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.

Arguments Against Tithing Debunked - Part 2 - Was Tithing Disannulled in Hebrews 7?

I would like to first answer the question as stated in the title of this article and then generalize the question to "is tithing disannulled anywhere in the New Covenant?" The reason for starting with this very specific argument about Hebrews 7 is that this is one place that anti-tithers harp on make an argument against tithing. Indeed, most of Christianity today uses Hebrews 7 as a "proof" that the "Old Covenant" law of God is no longer required - of course, they then pick and choose for themselves what they consider to be Old Covenant law! After a careful analysis of this chapter, I'll show in a broader sense that neither tithing nor any other part of the law of God has ever been "disannulled" in the sense that it is no longer in effect, as so many today want you to think.

For starters, let's review the anti-tithing argument in question. It goes as follows:

Hebrews 7 is the only place in the bible after Christ's death that tithing appears, and it refers to tithe as a commandment and law in verse 5. Then Hebrews 7:12 says that the law has changed because the priesthood has changed, and verse 18 says that the commandment is disannulled. Therefore, the commandment and law that are "disannulled" in Hebrews 7 are the laws of tithing, and Christians are no longer required to tithe like people did in the Old Covenant.

This is the argument that I'm going to now refute by examining Hebrews 7. Let's read through the chapter now to try to understand, from an objective standpoint, the context and purpose of the scriptures:

Hebrews 7:1-7
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all... remains a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham; but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 

The Old Covenant established the Levites as a tribe of priests and appointed them to receive the tithes from the rest of those under the covenant - the other 11 tribes of Israel. Is tithing the central issue here? No. Tithing is being used as a device to show that Melchizedek is greater than Abraham. Therefore, since Abraham is greater than Levi, Melchizedek is greater than Levi:

Hebrews 7:8-10
Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better. Here mortal men receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives. Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. 

The sole purpose of mentioning tithes is to demonstrate that Melchizedek is greater than Levi since tithes are given from the lesser to the greater. Why is this relevant? What point is the author of Hebrews making? Keep reading for the answer.

Hebrews 7:11
Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron?

Now it should become clear: the author of Hebrews is showing the insufficiency of the Levitical priesthood and the need for a greater priesthood. Now that we are in the proper mindset, we have come to the infamous verse 12, the verse that anti-tithers say "changes" the law of tithing:

Hebrews 7:12-17
For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. 

We have now come to the heart of the matter: Christ is a priest, but He did not come from the tribe of Levi - He was from the tribe of Judah. The law only allowed Levites to be priests. Therefore, what change of the law is being discussed? The law which states that only Levites can be priests! There is absolutely NO indication from the context that a change in tithing is being discussed! But we still have one more verse to go: the infamous "disanullment" in verse 18. Let's see what we make of that statement now that we understand the point that is being made:

Hebrews 7:15-18
And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. For He testifies: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

Notice that the "former commandment" was annulled "because of its weakness and unprofitableness," because Christ came as a priest "according to the power of an endless life" rather than "according to the power of a fleshly commandment." The fleshly commandment is, again, the one that states that only the sons of Aaron could be priests.

Now that we understand what Hebrews 7 is saying, let's answer the argument that I posed in the beginning. The only law or commandment that is specifically addressed for the purpose of being changed or annulled is the commandment that states that priests had to be from the tribe of Levi. It cannot in any way be construed as indictment of tithing in particular! The more general argument, which I also promised to address, is that of mainstream Christianity as a whole, which says that Hebrews 7:18 refers to an annulment of the entire Old Covenant law. Again, that is not what we have found - and I'll tell you precisely why.

First of all, consider the nature of the "change of the law" that is being made and the "annulment" that is taking place. The law states that only Levites could be priests. Christ was not a Levite, but, being a priest "according to the order of Melchizedek" and "according to the power of an endless life," He is a greater priest than any Levite. Therefore, the only "change" of the law is to allow for a greater priesthood - a priesthood that already existed before the Levitical priesthood commanded through Moses, since Melchizedek was identified as the "priest of the Most High God" hundreds of years before Levi was even born.

So what manner of "change" and "annulment" is this? Answer: it's a change that invalidates priesthood according to flesh and replaces it with priesthood according to the power of God. Has the law become weaker or stronger as a result? Stronger! Hebrews 7:18 itself says that this causes "the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God." Because the priesthood is now laid on a better foundation (its original foundation, in fact), we now have a better hope and are able to draw near to God in a way that was not possible before.

The conclusion of the first point is that the "change of the law" serves only to allow for a greater priesthood to take the place of the Levitical priesthood. My second point is that this is typical of the entire New Covenant. A true "annulment" of the law of the priesthood would state that there is no longer a priesthood - but this is totally false! Christ is a priest! He's the High Priest, actually, of a better priesthood. More generally, none of God's law has been "annulled" without being superseded by a better law that more fully captures God's spiritual intent of the law! For proof of this fact, one need look no further than the words of Christ:

Matthew 5:17-19
Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Heaven and earth have not passed away - and neither has one word of God's law. Any "changes" are, as I stated, changes that uphold the spiritual intent of the law. Christ gave examples of these types of "changes" in the Sermon on the Mount: it's not sufficient to abstain from murder; rather, you can't even hate your brother in your heart. It's not sufficient to abstain from adultery; rather, you can't even look at a woman with lust. As a matter of fact, prophecy indicates that EXALTING the law was one of the purposes of the Messiah!

Isaiah 41:21
The LORD is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will exalt the law and make it honorable.

In the King James, the word "exalt" is translated as "magnify." The Hebrew word, according to Strong's, means "to make great, to cause to grow, to magnify." Not only has God's law not been abolished, annulled, abrogated, or whatever fancy language you want to use to say that it is "done away" - the fact is, Christ came to reveal the true spirit of the law, which is even greater and more honorable than the letter of the law.

In conclusion, as I stated from the beginning: God's commandment to tithe is NOT specifically targeted in Hebrews 7. Furthermore, NONE of God's requirements have been weakened; rather, they have been magnified and made better, so that we might receive a better reward than in the Old Covenant. 

In view of this fact, regarding tithing in particular, it is easily seen that there is no way to get off the hook as far as tithing goes. God's law is magnified in the New Covenant, and that includes the laws of tithing! If you're still reading this, then you already know that I've said too much for one post - so perhaps I'll save the topic of how the laws of tithing are magnified for a future article.

My next post on debunking anti-tithing arguments will bring us to the next logical point, as I laid out in the Introduction: now that I've shown that tithing is still required by Christians, I will refute the notion that ministers in God's church are not qualified to receive tithes since they are not Levites.

Additionally, I think that at some point I would like to take a detour to explain what is meant by the "weakness and unprofitableness" of the Old Covenant. If it was so weak and unprofitable, why did God make the Israelites agree to it in the first place?

Becoming a Tithe to God (Part 1)

Tithing is a commanded biblical principle: God requires us to return a tenth of the blessing that He gives us back to Him. In this post, I'll begin to show how we ourselves are to become a tithe to God. First of all, I'd like to give a very basic overview of what tithing is, why we are commanded to do it, and what we are supposed to learn from it (for a slightly more detailed discussion, see Tithes and Offerings.)

Tithing reminds us that all things belong to God and that we have nothing by our own might. God commands us to tithe because He wants us to stop and think about Him every time we get paid.

In today’s world, tithing is a simple process: when you get paid, you simply set aside 10% of your money and give it to the Church to do the work of God, which is preaching the gospel and caring for Church members spiritually and physically. For the Israelites, tithing took more preparation and thought than it does for us since most people were farmers. Tithe was paid in the form of raw goods: crops and animals rather than money. For most of us, our money stays in the bank until we transfer it into someone else's bank account, but the Israelites would have had to set aside the appropriate quantities of their livestock and harvest to give to the Levites. With animals in particular, God made it clear that they couldn’t just wait until the end of the year to pick out 10% of the animals to be a tithe – they had to do it as soon as the animals were born:

Leviticus 27:32

And concerning the tithe of the herd or the flock, of whatever passes under the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to the LORD.

Every animal that was born was literally walked under a shepherd's rod, and every tenth one was dedicated to God immediately as tithe. Likewise, we shouldn’t wait until the end of the year to look back, see how much money we've made, and then scrounge up 10% of the total to give to God – we should be diligently setting aside tithe FIRST – before we even think about spending any of it on anything else! Neither should we be reluctant to give tithe, but eager to please God by keeping His commandments.

Thus far, I have said nothing new or surprising - everyone knows that God commands us to tithe and that we should be happy to give it. But did you know that God is also keeping a tithe to Himself?

Unleavened Bread in the Bible - 4 Main Purposes

For those who may not know, one of God's annual festivals is currently underway: the Days of Unleavened Bread (DUB). This particular observance commemorates the saving power of God. For the Israelites, God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Likewise for Christians, God has delivered us out of slavery to sin, which is often dubbed "spiritual Egypt." Part of the requirement for the feast is that all leaven (i.e. yeast, baking soda, etc.) must be removed from your home before the feast begins, and your home must remain leaven-free throughout the 7 days of its observance. Additionally, you cannot eat any leaven during those 7 days. Tonight begins the 7th DUB, on which no work may be done until sundown tomorrow night.

In this post I would like to share an analysis of the references to unleavened bread in the bible. While this is not a comprehensive list of every occurrence (you can get that by doing a simple search for "unleavened" and "leaven" on biblegateway.org), I have categorized the main contexts in which unleavened bread appears and provided key scriptures.

What Do the Days of Unleavened Bread Mean for Christians?

Among the Holy Days of Leviticus 23, God commanded Israel to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread every year. They were specifically commanded to remove the yeast from their homes for 7 days and to not eat anything leavened with yeast for those 7 days. This yearly festival was primarily a commemoration of the Exodus, and specifically of the fact that God brought Israel out of Egypt by His power:

Exodus 13:3-8
And Moses said to the people: “Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten... And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, ‘This is done because of what the LORD did for me when I came up from Egypt.’"

God devastated and overcame the power of the Egyptians with the plague of the firstborn (the Passover plague) and then led Israel out of Egypt on the day after Passover, which is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As a matter of fact, the first words that Moses and Aaron spoke to Pharaoh were about this Feast:

Exodus 5:1
Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”

The Feast of Unleavened Bread clearly focuses on deliverance - so what point is God trying to make by asking us to not eat leaven during these days?

First, recall that Israel was commanded to leave Egypt in haste - they couldn't delay their leaving in order to give the bread time to rise, so God told them not to put any yeast in it. Yeast is a living organism that grows in bread and releases gas, which cases the bread to puff up over time as the yeast grows and spreads. They were supposed to be eager to get out of Egypt! The deliverance symbolism of the Feast is obviously made manifest because of God's act of deliverance, but the Israelites were to commemorate the event by eating unleavened bread in order to symbolize their willingness and readiness to receive that deliverance.

The Israelites had a problem with not trusting God to provide for them, and, as a result, they frequently wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt. In light of what the unleavened bread was supposed to mean for them, it's not surprising that the one of the fond memories that the Israelites had about Egypt was the bread that they ate there:

Exodus 16:3
And the children of Israel said to them, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full!"

The Israelites were so unappreciative of God's deliverance that they were not satisfied with the unleavened bread which symbolized that deliverance - they wanted to return to Egypt, where they ate leavened bread in bondage!

All of these things are written for our learning. Today, Christians are still commanded to eat only unleavened bread for 7 days. We observe the Days of Unleavened Bread to commemorate that God has Passed Over our sins and redeemed us from slavery in spiritual Egypt, which is the way that leads to death. The reason that we eat unleavened bread is to remind us of the urgency with which we are called to stop living under the control of sin. Just like the Israelites were not permitted to wait around in Egypt for the bread to rise, so also Christians are not permitted to continue in their sins. The New Testament teaches that sin is like yeast:

1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Just like yeast lives in the bread, spreading and growing until the entire loaf is puffed up, so also sin lives in us, spreading and growing until we are thoroughly captive to it. If we delay in purging out our sins, they will spread like leaven in our lives until they completely control our us. Therefore, we must not compromise! When God reveals to you that you are doing something wrong, you must be READY and WILLING to change! 

We are called to eat the "unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." If you are not ready to stop sinning, then you are not sincere. If you say that you are ready to stop sinning but you willingly going back for "one last fix," then you are a liar and have not abided in truth. 

The primary message of the Days of Unleavened Bread of Christians is that God has brought us out of sin by His power, which is displayed in the Passover sacrifice. As a result of that deliverance, we must be totally ready to accept our salvation by willingly and eagerly following God out of sin, symbolized by eating unleavened bread - putting away sin before it has a chance to grow and corrupt us.

For more information on why Christians should celebrate these Holy Days, as well as how to celebrate them, see God's Holy Day Plan: The Promise of Hope for All Mankind.

Passover: A Christian Observance

Jesus Christ was betrayed, tried, beaten, and put to death on Passover, which is why Christ is now called "Christ our Passover" in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:7). God planned it this way intentionally because Christ is not a "sacrifice for our sins" in some vague context: He is specifically the "Lamb of God" - the Passover Lamb. There were many types of sacrifices in the Old Covenant, so why did God choose the Passover sacrifice in particular to coincide with and represent the death of the Savior? Let's first take a look at the history of the Passover prior to Christ.

Sharing in Christ's Death: Escaping the Consequence of Sin

In the previous 2 articles in this series leading up to Passover, we observed that sin causes death and we learned that sin is the transgression of God's law - the same law that is found in the Old Testament. We deserve death for our sins, but God has given us a way that leads to life. This post is going to elaborate on exactly what we have to go through to obtain the life that God has promised.

Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned

Aren't we dead already if that's the case? YES, we are, and that's exactly the point that I'm now going to make. In Acts 2, the people heard Peter's sermon and were terrified when Peter condemned them for their sins because they knew that they deserved to die:

Acts 2:37-38
Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Sin Causes Death - So What's Sin?

In the previous article, I established that sin causes death. Therefore, we would do well to learn what God means by "sin!"

1 John 3:4
Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

Sin is defined as lawlessness - living without regard for God's law. God gave His law to Israel in various parts of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The apostles read these books to learn what sin was, and, if you really want to know what God considers to be sin, then you also need to read them - they contain the law that John was writing about in the above verse. It's the only law of God that there has ever been. It's the same law that Jesus Christ knew and followed perfectly. Additionally, Christ said the following about that same law:

Some Jews Seek to Resume Sacrifices for Passover

According to this news story, there is growing support among certain Jewish sects to resume sacrifices at the Temple Mount. The Jews have not carried out sacrifices since the destruction of the temple in the year 70 AD. I've encountered various schools of thought among Jews as to whether or not sacrifices should be carried out. Some say that forgiveness of sins can be obtained without blood sacrifice - a claim that I personally see absolutely zero support for in the Bible. Others shy away from blood sacrifices because of certain technical matters in the law, claiming that they don't have the proper provisions for carrying out these blood sacrifices correctly. Others, such as Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the subject of the featured article, believe that the sacrifices should be carried out to the best of their ability, even if it's not perfect.

Having read the Old Testament thoroughly, I have to say that I would be an advocate of resuming the sacrifices as Rabbi Eliyahu proposes if I were a Jew. As it stands, I believe that those sacrifices are not necessary for our present time because this is what is taught in the book of Hebrews; however, the book of Ezekiel (chapter 40) clearly states that God is going to have His Temple rebuilt on earth during Christ's reign and that He is going to reinstitute animal sacrifies in the Temple. In light of that fact, God clearly has a purpose for those sacrifices, a topic which I have breached in the first post of a series on my other blog about the biblical concept of cleanliness.

There is also reason to believe that the Jews may resume sacrifices before the Tribulation. Notice Christ's warning about the end-times:

Matthew 24:15-22
"Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes... For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened."

Couple that with what Daniel said:

Daniel 12:11
And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days.

The original abomination of desolation involved stopping the daily sacrifice in the Temple and the defilement of the Temple by having unclean animals sacrificed to Zeus on the altar of God. Notice the period of time involved here, 1290 days, is the same length of time as the tribulation period, which is elsewhere said to be 3.5 years. Therefore, a reasonable interpretation of these scriptures is that sacrifices will again be established at the Temple and that these sacrifices will be cut off and the altar defiled by sacrifices to another god immediately prior to the Tribulation. On the other hand, there are other interpretations of these scriptures that reason that the prophecy in Matthew 24 refers to the New Testament analog of the Temple of God, which is the Church.

Either way, I personally find it encouraging that there are Jews who are passionate enough about the law of God to try to reinstate the sacrifices. Of course I wish that they would instead accept Christ and channel that passion to understanding His sacrifice for us, and I look forward to the time when their minds will be opened for exactly that purpose. 

Why Do People Die?

I could end this article in one word: SIN. Of course, virtually no one would benefit from that, so I must elaborate. By the way, this is going to be the first in a series of posts leading up to the topic of why Christians should observe Passover. If you don't see the connection already, then I highly suggest that you follow along!

Why Do People Die?
In the beginning of human existence on earth, Adam and Eve lived in a lush garden and talked with God directly. God had given them instructions to tend to the garden, with the only restriction being that they could not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He said the following:

Genesis 2:17
Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

We all know how this story pans out: Adam and Eve ate from the tree. And where are they now? Dead.