Category Archives: Topics

August 15, 2025

Did God Kill Jesus? The Cross of Christ, by John R. W. Stott, A Review

By Clarke Morledge

All Christians believe that Jesus died for our sins. But what exactly does that mean? Christians disagree as to how Jesus died for our sin. Getting our theology right about the meaning of the cross tells us a lot about how we view the Gospel.

I first read John R. W. Stott’s The Cross of Christ some thirty years ago. Stott, one of the most respected evangelical leaders of the late 20th century, died fifteen years ago in 2010, having been one of the U.K.’s finest and most influential preachers. Stott teamed up to support evangelist Billy Graham for crusades across the United Kingdom in the 1950s, to pioneer the Lausanne movement which championed world missions. But Stott was also a prolific author, and in my view, The Cross of Christ stands as his finest book, giving us a mature, robust understanding of what it means to say that “Jesus died for our sins,” defending in irenic fashion the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement against various critics.

The Cross of Christ has a message that is needed today. There are very good reasons why The Cross of Christ is a classic, and why Christians should continue to read it.

 

John R. W. Stott’s The Cross of Christ remains a classic defense of an evangelical view of the atoning work of Christ on the cross, offering a nuanced perspective on penal substitutionary atonement theory.

 

The Controversy Over Penal Substitutionary Atonement

The idea of “penal substitutionary atonement” is controversial today, even in evangelical circles. Google’s AI engine tells us that penal substitutionary atonement, abbreviated here as “PSA,”  is a “theological concept explaining Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as a substitutionary punishment for humanity’s sins. It posits that Christ bore the penalty (punishment) that humanity deserved for sin, satisfying God’s justice and allowing for forgiveness and reconciliation.” To talk about “penal substitutionary atonement” (PSA) is a mouthful, and as result, can be a bit confusing to figure out.

For example, Missouri pastor Brian Zahnd acknowledges the atonement work of Christ on the cross, but he rejects the concept of “penal substitution.”  Jesus died for our sins, but not in a PSA way. Zahnd believes that the concept of “penal substitution” makes God into a monster, a monster who would kill even his own Son:

Elsewhere, Zahnd has written:

“Some theories [of atonement] are merely inadequate, while others are repellent. Especially odious are those theories that ultimately portray God as sharing the petty attributes of the primitive and pagan deities who can only be placated by the barbarism of child sacrifice….. The cross is many things, but it is not a quid pro quo to mollify an angry God….

…. The cross is not a picture of payment — the cross is a picture of forgiveness. Good Friday is not about divine wrath — Good Friday is about divine love. Calvary is not where we see how violent God is — Calvary is where we see how violent our civilization is. The cross is not where God finds a whipping boy to vent his rage upon — the cross is where God saves the world through self-sacrificing love…

…. When the cross is viewed through the theological lens of punishment, God is seen as an inherently violent being who can only be appeased by a violent ritual sacrifice.”

Is PSA about finding a “whipping boy” to vent God’s rage upon? Zahnd rejects the penal language about atonement, such as  “the theological lens of punishment,” and the language of substitution does not fare much better. If all you heard or read about PSA was from Brian Zahnd, you might think that he is right, and that PSA is not a good way to think about the cross of Christ.

 

Christians Singing About Penal Substitutionary Atonement

And yet, Christians sing about it all the time. All of the buzzwords which Zahnd finds as “odious” are embedded in dozens of worship songs sung nearly every week in evangelical churches.

Consider the “wrath” of God in Stuart Townend’s and Keith Getty’s widely sung “In Christ Alone”:

“On that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.”

Or consider the language of “payment,” as in various contemporary versions of the 19th century hymn “Jesus Paid It All,” originally written by Elvina Marble Hall, in 1865:

“Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow”

And this other line:

Oh, praise the One who paid my debt,  And raised this life up from the dead.

Or even a fairly recent song by Shane and Shane, “All Sufficient Merit”:

“It is done, it is finished, no more dеbt I owe
Paid in full, all-sufficient merit now my own”

Reach back into 18th century for this classic from Charles Wesley, “And Can It Be?”

And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?

Lots of substitution language in Wesley’s famous hymn. Too much for Brian Zahnd?

You would have to purge hymnals and Powerpoint slides of projected screen lyrics of a lot of standard worship song phrases to remove the references which Zahnd finds objectionable.

 

Will The Real “Penal Substitutionary Atonement” Please Stand Up?

But is Zahnd somehow onto something? Much of the controversy comes down to how key terms like “penal” and “substitutionary” are defined which makes the difference.

Frankly, you can find evidence to support Zahnd’s critique by listening to various sermons given by some vigorous defenders of PSA. Minneapolis preacher John Piper has given the following explanation as to when Caiaphas, the high priest of the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, in John 11:50, said that was better to have Jesus killed than it was that the whole nation should perish:

“In the mind of Caiaphas, the substitution was this: We kill Jesus so the Romans won’t kill us. We substitute Jesus for ourselves. In the mind of God, the substitution was this: I will kill my Son so I don’t have to kill you. God substitutes Jesus for his enemies.”

Did God really kill Jesus? Did the Father really kill his Son? Zahnd would probably interpret Piper as saying yes, that God, the Father, killed the Son,  in order to satisfy the wrath of the Father against sinful humanity. For Zahnd, Piper’s explanation makes Jesus, as the Son, into “a whipping boy to vent [God’s, the Father’s]  rage upon,” the very idea which Zahnd rejects as being the core of PSA.

This is where Stott’s chapter on “The Self-Substitution of God” is alone worth the price of the book.  Take note of what John Stott says about certain well-intended defenders of PSA, who end up delivering a caricature of what the work of Christ is really about on the cross:

“In the one [caricatured] case Christ is pictured as intervening in order to pacify an angry God and wrest from him a grudging salvation. In the other [caricature], the intervention is ascribed to God, who proceeds to punish the innocent Jesus in place of us the guilty sinners who had deserved the punishment. In both cases God and Christ are sundered from one another: either Christ persuades God or God punishes Christ. What is characteristic of both presentations is they denigrate the Father. Reluctant to suffer himself, he victimizes Christ instead. Reluctant to forgive, he is prevailed on by Christ to do so. He is seen as a pitiless ogre whose wrath has to be assuaged, whose disinclination to act has to be overcome, by the loving self-sacrifice of Jesus.

Such crude interpretations of the cross still emerge in some of our evangelical illustrations, as when we describe Christ as coming to rescue us from the judgment of God, or when we portray him as a whipping-boy who is punished instead of the real culprit, or as the lightning conductor to which the lethal electrical charge is deflected.”  (Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 149-50)

Ah, here we see Zahnd’s despised “whipping-boy” complaint against PSA. However, in contrast, Stott sees certain “whipping-boy” illustrations as indicative of caricatures which distorts a genuine understanding of PSA. It makes the casual observer wonder what PSA really is all about.

 

It Is Possible to Misread the Bible in Support of PSA

Furthermore, Stott is careful not to overstate his case. For example, it is quite common in evangelical circles to say that Jesus paid the debt for our sin in full on the cross, as many worship songs declare. In support of this view, Jesus’ last words on the cross as recorded in John 19:30, as “it is finished,” is translated from the single Greek word tetelestai.

Many bible teachers have been taught, and pass onto their congregations, particularly over the past hundred years, that this word tetelestai  in an economic context means “paid in full,” which fits in nicely with the motif of penal substitutionary atonement. In the early 20th century, it was commonly thought that tetelestai was found on ancient papyri receipts in Egypt denoting a paid off debt or taxes.

Unfortunately, newer research has shown that this identification for the word “tetelestai” is actually erroneous. Such papyri receipts have a word close to tetelestai  on them, but it is indeed different from what is cited as Jesus’ last word(s) in John 19:30. In other words, neither Jesus’ hearers nor John’s readers would have readily picked up on the idea that Jesus acknowledged paying off a sin debt by uttering these word(s).

Thankfully, John Stott does not lead the reader down that rabbit hole, which is actually a dead end. Stott goes along with the majority of English translations today of John 19:30 to argue that tetelestai  simply means “it has been and will for ever remain finished” (Stott, p. 82). Like previous interpreters such as Leo the Great in the 5th century and Martin Luther in the 16th has suggested, for Jesus to have said “it is finished” would sufficiently mean that the work of Christ, however it would be understood, was finished, and that Scripture was indeed fulfilled.

We may still conclude that Jesus paid off our sin debt in full, after deeper reflection. But it would be overstating the case to argue that Jesus’ last statement on the cross specifically says this.

 

Self-Substitution On God’s Part Regarding the Cross

The key to grasping how John Stott can defend penal substitutionary atonement, while rejecting well-intended yet misguided caricatures, is in Stott’s concept of self-substitution, whereby God the Father through his Son offers himself as the very substitute to satisfy his own wrath against human sin.  In Stott’s framework, there is no need to pit the wrath of the Father against the love and mercy of the Son. The Son and the Father are not working at cross purposes against one another. The Son shares in the wrath of the Father against sin. Likewise, the Father shares in the love and mercy of the Son on behalf of sinful humanity.

As Stott would go onto say:

“We must not, then, speak of God punishing Jesus or of Jesus persuading God, for to do so is to set them over against each other as if they acted independently of each other or were even in conflict with each other. We must never make Christ the object of God’s punishment or God the object of Christ’s persuasion, for both God and Christ were subjects not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners. Whatever happened on the cross in terms of “God-forsakenness” was voluntarily accepted by both in the same holy love that made atonement necessary…There was no unwillingness in either. On the contrary, their wills coincided in the perfect self-sacrifice of love.”  (Stott, p. 151)

In a certain broad sense, John Piper might be correct to say that out of respect to God’s sovereignty and his providential activity in the world that “God killed Jesus.” But the saying is misleading. Saying that “God killed Jesus” is not that much different from saying that when your dear grandmother dies of cancer that “God killed your grandmother.” Really? With all due respect to John Piper, Piper’s comments are highly problematic.

The danger in making such an assessment is that it invites the kind of caricatures which critics of PSA, such as Brian Zahnd , will make against the PSA position as a whole.  Honoring the sovereignty of God as part of a theodicy, which says that even in the face of evil, God’s will remains supreme, arguably means well. But if it leaves the impression that God is somehow a capricious monster, whose anger must be placated in a manner no different than the pagan gods, then the assessment is counterproductive at best, a horrific scandal at worst.

Rumors of that scandal only encourages preachers like Brian Zahnd to double-down on their critique of PSA, as a corruption of pure Christian doctrine.

Thankfully, John Stott’s position avoids the pitfalls exposed by both misguided attempts to rescue the pure atoning work of Christ away from the supposedly painful grip of “penal substitution,” on the one hand, and overzealous apologetics which say that “God killed Jesus,” on the other.  I have had to re-read these sentences from John Stott several times to let it all sink in, as Stott sprinkles in quotes from P. T. Forsyth, the late 19th and 20th century Scottish theologian:

“[God] was unwilling to act in love at the expense of his holiness or in holiness at the expense of his love. So we may say that he satisfied his holy love by himself dying the death and so bearing the judgment which sinners deserved. He both exacted and accepted the penalty of human sin. And he did it ‘so as to be just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus’ (Rom. 3:26). There is no question now either of the Father inflicting punishment on the Son or of the Son intervening on our behalf with the Father, for it is the Father himself who takes the initiative in his love, bears the penalty of sin himself, and so dies. Thus the priority is neither ‘man’s demand on God’ nor ‘God’s demand on men’, but supremely ‘God’s demand on God, God’s meeting his own demand’ “(Stott, p. 152).

Does Stott’s characterization of God’s “self-substitution” regarding the cross of Christ go against any traditional sense of penal substitutionary theory? Is Stott redefining terms like “penal,”  “substitution,” or even “atonement” to make PSA as traditionally understood unrecognizable? To my knowledge, Stott stands firmly within the traditional camp while rightfully rejecting extreme, excessive expressions of the traditional PSA view. I find it curious that contemporary critics of PSA, including those acting in good faith who are not merely throwing stones at PSA with overworn tropes (like saying that Jesus’ death on the cross was an act of “cosmic child abuse”), rarely interact with Stott’s classic work on the topic.  If I am wrong about this, I would like to be corrected.

 

Applying the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ

While Stott’s careful discussion about God’s self-substitutionary act of atonement through the work of Christ on the cross is the most valuable contribution of Stott’s book, The Cross of Christ has many other benefits. Stott finds that the language of penal and substitutionary atonement is complemented by other biblical ideas that flesh out the doctrine in full.

Stott reminds Christians of the oft forgotten aspect of Christ’s defeat over the powers of sin, death, and evil, which was recovered for Western Christians by the early-to-mid 20th century Swedish theologian, Gustav Aulen, through his influential 1930 work Christus Victor. The Christus Victor motif puts emphasis on Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness, a feature long held prominent in Eastern Orthodoxy (Stott, p. 228ff).

Stott also finds value in certain aspects of Peter Abelard’s “moral influence” theory of the atonement. In the “moral influence” view, Christ’s death on the cross is an expression of the love of God, in which Christians are called to emulate that same kind of love, in our relationships with God and others. Jesus laid down his life for us out of love, therefore we are to lay down our lives for others. Abelard was reacting against his contemporary fellow 12th century theologian colleague Anselm, who pioneered the language of “satisfaction,” for describing the work of Christ, with respect to uphold God’s honor (Stott, p. 217ff). Stott finds some fault with Anselm, who “should have laid more emphasis on God’s love” (Stott, p. 221).

However, Stott finds some fault with those critics like Abelard and Aulen, for their focus on their respective efforts to emphasize the subjective aspect of atonement at the expense of the objective aspect of atonement, championed by Anselm. It is the objective character of the atonement that enables the subjective aspect. In other words, penal substitution is not at odds with either Christus Victor or moral influence motifs, but complement each other. Yet Stott suggests that penal substitution makes Christus Victor and moral influence possible. As Stott says, “the cross can be seen as a proof of God’s love [the subjective element] only when it is at the same time seen as a proof of his justice [the objective element]” (Stott, p. 220).

The last portion of The Cross of Christ focuses on the application of the doctrine of the cross for Christian practice. Because of the cross of Christ, Christians are called to sacrificially love others just as Christ has shown his love towards us. It is through meditation on the cross of Christ where we are enabled to love even our enemies. When we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we are reminded of the suffering of Christ which helps the believer to find support when we experience times of suffering for Christ’s sake.

Some have criticized that the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement has led Christians to not “take up our cross and follow him.” A careful read of Stott’s pastorally rewarding last portion of the book should alleviate such concerns. A full appreciation of Christ’s work on the cross will lead the believer to follow in Christ’s footsteps, as opposed to walking the other way. A whole host of other practical nuggets show that the doctrine of atonement is not merely an abstract set of concepts.

 

Some Critique of Stott’s Exposition of the Cross of the Christ

Despite its strengths, The Cross of Christ has missteps in a few places. In analyzing the 1856 century Scottish work The Nature of the Atonement, by John McLeod Campbell, Stott acknowledges that Campbell upholds the substitutionary aspect of the cross while saying that Campbell dismisses the penal aspect of the cross. Stott claims that for Campbell, substitution dissolves “into vicarious penitence, instead of vicarious punishment.”  As a result, Stott dismisses Campbell’s effort to “retain the language of substitution and sin-bearing, while changing its meaning.” Such effort “must be pronounced a failure. It creates more confusion than clarity.” (Stott, pp. 141-143).

Stott’s critique is not entirely fair. While the substitutionary aspect of Campbell’s approach remains sound, the penal aspect of atonement we should admit is harder to defend, primarily because it is so easily misunderstood. Is God’s wrath concerning sinful humanity directed towards sinful humans or sin itself? While it might seem more pious to say that God’s wrath is directed towards sinful humans, this is only because sin has become so regretfully intertwined in humanity that it becomes exceedingly difficult to separate our sin from our core human identity.  Yet a more proper way is to say that God mainly focuses his wrath against sin itself, and not the people for whom Christ has died.

Stott also has very little discussion, if any, analyzing the difference between ritual purity and moral impurity, two fundamental concepts standing behind the sacrificial system described in the Book of Leviticus. Any genuine New Testament theology of cross is indebted to the Book of Leviticus. But the concept of atonement as described in Leviticus is quite complex and nuanced, and Stott only makes scattered references to it. More recent research shows that Christian interpreters have tended to overlook or minimize Jewish views regarding atonement and the Levitical ritual impurity system when articulating the doctrine of the cross. For example, numerous scholars today hail the work of the Jewish scholar Jacob Milgrom on Leviticus as transformative, most of Milgrom’s work on Leviticus having been published after Stott published The Cross of Christ in 1986. In other words, while Stott’s description of the atoning work of Christ is robust, it is still not as robust as it could have been.

Despite these few shortcomings, John R. W. Stott’s The Cross of Christ remains a trustworthy and helpful guide for understanding and applying the truths behind the death of Christ for our sins. The various motifs surrounding the work of Christ, including penal substitution, Christus Victor, and the moral influence of Christ, all contribute to a rich theology that can nourish the church down through the ages. If I could name one contemporary book, even though it was first written back in 1986, which adequately defends PSA thoroughly against a wide variety of critics, Stott’s The Cross of Christ would be my go-to recommended resource.

 

One Final Thought:

Christian opponents of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) undoubtedly mean well. They are not all “woke,” progressive Christians, as some strict defenders of PSA over-enthusiastically claim, though undoubtedly  some very much are.

As evidenced by John Stott’s The Cross of Christ, much of the critique of PSA depends on all-too-common caricatures which Stott effectively dismantles. Just because someone props up a caricature of PSA as a defense of PSA does not mean that they understand what PSA really is.

Here is something to keep in mind: Some have suggested that the Eastern church never accepted any kind of doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, and continues to reject penal substitution as a theological innovation of the Western church. But one should not be too hasty in drawing such a conclusion.

Saint Athanasius, surely a hero in Eastern Orthodoxy, wrote this in a letter to Marcellinus:

“He suffered for us, and bore in himself the wrath that was the penalty of our transgression, even as Isaiah says, Himself bore our weaknesses.”

Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his commentary on John’s Gospel wrote this:

“We were, then, accursed and condemned, by the sense of God, through Adam’s transgression, and through breach of the Law laid down after him; but the Savior wiped out the hand-writing against us, by nailing the title to his cross…For our sake he paid the penalty for our sins.”

More recently, Saint Philaret of Moscow, wrote in a catechism for Eastern Orthodoxy:

“Jesus Christ, the Son of God … endured all the penalties due to all the sins of men, and death itself, in order to deliver us from sin and death….. His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one Person, is…a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death…to give us sinners pardon of our sins…”

All of the typical theological trigger words which opponents of penal substitution find to be so odious find their affirmation in the writings of these Eastern Orthodox leaders: Athanasius wrote of “wrath” and “penalty.” Cyril wrote of Christ as the one who “paid” the “penalty” for our sins. Philaret approved of the language of “satisfaction” to describe the work of Christ on the cross. So, before someone wants to rewrite many of our worship songs, we should reckon with the words of these highly respected church fathers of the East.

We can preserve the best of the tradition that gave us a theology of penal substitutionary atonement, while also embracing other themes and motifs that fill in the colors of the portrait of Christ on the cross, such as Christus Victor and moral influence. John R. W. Stott’s The Cross of Christ helps us to do just that.

 

An Addendum:  A Timely Debate When I Post This Book Review!…..

Just a few weeks after I finished re-reading Stott’s The Cross of Christ, Christian evangelical Twitter (or X) blew up when popular bible teacher John Mark Comer came out to say that he recently read a book which delivers a “knock out blow to PSA.”  Into the flurry of comments, some more responsibly nuanced than others, with a lot of back and forth, Protestant apologist Gavin Ortlund gives a summary of classic understandings of penal substitutionary atonement in the following video, offering a modest Stott-like defense, while rejecting caricatures of PSA. John Mark Comer has since walked back some on his earlier statement, stating that he still believes in some form of substitutionary atonement, but the debate continues. Some even wonder if an evangelical can truly be an academic, or do doctrinal commitments prevent someone from rethinking a long cherished belief. Andrew Rillera’s Lamb of the Free is at the heart of the controversy. Even John Mark Comer, in a recent follow-up statement acknowledges that Rillera “completely denies all substitution, which seems untenable biblically to me.” Derek Rishmawy, a blogger whom I follow occasionally, has written a response to John Mark Comer’s concerns about PSA. Rillera’s book is on my “to-be-read” list. I am open to being challenged, but you have to make a pretty compelling case to dismiss a Christian doctrine that goes back hundreds of years to the early church:

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June 19, 2025

Augustine on Infant Baptism

By Clarke Morledge

I have been in the middle of reading Jared Ortiz and Daniel Keating’s book, The Nicene Creed : A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary, in honor of the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, and I ran across the following insight from Saint Augustine about his rationale for infant baptism. A lot of Christians have thought that Augustine encouraged infant baptism merely as a means of trying to save a baby from original sin. But his actual comments on baptism are more thoughtful than that, and are worth quoting in full:

To believe, however, is nothing else than to have faith. And for this reason when the answer is given that the little one believes, though he does not yet have the disposition of faith, the answer is given that he has faith on account of the sacrament of the faith and that he is converted to the Lord on account of the sacramentof conversion, because the response itself also pertains to the celebration of the sacrament. In the same way the apostle says of baptism, We were buried together with Christ through baptism into death (Rom. 6:4). He did not say, “We signified burial,” but, “We were buried.” He, therefore, called the sacrament of so great a reality by the word for the same reality.

And so, even if that faith that is found in the will of believers does not make a little one a believer, the sacrament of the faith itself, nonetheless, now does so. For, just as the response is given that the little one believes, he is also in that sense called a believer, not because he assents to the reality with his mind, but because he receives the sacrament of that reality. But when a human being begins to think, he will not repeat the sacrament, but will understand it and will also conform himself to its truth by the agreement of his will. As long as he cannot do this, the sacrament will serve for his protection against the enemy powers, and it will be so effective that, if he leaves this life before attaining the use of reason, he will by this help for Christians be set free from that condemnation which entered the world through one man, since the love of the Church commends him through the sacrament itself (Augustine, Letter 98.9–10, in Letters 1–99, ed. Roland Teske, WSA II/1 (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 2001), 431–32).

I have had to meditate on it, but I think this best explains what this great African bishop of the late 4th / early 5th century was trying to communicate: There is no such things as “self-baptism” in the Bible. No one baptizes themselves. You must be baptized by someone else.

The same can be said about salvation. We can not save ourselves. Only God can save. God saves by the gift of his grace, and we can not save ourselves by our religious works.

Sandro Botticelli, Sant’ Agostino nello studio (Saint Augustine in the studio), Fresco, Chiesa di San Salvatore in Ognissanti, Florence.

 

The Sacrament of Baptism: What Baptism Does Is a Mystery

Augustine sees in this the mystery of what makes the notion of sacrament so powerful in Christian theology. As Augustine reads Paul in Romans 6:4, baptism actually does something, despite the fact that Paul does not go into extensive detail about it. Baptism is not merely a symbol. It pertains to a reality that goes beyond what our feeble minds can grasp.

There is no prooftext that says “baptism is a sacrament,” but historically this is how those like Augustine understood baptism. The English word “sacrament” is derived from the Latin sacramentum, which is a translation of the Greek word mysterion, from which we get the English word mystery. There are several concepts, like baptism, which Christian theologians have described as a mystery, explaining why those like Augustine thought of baptism as a sacrament.

Like many other advocates of infant baptism, Augustine considered baptism to be the New Testament counterpart to the Old Testament’s insistence on circumcision as the primary identity marker for being an Israelite.  As male infants were circumcised in ancient Israel, so are male and now female infants baptized as Christians. See Galatians 3:27-28:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

A sacrament like baptism enacts reality for us. I got this idea of enactment from a book by Thomas Howard, the brother of the famous missionary Elisabeth Elliot, On Being Catholic. But the point is that the sacrament of baptism enacts the reality that only God can save the human being, and it is Augustine’s contention that baptism can in this sense “save” the infant, when they are not yet at the stage whereby they can exercise reason, and rationally comprehend ideas like “salvation by grace,” etc. Instead the infant can experience it through the act of baptism.

It is hard for us modern people living in the West to appreciate the impact Augustine’s theology has had over the long history of the Christian movement. Throughout most of human history, the infant mortality rate has been extremely high as compared to what the typical American family experiences in the 21st century. Even if you lived in the early 19th century in the United States, and in many parts of the world developing world today, there was/is a high probability that your child would not survive infancy.  Yet today in much of the West, due to the benefits of modern medicine, the opposite is the case. Now, it is relatively rare for a child to die in infancy (though, obviously, it still happens tragically).

The Augustinian idea that baptism is connected to the salvation of the infant can bring great comfort to a mother and father grieved to the loss of a child, knowing that their deceased child is with the Lord.  The same can be said for a family with a child (or even a young adult) that is mentally and/or emotionally challenged in some way, where the young person lacks the cognitive abilities to adequately grasp even basic concepts of Christian theology.

Augustine has not been without his critics. Many proponents of credobaptism; that is, the teaching that only a believer’s baptism is a valid form of baptism, and that infant baptism (otherwise known as paedobaptism) is not to be practiced, typically reject Augustine on this point. In other words, someone needs to demonstrate that they have genuinely come to know and believe in Jesus before they would be eligible for baptism, not after. They would generally argue that Augustine’s belief that infant baptism can wash away the taint of original sin makes baptism into a kind of work which actually undermines the theology of grace.

Instead, many credobaptists adopt the practice of “baby dedication” (some call it “family dedication,” “parent dedication,” “baby thanksgiving,” or something along those lines), whereby a pastor of the local church will publicly pray with a family that comes forward with their newborn, dedicating themselves to raise the child in a Christian home, and asking the congregation to join the parents in helping to raise the child in a discipling, Christian community, in the hope that when that child is old enough to exercise human reason the child might come to confess faith in Jesus, and then at some point become baptized (believer’s baptism) as an act of Christian obedience.

This has become standard practice in much of the world of American megachurch evangelical Christianity. It has become like a half-way mediating solution between credobaptism and paedobaptism, with respect to infant children. It has only become a common feature in American evangelical Christianity for about a hundred years or so (though how far back the practice actually goes is highly debated).

The problem is that such “baby dedication” is not the same as infant baptism.  For if a child who has been a part of a “baby dedication” and not infant baptism then dies still in infancy, this could create (and indeed has created) a theological crisis for the parents in their grief. For what comfort would such parents have about the eternal destiny of their child?

Perhaps such parents could reimagine “baby dedication” to be somehow efficacious in the same way as infant baptism, but that would probably take a lot of theological creativity on the part of the parents, and probably more that one session of grief meeting with a church pastor to work things out.

Some hold to a doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which suggests that infant baptism actually saves the infant, and that this act of baptism somehow suggests an irrevocable salvation status regarding baptism. There are bunch of good debates on YouTube about baptismal regeneration, though I would recommend this conversation between Baptist apologist Gavin Ortlund and Roman Catholic apologist to be among one of the more helpful discussions.

 

 

Confusion About Infant Baptism

Most evangelical Christians reject such a theology of baptismal regeneration, as it can confuse a person, leading someone who has been baptized as an infant to wrongly believe that since they were baptized as an infant, this somehow gives them an irrevocable ticket to heaven. Some then rationalize that they can live a life completely contrary to any Christian commitment, and still be somehow “OK” with God.  Again, this makes the sacrament of baptism into a kind of work, an example of “works-righteousness” which is completely contrary to a right-minded understanding of the Gospel.

However, it would be good to note that not every tradition commonly associated with “baptismal regeneration” accepts this irrevocable understanding of infant baptism.  Eastern Orthodox priest Stephen De Young, in his incredibly helpful book The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century, (read my four-part review of De Young’s theologically and yet remarkably accessible book), might surprise Protestant evangelicals regarding what is entailed in an Eastern Orthodox understanding of baptism, including infant baptism.

“Saint Paul goes to great pains in 1 Corinthians 10 to argue that baptism does not necessarily entail salvation (1 Cor. 10:1–6)” (De Young, p. 163).

This passage talks about Old Testament Israelites being “baptized into Moses,” through the passing through the Red Sea, and the experience under the cloud in the Wilderness, but that most of them did not survive to make it into the Promised Land, due to disobedience.

In other words, infant baptism is not an irrevocable indication of someone’s status regarding salvation. For a person baptized as an infant, that person must still reason through and reflect on the meaning of their baptism, in order to make good on it, which appears to be consistent with what Augustine says as quoted above.

Augustine would reject the idea of getting re-baptized, something that a lot of evangelical Christians tend to do; that is, despite having been baptized as an infant (if they were), they go on and go through a “believer’s baptism” now that they finally understand what it means to be a real Christian. For Augustine, such re-baptism would be a needless attempt to “repeat the sacrament,” and completely miss the reality of what the sacrament is in the first place.

Needless to say, sacramental theology is still very much highly controversial in our churches today, whether it be about baptism, or the Lord’s Supper, or other matters related to the concept of sacrament. Some churches reject the language of “sacrament” altogether, preferring to categorize baptism as an “ordinance,” as opposed to being a “sacrament.” Some local churches try to take an “agree-to-disagree” posture regarding the credobaptism versus paedobaptism controversy, but they do so with mixed success.

Navigating Baptism as a Second-Rank Doctrine

However, most Protestant evangelical churches either go one way or the other, either they baptize infants or they do not. There is no middle ground, but rarely do churches split over the baptism issue nowadays. Many just try to muddle through the controversy somehow. But at least someone visiting the church will eventually figure out where that church lands on the issue. In his wonderful book, Finding the Right Hills to Die On, theologian Gavin Ortlund, reviewed here on Veracity a few years ago, argues that when navigating theological issues which divide churches, one must do what he calls “theological triage,” ranking different issues into four distinct categories:

  1. first-rank issues: some doctrines are essential to properly defend and proclaim the Gospel. Ortlund puts something like the doctrine of the Virgin Birth in this category. For without a belief in the Virgin Birth of Jesus, our understanding of the Gospel is at stake.
  2. second-rank issues: some doctrines are not essential to the Gospel, but they are urgent issues, in that they can and often do have an impact in how a church practices its mission. For these doctrines can lead to “divisiveness, confusion, and violations of conscience” (Ortlund, p. 95). Two common examples include (1) whether to allow certain charismatic gifts, like speaking in tongues and prophecy, to be publicly displayed during a worship service, and (2) whether to have women serve as elders in a local church (the so-called “complementarian” verse “egalitarian” issue).
  3. third-rank issues: some doctrines are not essential to the Gospel, but are nevertheless still important issues to resolve. Nevertheless, Christians with different convictions in good faith can still participate in such a local church, while taking an “agree to disagree” posture. Two common examples include (1) different understandings of the age of the earth, and (2) different understandings of the “End Times” regarding the millennium and the rapture of the church.
  4. fourth-rank issues: some doctrines are not essential to the Gospel, and they not important in terms of how Christians in a local church can work together to accomplish Gospel mission.

My classic example of a fourth-rank issue comes from a conversation I have had with a pastor friend of mine. He is convinced that the Apostle Paul wrote the so-called “prison letters”, like Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon from a jail in Rome. I believe Paul wrote these letters from a prison cell in Ephesus.

How many people really care about where Paul wrote these letters from? Aside from a few Bible nerds like me, basically no one!!

Interestingly, Gavin Ortlund adds the doctrine of baptism as a common third example of a second-rank issue. Ortlund himself grew up in a church that practiced infant baptism, but when he took to studying the issue in-depth, he came to the conclusion that infant baptism was an improper form of baptism, and thus became a credo-baptist. Nevertheless, Ortlund looks to Saint Augustine, perhaps the most influential proponent of infant baptism in the history of Christianity, as one of his greatest theological heroes!!

Augustine has surely been the most influential Christian theologian in the Christian West, outside of the Bible itself, but Christians will still chafe against some of the theological positions he took hundreds of years ago. One may still reject the validity of infant baptism, as many evangelical Christians emphatically still do, but the purpose of this blog post has been to aid in having a more informed understanding of what infant baptism, as classically understood by Saint Augustine, actually is, and what it is not.

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June 13, 2025

Does the Bible Forbid Christians From Getting Tattoos?

By Clarke Morledge

Does the Bible forbid a Christian from getting a tattoo? The answer is a qualified “No,” but it does require some unpacking to explain the qualification.

Tattoos have become increasingly popular, among non-Christians and Christians alike today. But they are controversial. Some say that the Bible is OKAY with tattoos, while others disagree with that. Let us take a look at this controversial topic….

The closest Hebrew word to our English “tattoo” is found only one place in the Bible:

“You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:28 ESV).

The Hebrew word transliterated into English as “qa-aqa,” is translated here in the ESV translation as “tattoo,” or in other translations as “tattoo mark” (CSB, NASB, NIV, NRSVue). The NET translation reads this as “incise a tattoo.”1

The Book of Leviticus is often ignored by many Christians, as it has a lot of information about purity rituals and regulations, which tend to bog readers down. But there are insights that we can gain from this book that we can apply to our lives today as Christians.

 

A Fairly Short Look at a Controversial Topic:  Do Tattoos and Christians Mix Well Together?

As with any verse in Scripture, it is crucial to understand the context. Leviticus 19:28 is first and foremost found within the Law of Moses, in a set of prescriptions given to the Israelites as to what they should not do as followers of Yahweh. In the two prior verses, the Israelites are told not to interpret omens or tell fortunes (v. 26) and not to round off the hair on the temples or mar the edges of one’s beard (v.27). Before the mention of “tattoo” in verse 28, the Israelites are told not to make any cuts on the body for the dead.

In view of these various restrictions, some sensible (and some frankly a bit weird … according to modern standards), the context would indicate that these forbidden practices were associated with idolatry. The Israelite people were to worship Yahweh and stay completely away from practices associated with worshipping other gods. Tattoos, apparently, in the world of the ancient Israelite, were somehow linked with idol worship.

The idea of “cutting” the body was associated with the worship of foreign gods in 1 Kings 18:28. It was also forbidden in Deuteronomy 14:1-2, urging faithfulness to the God of Israel instead of worship other gods:

You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

The context for the prescription against tattoos is with respect to avoiding idolatry. Some scholars even suggest that since marking one as a slave is associated with piercing the ear, then this verse also anticipates a movement away from the practice of slavery (Exodus 21:6; Deut. 15:17).2

Since this is the only reference to tattoos in the Bible, there is then no obvious reference to it in the New Testament. One could appeal to Genesis 1:26-28, that humans have been made in God’s image, and therefore tattoos, or any other disfiguration of the body is an insult to the creator. However, this type of appeal has a lot of guesswork to it and few scholars would defend it.

Some might even also cite 1 Corinthians 6:19 to say that our bodies as New Testament believers are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, as this line of reasoning goes, Christians should not get tattoos. However, the Old Testament temple, which corresponds to this referent in the New Testament, had plenty of images and markings on it, such as cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers (1 Kings 6:29). Therefore, it is difficult to forbid a New Testament “temple” for having a marking on it (the human body), if the Old Testament temple had plenty of markings. Again, this kind of argument against tattoos is difficult to sustain.

Given that Christians today are under the New Covenant, and not the Old Covenant, which is often associated with certain cultic practices and prohibitions associated with ancient Israel, as found in this passage of Leviticus 19, then Christians today are not forbidden to get tattoos.3

Someone put an “agape” tattoo on their arm… Tattoos have been becoming increasingly popular to get, even among Christians. But is it really “OKAY” for a Christian to get a tattoo?

 

Tattoos Today Are Not Prohibited in Principle, But There Are Still Things to Consider Before You Agree to Get One

Some Christians will get “Christian” symbols tattooed on themselves, as a kind of witness for the Christian faith and/or a conversation starter. But physical symbols can easily get misinterpreted.  How does someone know that such symbols really are “Christian” and not something else?

In early 2025, then Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth learned the hard way that tattoos can be interpreted in variety of ways, after being relentlessly grilled during his Senate confirmation hearing. Hegesth has a “Jerusalem Cross” tattooed on his chest, which some critics say is associated with certain white supermacist or otherwise violent extremist groups.  Is it really worth having to go through all of the trouble as to why you wear a controversial tattoo permanently on your body?

The possible association with idolatry is something which every believer should keep in mind. Even though most modern people do not get tattoos in order to declare their allegiance to other gods, some people still associate getting at least certain kinds of tattoos with idolatry.

An extreme example of when getting tattoos crosses the line into idolatry is with gangs. In El Salvador, gangs like MS13 use tattoos (lots of them) as a means of identifying someone as a gang member, where strict allegiance to the game is expected, and gang members often engage in outright Satanic activities. If such is the case, then out of allegiance to Jesus, Christians should not get those types of tattoos. Is it really worth the risk to get a tattoo, if it might lead to some serious confusion which can severely impact your life?

While Christians do have the freedom in Christ to get a tattoo or not get a tattoo, it is important to consider that wearing a tattoo might cause another believer in Jesus to struggle, particularly depending on what kind of tattoo it is. Consider the example of gangs and tattoos again. If a Christian has given up their identity with a gang, in pursuit of following Jesus, then other Christians might want to reconsider getting a tattoo, or if they already have one, they might reconsider public display of their tattoo(s), out of a sense of encouraging a former gang member to wholeheartedly pursue their walk with Jesus. If a Christian does get a tattoo, one might consider placing the tattoo on a part of the body that can be covered with clothing easily, out of respect for others.

Getting a tattoo is not simply about doing something you like. It is also about having wisdom and showing love in your relationships with other people.

Now, time for some full disclosure: Personally, I am no fan of tattoos. I do not find them attractive on a person. I know that getting a tattoo of some sort has become very popular, particularly among younger people. Nevertheless, I really do not understand the appeal for why someone would want to get a tattoo in the first place. But it would be wrong for me to insist that another Christian should not get a tattoo, when the Scriptural support for such a prohibition is rather weak. Simply wanting the Bible to say something does not make it true!

There are probably a lot of other reasons for not getting tattoos that are more practical in nature, that have little to do with Scripture. For example, one should think twice about getting a tattoo, if there is a possibility that several years down the road you might eventually regret having obtained that tattoo. I had a friend once who tattooed the name of his girlfriend on his leg…. then they broke up….. Not a smooth move!!

That is reason enough for me to stay away from tattoos altogether!  Also, there is always some risk with getting a tattoo, from a health perspective, even under the safest conditions.

The bottom line is that getting a tattoo is a matter of the conscience. So, while ultimately, there is no clear moral prohibition against a Christian getting a tattoo, it might not always be the wisest thing to do. Think about what you are getting yourself into before you rush off to get some mark imprinted on yourself.

Notes:

1. This Hebrew word transliterated into English as qa-aqa is notoriously difficult to translate, as it only appears this one time in the Hebrew Bible, and scholars are unsure about its meaning. It is however closely associated with another Hebrew word, transliterated to English as “ke-to-vet,” which means to “imprint” or to “mark.” Bible scholar Chad Bird at 1517.org explains in the following video.↩

2. Richard Hess, Leviticus (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary), p. 754; The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition, notes for Lev. 19:28). John Walton argues that tattoo marks were used to mark someone’s loyalty to a particular god, as we see in various Egyptian mummies. In Mesopotamia, most known tattoos were either slave markings or marks made by priests designating which god they serve. See Walton and Keener, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, footnote 28 on Leviticus 19. The question about tattoos highlights a lot of issues that can be traced back to how Christians interpret the Book of Leviticus, a topic discussed in the Veracity blog series on Leviticus.  ↩

3.  For a more thorough look at the question of tattoos within the context of the Old Covenant, and how this, and other controversial Levitical regulations relate to Christians today, the following teaching video by Christian apologist Mike Winger from a few years ago might provide some help. Mike Winger is more of a pastor/apologist than an academic Bible scholar, but in this video I think he does a pretty good job laying out the issues, more broadly. As he states in the first few minutes of the video, the division among Christians over tattoos is very concerning, and we should work hard to try to find peace between different Christians who disagree over the topic of tattoos. ↩

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May 30, 2025

Are Christians Required to Tithe to Their Local Church? (Part Two)

By Clarke Morledge

What should be our motivation for giving to the work of Christian ministry? Building on the previous post in this series, we can take a good look at this question.

God’s generosity towards us should be our motivation for our giving generously towards God’s work in the world. Yet some Christians argue that believers should give a tenth of one’s income to the local church, and anything above and beyond that optionally to any form of Christian work. Such faithful Christians are well-intended in this way of thinking, yet the previous blog post in this series suggests that the biblical interpretation behind this mindset is problematic. There is a better way to think about giving.

However, before one can neatly, or perhaps too neatly, conclude that the Old Covenant tithe is no longer required under the New Covenant, it is important to address a strong counterargument. As I was reading Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views, I learned that a number of advocates for a New Covenant tithe argue that the concept of the tithe precedes the actual Old Covenant instantiated under Moses. Because the tithe comes prior to the giving of the Law, it is argued that any reading of the New Testament can not invalidate any commands of God given prior to the giving of the Law to Moses in the wilderness.

Once this thoughtful counterargument is addressed, certain principles can be drawn from the Old Testament tithe, that can help us to see the pattern of New Testament, generous, grace-motivated giving.

Does the practice of tithing belong to the Old Covenant, or is it relevant to the New Covenant as well? If so, what does “tithing” mean for Christians today?

 

A Weakness in the “Post-Tithing” View

One particular weakness of a “post-tithing” view, which suggests that an exact tenth of one’s income is neither necessarily nor absolutely required to be given to the local church, is that there is no explicit New Testament reference which says that tithing no longer applies to the New Testament Christian, one under the New Covenant. Advocates of tithing today do have a point here. Paul explicitly teaches that Gentile followers of Christ are no longer required to undergo physical circumcision (Galatians 5:1-6). But there is no specific statement in the New Testament corresponding to tithing like this.

Therefore, if someone holds the view that every law mentioned in the Old Testament is applicable to Christians today living under the New Covenant, unless there is some explicit statement saying that something is negated or otherwise abrogated in the pages of the New Testament, then this would be a good argument against any kind of “post-tithing” view (A “post-tithing” view relegates the tithe to belonging only to the Old Covenant).

However, there are plenty of commands given in the Levitical law which Christians today do not necessarily follow, with no explicit mention about them in the New Testament. Christians in the banking or home mortgage industry continue to offer loans to people, by charging interest, despite the command in Leviticus 25:36-37, which says the Israelites were forbidden to charge their fellow Israelite any interest under any circumstance. I am probably wearing some piece of clothing today, made up of a mixture of cotton and some synthetic fabric, despite the fact that Leviticus 19:19 forbade the ancient Israelite, aside from the Levitical priests, from wearing mixtures of any kind.

The New Testament says nothing about the ethics of charging interest on loans, nor about what types of fabric a Christian should wear.

The reason why advocates of a “post-tithing” approach to giving make their case is because tithing, along with not charging any interest in loans, or wearing two different kinds of fabric, are all regulations established in the first five books of the Bible, which are closely associated with the ancient Israelite worship of Yahweh at the tabernacle/temple. Because Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Law of Moses, these temple-specific practices are no longer required by the New Testament believer. However, what if it could be demonstrated that tithing was an established practice, commanded by God, prior to the giving of the Law to Moses?1

In what sense does the Old Testament teaching on tithing teach us as Christians living under the New Covenant  how to practice our faith today?

 

The Melchizedek Factor and Tithing

The primary proof text for the argument of a “pre-Law” prescription for the tithe involves the figure of Melchizedek, as taught in Genesis and reinforced in the New Testament Book of Hebrews. In Genesis 14, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, had been taken captive, and so Abraham engaged in a successful military mission to save Lot. The Melchizedek passage in Genesis is fairly brief, where Melchizedek meets Abraham (who was still called Abram at that point in time) after the latter’s victory:2

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
    Possessor of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
    who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything (Genesis 14:18-20 ESV).

For such a brief passage, Jewish writers in the period of Second Temple Judaism made a big deal about Melchizedek, an idea reinforced in the Book of Hebrews. For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls mention Melchizedek frequently. One thing that is so curious about this passage is the concise reference to a tithe, or “tenth”: “Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”3

What motivated Abraham to give a tithe to Melchizedek? Unfortunately, the text never tells us. There is nothing in the text which says that God commanded Abraham to give this tithe. It is quite probable that Abraham’s tithe was given voluntarily. If it was voluntary, then it is quite unlike the tithes taught in Leviticus, which are mandatory and not voluntary.4

Also, the text only tells us of this one time Abraham gave a tithe. Nothing tells us that the tithe was repeated. Again, this is quite unlike the tithe requirements found in Leviticus.5

 

Melchizedek in the Book of Hebrews: What Was the Intent of Author?

Nevertheless, the example of Abraham’s tithe to Melchizedek is often pivotal for those who propose an on-going relevance for the tithe for New Covenant believers. Hebrews 7:1-10 acts as New Testament commentary on the incident with Abraham and Melchizedek:

(1) For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, (2) and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. (3) He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.

(4) See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! (5) And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descended from Abraham. (6) But this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. (7) It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. (8) In the one case tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. (9) One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, (10) for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

The context for Hebrews 7:1-10 is crucial for understanding what is going on in this passage. Hebrews 7:1-10 belongs to an extended discourse arguing that Jesus is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek, from Hebrews 5-10. The main argument throughout the book is that Jesus is better than the angels, better than Moses, and better than the Levitical priestly system. The author of the text is trying to tell his readers to remember that Jesus is greater, and so his readers should not go back to their old ways. In Hebrews 7:1-10, we are told about the greatness of Melchizedek, and that the priesthood of Melchizedek is greater than the Levitical priesthood. Later in Hebrews 7:11-22, the text specifically associates Jesus as being the one who stands in the priestly order of Melchizedek.6

The point of Abraham paying a tithe to Melchizedek is to acknowledge that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham, and that the greater one blessed the lesser one. Since the Levites descend from Abraham, Melchizedek’s priesthood is shown to be greater than the Levitcal priesthood. Therefore, since Jesus is a priest within the order of Melchizedek, the priesthood of Jesus is greater than the Levitical priesthood. To make sure that the reader gets the message, the author summarizes the lesson to be learned:

“Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man” (Hebrews 8:1-2 ESV)

Pro-tithing advocates will then appeal to Hebrews 7 to say that just as Abraham paid a tithe to Melchizedek that Christians today are to pay tithes to Jesus, via the local church. In Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views, Hemphill and Eklund conclude this part of their argument by saying: “If Abram tithed to Melchizedek, would it not follow that the Christian would offer tithes to the great high priest who is greater than Melchizedek?“7

However, this conclusion merely assumes that this teaching on tithing is part of the intent of the author. While this might be a secondary purpose of the author, such a purpose is not made explicit in the text. Instead, Abraham’s tithe is mentioned as an illustration of the main point that the author of Hebrews is trying to make.

Furthermore, even if this is a fully warranted conclusion, it is difficult to interpret what kind of tithe the Christian is expected to give. In Abraham’s case, Hebrews 7 explicitly tells us in verse 7 that the tithe came from the spoils of war. Does this mean that the only situation that applies here is that the Christian should tithe when they have succeeded in a military battle, and obtained booty which could be tithed to the local church? If so, this would be a most odd application of tithing from the New Testament.8

 

The Levites Tithing Through the “Loins of Their Ancestor?”

If Abraham’s tithing on war booty is not in view, then how does one arrive at the standard pro-tithing conclusion from this passage? On what basis should this Abrahamic tithe be connected to giving a tenth of one’s income to the local church? Why should it not also include all of the tithes that were required of the Israelites, which totals up to around 23%, including the Festival and Charity tithes, and not just the Levitical tithes given to the priests?

Moreover, verse 9 suggests that Abraham was a proxy by which the Levites were able to pay their “tithes” to Melchizedek. Levi, the father of the Levites, was represented by Abraham before Melchizedek, through the “loins of their ancestor” (ESV). The NIV translates the next verse (verse 10), “because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.”

The author intends this as an illustration to demonstrate that the priesthood of Melchizedek is superior to the priesthood of the Levites. At best, one could say that Abraham is still a proxy tithe payer to Melchizedek on behalf of Christians today, who form the royal priesthood of the New Covenant. But it does not necessarily follow that because of this, Christians today should pay tithes. At best, assuming that we are supposed to tithe to Jesus, that can only possibly make sense if somehow Jesus was and still is Melchizedek, instead of specifically being a priest in the order of Melchizedek, as the text argues. True, Melchizedek is described as one who is not mortal, an analogy to Jesus’ resurrected existence. But identifying Jesus as Melchizedek himself is a speculative argument which goes beyond the evidence within the text, an argument which is at best tangential to the purpose of the author of Hebrews.9

Given all of these problems, it is difficult to conclude that the Abraham/Melchizedek tithing example from Genesis and Hebrews establishes the principle of tithing as an ongoing imperative for today’s Christian, on the basis of it being a commandment which precedes the giving of the Law of Moses to the Israelites, and therefore not subject to being superseded.10

 

Perspectives on Tithing: Four Views, edited by David A. Croteau, features four essays by Ken Hemphill & Bobby Eklund, David Croteau, Reggie Kidd, and Gary North, covering different views on tithing and interacting with many of the most relevant texts in Scripture.

 

The New Testament Motivation for Giving

After reading all this so far, it might appear to some that there is no use for tithing at all, in all the muddle of these various interpretations. However, this is simply not true. While the pro-tithing argument does have many problems with it, there are some fundamental ideas associated with tithing that are vitally important for a Christian today. Those living under the New Covenant, can apply the principle behind tithing today, without getting caught up in troublesome controversies about tithing percentages, what constitutes “income,” tithing on gross pay versus net pay, who should receive such tithes, whatever they are, etc.

First, it is important to acknowledge that everything belongs to God, anyway… and that means 100%, not just 10% of one’s income. “Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it” (Deuteronomy 10:14). Everything we have is a gift from God. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

Furthermore, we are called to be good stewards of all that God has given us, just as Adam was told to tend and care for the garden (Genesis 2:15). Anything we claim for ourselves actually comes to us from God, even our finances (Deut. 8:17-18). Jesus himself instructs his followers to handle worldly wealth well (Luke 16:11). Whatever gifts we have received, we have been instructed to share it well with others (1 Peter 4:1-10). The more we realize how generous God has been towards us, the more we will be able to be generous towards others. Jesus himself said that is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).

The Apostle Paul gives us the most instruction in the New Testament about generous giving, and in supporting the work of the local church, and assisting others in the church. When it comes to supporting Christian workers, Paul tells us that workers deserve their keep (1 Timothy 5:18). He also states this in 1 Corinthians 9:13-14:11

Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

We are therefore commanded to support Christian workers, but how should we go about doing that? Paul gives us a concrete situation, whereby he was raising money to give to the church in Jerusalem, from churches in Gentile areas. One principle here is to set aside funds on a regular basis:12

“Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem” (I Corinthians 16:1-3).

The heart of Paul’s model of generous, grace-motivated giving, starting with the right motivations, is found in 2 Corinthians 8-9. These two chapters are worthy of extended meditation, but there are some notable points to highlight: From 2 Corinthians 8:1: “…[from] their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.”

From 2 Corinthians 8:8-9: “ I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

What stands out as central in Paul’s thinking comes from 2 Corinthians 9:6-8:

“The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

God loves a cheerful giver, who gives neither reluctantly nor out of compulsion. This is furthermore why taking the Old Covenant teaching on tithing and somehow flatly importing that into the New Covenant does not match. For under the Old Covenant, the various tithes mentioned in the previous blog post in this series were obligations to serve the practices of the tabernacle/temple. Paul, on the other hand, wants Christians to be motivated to give out of a spirit of generosity, not a spirit of compulsion. Christians can still “tithe” in some sense, but it should be transformed by the New Testament understanding that we are to give generously because God in Christ has given so generously to us.

Yes, we are commanded to give, but the exact percentage, exacting to whom we give, etc., is not something where we can simply check off a box of some 10%, and safely conclude that we have done our part. As one of my former Bible teachers, Dick Woodward, used to say, the best way you can examine the integrity of someone’s walk with Jesus is to look at their datebook and their checkbook. How a person spends their time and their money says a lot about the heart of that person and what they really value.

Nevertheless, there is still a place where tithing can help us very practically. For example, if someone does not know how much to give, then giving a tenth of one’s income (a “tithe”) is a good place to start. One thing that is so useful about the Old Testament’s teaching on tithing is that it establishes a general benchmark for our giving as Christians today. But if some are able to give more than 10%, then why not give more?! There are many generous Christians, grateful for what God has given them, who give upwards of 20 to 30 to 40 percent, if not more of their income! Many Christians have the means to give way more than 10%, so insisting on a “tithe” of 10% and no more, misses the whole point about generous, sacrificial, grace-motivated giving.

In saying that, it must be understood that for someone who is just starting out with sacrificial, generous, grace-motivated giving may not be able to give 10%. If giving 10% is not practical at the present time, what about starting with 1%, and then working one’s way upwards in terms of percentage over time?

When it came to the offerings in Leviticus, the law made provision for those who were unable to make a standard offering, due to poverty or other financial constraints. In Leviticus 5:7, if someone was unable to afford a lamb for an offering, that person could bring two turtledoves or two pigeons instead. A principle to be gained from this is to realize that not everyone is able to give 10% of one’s income to the church, at least at the present time, whereas they might be able to give more in the future.

Some people are burdened by financial debts, such as large credit card imbalances. While someone can start giving to God’s work in small amounts, it is better to try to get out of debt first, so that one can give more in the future. What you do not want to do is take out some kind of loan in order to try to meet some supposed tithing obligation. There are plenty of horror stories out there whereby Christians have put themselves into further debt by trying to meet some supposed tithing obligation, only putting their already fragile financial situation in greater jeopardy, or greater debt. Instead, it is better to give out of the abundance of what one has instead of what one does not have. Yes, we are to give sacrificially, but we should also give wisely and with thoughtfulness.13

 

A Summary on the Bible’s Teaching on Tithing Practice Today

The Old Testament requirement in the Law Moses to tithe to the Temple belongs to the Old Covenant, and not to the New. Instead, the teaching of the New Testament illustrates the principle of sacrificial and generous giving to promote the spread of the Gospel, whether that be through the local church as well as through other ministries across the global church. Just as Christ freely gave to us, we are to freely give as an act of worship to support the work of building God’s Kingdom, through our time, talents, and finances, but not under any compulsion to do so. Giving ten percent is a good baseline, a basic guide for giving, but it is not a legal requirement.

Furthermore, we need to re-evaluate the common teaching that one should be required to “tithe,” or give 10% to the local church, and that anything over that 10% should be considered an optional “offering,” which can be given to any Christian work you wish to support, whether that be your local church, friends who are missionaries, a parachurch ministry, etc. While proponents of such a view mean well, the evidence suggests that such a teaching is nothing more than a tradition, which has been carried down through the years, without much of a careful reading of Scripture.

Nevertheless, it is a tradition that has a good intent behind it. The work of the local church does take precedence. It only makes sense that a Christian should aim to give the lionshare of their regular giving to their local church, of which they are a member, or otherwise involved with on a regular basis, making an investment in that ministry. Giving to missionaries who are friends, parachurch ministries, and other charities probably should come after that. Encouraging believers to give 10% of their income (if not more!) is a good thing, as 100% of what we have belongs to God anyway!

Unfortunately, advocates of tithing can get nervous when they hear New Covenant non-tithing interpreters advance their position, as though a non-tithing position suggests that people should not sacrificially give financially to God’s work. While some might misleadingly lend support to that way of thinking, a responsible New Covenant, non-tithing interpreter of Scripture acknowledges the importance of giving as crucial to the task of accomplishing God’s mission to make disciples of all of the nations. In other words, to say that tithing is no longer a requirement for a believer under the New Covenant does not mean that there is nothing we can learn from the Old Testament about the principle which undergirds the practice of tithing under the Old Covenant.

In my experience, there is a tragic irony here. An emphasis on tithing, that really emphasizes a percentage one “must” give, can actually have the opposite of the desired effect. For if tithing is encouraged in a way that sounds compulsive, many people are actually inclined to give less than if they were presented with a more generous, grace-motivated reason for giving. For if compulsion is felt, the human tendency is either to become resentful or to become burdened with unnecessary guilt, if one can not meet such an obligation.

Instead, when Christians are shown a model of what generosity really looks like, it will encourage them to give more generously. So, it should be no mystery to realize that those Christians who do give at least 10% of their income to God’s work in the world in many cases will actually give much more than 10% of their income, because they greatly enjoy participating in building God’s Kingdom.

It would be foolish to say that the New Covenant abrogation of the Leviticus 25:36-37 restriction against usury, the charging of interest, means that it is somehow okay for a New Covenant believer to rip people off, charging excessive interest in making loans, or otherwise mistreat poor people. Neither is it that the abrogation of the ritual purity requirement to avoid wearing two different kinds of fabric in Leviticus 19:19 mean that it is somehow okay to be disrespectful in how we go about worshipping God. Likewise, to say that a strict form of tithing is part of the Old Covenant and not the New is not some excuse to be stingy. Rather, we can see how the tithe encourages us to be generous in giving, in view of all that Christ has done for us. All of the regulations found in Leviticus have principles behind them that provide instruction for the New Testament Christian, including tithing.14

One final point bears some consideration: Under the Old Covenant, only the Israelites were expected to tithe to support the work of the Temple. The Gentiles were never under that requirement. But under the New Covenant, the Jews could still support the work of the Temple, while the Temple was still standing until 70 C.E., but the Gentiles who came to know the Messiah were no longer required to become Jewish and undergo the Jerusalem Temple-specific act of tithing. Instead, the New Testament teaches that Christians, Jew and Gentile, are to give and give generously, just as God has given so generously to us.

Such a “post-tithing” position was held by certain early church fathers, such as Epiphanius (315-403), who argued that tithes are like circumcision. Just as circumcision is not required for the Gentile Christian, neither is tithing required either. However, it should be noted that there is no one, single consensus view held by the early church fathers regarding tithing. Some like Epiphanius opposed tithing, whereas other church fathers approved of tithing for all Christians. Since there is a wide variety of perspectives regarding tithing held among those in the early church, an examination of church history is of limited value in determining the correct interpretation of Scripture on this question. Arguments based on the exegesis of Scripture alone should take precedence when considering a Christian view of tithing.15

In reviewing Perspectives of Tithing: 4 Views, the arguments from Scripture presented primarily by David Croteau advancing a “post-tithing” view, and secondarily by Reggie Kidd are the most convincing and compelling. While there are some helpful insights brought to bear by Ken Hemphill and Bobby Eklund, and Gary North, in their respective essays, their conclusions come up short in my estimation. The views advanced by Hemphill, Eklund, and North in favor of tithing for today’s Christian present the reader with the most number of problems to be solved, with the fewest solutions offered, whereas Croteau’s proposal, and to some extent, Kidd’s position as well, has the greatest explanatory power. Nevertheless, the very existence of this book indicates that good Christians can and do come to different conclusions regarding the on-going relevance and application of tithing.16

There are surely some who will read this critique of the book Perspectives on Tithing : 4 Views who will not agree with all of the analysis presented here. That is perfectly fine, if you are not completely convinced. All I hope for is that we find ways to extend grace towards others who hold to different views regarding the applicability of tithing for New Testament believers, and acknowledge that this is a matter of Christian conscience.

Notes:

1. This argument about the “pre-Law-of-Moses” nature of tithing is best presented by Hemphill and Eklund in Croteau, pp. 27ff and North in Croteau, editor, Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views, pp. 141ff and 151ff. However, some tithing advocates strangely argue the opposite, that Abraham was actually keeping the “law,” as described in Genesis 26:5, thus undercutting the notion that Abraham’s act of giving a tithe to Melchizedek was prior to the “law.” The difficulty here is that one wonders how the word “law” is being defined here. For if “law” is the Law of Moses, then this creates a chronological problem in that Abraham lived centuries before Moses. Therefore, whatever “law” is being referenced in Genesis 26:5 can not be the same thing associated with Moses’ activity related to Mt. Sinai. Part of the confusion stems from the idea of the “Law of Moses,” which is actually a very broad concept. For it can mean the “law” which explicitly involves Moses writing down what was given to him personally, or it could mean the “law” associated with the Law of Moses, which would include all five books of the Pentateuch, including Genesis, from where the Abraham story comes is found, and not necessarily specific directives given by God to Moses. In the case of Abraham in Genesis 26:5, this could simply mean particular commands given by God to Abraham personally, but there is no direct connection here with the Melchizedek passage, as Genesis 26:5 is more of a general statement, honoring Abraham’s obedience to God. But it does not specifically address the question of what motivated Abraham to offer a tithe to Melchizedek. See the Veracity blog post which discusses the “Law of Moses.”↩

2. See this previous Veracity blog post about Melchizedek for more about this mysterious figure more generally.↩

3. The most significant Dead Sea Scroll in this context is the Melchizedek document, also called 11Q13, found at Cave 11 at Qumran. The Hebrew word transliterated into English as ma-a-ser is often translated into English as “tithe”, or “tenth”, and is mentioned other times in the Old Testament. Also, a related Hebrew word for “to tithe”, transliterated as a-sar, is found several places as well, as in Genesis 28:22, regarding Jacob’s tithe. But the case of Abraham and Melchizedek in Genesis 14 presents the strongest pro-tithing case for New Covenant believers, as the story is also discussed in the New Testament in Hebrews 7. Some suggest Jacob’s tithe in Genesis 28 was part of regular, ongoing practice. However, the actual text does not offer any evidence in favor of that view, in that only one instance of giving this tithe was mentioned. Furthermore, Jacob’s tithe is not commanded by God, rather it appears to be a voluntary action. These are the same type of problems found in the Abrahamic tithe to Melchiizedek. This blog post series is not intended to be an exhaustive examination of all of the arguments regarding tithing.↩

4. Of the four participant perspectives in the dialogue in Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views, three of the positions differ on the role of tithing for the New Testament believer, but they all agree that in the New Testament there is some aspect of generous giving involved. Gary North’s position is the only one which insists that the tithe is never associated with being a gift, or otherwise voluntary, but rather it is purely an obligation, and the tithe is always 10%. “The tithe is 10 percent of your net income—no more, no less” (Gary North in Croteau, p. 51.). “The tithe is not the standard of Christian giving. It has nothing to do with giving. The tithe is the God-mandated payment by God’s royal priesthood to higher priests who are formally ordained to defend the church and the sacraments, as surely as the Mosaic temple priests were formally ordained to protect the temple and the sacrificial system” (North in Croteau, p. 93). North also states: “My position is that the new covenant tithe, after the cessation of the Mosaic covenant at the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, has nothing to do with giving. It has everything to do with paying. You do not owe a gift. You owe a tithe. The other chapters reject my position. They all categorize the tithe under ‘gifts to God‘” (North in Croteau, p. 123). In conclusion, North says: “Pay your tithe. End the guilt” (North in Croteau, p. 125). North’s position relies on guilt to motivate the Christian’s financial contributions to God’s work. Sadly, this is missing the element of grace as the prime motivator for giving. Nor does North pay any serious attention to the exegesis of Croteau who demonstrates that the tithe under the Old Covenant was more like about 23% and not just 10%. It is as though North arbitrarily connects the “tithe” solely to the Levitical tithe supporting the Levitical priesthood, and not to either the Festival or the Charity tithe, and then transfers that Levitical tithe alone to the New Covenant. On the positive side of North’s essay, he associates the tithe more with the notion of covenant, which underscores the importance of loyalty by linking the tithe to an oath (North in Croteau, p. 157). In other words, the paying of the tithe acts as a loyalty pledge towards the God of Israel, under the Old Covenant. The principle of the loyalty oath is carried forward into the New Testament whereby our giving under the New Covenant is an expression of our believing loyalty towards the Messiah. North is correct that making financial contributions to God’s work is an act of demonstrating one’s loyalty to the God of the Bible.↩

5. Some object that simply because the text never tells us about any command of God for Abraham to tithe, or that the text never tells us that Abraham ever tithed again, that this does not preclude any command of God, nor does it preclude any repeated tithing action by Abraham. While these objections do have some weight, it would be incorrect to conclude that Abraham must have received a command from God, and/or that he continued to tithe to anyone repeatedly with regularity. At best, such conclusions should be qualified with a “maybe.” To draw definitive conclusions would be making arguments from silence. For if Scripture wanted us to know these things, then the text would have surely told us. It is much better to base any doctrine of Scripture based on what it says, and not on what it does not say. The pro-tithing proponents in Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views rely on such arguments from silence. Instead, the evidence we possess in Scripture indicate that Abraham’s tithe to Melchizedek was a one-time, voluntary gift.↩

6. The main purpose of Hebrews 7:1-10 for many commentators is to demonstrate that Jesus, as the Great High Priest, is greater than the Levitical priests. Jesus, as a priest in the order of Melchizedek, is greater than the Levitical priests, who are in the order of Aaron. See George Guthrie, Hebrews: The Expositor’s Commentary, pp. 147ff, and David A. deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Kindle location 3592ff.↩

7. Hemphill and Eklund in Croteau, p. 31.↩

8. Interestingly, Numbers 31:28-30 does describe specifically what the Israelites should pay as tribute to the Lord when obtaining booty from a successful battle. That percentage is just a little over 1 %, which is much less than 10%. In my reading of Hemphill and Eklund, as well as North, in Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views, these authors begin with the assumption that tithing is some sort of spiritual principle embedded into reality, and then they read this assumption into the text of Hebrews 7 in order to arrive at their conclusion. In biblical hermeneutics, this practice is called eisegesis; that is, reading something into the text which is not there, as opposed to exegesis; that is, reading something out of the text. Bringing in assumptions outside of the text only makes sense when the exegesis of a text sitting by itself is not sufficient in order to establish its clear meaning. But we must be careful not to bring in such assumptions into our reading of Scripture without sufficient warrant. ↩

9. Melchizedek is a type which points to Jesus, but in Jewish typological interpretation, a type is not the same as that which the type points towards. For example, in Romans 5 when Paul describes Adam as a type who prefigures, or points towards Jesus. Paul is not saying that Adam is Jesus, or that Jesus is Adam. Adam is the type. Adam is the type who points towards Jesus. Likewise, Melchizedek points towards Jesus, but Jesus is not Melchizedek.  John Walton, in his commentary on Genesis 14, says that according to the text, Melchizedek is depicted as nothing more than the Canaanite king he is described to be. It is not until the intertestamental period of Second Temple Judaism that his role in Jewish thinking expands, through a typological interpretation, which includes this notion that Melchizedek was a priest who lives forever. Typologically speaking, Melchizedek’s roles as priest and king in Jerusalem fits “the Messianic profile.” See Walton, in the NIV Cultural Commentary on the Bible, p. 458. For a higher critical perspective on the Melchizedek story, at odds with conservative scholars, consult this link.  Note that even this higher critical writer sees no need mention any application of tithing, strictly speaking for Christians today, as a necessary conclusion to draw from this text.↩

10. The argument that tithing is a non-superseded command of God relevant for today, since it was established before the Law of Moses was given to the people, is problematic also because there are other practices found in the Law of Moses which were practiced before the actual giving of the Law to the people, such as the practice of Levirate marriage, whereby a brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother’s widow. However, few Christians would say that Levirate marriage is still a binding practice for Christians today. Likewise, one should be cautious before immediately assuming that any “pre-Law” aspect of tithing is therefore binding on New Covenant believers. David Croteau has made this argument .↩

11. See Andreas J. Köstenberger and David A. Croteau, Liberty University SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations, Bulletin for Biblical Research, 16 no 2 2006, p 237-260, Scholars Crossing: Reconstructing a Biblical Model of Giving: a Discussion of Reconstructing a Biblical Model of Giving: a Discussion of Relevant Systematic Issues and New Testament Principles.   Köstenberger and Croteau argue that the tithe was to be used to support the sacrificial system, which no longer makes sense in the New Covenant, since the sacrificial system was done away with by the work of Christ on the cross, the once and for all sacrifice for sins (This argument is complicated by the fact that Jewish Christians probably continued to participate in the sacrificial system even after Jesus’ ascension, up until the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE).  Köstenberger and Croteau also note that the context as found in 1 Corinthians 9:1-23  suggests that while Paul had the right to receive support from the Corinthians, he gave up that right. If Paul had tithing in mind, it would have introduced a situation quite unlike what is found in the Old Testament, which required tithes to be given to support the priests. Could Paul’s refusal to accept tithes indicate that Paul was abrogating the mandatory aspect of tithing? In other words, would the tithe be longer mandated if a pastor refuses to accept being paid by his flock? (Köstenberger and Croteau, p. 249). Köstenberger and Croteau also suggests that Philippians 4:15-20 also plays a role in Paul’s teaching on giving (Köstenberger and Croteau, p. 256) . ↩

12. Andrew Wilson in 1 Corinthians For You: Thrilling You With How Grace Changes Lives, Kindle location 2611, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 16:1-13 quotes from the Heidelberg Catechism, to show that Christians during the Reformation considered generous giving to the poor to be part of the weekly worship service: “I regularly attend the assembly of God’s people (i) to learn what God’s word teaches, (ii) to participate in the sacraments, (iii) to pray to God publicly, and (iv) to bring Christian offerings for the poor.” Wilson continues on to outline four basic principles of giving: (1) Make giving a priority in your worship, (2) Giving is not just for the rich, it is for everyone, (3) The amount we give should be proportional to our wealth, and (4) Plan your giving. ↩

13. In fairness, in Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views, Hemphill and Eklund do encourage developing a heart for sacrificial, grace-motivated giving. But what is perplexing about their position is that they do not see how the Old Testament concept of an obligatory tithe of 10%, at least with respect to the Levitical tithe, conflicts with Paul’s teaching in 2 Corinthians 8-9 about not giving under compulsion. If some particular percentage of giving is obligatory, then then this is a sign of giving under compulsion, which contradicts Paul’s teachings…..Andreas J. Köstenberger and David A. Croteau in their Scholars Crossing: Reconstructing a Biblical Model of Giving: a Discussion of Reconstructing a Biblical Model of Giving: a Discussion of Relevant Systematic Issues and New Testament Principles, p. 260, note 122, makes this statement with supporting evidence: “It has been argued (not in writing) that if teaching on tithing were replaced with ‘grace giving,’ then churches could not survive financially. This pragmatic argument does not hold for many reasons. But the following data suggest that even where tithing is taught, it is not practiced.…”  What is the point of preaching something when the likelihood is that the congregation as a whole will not practice what is being preached? A healthy does of realism is needed here.  ↩

14. See the previous Veracity blog post concerning the Levitical teachings on mixtures. Christians today often think of the Levitical prohibition against wearing two different kinds of cloth as something totally weird, dumb, or stupid, but it actually served a purpose in the mind of the ancient Israelite, to remind the worshipper of Yahweh that when they approach God they are entering sacred space. ….. There is something simultaneously puzzling and encouraging about Reggie Kidd’s contribution to the Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views book. In many ways, Kidd’s perspective is not that much different from David Croteau’s post-tithing view. “I think that Köstenberger and Croteau’s ‘grace giving’ principles embody a great deal of wisdom: that giving should be systematic; proportional; sacrificial/generous; intentional; motivated by love, equality, and a desire to bless; cheerful; and voluntary” (Kidd in Croteau, p. 121). If anything Kidd’s perspective suggests that tithing is more of an issue of conscience. The distinction between Kidd’s view and Croteau’s view comes down to how the word “tithing” is defined. Croteau insists that “tithing” be defined not simply as “tenth,” but rather, within the context of how the Hebrew word for “tithe” is used in multiple instances within the Law of Moses. In other words, the tithe under the Old Covenant amounted to about 23% of agricultural or animal husbandry goods. Kidd, on other hand, does not focus as much on exegesis as Croteau does, but rather he rather roughly uses “tithing” and “giving” interchangeably, as his argument is that what is ultimately important about the tithing is the “principle” and not “casuistry.” Nevertheless, Kidd is inconsistent with his use of “tithe” in his essay, sometimes linking the “tithe” to the notion of “tenth” and at other times linking it to giving more generally (Kidd in Croteau, p. 97ff). Frankly, many Christians do exactly the same thing, using the word “tithe” interchangeably with the word “give.” This is understandable, but it can be confusing. Kidd acknowledges that interpreters do not always treat the biblical texts about tithing the same way: “To one interpreter it is clear that tithing is not a command for followers of Jesus under the new covenant, but to the other it is equally clear that tithing is a command for us. Perhaps one writer sees too little here and the other too much. Then again, perhaps both have a point” (Kidd in Croteau, p. 100). As a side note, Kidd relies more on personal anecdotes than the other authors in Perspectives on Tithing. Kidd was an undergrad student at the College of William and Mary, where I work. Kidd’s pastor was Mort Whitmann, an influential bible teacher in the Williamsburg, Virginia community in the 1970s. Kidd acknowledged that the church which Whitmann helped to establish in the 1970s eventually folded, due to not having enough contributors to pay the bills. Frankly, this was partly due to the fact that many in that church were college students who were not in a position to give that much since they were not generating much income yet as college students! The most helpful idea found in Kidd’s essay was the realization that following Christ is all about giving everything we have to follow Christ: “Jesus does indeed call for something more radical than a tenth of our income. He calls for everything” (Kidd in Croteau, p. 105).↩

15.  The appendix in Perspectives on Tithing: 4 Views is about the history of tithing during the last 2,000 years of the Christian movement. This would probably require a separate blog post to examine this in detail. However, a few highlights are worth noting. The teaching and practice of tithing was indeed mixed during the earliest centuries of the Christian movement. Clement of Rome, near the year 100 CE, urged that Christians give according to God’s “laws,” but he made no specific reference to tithing. Tertullian in the 2nd century wrote that Christians gave voluntarily to support the work of the church, without any reference to an obligatory tithe. A few early church fathers were either full supporters of tithing, or they were mildly supportive of it, including Cyril of Alexandria and Jerome. In more recent history, both Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon rejected tithing as a New Testament requirement. Many early English Baptists rejected tithing as it violated the teachings of Hebrews 7:12, ” For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.” The logic of these early Baptists was that God changed the priesthood when Christ came, thereby relegating the tithe as belonging to the Old Covenant and not to the New Covenant. In some cases, a Baptist preacher could be brought up on charges of violating church discipline if they accepted tithes (Croteau, p. 181). Today, various scholars and bible teachers, like Andreas Kostenberger, John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and Sam Storms view the tithe as non-mandatory for Christians. ↩

16. I highly recommend several of David Croteau’s other books, from the Urban Legends series, reviewed here on Veracity. Two other brief articles on tithing, such as William Barcley’s pro-tithing essay, and Tom Schreiner’s “post-tithing” essay, are recommended for extra research.↩

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May 16, 2025

Are Christians Required to Tithe to Their Local Church? (Part One)

By Clarke Morledge

Are Christians required to give one-tenth of their income to their local church, and only optionally give over-and-beyond that one-tenth to other Christian ministries?

The Old Testament teaches that the people of God were required to tithe in order to support the mission of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Some Christians today believe that this tithing requirement is still in force today, but that instead of supporting the Temple, that the tithe should go to support the local church. Any additional offerings you give may go to the local church, or any other Christian ministry.

Does the practice of tithing belong to the Old Covenant, or is it relevant to the New Covenant as well? If so, what does “tithing” mean for Christians today?

 

There appears to be a lot of confusion about tithing, and giving in general, in many corners of the Christian community. So, it is worth focusing on this issue in some detail, by digging into the teaching of the Scriptures. Right out of the gate, there are two basic ideas that need to be addressed:

First, there is no explicit passage in the New Testament which requires the Christian to give 10 percent of their income to the local church. Christians are called to give generously, but there is no verse in the New Testament which prescribes a percentage to be given, to whom it should be given, and what might be considered “income”.1

Secondly, statistics show that the average church goer typically only gives about 2.5% of their income. In fact, some data indicates that giving among Americans has decreased over the last twenty years, from 2/3rds of Americans giving years ago, to the current level of only 50% of Americans giving. One recent statistic suggests that only 5% of church attenders “tithe,” or give 10 percent of their income to Christian charity. This is a sad situation, but not altogether unsurprising.

This same survey also shows that among those who do “tithe,” about 77% give more than 10% of their income. In other words, most Christians who do value the importance of giving give more than what is typically expected of them. What does this all mean?

It would appear that on the one hand, many Christians feel a certain sense of guilt about what they think they should be giving, as opposed to what they actually give. Christianity is supposed to be about grace, but sadly, many believers find that the message is more about guilt instead. On the other hand, other Christians come up with reasons to justify their low rate of giving in ways which miss the proper motivation why New Testament believers are called to give in the first place.

The topic of tithing can become emotionally heated, as some will assert on one side that churches must be greedy for money when teaching about tithing, or on the other side that the failure to give 10% to a local church is motivated by stinginess or lack of charity. Instead of guessing the motives of others, what is needed is an examination of Scripture. Clearing some of the ground biblically will help to eliminate a lot of the confusion, and bring the temperature of the debate down.

What does it mean to “tithe?” What is the difference between “tithes” and “offerings?”

 

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