, one of them “for the poor.” The Council of Mâcon in 585 made the tithe compulsory, and even its canon says the tithes are for “the use of the poor or … the redemption of captives.” In England the tithe lasted as a tax on land until 1977. At the Reformation, Luther said “Moses is dead,” while praising the tithe as a fair tax for a prince to borrow; and his town of Leisnig paid its pastor, its school and its poor out of one common chest.
“Storehouse tithing” is modern. It was promoted in American churches from the 1870s, when a 1903 tract called the church “the modern storehouse.” One denomination’s manual today calls the local church “the storehouse” and makes the tithe “a priority over all other giving opportunities.” Others set no percentage: the Southern Baptists say “proportionately,” and the Catholic Catechism says “each according to his abilities.”
What does this prove?
It is easy to claim too much for this argument, and easy to dismiss it too quickly. Six claims. Does the argument of this page show each one?
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The page doesn’t argue against tithing, or against supporting your church. It shows that the New Testament names no percentage, never calls a congregation the storehouse, and never tells the poor to wait for the church’s share.
Check it yourself
Five things. The first takes ten minutes. The last is the one that matters.
- 1. Read Deuteronomy 14:22–29. Who eats the tithe, and where?
- 2. Read Malachi 3:1–12 and Nehemiah 13:10–12. What was the storehouse, and whom does verse 5 defend?
- 3. Read 2 Corinthians 8–9. List every measure Paul gives for how much to give.
- 4. Read Justin Martyr, First Apology 67, and Tertullian, Apology 39. Both are short and free online. What was the collection spent on?
- 5. One list. Do this one. Write down everything you gave last year, and to whom. Then ask where the stranger, the fatherless and the widow appear on it. Nobody else needs to see it.
Want the whole thing?
The full dossier states the case for the tithe at full strength and weighs it with you, follows an Israelite farmer’s tithes through a seven-year cycle, reads Malachi 3 phrase by phrase, hunts for a percentage through fourteen New Testament passages, filters twenty witnesses from the Didache to today, quotes four churches’ official statements, tests one sentence against twenty sources, and publishes the prompt that produced it all.
Read the full dossier → Simple English →