Talk About Tithing

Hey bloggers,

Hope you had a great Labor Day, and thanks for all the cool comments from Sunday. I hope to hear from more of you about it, especially because so many of our people were out of town for the holiday weekend, and because it was such an important day for the future of CITN. Here's a partial repost of something I ran in the early days of this blog that I think is pertinent to where we are right now...

As I have already alluded to on this blog, when you visit the websites of some of the experts on ultimate reconciliation or “Christian Universalism”, you’ll see that they nearly all have articles posted about how tithing is not required of New Testament Christians. Now, I not only agree with most of all they say on the subject, I have said the same things at CITN…and yet I, personally, am a tither, and always will be. I started tithing on my first little paycheck when I was fifteen, and I believe that that is the reason that I am prosperous today. I don’t believe that I would be under a curse if I didn’t (and I don’t tell anyone else that they are cursed if they don’t), but I do believe that I am blessed because I do.

I don’t beat people up with Malachi 3:8-12 any more, and I don’t accuse non-tithers of being “God-robbers”. I understand why these webmasters/ministers that I have mentioned want to liberate people from the letter that kills. But I want people to give to the church because they love God and want to worship him completely, because they understand the concept of sowing seed for their futures, and because they believe in the vision of the CITN community and want to be investors in it.

I refuse to argue about what the Scriptures say or don’t say about prosperity through tithing, because I think it’s a bigger concept and idea than what the Bible says about it. Please listen carefully, and understand this with your heart…I love and follow Jesus, but “Christ” is a bigger concept and idea than “Jesus”. I worship and honor God, but the “I AM” is a bigger concept and idea than “God”. I trust and believe the Bible, but “truth” is a bigger concept and idea than “the Bible”. I trust that my readers can grasp what I mean by that.

When you google “tithing”, you find access to hundreds and hundreds of articles, both pro and con, on the subject. There are all the old school preacher sites telling you that you are under a curse if you rob God, and there are just as many sites supposedly “exposing” those preachers for taking the Scriptures out of context and manipulating people with them for their own selfish agendas.

But what I see and say is that when Abram/Abraham initiated the whole thing by tithing to Melchizedek in Genesis 14, he was not instructed by God to do it, and he never made it a rule for anyone else to follow. Abraham, the visionary “star-counter” somehow tapped into a law of the universe that we now call tithing, 450 years before the law, because what he did that day transcended law...it was a spiritual revelation! If you study it out, you’ll see that there were people like him in every ancient culture who practiced tithing, and got results from it, and they knew nothing of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In their best-selling book, The One Minute Millionaire, Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen discuss proven techniques and provide useful tools, which they refer to as “Ahas”, for becoming an Enlightened Millionaire (TM). One of these “Ahas” is about tithing, or “sharing the wealth” in layman terms. They define the act of tithing as when a monetary donation (typically a tenth of one’s income or tithe) is made to a charity and/or church. Enlightened Millionaires follow two rules of thought regarding tithing. First, that abundance comes from making others better off. Second, the primary reason for obtaining wealth is to be able to give more of it away. In fact, Enlightened Millionaires DO commit to tithe the first 10% of their income.

Here are some quotes from Hansen and some other success-oriented authors who are not coming from a solely biblical paradigm...



“Every individual’s purpose in tithing is to open up his/her awareness of universal laws. Tithing opens you, to you. You are an unlimited individual, deprived of a fuller, richer life partly because of lack of the tithing experience and expression in life.”


"Why is tithing something that so many already successful people believe in? It could be because they recognize the cycle of the universe that says that in order to make room for more, we have to let go of some of what we have. It’s a classic Win/Win for everyone involved. Many children practice this, and here's an example. Let’s say Sue and Jane are playing. They both come inside for a drink. Jane runs outside, trips and spills her fruit punch. Sue takes the remainder of her punch and pours it into her friends' cup. Her mom sees this act of kindness and brings her a full glass of punch. Sue has just been rewarded for her selflessness and in fact received more than she gave. Tithing is based on the same principle, substituting money for fruit punch, of course!"

“As a tither you automatically become solution-oriented rather than problem-oriented.”

- Mark Victor Hansen





“If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.”

- Marian Wright Edelman, American Children’s Rights Activist





“I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary, which was $1.50 per week.”

- John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1839-1937), American industrialist and philanthropist




“You hear a lot of strange things about tithing. Some say it is a church tax, and they expect me to pay it and that is the end of it. Others say that when I give God one-tenth of my income, He blesses the nine-tenths that is left to the extent that the nine-tenths now goes as far as the whole thing used to go. This isn’t really true, is it? Suppose a farmer had 100 bushels of corn in the barn and he decides to plant 10 bushel in the ground. What multiplies? Is it the 90 bushels that he has left in the barn? Oh, no. All of us ‘farmers’ know it is the 10 bushels you put in the ground that multiplies. Similarly, it is the 10 percent you give to God that multiplies.”

- Stanley Tam (1915-), American businessman and philanthropist and author




"Over the years I have found that many of the richest people in the world began their lives with the habit of tithing."

- Robert Kiyosaki, motivational speaker, author Rich Dad, Poor Dad




"I absolutely believe in the power of tithing and giving back. My own experience about all the blessings I've had in my life is that the more I give away, the more that comes back. That is the way life works, and that is the way energy works."

- Ken Blanchard, author The One-Minute Manager




"I have observed 100,000 families over my years of investment counseling. I always saw greater prosperity and happiness among those families who tithed than among those who didn't."

- Sir John Templeton, Chairman of Templeton Funds

__________________


That's what I posted before, and I stand by all of it...but I also want to reiterate something I said Sunday, and this only comes by revelation, and it transcends theology... THE TITHE IS HOLY.

Selah.

Does Bishop Jim Swilley Believe that a Person Must Confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ to be Saved? (repost)

Q. - Do you believe that a person must confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ to be saved?

A. Absolutely!

But it’s really an unnecessary question…a moot point, if you will…in that it has already been answered in the Scriptures…it is written that every knee WILL bow, and every tongue WILL confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, either now or later, to the glory of God the Father! Therefore [because He stooped so low] God has highly exalted Him and has freely bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, That in (at) the name of Jesus every knee should (must) bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, And every tongue [frankly and openly] confess and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11 – AMP)

What is the official Christian method or formula for obtaining salvation? It depends on whom you ask. Some say that it is water baptism by immersion, others say that it is baptism by sprinkling, still others by christening/infant Baptism, or baptism in the name of Jesus, or baptism by invoking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or Holy Spirit Baptism with the evidence of Speaking with other Tongues, or “calling on The Name,” or catechism, or receiving Last Rites, or by church membership, or by repentance from dead works, or by sanctification and holy living, or by public confession…the list goes on and on.

In the Gospels, Zacchaeus received salvation simply by restoring, fourfold, all that he had stolen from the people (without baptism or confession of faith), the harlot received salvation simply by washing Jesus’ feet with her hair (without baptism or confession of faith), the thief on the cross received salvation by simply asking for it (without baptism or confession of faith). Paul and Silas told their believing jailer that his entire household would be saved just because they were related to him.

In recent history, the “Sinner’s Prayer” has gradually replaced the traditional role of water baptism in relation to current church concepts of the way to obtain salvation. Though it is touted as gospel today, the “Sinner’s Prayer” is actually a very recent invention, first employed by D.L. Moody (1837-1899) who used this “model” of prayer when training his evangelistic co-workers. But it did not reach popular usage until the 1950s with Billy Graham’s Peace With God tract, and later with Campus Crusade for Christ’s Four Spiritual Laws. The idea of it is based largely on a particular interpretation of Romans 10:9 & 10 about the effects of believing and confessing the Lordship of Jesus. But when Chapters 9, 10 and 11 of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome are read in their proper context, it becomes clear that he is discussing there in that entire passage the deliverance and preservation of Israel as a nation (who, by the way, he declares will “all be saved” – Romans 11:26).

The Jewish New Testament, a translation of David H. Stern, most accurately captures the real essence of what Paul was actually saying in these verses: basically, that believing in the Lordship of Jesus continually brings deliverance in our everyday life (as in David’s words…“I know that the Lord SAVES His anointed”), and that the confession of faith is a lifestyle, not a mantra:

What, then, does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” – that is the word about trust which we proclaim, namely, that if you acknowledge publicly with your mouth that Yeshua is Lord and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be DELIVERED. For with the heart one goes on trusting and thus continues toward righteousness, while with the mouth one KEEPS ON MAKING PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND THUS CONTINUES TOWARD DELIVERANCE... everyone who calls on the name of Adonai will be DELIVERED. (Romans 10:8-10, 13 – Jewish New Testament)

According to the Apostle Paul, all of humanity was “saved” at the same time (1 Timothy 4:10), but all are not yet believers. He also emphatically answered this often-asked question “Does one have to confess the Lordship of Jesus to be eternally saved?” with a definite “Yes!” He said that every tongue in heaven or on earth or “beneath the earth,” according to His revelation of grace, should, and eventually will confess, either now or later! Absolutely, everyone must confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ to be saved, and, thank God, according to the Scriptures, eventually everyone will!

We can set no limits to the agency of the Redeemer to redeem, to rescue, to discipline in his work, and so will he continue to operate after this life.

– Clement of Alexandria
(c.150-211/216),

Does Bishop Jim Swilley Believe that Jesus Christ is the Only Way to God? (repost)

Q. - Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God?

A. Undoubtedly!

It is written in the Scriptures that He is the Savior of ALL people, especially those who believe: This is why we've thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We're banking on the living God, SAVIOR OF ALL MEN AND WOMEN, ESPECIALLY BELIEVERS.
(1 Timothy 4:10 – The Message)

The main purpose of the ministry is to declare the evangel, or the good news, that the Lamb of God has taken away the sin of the whole world. He has saved everyone, but not everyone knows or believes it yet (and there is definitely an advantage to being one of the ones who “especially believes”…it’s the way into the Kingdom!). But in the same way that the Prodigal Son was always a son, even though he was lost and living in a pig sty, all of humanity is in the family of God (Ephesians 3:14, 15), but most of them are lost and living in their own “pig sties” of religion, unbelief, deception or bondage to sin. They’re just away from home (“All we like sheep have gone astray…”) and need to hear the Word of Reconciliation so that they can come to themselves, as did the Prodigal Son, and then come back to the Father of us all.

That’s why in John 14:6 we hear Jesus say so confidently “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and NO ONE comes to the Father except by Me!” He had already declared in Chapter 12 that if He was lifted up from the earth on the cross, that He would draw (literally the Greek uses the word “drag”) ALL people to Himself. The work that Jesus did on that cross for all of us is universal, unparalleled and unrivaled…the cross is the nexus (the thing that brings everything together) of the universe!

I don’t believe that Jesus Christ is competitive with or hostile and antagonistic to Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, Confucius, and others of that group (“They that are not against us are for us…”), because His atoning sacrifice and resurrection sets Him above and apart from every other sage, prophet, messiah, or spiritual/religious leader in history. All of the others were great seers and teachers, and should be honored for their contribution to world, but Jesus Christ alone is the Savior of the world. In a word, Jesus Christ is Lord.

But even though I believe that Jesus is ultimately the one way to God, I do not believe that all the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Hare Krishnas, agnostics and atheists, etc. are all going to eventually walk down the aisle of a Christian church and pray the sinner’s prayer and confess Romans 10:9 and 10…nor do I believe that they are damned and going to a place called hell if they don’t. Let me explain. Quite simply, Jesus of Nazareth perfectly embodied and manifested what we call “the Christ”, and it’s Christ that is actually the way to God. Jesus was and is the Christ, but the Christ was here before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. According to Paul, centuries before Jesus’ Incarnation, even Israel in the wilderness was “in Christ” : For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, AND THAT ROCK WAS CHRIST. (1 Corinthians 10:1-4 – TNIV)

And the writer of Hebrews said that Moses, while growing up in polytheistic Egypt, definitely knew “Christ”, even though he would have no way of knowing who Jesus was: By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace FOR THE SAKE OF CHRIST as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. (Hebrews 11:24-26 – TNIV)

That’s why I always say There are those who know His name, but don’t know Him, as there are those who know Him, even though they don’t know His name. There is definitely one way to God and that is Christ…and flesh and blood cannot reveal Christ to us…one way to God/many ways to Christ…and Jesus is the Christ, but it is Christ, not Christianity that is the way, the truth and the life. Undoubtedly, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Way!

Is Bishop Jim Swilley Orthodox in His Theology? (repost)

Q. Do you think that your theology is “orthodox”?

A. Yes, I do!

The word orthodoxy was a word that I rarely, if ever, heard while growing up in churches within the classical Pentecostal denominations. In that tradition, the emphasis was always placed upon the power and manifestation of the Holy Spirit over and above the correctness of theology or Biblical doctrine. Orthodoxy and all that it entails became a big part of my consciousness during my Bible College years because of the theological courses that I had to take, but it didn’t really become so personally important to me until recently.

The dictionary defines orthodoxy as the quality of being orthodox (especially in religion) a belief or orientation agreeing with conventional standards. The word is from the Greek ortho ('right', 'correct') and doxa('thought', 'teaching', 'glorification'), and is typically used to refer to the correct theological or doctrinal observance of religion, as determined by some overseeing body; those beliefs which reflect the faith of the whole Church since the time of the apostles; a term used in a number of senses, of which the following are the most important: (1) Orthodoxy in the literal sense of 'right belief,' as opposed to heresy; (2) Orthodoxy in the sense of the forms of Christianity which are dominant in the East.

At the time of this writing I am currently authoring another book under the working title THE CREED: Finding a “Now” Word Within Ancient Christian Orthodoxy, and in it I will be examining the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and other historical and foundational Christian statements of faith, and their relevance to our ministry. The more research that I do, the more confirmation I receive that the message that we preach at CITN is organic, original and orthodox Christianity…the Gospel of the Kingdom. The actual, original Gospel is preached so rarely these days in the mainstream churches, that when it is presented in a simple, straightforward manner, many people who think that they are orthodox in their beliefs, actually believe that what we preach is unorthodox!

In recent years I have particularly developed a greater appreciation for the Apostles’ Creed, which is accepted by both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Church (the Greek Orthodox Church favors the nearly identical Nicene Creed) as an official confession of Christianity. In both creeds (and this is true for all the other ancient Christian creeds) there is nothing mentioned about the devil, or a “rapture”, or a “tribulation period”, or about Israel becoming a nation in 1948, or anything about hell and eternal damnation. The older Roman Catholic version of the Apostles’ Creed used to contain the phrase “He descended to hell”, but the Modern English Version uses the more Biblically accurate phrase “He descended to the dead”, because true Hebrew and Greek scholars cannot deny anymore that the Hebrew “sheol”, and the Greek “hades” should never have been interpreted as “hell”, because they simply mean the grave, or more specifically, “the unseen”.


THE APOSTLES’ CREED
(Modern English Version)

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
He descended to the dead.
On the third day He rose again;
He ascended to heaven,
He is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Amen.

This creed is what I believe and preach. The only revision that I would make to it would be to replace the phrase “God’s only Son” with “God’s firstborn Son” because of Romans 8:29: For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the FIRSTBORN among many brothers and sisters.(TNIV)

And I would also point out that the word catholic (lower case), simply means the Church Universal, the Body of Christ. This term is not to be confused with Roman Catholicism, but is accepted by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. Webster defines “catholic” as “broad-minded, as in belief or tastes; liberal; comprehensive; large; universal in reach; general.”

I love the Church of Jesus Christ with my whole heart, and I respect its ancient traditions. Jesus said that He would build His church, and that the gates of hades, or the unseen, could not prevail against it. In other words, death or anything from the unseen realm (including the mysterious force of religion) can not ever overpower the life-giving power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, Who was crucified, buried and resurrected, and is the Head of the Church, the Lord of the Universe, and the Savior of all people, especially those who believe. So, to answer…yes, I do…and that is why I embrace true, Christian orthodoxy!