When the teachings of this little volume, and others yet to be published in the light of recent investigations and discoveries have had time to permeate and leaven the thinking Christian public he will be not only a brave, but a rash, professor, or teacher or editor who will at once advertise his ignorance and offend a large proportion of his pupils, or readers, by proclaiming the doctrine that the Tithe is not God’s law for the human race and as enduring as its author. He will not have the courage to teach that it was a Mosaic institution, that it was abolished by Christ, and that Christ intended to substitute in its place as a system of church finance the earnest plea of one of his followers 30 or 40 years later for a generous free-will offering from the churches in Corinth to relieve the needs of suffering fellow Christians in another city.
A natural question would be—“Do you expect that the character of the teaching of a large majority of the Theological Professors and writing by editors of the religious newspapers, most of them past middle life, will be changed by the change in Christian public opinion on this subject, and that they will become active teachers of the binding obligation of the Tithe?”
I have no such hope, but I do hope and expect that they will be neutral and refrain from opposing. My belief is that active opposition and indifference can and will be stayed; but my hope is in the next generation of professors, teachers and preachers, and as a result a generation of laymen and lay-women who will teach and practice that the Tithe is—not was—God’s law for the human race, and that the obligation to pay it is as binding now as it ever was.
LAYMAN,
310 Ashland Boulevard.
Chicago, July 29, 1903.
THE TITHE.
ITEMS OF HISTORY.
“Tithe” is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “the tenth.” Technically speaking, it is defined as “the tenth of produce, property or spoils dedicated to sacred use.” Trench quotes with approval Emerson’s characterization of language as “fossil poetry” and adds, “but it may be affirmed of it with exactly the same truth that it is fossil ethics or fossil history. Words quite as often and as effectually embody parts of history, or convictions of the moral sense, as of the imagination or passion of men.” While this is true of words in such a fascinating way, it will, no doubt, furnish the best basis of conclusion, to trace the history of this word and the principle which it involves. If a word embodies history, the history of a word may contain much information of value. This word then will briefly be traced in both Biblical and Extra-Biblical History.
FIRST: In Biblical Record it appears early. Its first distinct mention is in Gen. 14:20. Abram returning from the slaughter of the four kings was met by Melchizedek, king of Salem, and priest of the most high God. He blessed Abram, who in turn recognized him as his priest before God, and “gave him tithes of all” the spoil.
Its second is in Gen. 28:22. Jacob had been to the gate of heaven, and none other than Bethel could be chosen as a name for that place. Here Jacob under the impression of the awe of God’s presence, 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, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.”