I became a Christian about 7 years ago. I immediately started going to church. I really didn’t read the Bible too much at first. I trusted the pastor and thought that I was being taught the truth. They passed the plate to collect the “tithes and offerings” at least three times a week. It was made clear that the tithe was mandatory and the offering was the amount that you gave that was above the tithe. I was taught that if I wanted to please God I had to tithe.
I still remember the first tithing sermon that I heard at that church. Looking back I can see how pastors manipulate people into tithing. I heard phrases like “mature Christians tithe.” The obvious implication is that if you’re not tithing you’re not a mature Christian; "people who have faith in God tithe," again, the implication here is obvious. I distinctly remember the pastor saying, with a very judgmental tone, that some people don’t think they can afford to tithe. I also remember a self righteous “brother” in the congregation say “oh brother!” out of disgust that someone could have such a lack of faith. Of course there was the twisting of Malachi to scare us into tithing. The whole sermon was based on fear and manipulation. That is the environment I was in.
I wanted to please God so I decided I would try to tithe. My husband did not go to church with me at the time, and didn't care if I tithed or not. The decision was mine to make. We are a family of four and at the time we were living on $20,000 a year. It was a hardship for me to tithe. I would literally have to decide whether to pay the phone bill or to tithe. If I paid the bill I would feel guilty for “robbing God” and for my lack of faith. If I tithed I would just have to pay double the next time the bill came around and rob God again. It was a vicious circle. According to the pastor I should have had such a blessing poured out that I could not contain it. This was not the case. I was in bondage.
I started to have doubts about the whole tithing thing and asked various Christians their opinion. Everyone I asked thought that we should tithe. I was talking to a co worker one day and she got her mother, who was a Christian, on the phone and I talked to her. She said that we don’t HAVE to do anything and she talked about grace. I can’t remember everything that we talked about but a light went on in my head that day and I knew that I didn’t have to tithe. Eventually I began to really study the Bible and pray about the whole thing. I went through different emotions during this time. Fear, disbelief, but mostly anger that I had been lied to by people I was supposed to be able to trust.
By this time my husband had started going to church with me and we switched to a smaller church. We had been there for over a year and my husband was sick of the legalism, among other things, and decided to quit going. I wasn't sure that I wanted to stop going to church and I wanted to talk to the pastor about how I felt about tithing. I was sure that after he was presented with the evidence he would see the truth too. It soon became evident that he wasn't interested in the truth. After a conversation with him that went nowhere fast he finally ended the conversation by telling me he wasn't going to "argue theology" with me and warned me not to talk to anyone else at the church about my beliefs. He insinuated that I would be kicked out of church if I did. Needless to say I had no interest in attending there anymore and I never went back. I tried to find a church that didn’t teach tithing and I did manage to find one. Even though they didn’t collect tithes they were still very manipulative in their attempts to collect money.
I finally quit going to church altogether and just prayed about what God wanted me to do with my money. Now we give money directly to organizations that help Christians, instead of giving money to churches who just use it to pay the bills. We give what we feel like we can afford without causing hardship to our own family and we believe it is better spent now.
Even though I went through a lot of emotional turmoil because of this false doctrine I am happy for it now because it caused me to seek the truth. I am no longer a slave to this horrible false doctrine. I have a better relationship with God now that I see Him for who He is. He’s not an angry taskmaster who is waiting to curse us at every turn. He’s our Father who loves us. He loves us so much that he sent His Son Jesus to die for us, and He died so that we could be free...
“So if the son sets you free you are free indeed.” John 8:36