The Discipline of Giving

Money is a bizarre thing if you think about it. Humans choose some objects like shells, metal, paper, or in cases like bitcoin or credit cards, electrons organized in an encoded pattern, and assign units of value to them. Money effectively stores labor/value/time for later use. But the only reason it works is purely that people agree to a convention. The strange thing is, they have been agreeing to it for at least 6 millennia. Gold and Silver are the classic stores that go back far into recorded human history. What history is also full of are stories of large groups of people abandoning a specific convention rendering the monetary unit in question worthless. The Bible talks a lot about how we as people use this monetary convention, especially in our relationship with God and other people.

Psychologists will say that two of the foundational needs humans have are security and significance. Interestingly, God offers humans exactly that, but they must accept it, to a certain degree, by faith. Faith in God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us how much more important to God we are than the birds and the fields and God takes care of those less important things. Jesus tells us we have nothing to worry about regarding security, he says the Father knows what we need and has it covered. (As I write this I now have Bobby McFerrin's ‘Don’t worry be happy’ in my head). Again, we can give intellectual ascent to Jesus' statements but it takes active faith to believe this, to actually trust in it enough to live by it.

Many people get security and significance from the money they have or the stuff it buys them (especially food, shelter, and clothes). We all have experienced that feeling and know well what this is like. Nobody needs to be wealthy to experience this.

So why all this introduction? Because breaking this down into its faith elements is at the root of how we need to think about this. Basically, we are faced with answering the question: Who/what do we place our ultimate faith in? The promises of God or the conventions of man? If we choose man, we choose idolatry

God gives us a brilliantly designed way of dealing with this battle of faiths. He knows best how to put down this form of idolatry and his weapon for this is the discipline of giving. It is unique among the spiritual disciplines in scripture that God calls us to in this amazing way: Remember when Jesus was being tempted by Satan to test God’s promises by doing foolish things? (Mat 4:6-7) and Jesus replies: “Once again it is written: ‘You are not to put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”. However, there is one exception to this that God tells us about in Malachi 3:10 (NET)

“Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all.

BOOM!

That’s God throwing down the gauntlet at us. He is saying to test and see just how much he will bless us when we give. Jesus adds some color to this in Luke 6:8 when he says:

“Give, and it will be given to you: A good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap. For the measure you use will be the measure you receive.”

Giving is a very tangible act of faith. It requires you to let something go that you cannot get back. It requires you to release at some level, the security and significance given by money and exchange it for security and significance from God. In a very real way the second you let go of that money, you are like Peter stepping out on the water from the boat when Jesus told him to come. You just left the boat and there is no going back. Maybe you only give enough that if you sink you only get your feet wet, but this is a step in the process of growing your faith to give enough that if you sink you drown (hint: you won’t drown, Jesus is there to grab you. Really.)

Giving grows our faith.

So as a Christian how much do I give? First, that’s the wrong question. Jesus teaches us that we are stewards and it is all Gods (Mat 25:14-30). So the question should really be, how much do I keep? Again, in the parable of the Talents God has people managing his assets and he expects a return (this is a whole separate topic to dig into). But let’s sample some key new testament text on giving. 2 Corinthians 9 is a gold mine on the topic (read the whole thing):

2 Cor 9:6-7 (NET) My point is this: The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. Each one of you should give just as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Cor 9:11 (NET) You will be enriched in every way so that you may be generous on every occasion, which is producing through us thanksgiving to God

Matt 6:2-4 (NET) Thus whenever you do charitable giving, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in synagogues and on streets so that people will praise them. I tell you the truth, they have their reward. But when you do your giving, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your gift may be in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you

1 Cor 13:3 (NET) If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit.

Rom 12:13 (NET) Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality

In the book Disciplines of a Godly Man, the author uses Old Covenant Law to draw conclusions on how much to give. I take issue with this reasoning in that 1) We live under the new covenant, not the old and the new is superior to the old (Heb 8:13), 2) God was setting up a revenue system to support the theocratic government, not just supporting the ministry and the poor. If we include our government taxes we are giving way more than God required of the Israelites.

However, there is an example that directly applies to the Old Testament (not Old Covenant). Hebrews teaches us that Jesus is from the priestly line of Melchizedek (read Heb 5-7, it’s amazing) and if we go back to the Abrahamic Covenant (which we are also under), we see that Abraham gave 10% (a tithe) to Melchizedek (Gen 14:20). Because Jesus is from that priestly line, a pretty watertight principle can be drawn here. We can then apply that as a starting point for our giving in stewarding what God has entrusted to us.

It's time to not just be hearers of the word but doers of the word. Make a regular practice of getting out of the boat and walking toward Jesus. He is saying “Come” and practice the discipline of giving. Faith in God is abundantly more rewarding than faith in the conventions of people.