Arguments Against Tithing Debunked - Part 3 - Was Tithe Given to the Levites Forever?

In the previous article in this series, I demonstrated that tithing was not abolished in Hebrews 7. Furthermore, I showed that none of God’s law could possibly be done away because of the words of Christ in Matthew 5:17-18. As a result, this means that God's law, and tithing in particular, is required for Christians today, and on this foundation I will continue to discuss precisely how tithing applies to Christians.

With this firmly established, the next relevant discussion to undertake is determining whether the ministry of the Church of God is qualified under God’s law to receive tithes. On the path to doing this, I will in this article debunk the following anti-tithing argument:

God never gave any pastor or church permission to receive his tithe because God commanded His tithe be taken to the Levites FOREVER in Numbers 18.

The case that is trying to be made here is that the Levites are the only qualified recipients of tithes because God gave the first tithe to them in Numbers 18 by a “perpetual ordinance,” and we will examine this in detail.

Before beginning to address this argument, we should first note that this statement applies ONLY to the allocation of first tithe. Of the three tithes that are required by the law, only the first tithe was given to the Levites, while the other two were used to celebrate God's festivals and given to the poor, respectively. My point in bringing this up is that even if you accept the argument that the ministry is not qualified to receive tithes because they are not Levites, this does not exempt anyone from observing second or third tithes since these were NOT given to the Levites.

Would it make any sense then that the 1st tithe is somehow obsolete when the others clearly are not? Let's dig into the heart of this argument by making a few notes from the relevant portions of Numbers 18.

Numbers 18:20-21
The LORD spoke to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any portion of property among them – I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites. See, I have given the Levites all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they perform – the service of the tent of meeting.

The Levites were not allowed to inherit property because, as it says above, God was to be their inheritance. The reason given here for the Levites receiving tithe was in exchange for their service in the tabernacle.

Numbers 18:23-24
But the Levites must perform the service of the tent of meeting... It will be a perpetual ordinance throughout your generations that among the Israelites the Levites have no inheritance. But I have given to the Levites for an inheritance the tithes of the Israelites... That is why I said to them that among the Israelites they are to have no inheritance.

The “perpetual ordinance” states that the Levites would have no inheritance of land. Therefore, God gave the Levites the tithes as a result of their lack of inheritance. If we take this together with verses 20-21, then we start to see what might appear to be a contradiction. The Levites were to have no inheritance in the form of land. Verses 20-21 state that God was their inheritance instead of land and that God gave the Levites the tithes in exchange for their service. On the other hand, verses 23-24 state that God gave the tithes to the Levites in the place of a land inheritance. This raises the following questions:

Was God their inheritance or was the tithe their inheritance?
God says that He was to be the inheritance of the Levites, but also that He was giving them the tithes as their inheritance. The best way to reconcile these two statements is to realize that God was the inheritance of the Levites through the tithes because the tithes are God’s portion. Leviticus 27:30 and 32 say quite clearly that the tithe "is the LORD's," and that it was "holy to the LORD." God permitted the Levites to receive that which was His in the place of an inheritance; thus, God was their inheritance by proxy.

Did God give them the tithes to be their inheritance or in exchange for their service? 

It’s clearly stated that the purpose for which the Levites received the tithes was in exchange for their service in the tabernacle, but the perpetual ordinance in Numbers 18:23 states that the Levites will not have an inheritance in the land but instead would receive the tithe. Again, God said both of these things, so they must both be true.

The key here is that the inheritance of all of Israel was an exchange for their obedience to God: this was the stipulation of the covenant they had made. This is evident in the punishment for disobedience to the covenant, which was, among other things, exile from the land of their inheritance:

Deuteronomy 28:37
And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you. 

If they disobeyed the covenant, they forfeited their inheritance in the land. Likewise, the Levites received their inheritance, the tithe, on the condition of their special service to God in the temple.

Answering the Argument: Does First Tithe Belong to the Levites Forever?
Now we are finally in the proper context and ready to tackle the previously stated argument as we continue to explore the question of whether the church or ministers are approved to receive tithe. Allow me to restate the argument:

God never gave any pastor or church permission to receive his tithe because God commanded His tithe be taken to the Levites FOREVER in Numbers 18.

We have read the verses for ourselves and can confidently say that this is an outright wrong assessment of what is being said in Numbers 18. As we have seen, God gave the Levites the tithe as an inheritance in exchange for their service in the temple. It only belonged to the Levites in the sense that the land belonged to the rest of Israel – it was given on the conditional basis of obedience to the Old Covenant, which Israel broke. As a result of their disobedience, God removed Israel’s inheritance from them. God divorced Israel – including the Levites. By divorcing them, God no longer accepted their service in the Temple, and, as a result, the Levites are no longer to receive first tithe. The Levites forfeited their right to the tithe by betraying the conditions of the covenant.

The Fundamental Error

The mistake that anti-tithers have made here is somewhat subtle: they separate the tithe from God by saying that it is given to the Levites as though God has not revoked or (worse) cannot revoke that gift. In effect, they are saying that the tithes belong to the Levites instead of to God. This is similar to the error that the Jews made at the beginning of the New Covenant when they thought that only the blood descendants of Abraham could inherit God’s promises. They separated the gifts from the Giver on the basis that the Old Covenant was made specifically with the physical nation of Israel. In their minds, the promises of God belonged to Israel rather than to God, just as anti-tithers claim that the tithes belong to the Levites.

God terminated the service of the Levites because of disobedience. If the Levites are not serving, then they are clearly not eligible to receive tithe. Does this necessarily mean that no one gets to receive the first tithe? Or, from a different perspective, does this mean that everyone just keeps what they would have paid in first tithe? No, it doesn't necessarily imply either of those things. The fact of the matter is that tithe was, and still is, given to God alone, and He gives it to who He desires - if you keep it for yourself, then you have not given it to God.

I’ve gone on quite long enough for one article, but this sets the stage perfectly for a follow-up! This study is proving to be a large undertaking, but I do hope to eventually cover it fully. In the next article, I’ll continue building on the foundation laid here to demonstrate that the Church of God and its ministers are in fact legitimate recipients of first tithe.