Did Yeshua /​Jesus Instruct Us To Give ¹⁄₁₀ To The Church Or Did He Say We Should Take Care Of Others?

Our Christian Faith is cut, fash­ioned, and shaped from one fact; God the Father sent his son Yeshua the Christ to die for our sins. The idea is that although Yeshua the Christ knew no sin, he would die to offer human­i­ty a sec­ond chance, a chance at redemption.
Man’s dis­obe­di­ence caused him to fall from grace, so we are told (à la Adam and Eve dis­obey­ing God’s express com­mands) and were both sub­se­quent­ly con­demned to eter­nal damna­tion along with all human­i­ty that came out of them.
In His ulti­mate wis­dom and grace, we are told that God devised a plan of sal­va­tion that offered human­i­ty a sec­ond chance. Glory be to God that through his sons shed blood sin­ners like myself has a chance at life eternal.
The Christian Faith was born!
I use the phrase [we are told] because we were not there when any of these events occurred; we are oper­at­ing on writ­ten words passed down through the cen­turies that have been changed and manip­u­lat­ed to suit and enhance diver­gent objectives.
Even if we set aside the fact that the scrip­tures have under­gone cen­turies of change, manip­u­la­tion, and attempts to destroy them, at their best, we would still be left with words passed down for thou­sands of years that ask us to [believe] that which we have not seen.

Nevertheless, we are here today oper­at­ing on that promise that if we who seek a sec­ond chance would accept the idea that we are all sin­ners, that Yeshua is the son of God, that he died for our sins, and that if we con­fess our sins to him and ask for for­give­ness, he will hear our prayers and save us from eter­nal damnation.
Seem like a sweet deal to me.
I was both priv­i­leged and hon­ored to be asked to deliv­er a short address to a few folks awhile back; in that address, I likened that sec­ond chance to a rich man build­ing a big beau­ti­ful house and fur­nish­ing it with the most beau­ti­ful fur­ni­ture, stock­ing the pantry and refrig­er­a­tor with all kinds of del­i­cate and deli­cious foods, but not only that mak­ing arrange­ments for every­thing to be replen­ished to the heart’s con­tent of his guests whom he will leave to live in his house.
The guests ate his food, destroyed his house, turned their backs on him, cursed him, and even claims he does not exist.
In the end, they claimed the house to be theirs and declared that the prop­er­ty own­er nev­er exist­ed at all.…. Some even claim that they are indeed gods; they cre­at­ed the house and fur­nished it.

But wait!

Psalm 24 has some­thing to say about that; vs. (1)The earth is the Lord’s, and the ful­ness there­of; the world, and they that dwell therein.
² For he hath found­ed it upon the seas and estab­lished it upon the floods.
Not only do the scrip­tures tell us who the earth belongs to, note the word “Lord’s”, in verse (1) the apos­tro­phe “s” denotes ownership.
Amazingly, it is not just the Earth that belongs to God; it is also the ful­ness of it and they that dwell/​live therein.
Word of cau­tion to the mini earth­ly [gods], the real God owns you too.

Today I want to talk a lit­tle bit on a sub­ject that has become a sore point in our faith. It is a sub­ject that is impact­ing the way young peo­ple look at Christianity.
Not nec­es­sar­i­ly whol­ly, but even though only par­tial­ly a part of the faith’s chal­lenge today, it is sig­nif­i­cant enough to turn the unsaved away from the faith, speak­ing of [GIVING].
Before I sat down to pen this short arti­cle, I thought long and hard on whether I should broach the sub­ject, know­ing that it may invoke anger and ill feel­ings among the estab­lished orthodoxy.
More impor­tant­ly, I sought God’s guid­ance on exact­ly what I should say (if any­thing), know­ing the risks involved.
Full dis­clo­sure, I have not attend­ed any the­o­log­i­cal sem­i­nary, I have no degrees in the­ol­o­gy or apolo­get­ics, thank God.
I have a direct link to God that was made pos­si­ble the moment Yeshua gave up His life on Calvary cross, there­by remov­ing the mid­dle [man].
Now when we pray, we go through his son Yeshua the Christ, one enti­ty of the God-Head Trinity, not through a Priest that sins like you and me.

What I received from the Lord is what I will write here today, noth­ing less, noth­ing more.
(How did Yeshua Live)?
I thank the Lord God for this guid­ance. I thank him for answer­ing me when I asked him to tell me what to say.
So let us look in sim­ple terms, what Yeshua did while he was here. As I broach the sub­ject, I would like to reit­er­ate what I already said about my lack of for­mal the­o­log­i­cal train­ing. This means that I will not intro­duce any hifa­lutin terms and then seek to explain them because I do not know any. I will seek to be as pre­cise as I can be.
Yeshua lived on earth; we are told for 33 years. During his three-year min­istry, he preached the gospel. Healed the sick. Fed the hun­gry. Comforted the lone­ly. Saved lives and even raised the dead.
My more edu­cat­ed con­tem­po­raries can argue about the nuances of the oth­er things that Yeshua may have done that are not encap­su­lat­ed with­in these afore­men­tioned major sub­ject areas.

Yeshua had no Church, no Synagogue, no tem­ple, no Mosque; he did not even have a tent.
The open space was his cov­er. Everyone who want­ed to hear his word was his congregation.
How iron­ic is it today in the age of evan­gel­i­cal preach­ers demand­ing huge tithes and offer­ings for Gulfstream Jets that when Yeshua want­ed to get into Jerusalem, he bor­rowed a Donkey?
Yeshua han­dled no mon­ey, and he made no demands for any.
That is not to say that mon­ey was not impor­tant for the Church’s func­tion­ing. After all, Yeshua and the twelve Disciples that trav­eled with him through­out his three-year min­istry need­ed mon­ey for food, and I sup­pose oth­er expenses.
We learned that Judas Iscariot han­dled the mon­ey. And we saw how the love of that mon­ey led him to betray Yeshua and led inex­orably to his own demise.
If we jump for­ward after Yeshua was cru­ci­fied, we also learn that Peter and oth­er Apostles lived off the mon­ey donat­ed to the min­istry. Remember, a large part of the ear­ly Church’s func­tion was to spread the Gospel of Yeshua/​Jesus the Christ, which means build­ing out the Infrastructure, lit­er­al­ly build­ing church­es, etc.
However, the Apostle Paul fre­quent­ly per­formed out­side work, not desir­ing to be a finan­cial bur­den to the young Churches he found­ed. (see Acts 4:34 – 37). Paul was also a tent builder; how prac­ti­cal yet symbolic?
Hardly any­one can argue that we need more actu­al church build­ings in most of the world today. The abil­i­ty of the Church to get the good news of Yeshua the Christ out to the world has been great­ly enhanced by the advent of the inter­net infra­struc­ture and social-media plat­forms that dis­sem­i­nates infor­ma­tion across con­ti­nents in nano-seconds.

This is a good thing for the body of Christ. Since preach­ing to the saved is less impor­tant than reach­ing the unsaved, the church has a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to car­ry out Yeshua’s mandate.
And so I ask the Church when you con­tin­ue to ask and [demand] more mon­ey from the very same con­gre­ga­tion that is not grow­ing and is in many ways dwin­dling, as a result of var­i­ous fac­tors includ­ing death and dis­af­fec­tion, are you jus­ti­fied that the mon­ey is being used for the uplift­ment of God’s Kingdom?
Is the mon­ey going to take care of the elder­ly wid­ow whose hus­band died, leav­ing her to sur­vive on his pal­try social secu­ri­ty check? Does the Church seek to find out whether her rental, food, and med­i­cine are paid for?
Does the mon­ey help indi­gent kids whose par­ents are strung out on drugs through no fault of said kids?
Does the mon­ey oper­ate true food pantries that are open dai­ly to feed those who can­not feed themselves?
Is there an effort to help fam­i­lies down and out, hav­ing lost one income or both, and can­not make ends meet?
Is there a real prison min­istry that seeks to help young men and women return to and assim­i­late into soci­ety after being crim­i­nal­ized by a soci­ety that deval­ues their lives?
Where is the church cen­ter that shows what Christians are sup­posed to be, not what we say we are? One that offers day-care for young sin­gle moms and dads who have to work and have no one to take care of their babies?
How remark­able would it be if the Church would cre­ate that envi­ron­ment which would, in turn, employ not only from the church com­mu­ni­ty but the unsaved, so that they will see what Christians mean when we talk about the love of Yeshua?
Imagine if the Church would cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for sum­mer camps that teach sports of all kinds, remov­ing our young men and women from the streets and, by exten­sion, the prison indus­tri­al complex.
We have heard the Church repeat­ed­ly speak to the idea of going to street cor­ners and pray­ing to end gun vio­lence (prayer is always advised); how­ev­er, if we build our own com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters that wel­come our young peo­ple with Godly love, they will be incen­tivized to look to doing oth­er things than killing each other.
It is deceit­ful and disin­gen­u­ous to insist that we should pray with­out ceas­ing when God’s word tells us in his word that we need to pray, but we also need to do for our­selves that which he empow­ers us to do.
(Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strength­ens me).
( 2 Timothy 1: 7: For God gave us a spir­it not of fear but pow­er and love and self-control).
(Mark 9:23: And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are pos­si­ble for one who believes.).”

It is impor­tant to rec­on­cile that the con­cept of giv­ing to the Church is a free will con­cept that in no way excludes any­one from gain­ing eter­nal life.
It is impor­tant to remem­ber that. We give, not just to the Church, but to those who need our help, not because we are forced, berat­ed, shamed, ridiculed, and con­demned if we do not; we give because Yeshua asked us to.
Even so, while Yeshua walked on earth, he nev­er once demand­ed that a sin­gle per­son give a des­ig­nat­ed por­tion of their earn­ings to the Church, not once.
Even as he told the haughty young lawyer in Matthew 19:21, “If you want to be per­fect, go, sell your pos­ses­sions and give to the poor, and you will have trea­sure in heav­en. Then come, fol­low me.”
He nev­er told him to sell his pos­ses­sions and give it to the Church, Yeshua though con­ver­sant of the young Lawyer’s disin­gen­u­ous piety, was laser-focused on the needs of the poor.
As the lead­ers of the church of today con­tin­ue to ask the peo­ple to give and give, even know­ing full well that the major­i­ty of its mem­ber­ship does not pos­sess the means to do so, and even as the Church lead­er­ship con­tin­ue down on that path that turns souls away from Christ instead of to him, is the Church jus­ti­fied before God that [it] is car­ry­ing out the func­tions of Yeshua’s teach­ings itself?
If the Church is con­cerned about indi­vid­u­als stor­ing up trea­sures on earth, is the Church con­fi­dent that it is not tak­ing the peo­ple’s mon­ey and stor­ing it up itself?
Are the pro­ceeds of Church invest­ments being plowed back into the com­mu­ni­ty to do the work that Yeshua asked us to do?
The work of the Lord is far from mere­ly preach­ing the Gospel. The work goes beyond words; it is about actions, not a one-off action either. It is not about any per­son; it is about doing the Lord’s work until he returns.
Some indi­vid­u­als are qui­et­ly and with­out fan­fare doing those works with­out titles, with­out a desire to be seen. They are not doing those works to be rec­og­nized; they are sim­ply try­ing to obey God’s word.
God sees them, and they do not have to give a tenth of their income to the Church to be obe­di­ent to God. That is [not] a commandment.

In a lat­er iter­a­tion of this arti­cle, we will exam­ine the ori­gins of tithing, and its impor­tance, not just to our every­day lives but to our lives in the after­life as artic­u­lat­ed by the word of God.
I can­not wor­ry about what man will think of me; I have a greater call­ing and respon­si­bil­i­ty to speak the truth as God would have me.
Be blessed, all of you.

Sincerely.….… Mike Beckles.