The Crippled Son

Lately I’ve been fascinated by our propensity towards rules. We do it with everything. Take dream interpretation for example – “cars are this” or “babies mean that.” In our quest to get Christian life right and teach it to others, we’ve created a set of parameters to define “right” (both in morality and understanding) for us. We do it in the church constantly: “Women should be homemakers,” “Skinny jeans are immodest,” “Birth control is wrong,” “You need to be tithing,” – all of these things are parameters that we have created to help make spiritual principles live-able, easily explainable, and tangible. But the Spirit is by nature intangible! Parameters, by nature, are limiting – but the Spirit brings freedom! In our quest to live in fullness spiritually, to walk in authority, to live a “good christian life” we’ve made a mistake that is crippling us!

What am I saying? That parameters are bad? There should be no parameters in our life? No. There ARE parameters. But it is the Spirit of God within us, it is “Christ in me,” that determines the parameters of my life, my thinking, my doing, my interpreting, my spiritual battling. I am saying that when we focus on the “parameters of christian living” or the “right protocol” for a given situation, we are absolutely crippled in our ability to walk by the Spirit. God’s intention in raising us with Christ was not simply to free us from the curse of sin, but also to empower us internally to live righteously. Parameters are just a tutor! In order to walk in the fullness that God intends for us, we have to lay down that crutch and learn to walk by the Spirit. My empowerment to live life righteously, to cast out demons, to interpret dreams, to overthrow unrighteous strongholds of oppression CANNOT and WILL NOT come from following protocol and parameters. It isn’t by fasting or tithing or discipline – the Jews did all of those things. It will come from learning to walk by the Spirit of God, from learning to let Christ live through my mortal body. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Romans 8:14) THEN I will walk in the full stature and authority of Jesus.

We are missing this! We are substituting parameters for the Spirit of God within us, and it is crippling entire generations of sons. When we teach this way and live this way, it keeps us from realizing the freedom we have, from learning to steward what God has given us and not just follow orders! We become enslaved to a system of “do’s and don’ts” – the very system that Jesus put an end to on the cross. Yet we teach things like tithing, based on OT laws – do you know what Jesus said about tithing? He said, “the sons are exempt.” (Matthew 17:24-26). We need to learn to walk as sons of God by the Spirit of God, as “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” If we are teaching and living that reality, I believe that it will begin to be “on earth as it is in heaven,” because the kingdom authority of God will be revealed on earth by his sons.

We have focused for so long on what we call “intimacy,” as the antidote to legalism, but our understanding of what that looks like is so limited! We think of thing like prayer and worship – but I believe that true intimacy is walking with the Father every moment through the Spirit of His Son. This is the intimacy and freedom we are called to, that we are heirs to. We are to be one with God in our thinking and acting. And so while I understand the “why” behind things like protocol, parameters, rules, and dream dictionaries, I think that they are enslaving our minds and causing us to miss the incredible inheritance that we have – the very joy that is being in Christ. Those things can actually keep us from learning how to walk by the Spirit, to be controlled by the mind of Christ! They cannot and will not EVER bring us into the fullness of God. In fact, they are actually limited in what they can teach us about it! The ONLY thing that can accurately describe what life in God should look like is the life of Jesus – where we saw God incarnated. And now that SAME man is willing to live out the life of God through us, so that we too can be sons who have the heart and mind and authority of the Father.
One last thought – I think the reason we cling to rules and parameters so tightly is fear of sinning and messing it up. We want to stay in right standing with God. But the beauty of God’s plan is that we are free to make mistakes as we learn, because our justification, our “right standing” does not come from our own ability to do it right, but from faith in Jesus’ righteousness for us. God’s brilliance as a Father is that he gave us the freedom to learn to be sons, without fear.

So I challenge you to let the Spirit of God show you what crutches to lay down. And I encourage you to begin to learn to really walk – the same way we learn to walk as children – by stepping out, falling, getting back up, and trying again. It doesn’t feel safe, and you might fall – there are not easily definable parameters for every situation. “Right” is whatever God is doing. So we fail, remembering that it is a process by which we will be enabled to walk like He walks. The basis of our success as sons is not measured by how well we stayed inside the parameters, but how much we turn out like our Father.

The ‘Christian Tithe’ Part 2

The most common response that I’ve received on the previous post ‘Are Christians Supposed to Tithe 10%’ is a defense of the 10% tithe teaching. It usually goes something like this:

“Giving is important/confusing, and 10% is a good place to start.”

In other words, it’s easier to say “give 10%” than to explain a true framework for giving under the New Covenant and the Kingdom of God. Therefore, we should continue to preach the Christian Tithe. As one commenter on my Facebook wall put it, “[10%] is super simple math.”

Is 10% Really a Good Place to Start?

While it’s true that 10% is a nice round number that is easy to communicate and track, as a doctrine of giving it is about as effective as throwing a dart at a dartboard. As was explained in the previous post, 10% is an arbitrary number reached through a flawed reading of the Old Testament and in ignorance of the New Testament. We could teach that church-goers are expected to give 20%, or 5%, or 80% of their earnings to their local congregation and it would be just as true and accurate.

Providing a specific number – however arbitrary – may get a few more people to give, and it may make the church budget a bit easier to predict, but it does nothing to help believers grow in their understanding of the Kingdom of God. In fact, I believe that it will hinder them.

Tithing is Taking a Step Backwards

When we accept a wide-spread, incorrect teaching on giving we are short-changing the people of God by depriving them of the opportunity for a Biblical understanding of the Kingdom of God and their place in it.

The tithe – the actual, Biblical tithe – belonged to the covenant which God made with the nation of Israel. It was essentially a tax. However, in the Kingdom of God there is not tax. We are not under the old Law.

According to Paul the law was a pedagogue, which in his time was a slave employed by wealthy Greeks and Romans to keep an eye on their children, and they were known for strict, harsh discipline. We are no longer in need of the pedagogue – it has served it’s purpose, which was to lead us to Christ.

When we cling to a false tithe invented by men we are leading the rest of the flock back under the scolding eye of the pedagogue and out of the freedom of Christ’s Kingdom.

I think we like to make up rules like these because they allow us to have an illusion of control over whether or not we are living the right way and doing the right things. Unfortunately, these rules are to the detriment of a true, Biblical, Kingdom-oriented perspective on the Christian life. Instead, we should be embracing the principles of Christ’s Kingdom.

New Testament Giving

Paul sums it up in his second letter to the Corinthians:

He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

- 2 Corinthians 9:6-9

So we haven’t been given a compulsory percentage, we have been given a promise that God will provide for us in abundance for “every good work.” Also that by the measure that we give, we will receive.

In the same letter, Paul writes this:

For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack – that there may be equality.

- 2 Corinthians 8:13-14

When one has much and another has little, it is good for the one to give out of their wealth to the one in need. That is the New Testament framework for giving.

To borrow imagery from Jesus’ parable of the talents, we are stewards of kingdom resources that have been empowered to invest those resources into the people, places and institutions that we feel are in need or which will bear the most fruit for the kingdom. How great is it that when we do this we are also provided for? Imagine if we preached this perspective instead of a made-up tithe doctrine!

Are Christians Supposed to Tithe 10%?

The following post was written by a good friend of mine, Steve Rives. Steve teaches at Eastside Church of the Cross in Louisburg, KS. The full post is included below, with my comments afterward:

The Bible does not require Christians to give 10 percent of their gross income. Pastors and churches teach this based upon a misreading of the Bible, and a need for your money (in order to make budget). To help you see where churches go wrong in this, we need to go back to the Old Testament.

The Old Covenant was a national charter given to Moses on Mt. Sinai for Israel – Israel being the nation that once was. Each member of that nation paid taxes in tithes (10% increments) as follows:

A. The annual 10 percent to support the priest-class / Levites (Lev 27:30-33;Num 18:21-28)
B. A second 10 percent was brought to Jerusalem for festival purposes (Deut 12:5-6,11,18; 14:22-27)
C. A third 10 percent was required to assist the poor (Deut 26:12-15; Deut 14:28-29)

Adding up A B and C, one can see that these three tithes turned out to be a single hefty national tax – a tax for the citizens of the nation of Israel. The third one, C, may have been given less often than annually.

Pastors and churches make two mistakes when trying to apply all of this to Christians.

First, in claiming to follow the bible, they extract one tithe without realizing that there were three. In the worst instances, they speak boldly of God’s personal displeasure against those who do not give 10%. In this, they are mistaken, and they speak loudly of “the tithe”, as if there was only one. Often, they quote Malachi 3:10 (a document that called Israel to pay its taxes) as if it applied to Christians who are not under the Old Covenant.

Second, they appeal to a unique war narrative as if it were normative for Christians. That narrative is in Genesis 14. Abraham, who was not under the Old Covenant, gave 10% of the spoils of war to a king. That episode is not a command but a narrative. A war narrative text (one that recalls an ancient story) is not to be turned into a command that has binding power on Christian worship.

Bad Hermeneutics

First of all, this type of sermon is a window into the way a preacher prepares his sermons. How many of the common preaching points that many Christians have grown up with are simply stock sermons passed down through church culture, tradition or denomination and left untested by those delivering them? The 10% tithe teaching prevails in churches all across America certainly, and probably the world. Yet, as Steve explains, it is rooted in a bad hermeneutic: a misreading of Scripture and the misappropriation of Jewish law.

A Question of Need, Not Percentage

Questionable hermeneutics aside, what this article leaves out is a description of how Christians should give. It seems to me that if we give our lives to Christ we should consider whatever he provides us with as resources to be stewarded. In that sense, all our finances belong to God. Does that mean we put all of our money into our local church? Of course not, we each have obligations toward our spouse, children and our own person. Yet, we should be taking a wider view of our place within the Church. Each believer needs to see himself as an integral member of the body of Christ, and that perspective should influence where he puts his money.

In 2 Corinthians 8:12-15 Paul says this:

For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.  Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.  At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: “He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.”

His goal is simply that everyone would have what they need. The Corinthians have an abundance and believers in other cities have need, so he tells them to give what they can until the rest have enough. There is no percentage mentioned, no specific tithe. He presents the Corinthians with the need and appeals to them to give out of their relative wealth. The question is not “Is that 10% before or after taxes?” It is, “What are the needs of my church and my brothers and sisters, and how can I use my finances to help?”

You say you want REVIVAL?

I hear a lot about revival. Pray for revival. Fast for revival. Write songs for revival. Clap your hands and shout for it. Wave a flag.

By themselves those things are something like sticking your finger into a socket and hoping the lights will turn on. It’s a whole lot of power going absolutely nowhere.

I am not bashing prayer, that would be stupid. But I want to take a closer look at Jesus, revival, and prayer.

If I’m supposed to be a Christian, I should probably act like Jesus. Jesus didn’t fast and pray in the temple and wait for us to come to him asking for salvation. He clothed himself like us and went and lived life like us, and ate our food, and spoke our language, and went to our parties. He was friends with us. He ate dinner with us at our house BEFORE we looked like him, when we still had idols and were prostituting ourselves on weekends. He connected to us.

Why? Because the kingdom of God is built on relationship, with relationships. Father, Son and Spirit. It’s not about principles and authority and prayer. That’s all the other world religions. It isn’t even about worship. It’s about one thing: restoring broken relationships, and building family.

You want to end abortion? Love somebody before they get to the clinic door, don’t just stand there with tape over your mouth! Have you ever met anyone who got pregnant out of wedlock? Out of relationship? I have! I didn’t meet her on the doorstep of a clinic. I already knew her and loved her.  Have you ever been friends with a prostitute, or a gay man, or a lesbian? Like had their phone number? Have you been to their house? Have you given them a Christmas gift? Have you stayed up late to cry with them on the phone when they tell you WHY they’re gay?

Don’t despise the weak, vulgar, and broken when they cuss and drink and sleep around. Don’t raise your eyebrow and cross to the other side of the street. Do you know who did that? Do you remember that story?

If you want laws and morality to change, love people. If you want revival, love people. Love never fails.

I think we’ve got a ridiculous idea of what revival is, and where it comes from. See, revival comes when you REVIVE someone who is dead. That means, first of all, that you have to actually be somewhere dead people are. Dead people don’t walk up to you and say, “Hi, I’m Mr Dead guy. I want to live. Please, revive me.” Nope.

You have to be where the dead person is. You have to already be in the gutter, and see them before it’s too late, lying there. Then you have to lock lips with them and breathe your own breath into them, and pound on their chest with your own hands, on your own time. You’re going to get wet and dirty and close. Revival is a proximity thing. It happens when you want LIFE for an actual person you love so badly that you pump it back into them yourself. And if you want them to stay alive, then you have to help them while they learn to breathe by themselves again. You might have to let them live in your house, or pay for them to get help while they recover. Do you remember that story?

Prayer is like electricity. It can only bring power to things you are connected to. Where are you getting your haircut? Where do you drink your coffee? Are you reading your bible on your lunch break, or are you connected to the people you work with?

You are the Body of Christ. God wants your hands and feet. The more you say you’re called to a ‘life of prayer,’ the more I say you are called to be connected. Be connected to God. Be connected to people. Intercession means ‘standing in the gap,’ right? So stick your finger in the socket and grab onto someone who needs to be revived. Be prayer. Be intercession. Don’t be lip-service to the ideology of revival. Be a Reviver.