There is no true “spiritual” warfare, that is, between spiritual beings or in the spiritual realm. By definition, that which is spirit is one with God, and in Him is no controversy, disagreement, or disorder. Therefore, the only kind of “spiritual” warfare going on now is actually between the spiritual and another realm, either the natural, the supernatural or both. Even these battles are completely under God’s control.
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The Tithe for the Priesthood & the Poor (Deuteronomy 14:22-29)
22″You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. 23And you shall eat before the Lord your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. 24But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, 25then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. 26And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. 27You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with you.
28″At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. 29And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.”
Here additional circumstances regarding the tithe are clarified; for those who lived a long distance from the center of the nation, so that the animals would not be up to traveling the distance, or the grain spoil en route, the Israelites could convert their tithe (grain and animals) to their value in currency (gold and silver), take the money “to the place which the LORD chooses,” and purchase there whatever is necessary to be able to celebrate the feast. Admonishment to include the Levites is repeated.
A third tithe is specified; every three years, the tithe of the year’s produce (not animals) was to be put into a community storehouse. This was to be a resource for the local Levites, and those who were in need (the stranger, orphaned and widowed). The one bringing the tithe did not partake of this tithe, neither was it dedicated to the Lord. THIS TITHE WAS SET ASIDE TO REPLENISH THE SUPPLY FOR THE PRIESTHOOD AND THE NEEDY OF THE LAND.
The environment inhabited by God is what we can refer to as the “spiritual environment.” This is where He dwells, and because we are in Him, this is truly where we already dwell (in spiritual places). Because we have not had our spiritual senses tuned, we often don’t realize the reality of where we already are, and so often misunderstand what our Father is doing and saying. We feel out of place here on earth, but instead of understanding that the reality we yearn for is available for us now (in spirit), we focus on the supernatural realm, which we can partially understand, investing in a future heaven-state. In this way we put off till “someday” what God is doing in us and through us today!
The Tithe of the Feasts (Deuteronomy 12:5-19)
5But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. 6There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 7And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you. 8You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes— 9for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. 10But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, 11then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow to the Lord. 12And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you. 13Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; 14but in the place which the Lord chooses, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.
15″However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike. 16Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water. 17You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or your new wine or your oil, of the firstborn of your herd or your flock, of any of your offerings which you vow, of your freewill offerings, or of the heave offering of your hand. 18But you must eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all to which you put your hands. 19Take heed to yourself that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land.
The Israelites were instructed as to where to go to give their tithes (wherever the tabernacle/presence of God was), and the manner in which they should be eaten (as a family/nation, with rejoicing, especially including the Levites). Unlike the tithe described in Numbers, which was given to the Levites, this tithe was consumed by the ones doing the tithing, and was not specifically dedicated to the Lord. THIS TITHE WAS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FEASTS AND FESTIVALS.
The spiritual realm has its own set of senses that function there. When God originally created Adam in the garden, He breathed into them His own life; He made them a living soul. He breathed into them zoe; a part of Himself. Before they were lowered, the man (image of God), and then, after they were divided, Adam and Eve, had the spiritual senses required to have perfect communion (communication to the degree that all their needs were met just by being with Him) with the Living God.
Because we humans have a tendency to believe everything revolves around ourselves, we have transferred our ideas of our senses as we experience them today onto the senses Adam and Eve must have experienced with God in the garden. They walked with Him, spoke with Him, saw, felt, heard and probably even smelled His presence, and were heard, etc., by Him in return. Who knows what it was truly like? But we do know that after they sinned, and God’s Spirit was withdrawn from them, they no longer had the senses necessary to commune with Him on the level that truly satisfied their deepest needs.
What loneliness and desolation they must have felt! On their own for the first time in their lives (we have no idea how long they were in the garden before they sinned), they suddenly had to rely on their soulical and natural senses to try to meet their needs on all levels. God must have seemed a million miles away; even if He appeared to them, all they had left were their natural and soulical senses, poor substitutes for the spiritual senses indeed!
But they muddled through, learning to use what they had, though obviously mis-interpreting their surroundings and God’s dealings with them at every turn. And so it is today — because the senses we are often relying on are still the wrong ones.
Through Christ we became spiritual beings, and the true spiritual senses are now again available. But in order to experience them, the other senses, both soulical and natural, have to be seen as the substitutes (sometimes idols) that they are. Spirit speaks to spirit, and God did not pay that great price to commune with us over the telephone, or even Face to face, but Spirit to spirit.
THE CODIFIED LAW (The Written Law of Moses)
Tithing Instituted as Part of the Covenant (Leviticus 27:30-34)
30″ ‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord. 31If a man redeems any of his tithe, he must add a fifth of the value to it. 32The entire tithe of the herd and flock—every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod—will be holy to the Lord. 33He must not pick out the good from the bad or make any substitution. If he does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute become holy and cannot be redeemed.’ ” 34These are the commands the Lord gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites.
Under the law, one tenth of everything from the land—plant or animal—was considered holy and belonged to God. This portion could be redeemed, but a fifth part of the value had to be added. There could be no substitutions or alterations (switch one cow for another, for instance; if you tried and someone found out, both would be considered part of the tithe). It wasn’t until Numbers 18 (following) that further instruction was given in regard to implementing the tithe; what to do with the cows, grain, etc.
PRE-CODIFICATION OF THE LAW
Abram (Genesis 14:17-20)
17And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale. 18And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. 19And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 20And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.
Abram gave a tithe, or one-tenth, of everything he had to Melchizedek, king of Salem. So if Abram had 600 sheep, 450 cows, 316 goats and 800 pieces of silver, Abram gave Melchizedek 60 sheep, 45 cows, 31.6 goats and 80 pieces of silver. “Giving” is the verb, “tithe” is a quantity. Who commanded, or told, Abram to do it? As far as we know, nobody. How many times did he do it? As far as we know, this was a one-time-deal. Why did he do it? To bless “the most high God.” This was his grateful response to the Lord blessing Him, not as a part of a covenantal relationship, to fulfill a commandment, to incur blessing or prevent consequences.
Abram didn’t tithe; Abram gave!
Jacob (Genesis 28:10-22)
10And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. 11And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. 12And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 13And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
16And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. 17And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. 18And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. 19And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. 20And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 21So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: 22And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.
In Genesis 28:22 the same word used above as “tithe” is translated “tenth.” In response to the promises of the Lord, Jacob makes up his own covenant. Even though God never asked for it, Jacob says that if God will take care of him, and bless him, he will, when he has arrived safely home again, give Him a tenth of everything he has. This reveals more the difficulty Jacob had in receiving unconditionally from God rather than a reflection of God’s heart and intentions toward him.
God never told Jacob to do anything! Nonetheless, Jacob made a vow, that at some point in time he would give a tenth of everything God blessed him with back to Him. We have no record of his carrying out the “giving” part, though God certainly blessed Him as He had said.
Summary of the Tithe before the Law was Written Down
1. In both of these instances, God never commanded anyone to “tithe.” There was no covenant. Later, God did indeed make a covenant with Abram; God made many promises to Abram and his successive generations. All Abram had to do was circumcise his sons.
2. The law had yet to be codified (written down). This is significant because it means that neither Abram nor Jacob were following guidelines previously given by God. These events were “outside” or “before” the law was given.
3. Neither Abram nor Jacob tithed; Abram gave (freely), and Jacob promised to give, if God did what He had already unconditionally promised to do. There were no consequences tied to either one of them NOT GIVING!
When we understand how God made us, and the changes wrought through salvation, we are better equipped to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil. We need to start with a solid understanding and description of what we are, and what our environment is. If you are a regenerated Christian, you can say, “I am a spirit, I have a soul and I live in a body.”
The Body & the Natural Realm
God created us with bodies. Each of us lives in a unique body, inherited genetically from our parents, who inherited their bodies from their parents, and so on. The body is made up of skin, muscle, circulatory system, heart, brain, etc. Our body was made to function in this earthly environment for a limited time and under earthly restrictions, and it is our body that communicates and relates to this world. The body has five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. The body is not a spiritual entity, but is often affected by what goes on in both the soul and the spirit. Before we were born into this world, we did not have the body we have now, and after we die, it will go into the ground (in one way or another). The body is not eternal.
Because the body is a part of the natural realm, it is subject to natural laws. Some of these are time, decay, hunger, pain (sunburn, broken bones) and tiredness. Illness, stress and accidents are also a part of this realm. Jesus said the rain falls on the just and the unjust; the positive and the negative of the natural realm do not discriminate between believers and non-believers. Likewise, natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and the like do not always represent signs or judgment from God.
Warfare in the natural realm consists of taking care of our bodies; generally speaking, most of us don’t have any trouble seeing the need for brushing our teeth, eating properly, exercising regularly and getting proper sleep (though we may not actually do them). We do need to be aware, however, that when our bodies break down, it is often a clear indication that there is something wrong in the soulical realm.
We need to not only take care of our bodies (God loves your body), but also be aware of what is going on in the natural realm. God is constantly speaking through creation; this is one of the reasons there is such debate regarding the creation of the universe, the evolution of man, and the existence of alien life. In his present state, man often relies on “faith in the insupportable” to divert his thoughts from being confronted daily by the infinite majesty and order of the created natural realm (it takes more faith to believe in the poorly researched and illogical hypotheses of much of the scientific community than it does to believe in an infinitely creative God. By the way, among evolutionists, there is no agreement on what the main tenets of evolution should be, except that evolution opposes creation. True science wonderfully reveals God’s existence and workings in the natural realm; it’s often when we try to apply scientific, natural reasoning to the supernatural and spiritual realms that science turns into deception and manipulation).
We can conclude that that which pertains to the natural realm is subject to natural laws, and is under the control of the One Who created it.
[to be continued]DEFINITIONS
One of the main reasons “tithing” has become a divisive issue in the church could be boiled down to a grammatical misunderstanding. To clarify, we will discuss “tithe” in the two forms in which it is used in scriptures, as a noun and as a verb.
“Tithe” as a Noun
“Tithe” simply means “tenth.” So, if I give you a dime, I am giving you a tithe of a dollar. Please note that “giving” is the verb, or action, and “tithe” is simply a quantity or amount. A tithe of 467 cows is 46.7 cows; a tithe of 12 months is 1 month +1 week (approximately). In many places in scripture the word is simply a number.
It is also used as a verb, or an activity God requires as partial fulfillment of His covenant with Israel.
Elements of a Covenant
The main elements of a covenant are based on “If you do such and such, I’ll do so and so.” Both parties agree to it, so there is an underlying assumption that each participant gets something out of it. When Christians speak of The Covenant, it is the covenant made in the Old Testament that is usually being referred to; specifically, the commandments and precepts given to Moses to bring the nation of Israel into a covenant-based relationship with God. The parties involved are Israel and God; the conditions of compliance are that if Israel will keep all the commandments and the precepts, God will be their God, and Israel will be His people. The consequences are long, happy, healthy lives; basically material blessings. (Remember, salvation was not available until the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.) The consequences for disobeying were also spelled out: failure to keep ALL of the law would result in God bringing judgment upon His people. Like the benefits, the consequences were likewise material in nature: disease, drought, war and famine.
There were many requirements of the law, only one of which was the tithe.
“Tithe” as a Verb
In the following section we will look at the specifics given in the scripture that make up the covenantal elements usually referred to as “the tithe.” In general, we can say that “to tithe” is to fulfill the law by paying a set amount in specific ways to specific people for specific uses at specific times in order to maintain a specific relationship with God. If the Israelites did their part, to fulfill the commandments (there were hundreds, by the way) and the precepts, then God was obligated by His Word to fulfill His part, and take care of them and bless them.
It may help to remember that the Levites were not the first to tithe; many idolaters dedicated a tenth of their increase to their gods, and held festivals and meccas to celebrate the blessing of their gods. Giving a portion of the spoils of war and of the increase of the field was common throughout the ancient world, from Greece to China to Mayan civilizations. And giving in proportions of ten was common, as it was the basis of most of the known counting systems (by virtue of the common counting appendages).
As we study the scriptures, or anything else for that matter, we need to do some objective evaluating of the content. Here are some guidelines:
1) Who wrote it? (Author) Is this person speaking for God, or themselves, or for a position or belief they are trying to re-enforce or question?
2) To whom was it written? (Audience) Believer or non-believer? Those under law or under grace? To those in authority or to the common man?
3) What was the social situation? (Environmental Context) What city? What is the history of the region? What was going on politically, religiously, financially at the time?
4) When was this written? (Age Context) Was this written under Law or under Grace? Pre-Resurrection or Post-Resurrection?
5) What is the practical application for us, since we, as believers, now live in the age of grace? (Application)
6) Review the passage before and after the scripture being studied. Remember, in the original there were no chapter breaks, passage numbers or even punctuation or capitalizations.
7) Study key words according to their original definition. A Strong’s Concordance, referencing the King James Version, is an invaluable resource, as is a good interlinear reference, which gives a modern-day translation with a “straight-rendering” or “word-for-word” translation of the original language, whether Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek).
8) Does what I have learned from this passage cause me to depend on God, or on myself (the strength of my emotions, will or intellect). I have found this a good test to see whether I have interpreted a passage according to grace or from a law mentality, which begets legalism and death.
9) When using outside references, dictionaries, expositories, etc., use as great a variety as possible, as often these individual works are written to enforce a viewpoint, approach, belief, doctrine or denomination.
10) When studying scripture, use as many versions and translations as possible, as each will have a nuance that may give further revelation by the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment. This also trains us to become interpreters, rather than simply sponges that absorb the surface layer.
These are just a few criteria to keep in mind whenever we study the scripture, regardless of what version we use. This is important because we want to handle the scriptures rightly, and not be putting words in God’s mouth. In this way, we can have confidence that as the Holy Spirit brings the words to life, He is doing so according to His will, and not because it’s something we want to hear, or have heard from someone else.