About Tithing
Paying the Tithes or the Tax Collector
by Pieter Breghel the Younger (1620)
Introduction
The word tithes in modern usage represents a mixing of two religions; Christianity and Judaism. While the two are related they are essentially incompatible for a number of reasons; the most obvious being that Judaism does not recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. The second important reason being that the Laws of Moses, which the tithes formed a part of, were intended only for the Jews. The Gospel commission given to the apostles by Jesus on the other hand was clearly international: Jesus told them, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28/18-20).Notice also that the New Testament commission was not only international, meaning non-discriminatory in terms of race and nationality, but it was also limited by Jesus to “all things whatsoever I have commanded you” which leaves out the whole of Moses’ ceremonial legal system written exclusively for the nation of Israel. The Ten Commandments were the exception in that they were written by the finger of God. The Laws of Moses was Israel's constitution which meant that the temple service was central to the operation of government with God as Sovereign and the temple priests acting as judges and overseers of the national economy.The fundamental breach separating the two systems came when Jesus died on the cross, thereby becoming the sacrificial lamb in place of the animal sacrifices being offered day in and day out by the temple priests. The rending of the veil of the temple at Jesus’ death signified that the Shekinah glory had departed from the temple and from Israel. Without God’s presence in the Most Holy place the temple could no longer be regarded as holy. It meant that the services of the High priest, by the sprinkling of the blood of a goat within the veil, was no longer acceptable to God as an offering for the sins of the people.
There can be no contesting the fact that to all intents and purposes, insofar as God’s plan of salvation was concerned, the death of Jesus on the cross marked the end of Israel's usefulness as a nation. Historically it ceased to matter. It had become just another nation. The destruction of the temple in 70 AD by the Roman legions under Titus signaled the final insult and the final chapter in the glorious two thousand year history of the Jews as God’s chosen people. The people were then expelled from the land they had occupied and called home since their return from exile in Babylon six hundred years earlier.
