Church funding has been declining for 30 years, and most of us have no idea why it’s happening or what to do about it. Josh Schuler of Newfire Giving joins us to talk about the history of funding churches (it’s way different than we thought), the difference between “tithing” and giving, and share some best practices for cultivating generosity in the church.
Links and resources:
- Newfire Giving
- Connect with Josh Schuler on Twitter
- Gravity Leadership Academy | we’re always starting new cohorts!
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Really good episode. Just to add my two cents, since I have an MDiv like Tebbe does and like to put it similarly to use 😂.
The tithe is a complex instrument in the OT, Rabbinic Traditions, NT and the Early church. I’ll just add a few nuances:
1) there is a difference between the use of the tithe in the OT depending on tradition of the writers. The P tradition (Prieslty) focuses mostly on the tithe to the Levite’s and Priests since they could not own land and therefore no harvest. The bulk of the tithe was for them (3rd year tithe), which began as food tithes then later in the Rabbinic tradition included money.
In the D tradition, the tithe was used primarily for a great community meal and celebration. The tithe was brought to Jerusalem for a feast that everyone was invited to (leftovers presumably went to the temple, priests etc). The D tradition also includes resources given to priests but also includes money set aside for the widows orphans and foreigners.
Jesus was emphasizing the D tradition that was more related to justice and criticising the over emphasis solely on the P tradition in passages like “you tithe mint dill and cumin but neglect weightier matters of the law”.
In the early church and early patristics two things happen: the fathers adopt and OT P tradition perspective for the early Christian “pastors/leaders” by assigning them the disitiction of being similar in function to the Levites/Priests (presumably since many were still apostolic and were not able to bring in a harvest because of the traveling nature of their call). Secondly, there becomes a competition between the Jewish community and the early pre-constantian Christians about who is being more faithful to tithing (note it’s not called “the tithe”anymore but “tithing” related to the fruit of the money earned by your fingers). They would say things like “look how we are being more faithful to tithing than the Jewish community. I find this competition for money accumulated resonant today.
Then later Augustine doubles down on tithing as a way to support church leaders. Some would say I give a tenth to the “church” and tenth to “those I have charge over” and a tenth to those in need”.
So, I agree that the way “the tithe” has been discussed in churches is often self serving and not helpful. I also view, as the guest notes, “giving” as more of a direct need more closely aligned with Jesus emphasis on the D tradition emphasizing and re-centering on Justice. The whole “a worker deserves his wages” thing is imo Paul building on the levitical Model where emerging church leaders who are not stationary (ie can cultivate a field) need to be supported in their work but he also directs them to the needs of the people (like Jesus)
This doesn’t contradict anything on your podcast at all. Just a little extra.
I totally agree that we need to find new ways to talk about money in the church.
Thanks as always for a great podcast
Dude did you write a PhD thesis on this? Seriously, that was a legit knowledge bomb! Thanks!