Before we can talk about the "tithe", we need to understand the difference between law and legalism. Random House defines "legalism" as "a strict adherence to the law, especially to the letter rather than the spirit of the law." Laws are created when people need guidance or protection or instruction.

For the Jews, laws set particular boundaries, set obligations and mandated privileges. For these nomadic people, Old Testament law which governed every aspect of life, provided a way of being in the world, an identity apart from other tribal people. Laws gave structure to a relationship to God.

Legalism happens when the creativity and spirit behind the law is lost. When that happens, the interpretation of the law takes seriously only what the words literally say rather than the relationship the words point to. Those who interpret and enforce the law through legalism − in the story of the people of Israel we are talking about the priestly caste − used threat and force to bring compliance. The tithe as legalism makes giving into paying a bill. The tithe as law witnessed to the interconnectedness of God and God's people and reflected a cycle of giving and receiving. If the tithe has any relevance for today's church, it must be as law rather than as a legalism. However, before we can answer that question, we need to look to the bible for a sense of what the tithe was meant to mean.

Our first encounter with the tithe comes in Genesis. Jacob has a dream in which God reveals to him that the land of Bethel will be given to him and his descendants. In response, Jacob says upon waking: "If God will be with me and will keep me in the way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God and this stone, which I set up for a pillar, shall be God's house and of all that you give me, I will surely give one tenth to you." (Genesis 28:22f)

Jacob here is talking about the spoils of war, yes, but also about a covenant of mutuality.

On the law of the tithe, we turn to Deuteronomy: "Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field." (Deut. 14:22)

The tithe, under Old Testament life, was used to support the priestly clan, whose task it was to fulfill the religious needs of the people and to guide them in interpreting the law. The priets were not to own land or to work land. They were set apart people. Being freed from agricultural obligations, they were free to perform the required sacrifices and rituals which would ensure God's continual blessings and protection. That they were not free from the law of the tithe is made clear in Numbers: "Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: You shall speak to the Levites (the priests), saying: When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them for your portion, you shall set apart an offering from it to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. It shall be reckoned to you as your gift …" (Numbers 18:25-27a)

That the tithe had a communal purpose is illustrated in Deuteronomy: "Every third year, you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that full year and store it within your towns, the Levites as well as the resident aliens, the orphans and the widows in your towns may come and eat their fill so that the Lord God may bless you …" (Deut. 14:28-29)

This aspect of blessing from God, as well as threat, is illustrated in the last reference to the tithe in the Old Testament. In the prophetic book of Malachi we read: "Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, How shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, How are we robbing thee? In your tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing." (Malachi 3:7-10)

The tithe, in its legalism, became like a "holy insurance policy" as people gave in order to ensure God's favor. The spirit of giving out of gratitude is lost when the law of the tithe becomes a legalism.

In the New Testament, Jesus did not mention the tithe as requirement, but we assume that he supported the tithe as law when he said in the Sermon on the Mound: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets, I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:17-19)

Jesus felt that, as part of the chosen people of God, it was a duty and a privilege to obey the laws of God. But as we read other passages, we learn that the tithe was not sufficient. In Matthew, he criticizes the religious elite for their failure to observe the spirit as well as the letter of the law: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these that you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides …" (Matthew 23:23)

Again, this theme is taken up in the famous passage in Luke: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers and even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of all my income." But the tax collector would not even look up to heaven but was beating his breast and saying: "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled but all who humble themselves shall be exalted." (Luke 18:10-14)

When we turn to the epistles, we encounter Paul who, in writing to the Gentiles who did not have a history of the tithe, speaks of giving as a response to the blessings one has received. In Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth, we read: "The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work … He who supplies seed to the sower and the bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us for the rendering of this ministry …" (II Corinthians 9:10f)

In the primitive Jewish-Christian church, tithing was not the necessity it was in the Old Covenant. Without a priestly caste to provide for, the emphasis on giving was to give out of gratitude and to give for the support of the poorest members of the community, especially the widows and the orphans. In Acts, we read of the radical nature of this sacrificial giving in the early church, which moves considerably beyond the tithe: "All the believers were of one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had … There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." (Acts 4:32-35)

Thus, the oneness of the community of believers was expressed in community sharing. Predictably, after the death of St. Paul and the creation of orders of institutional ministry by the year 100 A.D., the tithe as "voluntary law" would re-emerge and lead later to the imposition of taxes imposed by the state for the official Constantinian Christian religion. But returning to scripture: In Jesus' ministry, we see the revealing of a "new law", that of total commitment. In the Gospel of Mark, we recall Jesus' parable about the rich young man who had kept the law all his days, including, presumably, the law of the tithe. Jesus tells him: "You lack one thing, go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven then come and follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions." (Mark 10:17-22)

An even clearer example is the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus did not ask for a portion, a tithe of the loaves and fish, but rather asked for all. Total commitment means a shift from meeting the obligation of the tithe out of fear of condemnation to seeing the tithe, at best, as a challenge, a marker, in our spiritual development. The tithe, as legalism, becomes a donation and can easily cause us to miss the greater demand of God, the call to give sacrificially − and not just of our money, as important a symbol as that is for us and for our culture, but we are asked to give also of our time, our talent, our energy, our creativity − again, our all.

The example of numerous saints, martyrs, apostles, holy hermits and those known in the heart of God alone, as well as the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross of Calvary; was not a tithe offering. God's demands throughout the ages are the same in our time − to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and our neighbors as ourselves.