p. 2 | 2723.- Tithing by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 3, 1909

2723.— Tithing.

By Editor

I am mixed on the tithes. Shall I pay tithe on my feed and what we eat? For example, I have one hundred bushels of corn and ten tons of hay. I feed that to my stock, and then pay a tithe of the income from the stock. I work my team and pay a tithe from what I make. Is it right to take tithes on what you eat, or just on what is sold?

If your corn and hay were fed to your stock you would pay tithe on the income which you received from the stock. If you work your team and receive an income from the team, you would tithe the products of that. If you bought enough for your team, however, and did not tithe the feed, you would deduct from your income the cost of the feed. As to the food which one eats, it seems clear that this should be tithed. One can get a better idea of this, perhaps, if he would consider how it is with many of his brethren and fellow workers. Here is one man who has a farm, and raises nearly all of his provisions. Many times he does not tithe what he himself eats, only just what he sells, but here is a brother who is living beside him, who works for wages and buys all that he eats; but he tithes his wages when he receives them and purchases for himself and family with what is left after the wages are tithed; that is, with nine tenths of his wages.

The better way always to decide these things is to put ourselves in just such a place as that. That will help us in other positions to decide more readily.