TESTED IN TIME AND MEANS.
Should a Student for the Ministry Give a Tithe to the Lord?
[The following excellent setting forth of principles, which should obtain in every Christian life, is from “Notes on Letters,” in the Sunday School Times of May 23. It will answer many questions in the hearts of our own readers.] Can a man be so devoted to God that all that he is and has is the Lord’s? In case this is so, does such a man need to give anything to the Lord except as he gives it to himself in the line of his work for God? This is a practical question with a great many. A young Christian in Ohio, who wants to be wholly the Lord’s, asks about his duty as to tithes:— I am a young man with nothing more than a high school education. Both my parents are dead, and I am now a salesman for a Pennsylvania company, making money to go to college. My intention is to be a minister. The question is with me, “Shall I, or shall I not, give the tenth of my income to God’s cause?” Were I in another avenue of life, as other men, there would be no doubt about this. But as I intend to devote all my life to God’s work, and as now I am merely preparing myself for that work, the question is whether I am required, as others are, to give the tithe. I believe if all church-going people would tithe there would be greater prosperity among the givers themselves. But am I not really giving all my income to God’s cause, in that my education is to fit me for His work? Perhaps it is my previous Christian training at the hands of my parents, and really not God’s requirements, that prompts me to give the tenth. There seems a sense of condemnation if I withhold, and yet a sense of doing really more than I should if I give. Perhaps others have been asking you this same question, and you can give help. It has been found in the history of the human race that a man can do more good work in six days than in seven, and with nine-tenths of his income than with ten-tenths. The one-seventh of his time and the one-tenth of his income must specifically be given to the Lord. This is not a matter that began to be observed in the days of Moses. Both in the Bible record and in outside history we have evidence of this, long prior to the days of Moses, and among other people than the Israelites. The rule or custom is as applicable to ministers and missionaries as to blacksmiths and tailors. Like all other well-doing, its gain is to the one who gives the money or time, as well as to those who receive it. To observe the custom is a privilege and a duty. The writer may refer to his own experience in the working six days rather than seven in a week. More than forty years ago he decided to devote his life as a Sunday-school missionary. He then felt that, as his whole time was the Lord’s, he need not observe any one day as a day of sacred rest. Accordingly, he worked—in the Lord’s service—three hundred and sixty-five days in the first year. In consequence, he broke down from this disregard of the Sabbath law, and had to give up all work for more than fifty-two days to make up for the fifty-two misspent days in the Lord’s work. He then came to realize that one day in each week belongs to the Lord in holy rest, and that if a man thinks he can use the days better than the Lord directs, he will suffer for his mistake. If he has work, even for the Lord, on the day when others rest, he must have rest another day. The same idea must be recognized in connection with money as with time. Even if God does not need to receive the money, man needs to give it. A man must give to God, apart from what he spends on himself, a specified portion of his income. A tithe was recognized as the proper portion in the Mosaic law, and thousands of years before. He must live on the other nine-tenths, even if he is living wholly for the Lord. Being a clergyman, a minister, a pastor, is by no means the only way or the chief way of being in the Lord’s service or work. A child of God ought to be in the special place and occupation to which God assigns him, whether God tells him to be a blacksmith, or a physician, or a teacher, or a clergyman. But in any event a child of God ought to have the benefit and blessing of giving a specified portion of his income to the Lord. He will be poorly fitted for his work if he does not have that advantage. It would be both a hindrance and a temptation to a man to have no portion of his income which belonged to the Lord, as distinct from all that he uses on himself in God’s service. To have nothing that he gives to the Lord as the Lord’s special portion, would be a hindrance as he asked others to give. But to count all that he used on himself as a gift to God would be, indeed, a temptation. For example, on a hot day a man might feel that a saucer of ice-cream and a dish of strawberries would better fit him for his day’s work, yet it would cost more than a piece of corn-bread and a glass of water. At this point a man might say to himself: “I am in the Lord’s work, and therefore what is given to me is practically given to the Lord. Nothing is too good for the Lord, therefore I will eat the choicest food and will live in the best way I can, regardless of expense, within the limits of my income.” It is important to have a portion of one’s income set apart as exclusively the Lord’s, and to use the remainder as the Lord would have one use it. The two portions should not be confounded or combined. This is true both of income and of time.