You’re welcome. I hate re-inventing the wheel and arguing the same thing over and over. And over. :-)
I was challenged in church today when the message was tithing. To me, Israel was a theocracy and tithing was what we now call “taxes”.
And I said to my wife, Jesus mentioned it once and then chastising Jewish leaders in past tense, and sure enough, the pastor said, “And some people think it is an old testament law but Jesus talked of it too!” And then he brings up the exact verse I had just told my wife about.
There seem to be more than just a couple of things I break from traditional teaching on.
You might be interested in “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola and George Barna—a treatise on how the “church” got to be what it is today, largely through the introduction of pagan practices in the overwhelming flood of social and philosophical practices carried over into the spread of the Gospel, and terminally contaminating most of its proponents. It certainly deals with the “tithing” syndrome.
True dat. But I think we are the ones who foot the bill of his work in the earthly realm. It's just that God and I have to settle what my role is in terms of returning to him a portion of what he has allowed me to act as steward over. There are probably some guidelines for that. That includes my time, not just my material resources. etc.
I'll bet there are a LOT of 'pastors' out there that wish THIS verse was NOT in the NT; so they could try to cajole more money from the pew warmer's wallets by whatever means possible.