Back to First Principles

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 24, 1916

"Back to First Principles"

UNDER this heading the Presbyterian of the South makes the following excellent observations regarding the payment of tithe:—

“Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God; Jacob promised to give back to God the tenth of all God should enable him to earn; by the mouth of Moses the tithe was made a binding law of the nation, and in many messages of the prophets the neglect of the tithe was given as the cause of national calamities, while strong, unequivocal promises were based on the faithful keeping of this law.

“Nor can any say that the tithe has been abrogated since Jesus himself said to the Pharisees, ‘Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.’

“The tithing plan worked well for the Jews in all their generations. Time and again they proved God’s threats and promises. When they brought in all their tithes, they prospered; when they withheld them, they were cursed with a curse because they had ‘robbed’ God.

“Part of the last prophetic message sent before the time of Christ was (Mal. 3:10): ‘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 you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.’

“And since Christ himself has indorsed the plan, how can any object or excuse themselves from its obligation?

“One of the strongest proofs that it still has God’s sanction is that it still has God’s promised blessing wherever tried, and that those who try it faithfully never fail to be convinced that it is the right way.

“If only preachers would preach it and teachers teach it, and parents would train up their children in this way that they should go, there would be no more need for pathetic appeals from the foreign mission office, nor the home office either; for according to the promise of God, the treasury would be full to overflowing, and the heathen at home and abroad would know of the Saviour who died for them. And what better time to begin than now?”

It is true of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as of the Presbyterian Church South, that if this subject were taught more faithfully in our churches, and if Seventh-day Adventist parents trained their children in this way, and if the members discharged this plain obligation as they should, “there would be no more need for pathetic appeals from the foreign mission office, nor the home office either,” for funds to carry forward the work of God. In rendering to God his own we should be moved not alone by the sense of obligation, but it should be counted a blessed privilege to return to God a small part of that which he has given to us. As we have freely received, we should freely give.