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I didn't thrown it out, Christ threw it out when he came to fulfill the law. The law and its requirements died on the cross with Jesus Christ. Tithing was part of the burden of the law. Christ is the total liberation from all aspects of the law.

Matthew 5:17-19 states, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, till the heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle shall in any way pass from the law until all is fulfilled. Therefore whoever shall break one of these commandments, the least, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But however shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven."

Obviously, when Y'shua said,"...until all is fulfilled..." is not a reference to His death and ressurection b/c he prefaces it by "until heaven and earth pass away". The last time I checked, the heavens and earth are still here. Messiah hasn't fulfilled all His duty b/c He hasn't come again yet.

The "problem" with most x-ians is they don't follow the law at all, claiming that lawlessness = grace. Paul said in Romans 6:1-2, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? Let it not be! how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?"

In Acts 15: 19-21 calls on the gentile believers to abstain from idols, fornication, from strangled meat and from blood. They presumed that the gentiles would learn the rest of Torah and gradually apply to their lives as they went to the synogogue every sabbath and heard the Torah read. They never would have presumed that gentile x-ians would continue to live as spiritual babies and eat pork or any other anti-Torah thing for the rest of their lives.

For you to say that Y'shua threw out the law, you are calling Him a liar b/c He kept it Himself. The reality of the matter is that w/out the Tanak you would have NO idea what sin even is and why Messiah had to come.

Amen to that! Great post. There is such an anti-Torah bias out there is it amazing. I have discovered that when people actually sit down and READ FOR THEMSELVES, they discover that they have been LIED to by 1,800 years of so-called theologians starting with heretics like Marcion et al. I challenge every believer to read every reference to COMMANDMENT in the "Newer Testament" and still try to make the "Law" a BAD thing. The Book of the Revelation has a few quite sobering ones:

Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.(Re 14:12)

Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. (Re 22:14-15)

People read Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 and smile over the beauty of the language - and then go on to discuss anti-Torah theology. Exactly what do they think it means when it says, "The Law (Torah) of the Lord is clean (tamei)"? Do they understand that what God declares tamei (clean) is clean FOREVER?

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. (1 Jn 2:3-8)

We are not saved by obeying the law (which we can't, not perfectly), but by grace alone though faith alone in Christ alone. The law points us toward our need for Christ.

That being said, however, we still have this life to live. We will live it better and more pleasing to God if we walk within the light of God's wisdom. For this, the Torah is a rich storehouse.

The Torah, that is, NOT the distortions that Pharasaic Rabbinic Judaism were beginning to twist it into even in Jesus's own day. For example, the Torah does not say "eat on two sets of dishes, one for meat and one for dairy, and don't eat both at the same meal." It says "Do not boil a kid in its mother's milk" - period. Something it would not occur to me to do.

With regard to tithing, one must be careful to distinguish those provisions of the Torah that pertained to the civil society of ancient Israel, and thus are only obliquely relevant to us here and now (i.e, pay your taxes, which the NT also explicitly commands), and those more general and universal principles that we would be wise to apply to our own lives. In this case, the principle that we should give generously as we are able, out of our increase, and that the poor should be aided directly to the extent that the opportunity arises and our ability allows.

How much to give? Jesus commended the widow who gave superficially, rather than the Pharisees who scrupulously gave an exactly calcuated 10% of everyting, including mint and rue. Thus, the best answer to the question of how much to give might be: "At what point does the giving start to become a real sacrifice?" For Bill Gates, 10% wouldn't even come close; for the single mother with multiple kids and a minimum wage job, even 1% might hurt.