Hebrews Lesson 82 March 22, 2007
NKJ Acts 4:12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there
is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
Hebrews 7
Before I left on vacation and we had
the conference, we were studying in Hebrews 7 with the episode with
Melchizedek. So let’s turn in our Bibles to Hebrews 7 and sort of anchor where
we are there. Hebrews 7 is beginning a new section, the fourth section, in the
book of Hebrews focusing on the uniqueness of Christ’s priesthood based on the
royal priesthood of Melchizedek in the Old Testament. Of course there are only
about 2 or 3 verses in Genesis 14 that deal with Melchizedek; yet under the
inspiration of God the Holy Spirit the writer of Hebrews is dealing with the
episode in Genesis 18 connecting that to Psalm 110 and from that developing the
implications and significance of that Melchizedekean priesthood in relationship
to the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now when we come to verse 2 of
chapter 7 we read that…
NKJ Hebrews 7:2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first
being translated "king of righteousness," and then also king of
Salem, meaning "king of peace,"
Then we have in verse 3 an
explanation of his background.
NKJ Hebrews 7:3 without father, without mother, without genealogy,
having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God,
remains a priest continually.
As I have stated the last couple of
lessons, the phrase “without father, without mother without genealogy, having
neither beginning of days nor end of life” is not a reference to the fact that
he didn’t have a mama or a daddy, that he wasn’t born, that he didn’t have any physical
lineage or ancestors. It is talking about what is in the text of Scripture. The
text of Scripture doesn’t tell us about his father and his mother and his
lineage because that wasn’t relevant to this kind of priesthood. The
Melchizedekean priesthood was an appointed priesthood. It was a priesthood
based upon the individual’s relationship to God.
We don’t know much more about that
other than it was a royal priesthood. The emphasis from about 2b (where we
start reading being translated the king of righteousness) down through the end
of 3 is sort of a parenthesis as a reminder of who Melchizedek is. It seems
like the driving point of this paragraph from verse 1 down to verse 10 centers
around the event of the fact that Abraham paid these tithes to Melchizedek. The
point of all this is to show the superiority of Melchizedek because Abraham
paid tithes. Basically he gave a tribute payment to Melchizedek. That indicates
(because this was the custom in the ancient world that the one to whom you gave
a tribute payment. You paid a tithe and it was usually a 10% figure. That is
what tithe means – 10%) that you were honoring someone who was in
authority over you. The writer of Hebrews is going to draw some implications
from that. As we got into this whole issue of the paying of tithes, we find in
verse 4 where we read…
NKJ Hebrews 7:4 Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.
That is important to understand so
we had to stop and talk about this whole doctrine of tithing. It is very
interesting.
There was a young pastor here during
the week who comes from up in Ohio. He had been an associate pastor in a
Baptist church up in Ohio. He finally left over the tithing issue because of
the way they pressed it and pressed it. He continued to go into the pastor and
he continued to explain what the Scriptures taught. But they were afraid that
if they relaxed and relied on God the Holy Spirit to move people to give on the
basis of gratitude for what they were learning that all of the funding would
dry up. So within the church machine (which is too often what we have today in
religious activity) there is a constant reminder to people.
I have been in churches and places
where in the course of the church service you might have as many as three
different offerings. Now sometimes it can be valid if you are taking up offerings
for different things. If you are really driving and manipulating and making
people feel guilty about what they are giving, then you are out of line. That
creates a false motivation for giving. So much is what you have in many
churches is tithing, tithing, tithing. You hear that phraseology over and over
again.
What I started to show the last time
was that the concept of tithing is an Old Testament concept related to the
Mosaic Law primarily. There are two examples prior to the Mosaic Law - one is
the case of Abraham, one in the case of Jacob as he is at Bethel on his way out
of the land where you have the mention of a tithe, the giving of 10%. As I
talked about last time this was customary in the culture. We have examples from
other cultures in the ancient world from Hamurabi and Babylon and from some
other examples where the tribute to someone in authority in gratitude for what
they have done was 10%.
We looked at the Mosaic Law. We saw
that in the Mosaic Law there were actually three tithes. Nobody ever talks
about that although I am aware that there was a pastor with a rather large
church here in Houston who, back in the early 70’s I think, when they were
building their large building down here they were encouraging people to triple
tithe and take out a second mortgage in order to meet their payment. You very
rarely have people talk about it in those terms.
There were three tithes as I pointed
out. One is in Leviticus 27:30 giving the tithe of the land which was
everything. You had the first tithe which dealt with supporting the
bureaucracy, the theocracy of the priesthood in Number 18:20-23.
NKJ Leviticus 27:30 'And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or
of the fruit of the tree, is the
LORD's. It is holy to the LORD.
Then the second tithe provided for a
national celebration of the grace and provision of God. That is explained in
Deuteronomy 14:22-24. Those were annual tithes.
Then there was a third tithe that
was taken up every third year to support the Levite, the alien, the orphan and
the widow. That is explained in Deuteronomy 14:28-29.
The tithes were taken up and in the
land that money was kept in the storehouse (the treasury) of the temple. These
were mandatory gifts. It was legislation for the support of the theocracy as it
were - the priests and the Levites - and also to take care of the widows and
the orphans and those who for one reason or another had lost what they had and
did not have the general means of daily sustenance.
There were also free will offerings
as I pointed out last time in the Old Testament. These are referenced in
Proverbs 3:9-10, Exodus 25:1-2 where Moses raised money through free will offerings
to build the tabernacle. Then there are various other passages that were given
in the law. Leviticus 2:28-23 and other passages are related to tithing. It is all related to paying this tax to
support the nation and the bureaucracy which was the priesthood.
Now I pointed out last time that this
is the background for understanding for what happens in Malachi, one of the
favorite passages that people go to that you will hear. I have heard them in so
many congregations and churches. It is based on Malachi 3:8-10. The principle
here is that this passage in Malachi 3:8-10 recognizes that the storehouse, the
national bank for the tithe, was the temple. In Malachi 3:8 God is challenging
them. Remember that this is the generation that has returned from the captivity
and they were back in the land. By this time they have been back in the land
about 100 years - maybe about 90 years. They rebuilt the temple, but everything
was really falling apart. The structures that had been established were not
being taken care of properly. Part of it was because the entire tax system that
God had established had been broken down. Because the tax system had broken
down, the temple was in disrepair. This dishonored God so God is confronting
and challenging the people for their disobedience to the law.
Now the law remember is given in
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and is restated in Deuteronomy. So the law becomes
the basis of prophetic challenges. The best way to understand the role of a
prophet in the Old Testament isn’t someone who told the future. That isn’t what
a prophet did. That was secondary. It was ancillary. It was what went along but
that wasn’t his purpose. His purpose wasn’t just to be a preacher. His purpose
was to serve as sort of a prosecuting attorney for the Supreme Court of Heaven
to the nation of Israel saying this is what the contract says – boom,
boom, boom. This is what you are accountable for. You aren’t doing it so
Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 say that God is going to do this to you in
terms of divine discipline if you don’t change—shub which is the Hebrew word for turn or sometimes translated
repent.
Tommy was saying last night that in
Israel that is what the Jews will use that phrase today. That is to change, to
turn. If you are repenting or if you have been in a life of sin and now you are
going to become religious they do the shuva.
So you have that term. That is what the prophet did. He challenged them.
Often the reason you bring in the
futuristic element is because as God was through the prophet itemizing the
lawsuit against them, He would say, “As a result of your failure I am going to
judge you.”
Yet these things will happen in the
future and all of the future or predictive elements were designed to encourage
the Jews with the fact that God wasn’t disciplining them or taking them out of
the land permanently.
But yet He did have a future for
them and would not forsake them on a permanent basis. So the challenge in
Malachi 3:8-10 coming from God is – “Will a man rob God?” If you don’t
give your tithe to the nation Israel (your tax), you are robbing God.
“You have robbed Me.” God says.
But you say, “In what way did we rob
You?”
See, they are so innocent. They
can’t understand.
“We haven’t robbed you.”
God says, “In tithes and offerings.”
NKJ Malachi 3:8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But
you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings.
NKJ Malachi 3:9 You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation.
That takes you right back to
Deuteronomy. Even the whole nation is going to come under divine
discipline. And then God commands
them in verse 10…
NKJ Malachi 3:10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My
house, And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will
not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough
to receive it
Now that is the phrase that you
often hear pastors go to. In other words, give you money to the church. But that
is not what it is saying. The “bring” is the hiphil imperative second person
plural. It is addressed to the nation. The hiphil is causative. It means “cause
to bring”. The imperative is a mandate to bring all the tithes. That means the
10% for the priests and the Levites, the 10% for the annual celebration and the
every third year tithe to support the widows and orphans.
The word for storehouse is the
Hebrew word otzar which is one of 9
different words used for treasure. This word is used of either the treasury in
the king’s house. It is used of the treasure in the temple or it is also used
of the material possessions and treasure that an individual would bring
together. There are 9 references in the Old Testament where this word describes
the temple treasury.
A couple of these are Joshua 6:19
and I Kings 7:51.
NKJ Joshua 6:19 "But all the silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are consecrated to the LORD; they shall
come into the treasury of the LORD."
That’s otzar.
In I Kings 7:51 where Solomon built
the temple, we read…
NKJ 1 Kings 7:51 So all the work that King Solomon had done for the
house of the LORD was finished; and Solomon brought in the things which his
father David had dedicated: the silver and the gold and the furnishings. He put
them in the treasuries of the house of the LORD.
So there was a temple treasury in
the house of the Lord.
In I Kings 14:26…
NKJ 1 Kings 14:26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the
treasures of the king's house; he took away everything. He also took away all
the gold shields which Solomon had made.
This refers to the plundering of the
temple treasury. So this term is a term that refers to the temple treasury. So
Malachi 3:10 is a challenge to people to pay their tithes under the Mosaic Law,
to put them in the storehouse.
God says, “Do this so that there
will be food in My house. Try Me on this. Go ahead and test Me. If you don’t do
it, you are really going to get disciplined.”
That is what He is saying.
In other words if you do this, “I
will bless the nation. I will prosper the nation.”
That is exactly what He had promised
back in the Mosaic Law.
“If you obey the law I will pour out
blessing upon the nation. If you are disobedient to the Mosaic Law, I am going
to discipline you.”
So we had several summary key
principles.
All of a sudden they come up to a grace oriented church and they say,
“Phew! I don’t have to give any more.”
They may go through a reaction for awhile. Grace doesn’t mean that you
don’t have responsibilities. Grace doesn’t mean that there is no giving. Grace
means that there is an obligation to give, but that it is between you and the
Lord and it is based on your inner motivation and your gratitude. There is no
set percentage. It is as God has prospered you. Trust me. “As God has prospered
you” is a lot more convicting and more challenging than 10%.
We have fabulous things that
happened here. As I talked about the conference and the ministry, there are a
number of people who gave generously and sacrificially and gave in abundance in
order to meet the financial needs of that conference. So many people came and
didn’t have to pay for a room at the hotel. They didn’t have to pay for meals.
For them it was free, but somebody was generous and took care of that. They
were able to be graced out in that situation.
Grace is the principle that continues
into the Church Age. You have grace in the Old Testament and grace in the New
Testament. So in the New Testament the word tithing is mentioned in the gospels
only in reference to the legalistic practices of the Pharisees.
Let’s go to Luke 11. Turn in your
Bibles to Luke 11. Let’s look at the context. Luke 11:42.
The reason I make this point here is
a lot of people think that tithing is legalistic. Tithing isn’t legalistic. There
is no such thing as legalistic blessing in the Old Testament. When the Jews
functioned under the law, it wasn’t legalism. That was still grace. Grace
doesn’t mean that there is no responsibility and obligation. Grace means it is
oriented to God’s undeserved, unmerited favor. The point that I am making is
what the Pharisees did was instead of recognizing the tithe in its biblical
context; they start making it the basis for gaining God’s approbation, His
approval. You see that is the difference. You can do the same thing. This
person over here does it over here and it is legalism. This person over there
does it and it is grace because it is grounded in the motivation and gratitude
that is in the individual soul of that believer. This person over here puts
$500 in the collection plate and they think that this is their tithe, their 10
% contribution. God is going to bless them because (Aren’t they great?) they
are giving their 10%. They are fulfilling their obligation to tithe. That is
legalism.
This person over here puts the same
10% in, the same amount. They are saying, “What a great thing God has done for
me. I want to share what He has given me with others so that they are able to
hear the Word of God and are able to respond to it.”
The difference is in motivation. What
the Pharisees did was take the law. Paul said the law was unholy, unrighteous
and bad. Right? No, he said the law was holy and righteous and good. The law
included tithing. Therefore tithing cannot be in the Old Testament - in the
right context - cannot be legalistic. It was good. It was holy and it was
righteous. But it was done consistent with grace orientation. But what the
Pharisees did was come in and make this ritualistic law the basis for gaining
God’s approval and God’s blessing. So we come to Luke 11:42 and Jesus says to
the Pharisees…
NKJ Luke 11:42 "But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and
rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you
ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.
They get it down to the most minutia
and they pass by justice and the love of God. You see they are applying the tithe
down to the minutest thing. They are going to make sure that they are going to
cut that 10% down to every minor possession that they have. In the process they
are ignoring the justice of God which here is the word krisis which is His judgment, the operation of His justice. It is
not dikaios, righteousness. It is the
operation of it in terms of justice and the application of God’s character. They
ignore that and the love of God. So it is all about just doing the right thing
without having the right relationship to God.
Let’s look at the context. As you go
on to read it, in verse 43 he pronounces another woe on the Pharisees.
NKJ Luke 11:43 "Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best
seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
They are all about approbation. They
want everyone to recognize them as having arrived spiritually. So they are
going to sit up front. They are going to be in the market place where they are
seen and observed. Then in verse 44 Jesus says…
NKJ Luke 11:44 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them."
So his emphasis here is on their
legalism. It is all about the external and not about the internal attitude of
the soul and its orientation to the grace of God.
Another verse in Luke, the second
use of tithing in the gospels is in 18:12. This use comes out of the mouth of a
Pharisee. This is the episode of the parable that Jesus tells. He spoke this
parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised
others. So he is going to use a Pharisee on the one hand and a tax collector on
the other hand. It is not a historical incident. They are unnamed. It is a
parable. So he takes the Pharisee and he juxtaposes these two to bring out the
difference, the core difference between legalism and grace.
Legalism isn’t saying, “Thou shalt
not”.
Legalism is saying that observing
the “thou shalt not” is what gets you approval with God. That is how you get
saved. That is how you get blessed by God. It is a rejection of the whole
doctrine of imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the basis for God’s
blessing. So Jesus tells the parable.
NKJ Luke 18:10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a
Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
NKJ Luke 18:11 "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,
'God, I thank You that I am not like other men -- extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
NKJ Luke 18:12 'I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I
possess.'
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus says that
if you give, give in such a way that the right hand doesn’t know what the left
hand is doing. Giving is a matter of privacy. It isn’t done before men. It is
to be done in privacy. It is to be unobserved. It is unannounced. It doesn’t
matter what other people see. If you think your reward comes from what other
people see because they recognize what a great giver you are and how generous
you are then that is your reward - no reward later on at the Judgment Seat of
Christ because you put your hope in the flesh and in men.
NKJ Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes
flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD.
So that is the Pharisee. That is
what makes it legalistic. He is putting the emphasis on what he does.
The tax collector in contrast…
NKJ Luke 18:13 "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would
not so much as raise his eyes to
heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'
He is so aware that he had no
business being in the presence of God. He has true genuine humility. He is
recognizing that as a sinner we don’t bring anything at all to the table. God
does everything. The tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise
his eyes to heaven.
NKJ Luke 18:14 "I tell you, this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other; for
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be
exalted."
The path to preeminence is humility
and recognizing that authority orientation.
2. The Lord also taught that giving was to be a private matter
between the believer and God – nobody else’s business.
NKJ Matthew 6:2 "Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do
not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in
the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they
have their reward.
NKJ Matthew 6:3 "But when you do a charitable deed, do not let
your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
NKJ Matthew 6:4 "that your charitable deed may be in secret; and
your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
Giving should be done in such a way
that people can preserve their privacy.
Sometimes people say, “Well,
sometimes I can’t preserve my privacy when we pass the plate in church.”
I have been in churches that take up
a collection by passing the plate and others that put a box in the back.
Sometimes we all forget. I think that passing a plate is a good reminder. We
all forget. A lot of times people put something out in the hallway and people
do forget so I don’t have a problem in passing a plate. Some people are
concerned about privacy.
I have heard people say this.
“Somebody down the row might see my check pop open and see what I gave.”
Great! Put it in the mail. Don’t get
wrapped around the axle. Everybody wants to over think stuff. The issue is that
it is between you and the Lord, not letting it be known to other people.
3. The New Testament clearly recognizes free will giving that
is based on gratitude and soul and not on the basis of a prescribed percentage.
In Luke 21:2-4 we have the story of the widow who puts the two mites into the
collection.
NKJ Luke 21:2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two
mites.
NKJ Luke 21:3 So He said, "Truly I say to you that this poor
widow has put in more than all;
NKJ Luke 21:4 "for all these out of their abundance have put in
offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that
she had."
That is they looked at how much is
left at the end of the month in their checkbook and then they decide how much
they are going to give based on what is left over. Kind of like Dr. Cate said
the other night that happens in Islam. They are supposed to give 3.2% or 3.5%
or something like that. They wait until the end of the year. It is not based on
how much they made. It is not based on their gross.
I hear Christians say, “Should I
give 10%? Is that 10% of net or
10% of gross?”
It is 10% of grace. Okay? Don’t
worry about the numbers. Worry about the grace and that’s it. What the Moslems
will do is give 3.5% of what is left in the checkbook at the end of the year
when everything is paid for. That is pretty negligible. So here what Jesus is
saying is that it is a decision that is made up front in the budgeting process.
You are going to decide that you are going to give this amount of money for the
local church and missions and you know that God is going to bless and honor
whatever I am going to give and Him to take of me and I am going to trust Him
to take care of me. It is not done irrationally or irresponsibly, but it is
done in light of a thought out procedure according to I Corinthians based on
how God has prospered you.
Later on we are going to see how the
Macedonians were praised by Paul because they gave out of their poverty to help
support the Jewish believers in Jerusalem who were going through a time of
famine.
They didn’t look around and say,
“The Lord really hasn’t really given us that much.”
They said, “The Lord hasn’t given us
that much, but I still have a responsibility to help others.”
The Macedonians demonstrate the same
principle of giving out of their lack, not out of their abundance.
Next time we will come back and go
to point 4 dealing with what is going on with Abraham’s tithe. Then we will
wrap up with the other principles and two other key passages in the New
Testament for giving - I Corinthians 16 and II Corinthians 9.
We need to ask the question, “Is
there a reason and is there legitimacy for churches, for pastors, for
seminaries to let people know what their needs are?”
There are some ministries that say,
“If you let people know what your needs are, you are just asking for money.”
Is there a basis for that
biblically? We will look at that
when we come back next Thursday night.
Let’s bow our heads.