Abraham Paid Tithes
There are several times in Scripture when tithing was practiced but the most important of all is the first time it is mentioned.
Abraham was the one who paid the tithe and he paid it to a priest by the name of Melchizedek. The incident is recorded in Genesis 14:20. There are several things which make this situation very interesting.
In this chapter Lot, Abraham’s nephew, who had been living in Sodom, had been taken captive when Sodom and her sister cities were attacked by invading armies. As soon as Abraham heard of this attack, and the capture of his nephew’s family, he organized a militia which executed a counter attack and successfully recovered all of the people and goods that had been taken. To show his gratitude the King of Sodom offered all the recovered goods as a reward. Abraham did two things in response both of which were intended to send a message.
One, he refused to take anything from Sodom even though he had every right to do so. In fact, theoretically Abraham could have taken more than just the goods. He had the military power to do whatever he wanted. Sodom’s army had been wiped out by the invaders and had only survived the ordeal because Abraham had rescued them. If he had wanted to, he could have taken everyone and every thing but that is not 
what he did. He refused any offering from Sodom and in so doing he established a public testimony to his dependence on God and his separation from Sodom and from everything the people stood for.
Abraham was going the extra mile to prevent anyone thinking he had a material relationship with Sodom. He knew that having money was not the basis of a testimony. How you manage money is. He wanted his material status to be associated with God not Sodom (Genesis 14:22).
A second thing Abraham did was to pay a tithe of all the goods that had been recovered and there are some very interesting observations to be drawn from this.
There is absolutely no explanation accompanying this act of giving. There is no instruction from God or statement from Abraham as to the “how” and “why” of tithing. It was obviously an understood practice. It had been in place previous to this event and needed no comment.
The silence is deafening. God didn’t say anything because nothing needed to be said. Abraham knew what he was doing, Lot probably knew what he was doing and there was no explanation given to the people of Sodom. Maybe we are to understand they knew what Abraham was doing also. God inspired no editorial material either so maybe He expects us to figure it out also.
Another interesting observation about this event was the fact that Abraham was giving a tenth of material goods which belonged to someone else. That had to send some very strong signals to everyone.
Can we read this and not believe that God is the source of all material increase? Whatever we have is due to the grace and mercy of God. That is true of the Christian and it is true of the world. Even Jesus said that one expression of God’s love is the outpouring of rain and the provision of sun shine, both of which provide material sustenance for everyone, the good and the evil (Matt. 5:45).
And additionally, if God provides everything then it only follows that a tenth of everything is His.
Abraham said all of that without uttering one word. Tithing is a practice which speaks volumes without the use of language. It is putting your money where your mouth is. This practice is an expression of trust, obedience and maturity and speaks of your relationship with God on a personal level. Consistent, regular giving is one way to identify with God. Giving is God’s way of showing His love. It is one way we can do the same.
The tithe paid by Abraham is also referred to in the New Testament (Hebrews 7:5-9) and the reference was made to demonstrate the inferiority of the Old Testament legal system. That inferiority was shown by the fact that the Levites (teachers of the law), who received the tithes, paid tithes in their father Abraham, long before the law was ever given.
What is implied in the comparison is the fact that the tithes paid by Abraham were exactly the same as the tithes paid under the law. If they were not, then Paul couldn’t have made his argument about the inferiority of the Levites compared to Melchizedec.
The tithing practiced by Abraham was equal to the tithing practiced by Israel. The priests to whom they paid them were not. Paul’s purpose, of course, was to illustrate the weakness of the Levitical system not invalidate tithing.
The only change instituted in the law relative to tithing was the recipient. God had to instruct His people to give the tithe to a certain group of humans who had been set aside by God as His special representatives in the society of that day. The tithe belongs to God but was to be managed by people.
The point of course is this; Abraham’s experience sets the precedent. Whatever you believe or say about tithing must accord well with the example of Abraham. Every other incident in Scripture, where tithing is practiced or discussed, takes its meaning from a page in Abraham’s life.
Taxing for the support of political systems did occur under the law but not until the first King came to the throne. Taxes were paid in addition to the tithe not in place of it.
As a tither, Abraham’s testimony is compelling.
THINK!AboutIt.
Hey Rob,
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate the spirit and identify with your frustrations.
Please understand that my first objective is to determine whether or not tithing is a practice for the New Testament. How it is spent is another issue altogether. I have no problem with charitable contributions coming out of the tithe. As you said, the Bible certainty mentions it. And, fortunately, there are many churches beginning to catch on.
BTW, even though I genuinely believe tithing is for today we (our church group) have assisted many people in and out of church financially who don’t tithe at all. In fact, we don’t even requires these people to pay anything back. I know of several other churches who do the same.
I also enjoy the discussion, although it turns to name calling and character assassination on many occasions.
Anyway, thanks for visiting and taking the time to comment. I do have some more posts to come and welcome your comments on those also. And, if you or anyone can convince me that tithing is outmoded I will gladly comply.
Four years ago I started a yahoo group to study the topic of tithing. I thought that I would attract about an equal number of people, half suggesting that tithing was the appropriate standard for Christian giving and half suggesting some other standard. We now have over 140 members. In the four years of this group, less than 6 have advocated tithing and of those I can only remember of a couple who seemed serious. Yours is one of the very few websites that even invites a discussion (if not the only one) that is pro-tithing. Why? This is the silence that hits me in the face. The silence (not from you, but from others) suggests that this cause is either inappropriate or indefensible. The vast number of Protestant churches advocate tithing. However, they broadcast their message from the pulpit and are not open to discussion.
These churches tend to spend above 95% only on themselves, not charity. This money goes to church business expenses including pastor, staff, mortgage payments, utilities. They talk about tithing to God (them), but do not volunteer discussion from the general congregation how the collections should be spent. The first century church had no building expenses. Church business which included writing bibles were labor intensive matters. Yet, collections were taken up for expressly stated purposes, primarily needy members of the body. From the Mosaic law, using tithes to go to the needy was given equal billing as having the tithe go to the Levitical priesthood.
Talk is good. Talk is needed. However, when it comes to helping the needy, if talk is the only thing received, a secondary message is sent. That unspoken message is that we love you, almost as much as we love your money.
I have attended a Quaker church as of late. The founder of the Quakers, George Fox, preached against tithing. This is not just my opinion. When I have presented the evidence to a number of people, the have always been silenced. Our membership class would tell us all the wonderful things that the Quakers are associated with including William Penn being one of the two colonial leaders that initiated freedom of religion in his state and being the first denomination that lead the fight against slavery. But went it comes to the topic of speaking against tithing, nothing is mentioned. I talked to the pastor in private about this. He told me that a fellow pastor told him that he didn’t believe that tithing was a Christian principle. My pastor told him that if he felt that way, don’t tell anyone else.
I have known of pastors that have been fired over the issue of tithing. I have a very hard time believing that a pastor is going to take an objective look at the matter. The nicest way I have seen a pastor react is to not be negative. However, I have heard of pastor act down right nasty, saying that he were God’s gift to the church, and that they could not continue discussion about the topic.
As a Christian, I read in the Bible that I am not to love money before God. That if I have sinned that I should go to the one that I have sinned against and make it right to him. If I were defraud someone, I should go to him and make it right. However, I almost never hear of pastors being straight and up front about giving money in a righteous manner. Do you ever hear of a pastor saying if you can not afford medicine for your family don’t give to the church? Rare to never. Do you ever hear of him saying if you have ever cheated someone, pay them back before you give to the Church? Again, rare to never. The silence is deafening.
No worries Tony. We’ll talk again.
Hi EnnisP,
I reread all that I have written and I think I was a bit rude. I apologise once again. I have seen the damage this doctrine has done to a lot of lives and this has made me so passionate about the subject.
I think I will stop bothering now. Take care and God bless.
When I made the statement about going to hell or being punished by God, I never referred to you. It has been my experience with a lot of other pro-tithers.
Check your history, the Arabs did not descend from Ishmael sir. Like I said they already had a culture of giving a tenth and that is where Abraham learnt it from. Abrahm’s tithe and that of the law are not the same. One was of spoils of war and the other was of crops and livestock. Jacob picked the practise of tithing from the people around him and scripture never even tells us that he even paid it.
Anyways, sorry if I offended you. God bless
Tony, you made the following comment…
I would respond by saying, firstly, that there were no Arabs when Abraham paid tithes in Genesis 14. They descended from Ishmael and he wasn’t born until chapter 16. If the Arabs did practice tithing later, it would have been after the example of Abraham whom they honor as their forefather.
Secondly, the NT clearly equates the tithes paid by Abraham and those paid under the law. They were the same. I didn’t say that the writer of Hebrews did. What Abraham did was motivated by a relationship he had with God. That, of course, is not surprising. He, more than any person of his day, related to and received communication from God.
Thirdly, two generations later, after a personal meeting with God in a dream, the first thing Jacob does is promise to pay a tithe on everything God gives him in the future. He obviously thought that was the best way to honor God. WHERE DID HE GET THAT IDEA IF NOT FROM PREVIOUS GENERATIONS INCLUDING ABRAHAM AND THOSE BEFORE HIM?
Fourthly, I have never made the following statement…
Fifthly, I don’t mind you disagreeing with me and joining in the discussion but it serves no useful purpose to make assumptions about my character and intentions. You have made points on one occasion that you have contradicted in another and questioned my integrity because I find it difficult to follow your logic.
I give up. You win. You have made a statement which you know you cannot back up from scripture and have decided to shift it back to me. You claim that Abraham was not the first to tithe and I wonder if you were present at the time the first five books were being written to know this. Or you use a different version of the bible from everyone else.
Why can’t you just take what has been written in scripture without trying to second guess and add your own stuff to it. This is the problem with Pro-tithers – they embellish their own ideas and portray it as the word of God. Instead of using scriptures in context to try and prove this alien doctrine, they beat around the bush and resort to using their personal ideas instead quoting scriptures completely out of context and when that doesn’t work, they resort to threats – “God will purnish you for withholding your tithes, you will go to hell for robbing God. bla bla bla”
Please stop what you are doing! Don’t keep on passing your personal opinions as God’s word. Scripture says who has known the mind of God that he may instruct Him? but we have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ was total submission to the will of the Father, this should be our goal too. We should not try to interpret God’s mind through intelligent guesses outside scripture. God is not man and He will never be man.
Before I go though let me recommend an article on tithes and giving, read it if you’ve got the time. The writer’s approach is quite balanced. God bless.
https://www.gotpotential.org/money/giving-as-a-spiritual-transaction
The onus is on you to prove it didn’t exist. Abraham gave no explanation for the tithe he gave, God said nothing about it and no one asked any questions. If you think he wasn’t acting on established principle then you must prove this.
BTW, my next post, Jacob Commits The Tithe, is even more convincing. Jacob, the second generation following Abraham, after God comes to him in a dream, promises to tithe. There again tithing is mentioned with no explanation. How do you explain that if it was not understood.
And can you please provide scriptural references that point to the fact that Abraham was a link and not the first in the history of tithing?
Abraham represents a link, not the first, in the long history of tithing. We can’t just dismiss what Abraham did and turn tithing into a mysterious guessing game. God hasn’t changed and the manner in which we relate to Him hasn’t changed either.
Tony, you said…
That is a question more for you than me.
I would like to know why anything we do with the tithe must accord with the example of Abraham? Just because Abraham did it, does not mean that the New Testament Church, which is under a different covenant, should do it. Clean animal laws, animal sacrifices, and circumcision were all established before the Mosaic law.
The only change wasn’t the recipient either. Abraham tithed from the spoils of war, Israel only could tithe on crops and animals. As a matter of fact, the law states that Israel only had to give 1% of their spoils of war to the Levites.
– jared
You are right in saying that the crucifixion of Jesus brought an end to all of the old testament sacrifices bu the practice of tithing was also one of those old testament rites. You have however, cleverly avoided saying that by trying to hinge the practice on Abraham’s encounter with Melchizedek.
Of course circumcision is now practiced because of health reasons but there are no spiritual implications for not being circumcised. The council at Jerusalem addressed this issue in the book of Acts. There are loads of Christians today who are not circumcised and God is very happy with them.
You are also right about a tenth being an already understood practice during Abraham’s time but contrary to what you are trying to insinuate, it was practiced by the Arabs who lived around Abraham and not something required by God until the law. We are the ones trying to make a big issue of Abraham’s tithe to Melchizedek. It was not done to obtain God’s favour or blessings, Abraham was already blessed and wealthy before he ever met Melchizedek. Even the Jews that were given the instruction to tithe never cite Abraham’s example. Mind you, the Jews today do not even tithe. Furthermore, today’s church cannot even tithe because money was never to be tithed only crops and livestock.
There is no scriptural evidence to suggest that Abraham ever tithed more than once, it would be quite presumptuous to say that.
Also, the tithe done by Abraham was completely different from that required by the law. Abraham gave a tenth of the SPOILS of war, while the tithe of the law only encompassed crops and livestock, nothing else. A different formula was used on spoils of war.
You asked me if I believe in consistent regular giving. Could you please clarify who this regular and consistent giving should be given to?
Hey Tony,
Thanks for the response and the comments. This post is only the first of several on the topic of tithing so more is yet to come but I would like to address some of your thoughts.
Sacrifices were clearly rescinded in the NT as Jesus is the answer to all of them as indicated in Galatians and elsewhere. In fact, Romans 10:4 says Christ is the end of the law.
As far as circumcision is concerned, we do still observe this practice. It is done for health reasons but that was the intent of the OT and has implications for one’s spiritual life as well. We still do many of the things taught in OT law and have even improved on some of them. Toilets are the answer to burying our waste outside the camp.
The point of my Hebrews reference was simply to point out that tithing as practiced by Abraham was exactly the same as tithing practiced in the law. Sorry if I misled anyone on that.
Regarding the “silence” argument…if no instructions were included then it must have been an understood practice, already in place before the event. Otherwise, why would Abraham have bothered to give ten percent of all the spoils of war. It was something he had been doing prior to this and it was very naturally done here, without explanation. It was understood.
I do have a question for you. If you don’t believe in tithing what do you believe? Do believe in regular consistent giving and if so, how much should a person give regularly and consistently?
Don’t go away though. I have written an entire series on this topic and welcome the comments, even those which disagree.
Hi there,
I read through your post with interest and have a couple of questions to ask. Based on your statement on the tithe, circumcision too should be a valid practise for today’s church. God expressly commanded Abraham to practise this rite before the law! How about animal sacrifice? That too was practised by Abraham before the law.
It appears you are trying desperately to build a case in support of the doctrine of tithing and by so doing you have completely misapplied scripture. The focus of the writer of the book of Hebrews was not the tithe at all. It was only used to illustrate to his Jewish audience that Jesus has an unending high priesthood after the similitude of Melchizedek, who was a high priest before the law and received tithes from Abraham before the law. How were you able to interpret God’s mind on the matter? How could you tell that God’s silence on the matter was a go ahead for the church of today to practice this alien doctrine? When it was even instituted as part of the law, Abraham was not cited as a reason.
If you personally believe that you should tithe, that is a good thing but do not turn a personal revelation into a general one. Tithing is not binding on the new testament believer.