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Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.Proverbs 3:9-10

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.Malachi 3:10

What is the “tithe”? See Leviticus 27:32

The “tithe” is a tenth (10%) of whatsoever passeth “under the rod”, which is anything that is under our command or in our posession.

Who is to receive the “tithes” ?
See Hebrews 7:5, Numbers 18:20-24

As I (a fellow Bible student) understand it, this is a matter of personal conviction and a matter to which we are each accountable to God. There is no question as to the what. A tenth of all our increase (Deuteronomy 14:22) is to given to the Lord. The question which requires honest prayer and deep soul-searching is the who and where. The Levites in the Bible represent the ministers of the Gospel today.They are those who have dedicated their lives fully towards proclaiming the Gospel in all its fullness. As I understand it, a tithe of what God has blessed me with is to be returned to Him through those who are living and working completely (Medical Missionaries, Bible Workers, Ministers, etc) off of and for the Gospel.

Is “tithe paying” required by God? See Malachi 3:8

All that we have, all the things that we call our own, could not be ours except that God had blessed us. Looking beyond the mere material things in our possession, as bountiful or as scarce as they may be, consider where the very life within us comes from. Life is from God. The very air we breathe, the sun that warms us and the rain that cools the earth, all these things are from God. The cattle on a thousand hills are His and all He asks from us, His stewards, is that we return a tenth of it for the furthering of His work. Does He need it? No. But He knows that in so doing, our minds will be drawn away from the things of this world to think on Him and He knows that as we do that, we will be blessed.

On a small side note, it’s worth mentioning that the “new wine” brought to mind in Proverbs 3:10 isn’t a fermented wine but rather the pure “wine” of the grape. Proverbs dwells on this subject at some length further on and we will dive deeper into the Scriptures in the future as the Lord blesses us.

Call To Action: God asks us to “prove” Him with our tithe paying. He promises to open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so great that there will be no room to receive it. The blessing is not the reason that we are to pay a tithe, the reason is that our Father in Heaven has asked us too. An honest tithe payer has never gone hungry and there have been many a business man who, after setting aside a tenth of their tithe, have realized that they’ve suffered no loss and have done more and more, realizing that the more they gave, the greater they were blessed. Always check your motivation in giving. We are not to give with the desire of being blessed, but to give with the desire of being a blessing to others. As we do so, our thoughts will be drawn away from ourselves to those around us and, above all, to our loving Father in Heaven.

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