There has been a response which I resonded to. This asks certain questions regarding the implementation of such an act. The relevant material is reproduced below.
If we are to eat the tithe (or some of it), does that change where we
give the tithe? Do we still give the whole tithe to the temple - which
I guess in our case is the church?
If so, does that mean that it is the priests, or those who administer
the tithe, who are to organise the feast?
Or, do we withhold some of the tithe and organise our own feast? Is it
a gathering of those who tithe, or for others as well?
Some of those questions you may have answered in your blog posts, I
can't remember, but they are my thoughts for today.
The 'storehouse' needs to be
considered very carefully. We have assumed it is the local churhc, but
is it? We need to think more widely than this. I think it is Jesus. The
tithe is given to Him. He is the source of all our provision, material
and spiritual. The local church is but one of the ways He distributes
it. Other ways include, people in need that He directs us to, other
agencies He puts on our heart, teachers inside and outside institutional
Christianity, etc. I am sure there is a lot more to say about each of
these, for instance, Jesus' bias for the poor is clear in the New
Testamant. Teachers are worthy of double honour. "1Ti 5:17 NIV The
elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double
honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching". This
later would seem to be directed to the church, but is it the local
church. In fact is such a unit known in the Bible? Is the church local,
or city, or household, or what?
I think that WE organise it
ourselves and invite whoever we believe should be there, certainly not
just (or even) other tithers. In 1 Cor 11 the suggestion is that there
is a very wide range of socio-economic groups there.
No comments:
Post a Comment