his article is not about tithing, nor is it about pastor's anniversary fund and definitely not about prosperity gospel; it is about a biblical principle that has been spinned in many directions to augment earthly kingdoms whether it is political or religious kingdoms especially in Urban America.
Apostle Paul quoted Jesus Christ in Acts 20: 35 when Jesus said "It is more blessed to give than to receive". The Greek word for blessed in this quote is the word "Marakios" which could also be "happier or happy". This explains the joy we get when we work and are able to help others versus when we are the ones receiving perpetually and are constantly depressed or have low self-esteem. There is an earthly joy and a heavenly reward when we give, whether we are financially poor or we are financially rich.
My motivation for this article is to tie this principle to the entitlement thinking in our societies, that we all talk about in our homes but are afraid to talk about in public because it is political suicide to do so.
The concept and principles of giving predates the Law of Moses, for the Christians and Jews, it goes back to Abraham the father of faith giving a tenth of the spoil of war to King Melchizedek. Jesus and Apostle Paul command Christians to give in good measure or bountifully (way more than 10%). Moslems are admonished to give Zakat (2 ½ % of their income) and Jews today still observe tithing (10% of their income). The question we then ask is, why does the God of all these religions want it's faithful to give?
I will attempt to answer this question from a Christian perspective. According to the Bible, God spoke the world into being, and He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, king David the poet said, the earth is the footstool of God, so why did the God who made everything want us to give back to Him? There are actually answers in the Bible.
- Our Act of worship: We are created at God's pleasure and in His image basically to worship Him. Worship is often erroneously equated with singing and dances alone in church or when we listen to our favorite artist on the iPod or old technology such as CD and cassette (ha-ha). Worship is honoring God with all that we have, and our finances are a whole bunch of that.
- An Act of obedience: As explained above, almost every religion commands its followers to give, when we fail to follow instruction then we are disobedient, and every disobedience comes with its own consequences. In Christendom, the Bible says the measure which we measure would be measured back to us, so if we measure 0% we get that measure back, if we measure 40% like Dr. K.C. Price said he does or 90% of book sales like Pastor Rick Warren, then we get those measure.
- An Act of surrender: there is something about God and knowing that He is on the throne of our heart. He tested Abraham a few times to confirm that, and He'll do the same with you. Jesus rightfully said, a man's heart is always were his treasure lies. When we as Christians can make money a tool rather than an end, and we surrender it to God, boy oh boy, He loves that and rewards such faithfulness.
The Bible talk about God being the one that gives us the ability to make wealth, about God being the one that gives us the seed (intelligence, strength, good health etc), so when that God that gave everything in the first now says trust me and surrender your will to me, He is not interested in the money, but in our surrender and our hard work.
The Bible is also specific about how we should give. The saints under the law were commanded to bring everything into the storehouse, even if it means traveling for days and waiting for a particular time of the year. The alternative was to share the tenth of the harvest with neighbors who are poor. In the New Testament, we are commanded to give, I believe first to where we are fed spiritually and to those around us that are in need.
There is a principle of giving that king David mentioned in one of his poems (Psalms 126: 5), that we should give not only out of abundance, but that we should give even when it hurts, Jesus reiterated this principles when He pointed out the poor woman who gave little amount but the most in percentage, because as a poor person she gave 100% (all she had in faith).
We are also commanded to give cheerfully and willingly definitely not out of compulsion, when I visit churches and they do all these tricks to get the people to give (many bring fund raising evangelists to raise money in their own church, from their own people). When we understand the principle of giving like the early church, we'll not need any cajoling or rain dance just to pay the electric bill of the church. When you are giving your gifts to God on a Sunday or a weekday, don't frown or wonder what the church is doing to the money, you are giving to God and He'll honor His principle.
In America today and because of ideology, we have twisted the principle of God to take care of the poor (actually created an industry out of being nice to the poor) that we have now enabled the poor in our midst through what we now call "entitlement" and are robbing them of a spiritual principle that would be a blessing to them and their households.
I think it is important to define a poor person before we go on into how entitlement mentality is robbing the so called poor of God's blessing due to government or even church policies. I have travelled to many poor countries, such as Haiti (Port-au-Prince and Miragoane), I rode public transportation between Dakar, Senegal and Banjul, Gambia in Africa, I have visited Mayan villages in the mountainous Xela regions of Guatemala, I spent a couple of nights in the train system in India (in Andrea Pradesh province) and I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. With my personal experience and ministry travel to many of these poor regions of the world, I know what poverty is? As a compliment to America, there are no financially poor people here.
The people categorized as poor in America, have cell phones, are guaranteed housing, qualify for free medical care (Medicaid), some of them get government to pay for their cars, many have satellite dishes in their homes, they wear designer clothes such as "baby Phat" or "FUBU", their cars are decked out in blings that those who go to work are envious of. What keeps the poor down in America is not lack (as in other places), but drug, alcohol, entitlement mentality and laziness.
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To be sure the Bible commands that those who are privileged should take care of the poor, but not enable them or keep them in poverty. Many of you reading this article probably grew up poor like me, and utter determination to be educated brought us from a level of poverty our parents found themselves (by choice or institution based) to where we are today. The question then is, how we as a society take care of the poor, are we giving that poor person a hand-up or a hand-out? Are we enabling him or her to now help others in the future and not be a continuous burden on the system or society. Unfortunately, there is now an industry that feeds on taking care of the poor and benefits from fighting for the poor, not for the sake of the poor but for their own daily living or some for their ego.
An NPR study (http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/poll/poverty/staticresults1.html ) tried to figure out why people are poor in America, and here are the leading reasons they found, drug abuse, part-time and low paying jobs, single-parent homes, decline in morality, lack of motivation and poor quality public school system. Another statistics say 72% of single parents home are considered poor and many children in such homes exhibit many of the reasons for poverty, such as truancy in school, lack of adult supervision at home (or bickering between divorced parents) which leads to lack of basic civic lessons or morality and lack of role models lead to lack of motivation.
Unfortunately, with the reasons for poverty clearly known to our political leaders, they continue to avoid the real reason which is the breakdown of the family institution because it is political suicide to do so (they can't define a family as Mom, Dad and kids anymore), so the next best thing is to spend trillions of dollars to take care of the poor (about $9 trillion has been spent on welfare programs in America since LBJ promised to eradicate poverty in 1964) mainly addressing the symptoms, and yes we still have poor people in our midst (about 12.5% of the population). Politicians now make a living and get voted back to power by promising the poor that their entitlement benefits would increase without any form of accountability from the poor or plan to help them out of poverty (the current welfare laws keep people poor and stands against the family institution deliberately or inadvertently).
God commanded the Jews through the Law of Moses on how to take care of the poor (Leviticus 19: 9-10 and Deut. 24: 19-21). Farmers are told when harvesting not to pick anything that falls on the ground, a farmer with a large farm is commanded to leave a certain portion (edges) for the poor after he has done his harvest, and it is called gleaning. We see this in the book of Ruth, when she [Ruth] went to glean at the farm of Boaz a relation of her late husband. This commandment teaches two principles, first that the community must take care of the less privileged and second that the poor must do something and not be spoon-fed. Under this law, the poor must go to the field to glean and not wait for farmers to bring them the harvest.
The focus of the political class and those of us that have been blessed and commanded to help the poor, must follow the spirit of the above law and do what Jesus did, instead of commanding fishes into Peter's net (which he can do - He did feed thousands with little), He told them to cast the net, then they caught loads of fishes. We should adopt the tradition that helps the poor in our midst by requiring some level of accountability with more hands-up initiatives and projects, rather than entitlement programs.
The initiatives or programs to help the "poor" in America must focus on bringing back the family institution, as someone who grew up with both parents in a poor home, I know the issue is not poverty but the traditional family of dad, mom and children, with each parent obeying God to raise godly children (my Dad got a university degree and our situation changed). We need to have programs that instill morality and some civic lessons in our young ones - remember "please and thank you". The fear of God the Bible says is the beginning of wisdom; we need programs that teach about who God is and why it is important to obey Him, not kick Him out of our schools or even homes.
Programs for the poor should focus on helping out with addiction that is ruining their lives, such as alcohol and drugs (including cigarette). Not doing anything and staying at home brings low self-esteem and this depressive tendencies and lack of hope is passed down to the children. Someone need to come up with a program that get the poor in our midst to do something, volunteer at the library, at a mission house, as teachers assistant in school etc, this is not only good for them mentality, the vibrancy would be transferred to the children and prayerfully they'll be hopeful of life.
Pastors and ministers, need to encourage the poor to give, not only financially but of themselves. I'm not talking about tithe or pastor's anniversary contribution, I'm talking about a culture of giving among the flock, I'm talking about volunteerism habits, I'm talking about getting involved in the community both financially (regardless of how little) with whatever they can give and of themselves - a series on being salt and light or the principle of being a steward would be appropriate.
Finally, we need programs that focuses and encourages post-secondary education and the institution of marriage, rather than blame the public schools alone, we as parents should take some responsibility, the same OPS that we say is bad, had a student that got a perfect score last year. My boys go to public schools and I swear by those schools (we've been in private schools as well), while working with our public school system, we need to re-align our own priorities as parents and community.
My prayer is that after reading this article, each one of us will ask what or how can I give either of my finances or of myself regardless of my financial status, because I'm more blessed in giving than in receiving. That government entitlements is not a solution but a hold down, that I choose to put my hand up so that God using people can help lift me up (in a righteous way), that the best thing I can give my children is hope that they can make it, if they work hard at their education and life skills, and of course with God on their side.
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