Word of Faith Preachers
How Misinterpretation of Scripture Might Lead You AstrayBy Joe Bachota Jr.iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Joe Bachota Jr.
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-3145-9 Contents
Preface.....................................................................................................ixChapter 1 Malachi 3: Tithing Under the Levitical Law........................................................3Chapter 2 Examples of New Testament Giving..................................................................18Chapter 3 Hebrews 7 A New Law Established...................................................................33Chapter 4 Genesis 14 Spoils of War Tithing..................................................................39Chapter 5 Genesis 28 Bargaining With God....................................................................50Chapter 6 More Misinterpreted Scriptures....................................................................53Chapter 7 Where the Old Covenant Ends and the New Covenant Begins and Proverbs 3:9-10.......................60Chapter 8 Leviticus 25 A Year of Rest.......................................................................64Chapter 9 Deuteronomy 12 Strangers to the Covenant..........................................................69Chapter 10 Deuteronomy 14 A Long Journey....................................................................73Chapter 11 Deuteronomy 26 Tithes to Ensure Everyone Rejoices................................................76Chapter 12 Paula White and First Fruits Offering............................................................79Chapter 13 Pastor Steve Munsey and the Passover Offering....................................................92Bibliographic Essay for Section I...........................................................................96Chapter 1 Introduction to the Prosperity Gospel.............................................................101Chapter 2 Is the Prosperity Gospel Biblical?................................................................109Chapter 3 More Erroneous Teachings..........................................................................134Chapter 1 Psalm 82 and John 10: Interpretations of the Term gods............................................163Chapter 2 Quotations: The Gospel or New Age Teaching?.......................................................179Chapter 1 Introduction: A Single Covenant: Only Faith in Christ Offers Salvation............................205Chapter 2 Paper: The Christian Church Today Is the New Israel...............................................221Appendix A Giving Honor to Whom Honor Is Due................................................................237Appendix B How to Read the Bible............................................................................240Appendix C Prayer for Salvation.............................................................................246About the Author............................................................................................249
Chapter One
Malachi 3: Tithing Under the Levitical Law
What I like to refer to as the "mother ship" of tithe teaching is found in Malachi chapter 3. You may have heard about Malachi chapter three verse eight: will a man rob God? Almost every Word of Faith preacher uses this scripture to teach people that God wants us to tithe and that we will be cursed if we don't. They point to this passage, to prove that tithing is God's word and use phraseology, such as, "I'm not saying we must tithe; God is," and "Tithing is God's command, , and if you choose not to obey, you are robbing form God what is His, and therefore, you are a God robber and a thief."
1. By gaining a fuller understanding of the original context of the text, we can see what God was really saying here at the time that the passages were written. First, allow me to make two things fundamentally clear about reading the Bible. One, the scriptures can never mean what they never meant; so in a nutshell, if the text is talking about apples, then it means apples. It can never mean oranges or anything else. Two, the Bible was not written to us but for us! The Bible was written over thousands of years, and the last entry (in the book of Revelation) is almost two thousand years old. None of us was around two thousand years ago. (See the discussion of the book of Revelation in Section IV for further study.)
In other words, all of the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, were written to somebody else. We can glean the nuggets from those writings and determine what we can and cannot apply to our lives depending on the subject matter and to whom it was presented. The Bible was written for our benefit, and it provides a code of conduct to live by. However, as we study the Bible, we must ask ourselves:
2. In this text, who is speaking?
3. Who are God, the Prophets, or the writers of the text speaking to?
4. Is this Old or New Testament?
5. Was this scripture carried over into the New Testament? 6. Who did this law apply to? Is it for me or somebody else?
7. What did the writer of this letter or book really mean when he wrote in the selected text that you are reading?
8. What topics was he trying to address?
9. What problem(s) was he trying to tackle and deal with?
10. What problems arose in the text from these problems?
Let's look at some verses in Malachi chapter 3 in the context of the questions.
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes in offerings.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open up the windows of heaven and poor you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. (Mal. 3:8-12)
First, we must determine who is speaking and who the speaker is addressing. In these verses, it appears that God is talking to the children of Israel about tithes and offerings. (Some would say that God is talking only to the priests here, as He is addressing the priests specifically in chapter 2.) For the sake of argument, let's say that God is talking to all of the children of Israel; does this commandment to tithe carry over in the New Testament for New Testament Gentile believers known as Christians? Was God talking to us in this passage or was he addressing only Jews who lived during the time of the Old Testament? These are very important questions if we are going to grasp what this scripture really meant at the time it was written. If we can answer these questions, we will have a better understanding of what the scripture means, and I believe that this understanding will show clearly that these scriptures do not apply to Christians.
God is admonishing the children of Israel for not tithing. Therefore, a previous commandment to tithe must exist. Otherwise, God is reprimanding the Jews for no reason, which would make Him an unjust God. However, God is not being unjust; He had indeed previously commanded the children of Israel to tithe. The original commandment is found in Numbers:
And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.
Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin, and die.
But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance.
But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as a heave offering unto the Lord, I have given to the Levities to inherit: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance. (Num. 18:21-24)
Why did God give this original commandment? Answering that question requires knowing the full story. Here's a brief synopsis: Before going into the Promised Land, the children of Israel had divided up the land between the twelve tribes of Israel, with the tribes receiving parcels that were on either side of the Jordan River. These land allotments were to be an inheritance for the children of Israel as they came into the Promised Land. However, in verse 23, God noted that the tribe of Levi would not get their portion; rather, God himself would be their portion, their reward. The Levites would be in charge of the tabernacle; if the children of Israel moved anywhere, the Levites would be tasked with packing up the tabernacle of Moses, carrying it, and setting it up anywhere that they went.
This was a big deal to the Levites. Since they didn't get any land, they were not allowed to grow their own crops; nor did they have fields on which to graze cattle. In order for the tribe of Levi to survive, the Levites needed tithes from the farmers and herdsman of that day and then those same animals would later be used for animal sacrifices. Please note that, in these passages, God commanded the children of Israel to tithe to the Levites, not to the local church. To explain the importance of this detail, allow me to present another brief synopsis: In the book of Joshua, God outlined forty-eight Levitical city states, or Levi towns, that the children of Israel were to establish outside the city to which they were commanded to tithe. The storehouse mentioned in Malachi 3:10 is not a reference to their (or your) local church; rather, storehouse refers to the Levitical city states/towns outside of the city. The children of Israel tithed to the Levites outside of the city, not in the congregation of church as we know it answering clearly who the law applied to.
As to the next set of questions-what did the writer of the Law mean and what issues did he intend to address? Note that, when the children of Israel tithed, they gave food and animals/livestock; this served two purposes-it kept the Levites from starving to death and provided sacrificial animals offered to God because of sin. Tithing was never money! In the New Testament, Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross; this ultimate sacrifice eliminated the need to sacrifice animals for man's sin. Jesus was and is the sacrifice or offering for sin for all of mankind once and for all. The writer of Hebrews even tells us this in the New Testament (Hebrews 9:11-14). Where it reads:
But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
For is the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of the heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
So we can see God did away with the sacrifices of animals because Jesus' sacrifice was far superior to any animal sacrifice because God offered Himself in Jesus Christ.
Let's return to Malachi 3. Verse 8 asks:
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes in offerings.
Here, God is rebuking the priests for not giving tithes and offerings to Him because they were lame animals and God wasn't receiving them. We know that tithes never meant money; hence, the words tithes and offerings do not refer to money in Malachi 3. The tithes were a tenth of the harvest/production of the land, and the offerings were the animals that were sacrificed to God, which no longer happens.
Further, let's turn to Malachi chapter 1. In this chapter, God rebukes the people for bringing Him animals that were lame and sick. God told the people that, when they offered sacrifices, they should offer animals without spot or blemish. The people offered God only the lame and sick animals. Rather than giving God their best, they were giving Him only the animals they didn't want! In Malachi chapter 1, God tells them to offer the same animals to their governors and see if they would take them. God was not accepting the people's tithes and offerings-food and livestock, not money. So when God says that the children of Israel have robbed Him, He is referring to food and animals, nothing more. He was definitely not saying that anyone had robbed Him of 10 percent of his or her paycheck! The concept that faith requires believers to give 10 percent of their gross income to the church is just something the church has made up! That concept doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. It is a false doctrine that the church has been panning to unsuspecting, ignorant believers for years, and it is time for the madness to stop.
Verse 9 reads:
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Here, the interpretation gets really interesting. If God is talking about produce and animals to sustain the Levites and offer up sacrifices, the need for such tithing no longer exists. Therefore, New Testament believers are not required to tithe! The blessing is that, if this text does not apply to Christians, neither does the curse. Nevertheless, Word of Faith preachers still love to put this curse on people and teach their parishioners that they will be cursed if they don't tithe. This guilt trip for not tithing would apply if we were Old Testament Jews, living under the Levitical laws provided to ensure that the Levites wouldn't starve and would have sacrificial animals to pay for people's sins.
Recall that a scripture can never mean what it never meant; tithing never referred to money. Preachers who try to make people feel guilty for disobeying a law that didn't apply to them, a law that the preachers are actually misinterpreting, are way off base. I read on the internet in a blog where one pastor took his case for tithing even further, claiming that if a person didn't tithe, he or she would go to hell. He relied on a verse from 1 Corinthians
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:10)
Preachers or pastors who make this argument are taking the notion that believers who don't tithe are "thieves" or "God robbers" too far. This verse does not refer to people who don't pay their tithe, so there is no way to interpret it as saying that those who don't tithe are going to hell.
Allow me to tell you a story that demonstrates how Word of Faith pastors erroneously attempt to make parishioners feel guilty. A certain sister went to her pastor and said, "Pastor I really love the Lord and would love to pay my tithe, but I just can't afford it right now. I just have too many bills."
"My sister you can't afford not to pay your tithe," the pastor replied.
Not only did the pastor make the woman feel guilty, as if she would be condemned-who wants to be labeled as a God robber and a thief?-he put her in a difficult dilemma. Now she had to decide whether or not to give her tithe. If she tithed, she would avoid being labeled a bad Christian, but she would be unable to pay her bills, and she would be hounded by bill collectors.
What kind of message is that? How can any preacher who puts believers in this situation believe that he is preaching God's message? Instead, this pastor, guided by plain ignorance, is putting a yoke on the sister that she has no business carrying, and he is doing so in the name of a made-up doctrine.
Also, I have heard rumors (by school professors and fellow Christians) that some churches go as far as looking at people's pay stubs to determine whether they are tithing faithfully. Saints, your income is not the church's business. We are each the pastors of our own households and the stewards of our own checkbooks; those are not roles of the local church. Churches have no right to know personal information such as income unless they have a warrant!
So why do so many churches ask their parishioners to share personal information? In my research, I have learned that, in some churches, members who are not tithers are not allowed to be in leadership positions. I was once a member of a church that used tithing record as a basis to determine what kind of gift to give a member who was leaving the church. Since we determined that this member was not a tither, we decided, much to my shame, not to get her a great big gift. We determined how much we loved people based on whether or not they paid their tithing. Saints, this is madness and needs to be stopped.
Let's return to Malachi. Verse 9 also says that you are cursed "even this whole nation." Word of Faith preachers claim that the whole nation was cursed because the children of Israel didn't tithe. Please consider this alternative interpretation based upon context. Since tithing consisted solely of food and livestock, only farmers (people who grew the food) and herdsmen (people who raised animals) tithed.
So does this mean that only farmers and herdsman tithed, rather than the entire nation of Israel? Yes. So the sixty-four-million dollar question is this: If only a portion of the Israelites tithed, why do preachers today claim that God requires all Christians to tithe? Either these preachers fail to realize that tithing was never money and, therefore, have not connected the dots on this topic or they simply refuse to accept this fact. There is no reason that preachers should teach that all Christians should tithe when not even the entire nation of Israel tithed.
Consider that the children of Israel tithed to the Levites. When God says, "Ye have robbed me, even this whole nation," consider that He might be saying that the children of Israel robbed Him and the rest of the nation of Israel by not tithing. He might be telling them that they robbed their fellow Levite brethren and, therefore, everyone, as they would all be cursed. So in essence, one interpretation is God may be saying that when they tithed; they not only robbed God but they also robbed the rest of the nation as well. So that there is no misunderstanding, allow me a momentary diversion. I believe that we should give and give a lot. The New Testament sets the standards by which one should give. (For further discussion of this standard of giving and the scriptures that back it up, please see chapter 2 "Examples of New Testament Giving". Being a big giver is just as good, if not better than, being a tither. Personally, I believe that leaders in the church should give based upon their ability to do so. If you have the ability to give a lot, then you are supposed to do so. If you are holding out and the poorer Christians are outgiving you, this reflects on your ability to lead. By no means am I excusing a leader who hoards rather than gives.
Malachi 3:10 reads:
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open up the windows of heaven and poor you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
God would not allow the rain that would help the crops to grow. This is what God meant when He said that He would open up the windows of heaven and poor them out a blessing that there would be no room to receive it. God was talking about rain that would ensure that the land was never plagued with a famine. When the children of Israel failed to tithe, they were smitten with a curse, and there would be famine because God wouldn't send the rain. Thus, they had cursed the rest of the nation. Viewing these passages in their historical context sheds new light onto the scripture.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Word of Faith Preachersby Joe Bachota Jr. Copyright © 2010 by Joe Bachota Jr.. Excerpted by permission.
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