Why It’s Important//
God is the source of all we are and have; every gift and resource we own belongs to Him. And yet, it is often easy for us to attribute our wealth, achievements, and belongings to our own hard work/effort alone. We grow self-centered, stingy, and prideful, forgetting the One who gave it all in the first place.
From the beginning, tithes and offerings were established by Abraham (Genesis 14:7-10) out of a posture of love and reverence to God for all He had done for him. Although it is one of the commandments God later gives to His people (in order to support the work of His temple and His servants), the heart of tithing and offering is to honor God and, as Jesus teaches his disciples, to “freely give as we have freely received”. When we give, we are to give generously and cheerfully, acknowledging that we are nothing without the love and grace of God. We also give to support the body of Christ God has called us to, sowing into the work He is doing in the church.
What It’s Talking About//
The prophet Malachi and the Apostle Paul are both speaking to people who have apparently failed to honor God with their gifts and resources. In Malachi, God addresses the people’s failure to bring tithes and offerings into his storehouse. The proper “tithe”—the promised “tenth” of all they own that actually belongs to Him and is clearly written in the law and first established before the law in Abraham. The tithe belongs in the “storehouse” or the local church. This supports the operation and ministry of our local church.
In contrast, Paul teaches the Corinthians the importance of “offerings”— gifts that go BEYOND the tithe required of us, that is, giving generously of our resources not out of obligation but out of our hearts for God. This offering in particular was being collected for the church in Jerusalem. Offerings can support a wide variety of Kingdom work, both inside and outside the church.
While they are writing in different times and contexts, the heart of their messages is the same: God is calling His people back into a kind of radical, faithful, unconditional generosity with the gifts He has given. And if they do not withhold anything from Him, if they give Him all they are and have, they will not be disappointed, but will be "blessed" by the goodness and faithfulness of our Father in Heaven.
Malachi 3:8-11 NIV
8 ““Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ “In tithes and offerings.
9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me.
10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty.”
2 Corinthians 9:6-8 TPT
6 “Here’s my point. A stingy sower will reap a meager harvest, but the one who sows from a generous spirit will reap an abundant harvest.
7 Let giving flow from your heart, not from a sense of religious duty. Let it spring up freely from the joy of giving—all because God loves hilarious generosity!
8 Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything—every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.”