Tithes

A tithe is a tenth of produce, livestock, or goods set apart as holy to God, a practice the Bible traces from the ancestral narratives through the New Testament. The English word translates Hebrew ma'aser, formed from the root for "ten," and the New Testament Greek verb apodekatoō likewise means simply "to give a tenth" — the terminology is numerical rather than technical, and what counts as a tithe is determined by what is being counted.

The text says the first tenth in Scripture is given, not commanded: after Melchizedek blesses him, "Abram gave him a tenth of all" (Genesis 14:20), and Jacob at Bethel vows, "Of all that you will give me I will surely give a tenth to you" (Genesis 28:22). The legislation states the matter as a principle of ownership: "All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is Yahweh's. It is holy to Yahweh" (Leviticus 27:30). Deuteronomy lists tithes among what is brought "to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose" (Deuteronomy 12:6) and specifies that they are to be eaten there in celebration — "you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God in all that you put your hand to" (Deuteronomy 12:18) — shared with sons, daughters, servants, and the Levite, who has no ancestral landholding. So in the Pentateuch the tithe is at once holy to God, an occasion of communal rejoicing, and provision for those without land.

The prophets treat it as covenant faithfulness. Malachi asks, "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me… In tithes and offerings" (Malachi 3:8), and the remedy is concrete: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house," with a promise that Yahweh will "open the windows of heaven" (Malachi 3:10). In the Gospels, Jesus affirms the practice while relativizing it: "you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone" (Matthew 23:23; cf. Luke 11:42). Luke 18:12 puts tithing in the mouth of the Pharisee of the parable — "I give tithes of all that I get" — as part of his self-commendation. Hebrews 7:3 describes Melchizedek as "without father, without mother, without genealogy," and the argument that follows (Hebrews 7:4–10) reads Abraham's tenth as evidence of a priesthood older than Levi's.

Traditions differ, and the difference is largely about continuity. Many Protestant bodies — Seventh-day Adventists, and numerous Baptist, Pentecostal, and independent congregations — teach that the tithe remains a binding minimum for church members, usually understood as income given to the local church as the "storehouse" of Malachi 3:10. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teaching generally does not impose a fixed tenth, treating the support of the church as an obligation of precept and proportionate free giving. Other interpreters, common in Reformed and Anglican circles and among some evangelicals, read the tithe as bound to the land, the temple, and the Levitical order, and hold that the New Testament commends deliberate, proportionate, voluntary generosity (2 Corinthians 9:7) rather than a fixed percentage; those who take this view still differ over whether a tenth remains a useful guide. Where tithing is practiced, its destination is also disputed — local congregation, wider denominational work, or the poor.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.