A while back, my wife and I attended a church service somewhere in the UK, it was a church made up of mostly Nigerians with a sizeable number of west Indians.

Tithing as usual was one of their hot topics and money especially was a favourite subject. This was supposed to be a holiness church by the way.

My wife went on and on about paying tithes and how we should expect to be blessed if we obeyed this supposed commandment. Anyway I paid sometimes and at other times just could not afford it, considering that my tithe was quite high and I had other responsibilities back home.

Funny enough, even with my inconsistency in paying tithes, my career progressed upwards not downwards and God protected my family and kept us safe. We never lacked and to be honest helped many others. Yes there were some hard times, but never to the point of hunger , homelessness or carlessness .


Anyway , the most shocking preaching on tithing came on a beautiful summerday. The usual asking for tithes, and by the way the tithe in my church was paid on your gross income ( i.e before tax ). The arguement was like this, if you pay the government tax on gross, why not God ? or should the government get paid better than God. Funny enough I fell for this lie time and time again. The guilt was deep and consistent.

To continue my story, on this sunday the Pastor used the example of a brother who had some serious needs financially. This brother wanted some help from the church due to some issues back home and general lack. The pastor refused to help this brother to the tune of his request and only gave him as much as he had contributed , which fell short of his actual needs. The reason given was that the brother was not a faithful tither. The shocked me to the core. I started asking questions like, is God so mean that his children cannot help a fellow brother in need just because he missed his tithe a number of times

Having left that church with all that goes with it, the Americanisation of the church services , the Nigerian gossip and competition, we went to a more mixed ( white , black , Indian etc ) church which funny enough , though they did not parade themselves as a holiness church, seemed to exude more Love.

In summary , tithing is a false doctrine that coerces believers to give under compulsion. There is no blessing in giving out of a grudging heart.

In this day and age, God only accepts free will offerings.

Enough of this tithing madness.

Seconded

^^^
Third[i]ED[/i] This is tithe and offering week, so many tithe threads on board. The devil is a liar.