Is Tithing for Today?

In the Old Testament, the ancient Israelites were commanded to give a tenth of their increase to the Lord. Is this a requirement for modern Christians? Today, Derek Thomas addresses the question of tithing in the church.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: We’re recording live from Ligonier’s 2022 National Conference, and I’m joined by the senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, Dr. Derek Thomas. Dr. Thomas, is tithing for today?

DR. DEREK THOMAS: I see no suggestion in the New Testament that tithing is purely one of those ceremonial laws that ended with the coming of Christ and the sending of the Spirit at the day of Pentecost. So, I think that tithing is operative in the New Testament economy, and perhaps because we have seen Christ from the point of view of fulfillment rather than from the point of view of promise, as would be the case in the Old Testament. Since we have seen the love of God for us in Christ in a way that Old Testament believers could only foreshadow and anticipate, there is an argument, I think, to suggest that New Testament believers ought to be more generous than simply 10 percent of your income.

I’m not taken in by the idea that to suggest that tithing is mandatory in the New Testament, that that is an example of legalism, and I can imagine that response. But I think that it is the response of one who has experienced the love of God in Christ that I would desire, it would be my natural response to an overwhelming expression of God’s love to me in the gospel.