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Tony and Jesse answer a listener question about tithing.

Jesse Schwamb 0:09
Welcome to Episode 174 of the reformed brotherhood. I'm Jesse.

Tony Arsenal 0:16
And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast of brotherly love.

Hey, brother.

Jesse Schwamb 0:31
Hey, brother, what's going on?

Tony Arsenal 0:33
Not much, man. Not much. How about you?

Jesse Schwamb 0:37
You know, I'm excited to talk to you as always in our weekly appointment here because it's question cast, which is always a lot of fun.

Tony Arsenal 0:46
Nice. I do love me some good question cast.

Jesse Schwamb 0:50
I know you do. I'd like to say on the side, I think my assessment is you are the kind of person who has never met a question you didn't like.

Tony Arsenal 0:59
Yeah, I mean, There are some dumb questions whoever made up that saying about no stupid questions definitely is wrong, but most genuine questions are worth asking and worth answering.

Jesse Schwamb 1:12
I agree with you on that. So in that spirit, the first question I want to ask you is What are you affirming this week?

Tony Arsenal 1:19
So, I'm affirming a little book that I recently read, you may have heard of it. It's called philomon, or Philemon or phi Lehman, everybody pronounces it differently. But, you know, I'm, I'm bringing the sermon for Lord state worship, which is tomorrow from our perspective, and was a few days ago from the perspective of our listeners. And you know, I've I've read Philip philomon, Philemon, I think, technically, I wanted to K one of the ways that I prepare for sermons is you can actually, I think I've written for instance before, if you go to sermon audio and you know a little bit about how RSS feeds work, you can build an RSS feed that brings you like all the sermons from sermon audio on a given book? Wow. So like I, one of the ways I prepare for sermons, since I don't have a lot of study time, is I usually know, you know, like a month or so in advance that I'm going to be preaching. And I generally have an idea of what, what passage I want to preach on. So I'll throw that sermon audio feed in and I'll just listen to like a ton of sermons. It's almost like, like deep diving and commentary. And it's funny, because there's one guy that was trying to pronounce right, he kept on saying, Philemon and I kept on thinking he was saying like the layman Jaan. So but you know, it's just the book is so packed with different thoughts and different ideas. And it's not your typical Pauline letter, in that it's very short, which is not Paul's normal way of doing things. But also it's it's on one level, very personal. It's, you know, written to an individual, but it also has a lot of really practical information for the church as a whole. So I'm excited to share with the congregation tomorrow what you know what I think God has given me in my study and I've just read read film on. And I'm going to keep saying philomon because I think that's probably closest to the Greek.

Jesse Schwamb 3:08
Wow, I love it. But let me get this straight. So in our time of affirmations and denials, you basically just affirm the Scripture, which sets the bar so high for me that I can't possibly achieve over it.

Tony Arsenal 3:21
It's true. I think I've won affirmations and denials so

Jesse Schwamb 3:25
yeah, you I feel like you always win them because you always have some kind of great affirmations now that has like a wonderful spiritual connection.

Tony Arsenal 3:32
Not always, sometimes it's like, I affirm Pokemon.

Jesse Schwamb 3:36
Yeah, but I feel like what we do on this podcast is we turn that even that into some kind of amazing spiritual connection.

Tony Arsenal 3:42
That's true. There's a lot of good sermon illustrations with Pokemon having to do with evangelism. You gotta, you gotta catch them all.

Jesse Schwamb 3:50
See, see what just happened here. dangerously close like some kind of weird Westland. You catch him. God cleans them situation, but I forget where you're going with That generalists. Yes.

Tony Arsenal 4:00
Yeah, I hope that God doesn't clean the fish because cleaning the fish is usually not a good thing for the fish that is how about you? What are you affirming before we

Jesse Schwamb 4:12
unpack that and all of its beauty, but you're right to make us move on. This week, I'm affirming with an application for your phone, or mobile device of your choosing that I just discovered recently, and I think is actually brilliant. So the app is called be my eyes. And it brings together two people groups. There is a people group that is blind or low vision. And there is a people group that are cited volunteers. And what this app does is it just connects the two people. So if you download this app, you can choose which group you belong to. And then people that are in a situation that are blind or have low vision can actually make send out a request for help. And then what it does is immediately connects them to assited volunteer who accepts that request, and then helps them in that literal moment was Something that they're struggling with. And I just think this is a brilliant piece of technology. This is like for me quintessential like redeeming technology in such a way that it really helps to meet a practical need in a practical situation and gets you connect with some somebody else that you would never even met. So be my eyes is something I think everybody should check out. I wasn't before I download this app, like particularly passionate about this particular thing. But I've really just grown to appreciate how these like it's, it's really simple things. It's like somebody might have a request because they're in the grocery store. And they're trying to check expiry dates, or they're shopping and they're trying to distinguish between two colors and they just want to affirm that what the T shirt that they're buying is navy blue as opposed to some other color. And it's really struck me at one what a gift sightedness is, but to how this is just a simple way for people to love on somebody else by doing something that seems so unquestionably natural. So I would again just tell everybody at least go check Be my eyes and see what it's all about really unique, really wonderful app.

Tony Arsenal 6:05
Yeah. You know, as someone who's colorblind, not not significantly, but who's colorblind. This makes a lot of sense to me. Because I can tell you like when I'm out shopping for clothes, if I am by myself and I don't have my wife with me, I will wander around the store trying to find somebody who can tell me like something as simple as like, What color is this tie? So and it's kind of embarrassing, like, you walk up and you ask what seems like a really stupid question. And sometimes people look at you like, Are you an idiot? And you're like, No, I just have like a disability, that I can't see colors. So this is a cool idea. I like this. I like this idea.

Jesse Schwamb 6:44
Of course, it also got me thinking what other manifestations of this particular connectedness represented the app might be helpful. And of course, I immediately thought of theology I was like, wouldn't be great. There's like a connection between people that you just reach out for theological questions and if somebody wants to That question would immediately FaceTime with them and have a quick conversation. Like that's also kind of cool. But I just love this idea. And I have to say like so I think you're the first person in our like extended family that has the colorblind thing. And one of the strange ways that I think we've interacted with you is like, for some reason, that's become like a giant joke at your expense. Like we always love to like hold up stuff and be like, What color is this color? This is Tony, as if it's like some giant game like it's just a joke that never gets old.

Tony Arsenal 7:32
Yeah, there's there's something hardwired into the human species, that when you find out that someone is colorblind, you have to ask them what color something is. It's like, into humanity. I mean, I think I think on some level, it actually is like people being colorblind is so far outside of most people's experience, that they almost don't know how to interact with it. So they, they kind of have to like figure it out. Like what color is that? And they're expecting you to return. Like, I think the impulse is probably like, I know that this shirt is blue. I'm going to ask you what color it is. So that way I can better understand. Like what you're seeing. There's a really interesting video if you go online on YouTube, there's a kid who basically he takes he's way severe, colorblind way worse than I am. But he takes things like Skittles, or Starburst or jelly beans and stuff like that. And he'll, he'll videotape himself videotape that's like 1986 he'll, he'll take a video of him, like sorting the different colors, and kind of showing you like what he ends up with. And sometimes he gets pretty close. And sometimes he's way, way, way off. So it's interesting to kind of see like how things look to Him, and what colors seem the same? Because most people like the kind of color blindness I have. I get colors that are very similar to each other mixed up. But some color blindness you actually get colors that are very, very different mixed up. And you can see other kinds of colors. So this kid, Sometimes he'll get like a bright green, and a bright red Skittles completely mixed up and they look exactly the same to him. So it's interesting check it out.

Jesse Schwamb 9:14
I mean site is one of those things that is because it seems like so normal and just so normative that we often don't really consider the implications of how deep a concept it is. And of course, the Bible speaks at length and using sightedness as a metaphor for regeneration and the ability through the Holy Spirit to recognize God, and to understand something about his character and who he is. And that by itself, we could speak about for at length. One of the things I've been thinking about this so interesting in respect to colors and this application, is that color to me is a bit like fiat currency. And it's a social construct, you know, like, we know what green is because somebody taught us that this particular refraction of light into our eyes is green so that when somebody is like, well, that looks like brown. You ask a colorblind person, what is grass look like to you? And they described blonde, it just it just seems so mind altering that is different. And then when you ask, Well, how do you even know what that color is? What is the label that belongs to? It's because well, somebody told us that there's a difference between green and blue, and the sky is blue and the grass is green. And then I was also thinking this led me down another rabbit hole to end this whole affirmation out about how beautiful it is to live in the day and age we do because we take for granted the fact that changing vision is not blindness. And this does have a really, I think, large spiritual component because I am a nearsighted. I need corrective lenses. And I've thought for a long time, if I lived in a different era, even like 70 years ago, but certainly in biblical times, the ability if you lost even a partial portion of your sight in terms of its focus would basically render you blind and think about how awful that would be if you were farsighted. Yeah, and you couldn't read and there were no corrective lenses, but like that actually would be a horrible existence for me because of how much I love reading, especially in this day and age with our connectivity to the Word of God, its various forms. Yeah, so I'm just so thankful for sightedness and so thankful for classes. I mean, I really am. Because that is a part of my life that I couldn't imagine living without, and that is the grace of God.

Tony Arsenal 11:20
Yeah, you know, we could call this app that you're proposing. We could call it be my spiritual eyes, or like, be my eyes of faith. But you get, like, you could use this app and like, connect to someone and be like, could you read this to me? And then like, take a picture of the Bible, like a passage in the Bible. Yeah, but don't do that. If you're not actually like, if you're not actually cited, challenged, but like, there are ways you could utilize this to sort of like expose people to the gospel. And these are people who are already kind of intertwined towards charity and generosity and the kinds of Christian virtues that a lot of times sort of indicate that someone is open to the gospel, people who tend to be generous and that like, we're going to be talking about a subject tonight that has to do with generosity. But like generosity is not a default natural human instinct. It's something that either has to be beaten into you has to be taught, or it's something that is spiritually acquired. And a lot of times the people who are already generous because it's been taught into them, they're already sort of like, geared up and ready to make that move to spiritual generosity as well.

Jesse Schwamb 12:31
Right on Yeah, that was well said. Alright, so being that we've just uplifted everything. Let's get negative, negative. What are you denying?

Tony Arsenal 12:40
I'm denying, you know, this isn't going to surprise anybody, especially if you've been active in our various social media worlds this week. I'm denying molan ism. I don't think I really need to say a whole lot more than that. But I put up a little meme. That was a new meme format. That was squid words fun facts. And I said, If Jews and Muslims worship a different God than soda colonists, so for most people, they were like, Yeah, that makes sense to me. There's a couple people who thought that I was just the worst for saying that. But you know, that the doctrine, the theology, proper implications, and anyone who tells you that molen ism is a is a doctrine about soteriology doesn't understand even what molen ism itself is trying to accomplish. moelis will tell you know, molen ism is a doctrine about theology proper. It's about the nature of who God is and the nature of how God creates. It's not just about you know, freewill and sovereignty and salvation. So realistically, molen ism postulates a God who receives information from his creatures, and if we talk about the doctrine of divine simplicity, that means that Malonis affirm that God in some sense received A portion of his being from his creatures. So it really is a radically different understanding of what it means for God to be God. It's not just as simple as well, God, God knows not only the realities, but the possibilities, like Calvinists affirm that like that's just in the Westminster Confession. The difference with molen ism is that some of the possibilities that God knows are dependent on free decisions that creatures make the he does not determine. So those free the knowledge of those free to Susan's originates with a sort of an observational knowledge of the creature itself, even though this happens temporarily prior to the creation of those creatures. God's knowledge of the Free Will choices to those creatures is still dependent on those creatures. So it really is a different system. We did an episode on Mormonism. We talked about all this in that episode. I'll link that in the show notes. We also did, I did an episode with Trevor Trevor marsteller arminianism and we covered a lot of the same ground, or mini or arminianism is not exactly the same, but it has a lot of the same issues. So check it out. But I'm denying molden ism, I will deny molen ism all day every day in every possible world.

Jesse Schwamb 15:16
Well, I love it. That's like some really just good classic denial action repair. And you're right, I would recommend everybody to go back and listen to both those things that you referenced. I can't remember the episode that we talked about it. It was some time ago. I'm trying to find it as we speak. But I think it's worth it because there's so much more we'd like to say even if you're hearing that term, and you're like, I have no idea what that is we went into like a giant mole hole in a particular episode on that whole thing. And it's probably worth listening to because it gives you some kind of frame of reference and introduction if you've never heard it before.

Unknown Speaker 15:47
Yeah, it's Episode 8282.

Unknown Speaker 15:50
Check it out.

Tony Arsenal 15:52
It was molen ism. And it's the episode I think it's pretty good but Mormonism is all messed up.

Jesse Schwamb 16:00
This episode is great and by pretty good, I presume you mean the definitive episode on Mormonism?

Tony Arsenal 16:05
You know, actually, I think we might be that that might actually be pretty accurate in in modern terms, because more often than not, when I see people asking questions about Mormonism, that's actually the episode that gets linked. It was linked on monetarism calm, which was a big deal. I actually think it's probably one of the better and I feel weird saying this because it's like we're tooting our own horn here. But I actually think it's probably one of the more effective treatments of the issues at hand. I The reason we did that episode, the reason we approached it the way we had is because I hadn't encountered a critique of Mormonism that really landed on the theology, proper implications and what it meant for for the doctrine of God and for salvation for creation. I hadn't really run into that prior to that.

Jesse Schwamb 16:53
It was a great conversation. I actually have gone back and listen to that a couple times, just because I found it so helpful in grounding in conversations about that topic be. And it's also I think we merge it with Mormonism in middle knowledge. Yep. So it's a wonderful treatment of both those things. And again, if you're like, what are those things? Then this is the certainly the podcast or the episode for you.

Tony Arsenal 17:15
All right, how about you? What are you denying?

Jesse Schwamb 17:17
I'm going back also to kind of a classic denial. And this is hopefully not phoning it in, but I'm just once again, because I'm pretty sure I have now ever since the time that I affirm something twice and didn't realize that I had was like, you know, 40 episodes apart. Now I'm just defaulting to I'm probably I'm gonna say things like, I'm sure I've probably denied this already. But I know I have in some respect, and I'm just denying against really non specific language when it comes to either expressing anything about the gospel, but especially using music as a medium. Yeah, it just strikes me as it's sometimes it's not that the theology is particularly bad in the music that we listen to are prone to listen to it. Is that it's particularly nebulous for no good reason. Yeah. And so when something is particularly nebulous, it makes me either question. One, whether or not the person writing the song is really connecting with the gospel with the spiritual truths, or whether they're just lazy in their expression of it. And this is not to say that we can have wonderful songs that are, let's say, use a more simple expression in language, but talk about a profound, specific, in particular truth. I have no issue with that. It's more when it's just so ephemeral, that I leave wondering what is it that they're exactly trying to say? So let me pick on a particular group right now, which may trigger some and that's okay. And that is I'm going to pick on Jesus culture only because I was listening trying to give a listen to their new album. And I generally I really enjoy their music. I think that they are catchy. I think that actually, their arrangements and their use a melody is really above average, but I find often That their lyrics are just so nebulous. Yeah, that it doesn't leave much in terms of leaving you uplifted. Because if you were to hear this and you didn't have a Christian worldview, it would you could apply it in so many different ways. So one of the songs they have out right now that I think is particularly catchy is called fierce. And presumably, I mean, it's about God's love, but let me just read you quickly. The words that are in the chorus it sings or they sing, like a tidal wave crashing over me rushing into meet me here. Your love is fierce, like a hurricane that I can't escape, tearing through the atmosphere. Your love is fierce. Now there's nothing in that that's let's say, like heretical per se, but there's also nothing in it that leads our hearts directly to the throne of God or to the sacrifice of Christ. And of course it just makes me say or wonder, why not just tell us what you're actually trying to say. Do you want to be Yeah,

Tony Arsenal 19:56
yeah, I was gonna say like, that sounds like a Katy Perry song.

Jesse Schwamb 20:00
Well, that's the thing you're right on like it very well could be. This song for the most part could get airplay, I think on just any kind of contemporary radio station, because it is so vague and this they don't have a bit of a hallmark for doing this kind of thing, especially when they're talking about love that you could apply it in a romantic sense and not necessarily deviate from the words they're using here. Now, not to mention that sometimes I think Christians can get so overly or overly poetic, yeah, that we lose again, the specificity of what we're saying here. It's better to rely on the poetic nature of the Scriptures, which I think do automatically get tightly coupled with a gospel presentation. And here there's a decoupling that's happening where you kind of like it's not really wrong, but it's not really right. And so because it's exactly in the middle, it leaves me thinking, well, just the music is good, but I would like a whole lot more.

Tony Arsenal 20:50
Yeah, you know, another song that that that makes me think of, obviously, like there's oceans which is just like the most nothing vapid song there is like, it doesn't any real anger in anything except a catchy tune, but the song, it's been real popular and when you hear the song and you're kind of like listening to the lyrics, you're like, Oh, yeah, yeah, this is good. The song goodness of God by Bethel music. Have you heard that song?

Jesse Schwamb 21:15
Yes, I have,

Tony Arsenal 21:16
like, if you look at the lyric, I'm not going to go through all the lyrics. But like, the lyrics don't really connect to anything. Right? It's just like, right, exactly. There's a time and a place for just like proclaiming the pot like proclaiming the attributes of God in worship. But like, there's nothing in this song about salvation about the gospel about redemption about like, the closest thing that it gets to is the lightness is your mercy never failed me. But like other than that, like there's nothing about the gospel. And you know, when you think about the you think about, you know, we've had some requests, and we'll probably do this after we finished up the mica series. We've had some requests to actually talk about, like, what's wrong with Bethel music? What's wrong with Hillsong music? Like what are the problems both That's like organizations, but also like the music itself. This song was written, sort of, although the accounts of when and how vary depending on when you're reading them. But it was written surrounding this incident where a young family at Bethel Redding, had a child that was ill and it looked like they were going to die. And this song either was written prior to that were by a friend of the family or may been written after he got better. It's not clear. But like, the mercy that never fails. In this song, if you trace it back to what they're originally talking about, is not the mercy of God and saving sinners. It's the mercy of God in saving that child's life, which I think praise God that the child didn't die, but, but it's not talking about the gospel. It's talking about something else. And like I said, there's a time and place to sing praises about what God has done for us outside of the gospel. But I think when you're you have a platform like Bethel music dies, or Jesus culture, which is just sort of another version of Bethel. Music, you really do have an obligation to, like proclaim the gospel. That doesn't seem like for sure they do that, like they write their music for Christians, but they also write their music hoping non Christians will hear it. But they don't ever really talk about or sing about how God saved us from sin or from from, you know, from hell or whatever. It's usually this sort of vague proclamation of the goodness of God. But it doesn't ever get that specific.

Jesse Schwamb 23:28
Yeah, it lacks substance, it lacks teeth. So I actually liked the way you ended that because that's a good teaser, right? There some point we're going to talk about that and all that stuff, because it's actually very complex, as you alluded to, we're talking about not only making of music, and you can departmentalized a song with respect to its lyrical content. But also, what about if the lyrical content is on point but the organization or the authors, the composers, the musicians who are bringing it together, come from a very different theological persuasion, does that contaminate the music, we definitely will talk about that. Yes, that's probably the best place to to leave that and tease it out. So, let's get to a question. And we have just one question tonight because I think we're gonna have a lot to say about this and we want to give it its proper do and before we play that beautiful voicemail, let's remind everybody that you can give us a call and leave a voicemail by dialing. Actually, I guess you can't dial anymore, right? It's just like, punch the number in or Yeah, I mean it says to your contacts,

Tony Arsenal 24:28
I think it's still dialing like you still dial the phone

Jesse Schwamb 24:31
is it though? I mean dial doesn't work a dial by definition is around it in like a you know a device that used you turn.

Tony Arsenal 24:38
Yeah, but even like when you had buttons on a phone that you push it It wasn't a rotary phone. You still said you were dialing the phone.

Jesse Schwamb 24:46
But is that because it's just like a throwback to the rotary? Well, yeah, we just carried over the language. Like you said videotape before,

Tony Arsenal 24:52
right? Yeah, exactly. like yeah, of course it is.

Jesse Schwamb 24:57
So nerdy. So that number Please call us is 607-444-2767

Unknown Speaker 25:05
bros

Unknown Speaker 25:07
there it is. Alright, so let's get to the voicemail.

Unknown Speaker 25:11
Hey Jesse and Tony, it's Jackson your favorite listener from Central California. A little reformed weather cast is that it's 55 partly cloudy in Fresno perfect to enjoy a little gluten free beer and some good theology. I was recently talking with some of my non reformed friends about tithing, and I'm personally convicted that at least 10% to my local body is what is commanded by our Lord. But I was wondering with the confessionals, and catechism say about hiding in what verses are executed. Thanks brothers keep those Armenian tears flowing.

Jesse Schwamb 25:43
Brother Jackson asked a great question here. I've been waiting for somebody all my life, or all hundred 74 episodes to pose this question, because I like where is coming from. Here's clearly a brother who is concerned about what it means to rightly, and to have behavior shaped by the scriptures. And so I think that's kind of maybe as I perceive it, the genesis for this question of what would the confession say about tithing? And so I think that's a good place to start. But the reason why we have just this one question is I think that's going to be a great launching point for bringing us back into the scriptures on this idea of tithing, which, to my recollection, which clearly is not as good as yours. We have never spoken about before.

Tony Arsenal 26:27
I don't believe we have not directly at least I mean, we I'm sure we've touched on things that we will bring into the conversation tonight, but I don't think we've ever run headfirst into the tithing question.

Jesse Schwamb 26:39
So kick us off then like with respect to his specific question about tithing, and the confessions. Do you see that somewhere in the confessions that and if so, where do you see it?

Tony Arsenal 26:48
Well, I'm not as familiar with the three forms of unity as I am with the Westminster and I haven't really researched this in the three forms of unity. So I don't know for sure when we say you know when we say the confessions, were Generally talking about this broad, this broad range of reform confessional documents, but I don't know of anywhere in the Westminster standards, or the Baptist modifications of the Westminster standards that specifically directly address this question. We'll talk about a couple spots that I think and that you think, give us some insight into how the Westminster divides might have answered this question or might have approached this topic. But I don't think there's any direct answer that we're going to find in the confessions.

Jesse Schwamb 27:31
Yeah, I agree. So is there a spot where you feel like there's kind of some implicit or implied or embedded sense about giving?

Tony Arsenal 27:39
Yeah, I mean, I think the assumption by the divides, that there is a body of believers, that the body of believers has some sort of cohesion and some sort of permanence, and that they have ministers that are provided for by the congregation financially implies some sort of understanding That the people of God will be taking care of the financial elements required to have a church, there is the directory of public worship, which is not technically speaking is not part of the confessional standards, but was released at the same time as the confessional standards. And that directory of public worship includes in the order of service, a time to share and to to collect financial contributions that the people of God bring. Absolutely. So I tend to look at chapter 26 of the confession, which talks about the community of saints, which is, you know, we sometimes think of the community of saints, and we think of it in just the sort of invisible church part. We don't think about the concrete, like the physical illness of the community of saints. We, we, we bifurcate the visible and invisible church, but when you're talking about the communion of saints, we're talking about not just the invisible church, but also So the visible church. And so, in chapter 26, section two it says, saints by profession are bound to maintain a holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services, as tend to their mutual advocation. All as also in relieving each other and outward things according to their several abilities and necessities, which communion as God offers opportunity is to be extended to unto all those in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. And so in this section here, and saying that the saints are obligated to have a church like that we don't have the option to not have some sort of institution that we call the church. Now different traditions, look out what it is that that institution is and how it functions differently. But the the sort of Anna Baptist perspective or the Quaker perspective that like there's no institutional church, it's just a bunch of people in a room. We're all equal, we're all the same. That's not the biblical model. The biblical model has an institution, that institution is called the church. There are officers, they're expected to provide for the poor. And we can look at some of the biblical data, I'm sure we will when we get there. But they're expected to maintain a registry of people who are being supported by the church. They're expected to maintain a registry of members who are people who are members of the church who are part of their body. There's an entity called the household of believers, that is supposed to have different treatment than people who are outside of the household of believers. So when we look at all that there's this institution called the church and any institution requires some sort of financial backing in order to maintain cohesion. Because you have to pay ministers, you have to you have to have a gathering place which requires some sort of financial commitment. There's all sorts of other financial elements that are required to maintain any kind of institution and the church is not different.

Jesse Schwamb 30:57
Right? You're right on that because I think that there's So much in the confessions, that's just implied, it's almost as just a matter of fact, or normative understanding that if you're going to have something that functions efficiently, there will be a part of that, which is basically going to require some kind of funding and finance. And so it's just implied. And because you stole the very place that I was going to go into the confessions as well, let me just like tag on by looking at the London Baptist confession, because I feel like I need to balance this out with that. There's some a little bit additional language in chapter 20, would you read from 2226 26 and

Tony Arsenal 31:37
the Westminster

Jesse Schwamb 31:39
so 26 and Westminster 27 and the LBC F. And there's just some additional language, which I think is it's not as a clarifying but it helps give a little bit more flavor to what we're talking about. So where you ended with the idea of which communion the L bc f reads or continues to read, according to the rule of the gospel, though especially to be exercised by them. The relation where in the stand, whether in families or churches. So it's almost just like a qualifying statement to further express that what we're talking about here is one, the rule of the gospel coming into play as being the measuring stick by which we basically mandate our generosity. And then second, that there should be a unique and natural expression that occurs in our own families in the church as an extension of God's family, that is, those who are familiar descent, which will be those blood related to us, and then those of supernatural descent, which are those in our communities and our churches. So I think that very much affirms What brother Jackson is saying with his commitment to want to give in a way to his local body of the church. I think we both affirm that and and so that I think, though, he opens up the door for us to talk a little bit about his own personal conviction for the giving of tied in that title represented in a very explicit way as 10% of your income and even there, we could make the distinction are we talking about growth or net that I have heard Christians debate that and come to almost fisticuffs? Yeah is that by itself but let's use this as a springboard to talk a little bit about tied and its place in the scripture so that we can understand, well what should our conviction in giving be? And how do we establish that conviction by I think, doing what the divides have done in their writing the confessions, and that is pushing us back into scriptures so that we can understand how we ought to have right thinking leading to right behavior. Does that make sense?

Tony Arsenal 33:34
It does. I mean, you know, this is one of those things that every Christian who has spent any time interacting with other Christians, the topic comes up. Because as hard as you try not to think about or watch or notice how much other people are putting in the plate as it passes by you. It's hard not to. It's hard not to see and not not to think about the fact that that person you always sit next to Never contributes anything. And so the question naturally arises, is it okay that they never contribute anything? Should they be contributing something? Should they be contributing more? And, you know, I found that we actually very rarely asked ourselves, am I contributing enough? Have I contributed a sufficient amount? Should I be contributing more? Am I contributing too much? Sometimes I think we should even ask that. I know that sounds like a weird question. But it's possible, I think, to make your own contribution to the church, somewhat of a point of pride. And sometimes we actually rob the rest of the Church of the benefit to them of properly contributing by sort of compensating for their weaknesses.

Jesse Schwamb 34:45
Right. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, this is I always say slippery slope, but I think you're right like this comes to the surface and so many different conversations, if only implicitly, and so I want to go back into the scriptures, and maybe we can as best we can in the time that we Remaining as it fleets away from us give some kind of overview or survey of this. And there's a lot of well known passages. But I think there's also a lot of confusion on what we should think about time. And so, for me, the best place to start is, let's look really quickly if we go to the scriptures about tithing before the law, like before the law of Moses. And what's interesting is, it's very clear because the scripture only gives two passages that speak of the times Believe it or not, before the law, and they're both centered around the two Jewish patriarchs Abraham and Jacob. And so, in Abraham's life, we have this very famous interaction that he has with Mel because it at after he defeats some of the kings who are with him, he comes the king of Sodom comes out to meet him and the valley Shiva and they go through the whole process. And in that passage, is what's crazy to me. We're told that Abraham gave a tied to milk as a deck and as presumably as an expression of gratitude to God for enabling him to rescue His nephew Lot who've been taken captive. And I see lots of people go to this passage because against the first explicit mention of this 10% and those who believe that tithing is binding upon the New Testament believers sometimes argue that since tithing was practiced, before the Mosaic Law was given, it must also be practiced after the Mosaic law, which of course, is made obsolete by the establishment of the new covenant and the sacrifice of Christ. And so even we just take this passage one of to the other one is Jacob, there to me when I read this, there's no evidence in that text that tithing was commanded by God. In fact, everything in that text leads us to believe that giving this tide was completely Abraham's, this isn't a choice. Yes, we have no evidence that this was like his general practice. And in addition to that, this tide came from the spoils of victory that Abraham acquired by some kind of military might.

Tony Arsenal 36:54
Yeah, and you know, this, this is one of the things I think people get wrong when they're reading Old Testament narrative is this age old question of descriptive versus prescriptive. Right? Yeah, some Exactly. Some texts are purely descriptive in that they're simply telling you what happened. It's not right. It's not even always the case that a descriptive text yields prescriptive principles for us. Right? So you you can read a text, and the only thing that God is attempting to accomplish in that text is to recount a historical event to you. So even if just in, even in this passage, right, well, Abraham raised an army out of his own household. So that must mean that we should have enough kids in our household to raise an army if we needed to. Like that's, I actually believe it or not. I've heard people make that application that Abraham was so so fruitful and so productive, that he was able to raise an army within his own family. And so therefore, we should be equally productive that we can We could accomplish sort of like civic or secular pursuits just with the productivity of our own household. Like, I think most of us look at that and realize that that is a totally ridiculous principle to draw from this kind of auxiliary fact that Abraham had enough fighting men in his family to go conquer and attack this kingdom that had kidnapped his, his nephew. Right? But but we have to remember that even though not all descriptive texts have prescriptive principles, most probably do. And so even though we shouldn't look to this passage to say, well, Abraham gave a 10th therefore, were mandated to give a 10 that is not a good principle to draw. But the principle that Abraham was generous out of his own abundance, and he gave voluntarily to the this king of peace, this king of righteousness, who was a priest of the Most High God, that's a principle that I can get behind as far is a sort of like a natural law principle that is just present in the text.

Jesse Schwamb 39:06
Me and I was trying to like tease that out for a longer period of time. Just you just showed our entire path. No, but you're right. And so I want to move like quickly. But I also think it's worth sharing like the second reference with Jacob because it falls exactly long as you just said. So this is Genesis 28, the two verses, beginning in verse 20. Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me, and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I returned to my father's house and safety, then the Lord will be my God. And this stone which I set up as a pillar, will be God's house, and of all that thou does give me I will surely give a 10th to thee. So, once again, nowhere we told that God commanded Jacob to give him a tide. And again along with Abraham's example, it appears that the giving of this time was again volitional, at least on Jacobs part and also There's no evidence in the text to suggest that tithing was the general practice of Jacob's life. Once again, and and even if you said you want to make the case. Well, it was, if he did, in fact begin to tithe after God fulfilled his promises to him, that still would have meant that he delayed tithing for approximately 20 years. So like to say these two examples, which are often cited in sometimes, I would say with nefarious intent to like bring a burden upon Christians, and sometimes very innocently as just like you said, as a prescriptive example or seemingly so. These two examples are the only examples of tithing to be found in the Old Testament before the law is given. And both were examples of voluntary giving, and neither was appointed by God. So either personnage do we see an example of tithing as a general practice of life in fact, in Abraham's life, it appears that we have a type of the spoils of military victory given to God's priest on a one time only basis. And it's really our only evidence to obligate believers under the new covenant to tie the rest on these two passages in Genesis. It seems to me that we're resting on pretty shaky ground. I mean, I think there is a greater draw by looking at tithing under the law. But that brings itself its own conundrum. I think its own problems. So how do you understand? I'm just putting you on the spot. Tony, how do you understand, like tithing under the Mosaic law?

Tony Arsenal 41:22
Well, the thing about the Mosaic law that we have to remember is that it it's a particular application, in most cases of God's righteous nature and his righteous precepts to a particular context and time and place. And so when we talk about the law, we have to distinguish even though the scripture doesn't explicitly make this distinction, there's no like verse that makes this distinction. We can talk about the law in basically three categories. And I'll go kind of backwards. We can talk about the civil law, which is the laws that were present that governed the public. Political and governmental Society of the nation of Israel, right think geopolitical laws, laws about how the government is supposed to function. laws about how you interact with your neighbor. How How do property markers work? Should you build a railing around your house, like those kinds of laws are civil laws. Then there's also this the ceremonial laws. So those govern the religious life of Israel, in terms of the ceremonies that they were to, to partake of the ceremonies. They weren't dietary restrictions. And then there's the moral law, which is eternal. It's a reflection of God's nature. You know, kind of most explicitly given in the 10 commandments, but these are these are laws that are applicable at all places in all times more or less the same way across the board everywhere. So think the 10 commandments, the ties does not fall under the category of university. Moral Law, where it falls is partially there's elements of the tie that are part of the ceremonial law. And there's elements of the tides that are part of the civil law. And that's because the civil and ceremonial reality of Israel was intertwined with each other. And so these laws were basically established by God in order to finance this the religious and civil entity of the nation of Israel, and that the temple apparatus all of that was built there. The moral law doesn't seem to have any specific directions or requirements surrounding how much we give if we give and part of that is because it's meant to be a universal almost a secular set of laws. And don't take that the wrong way. When I say that, it's meant to be laws that are applicable to all people at all times in all places, regardless of their religion, regardless of their their political or governmental Context regardless of the nation they live in the time they live in, regardless of whether they're rich or poor, whether they're, you know, wealthy, it's the moral law is universal in that way. And so when we talk about the the tie in relation to the Mosaic Law, we have to understand what happens with the civil and ceremonial laws after the nation of Israel no longer exists.

Jesse Schwamb 44:23
Right? That's well said like so let me bring us to a passage scripture that I think exactly demonstrates the point that you're just making. So this is Leviticus 27. Everybody's favorite book, the Bible 27, verses 30 through 33. Thus, all the tide of the land of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree is the Lord's it is holy to the Lord. If therefore a man wishes to redeem part of his time, he shall add to it one fifth of it. And for every 10th part of the herd, or flock, whatever passes under the rod, the 10th one shall be wholly to the Lord. He's not to be concerned whether it is good or bad, nor shall we exchange it or if he does. exchange it, then both in its substitute shall become holy, it shall not be redeemed. So to your point of the specificity and particularity of this instruction, notice that in this passage, the tithe is described as the product of the land, the seed of the land, or the fruit of the tree, herd or flock. So the first thing we ought to notice if we're interpreting this rightly, is that the tide was not the giving of money. In fact, nowhere in all the scriptures when you find anything that references tithing as the giving of money to God. And this title is probably given on an annual basis every year after the land had been harvested, because of course, that was like the natural rhythm of what we're talking about here by growing food and developing flocks and breeding animals. So I think we can really see in this that our weekly giving of like, 10% of that's a conviction of income. That's like a far cry from like the biblical practice of tithing as we're seeing it developed here under the Mosaic Law. So there are Essential Elements, like you said, and I think if we, we can safely conclude that the tithing had nothing to do with the regular giving of money on a weekly or monthly basis. But instead it had to do with this ordained worship of God in the Old Covenant age. So the command in my opinion to tithe, and this might be a trigger to some, like the command to not eat shrimp or oysters, has been made obsolete. And it's set aside by the inauguration of the new covenant in the death of Christ, because the tide was God's ordained tax, kind of like what you said, under the Old Testament theocratic system. So think of it this way. And maybe this is extreme, you tell me. If someone truly wants to tie the coin to scripture in that definition, that particular specific definition that brother or sister would have to do some of the following. They probably need to quit their job and buy a farm so that they can raise herds and grow crops. They probably need to find a Levitical priests to support they probably need to use the cops to observe the Old Testament religious festivals like the Passover, unleavened bread All that good stuff, they actually should probably begin by giving 20% of all the crops in hers to God, you can read about that in Leviticus itself as well. And they would expect as what is the the normative behavior of God to curse them with material deprivation, if they were unfaithful, or bless them with material abundance, if they were obedient? And so like we all recognize that Christ has done away with the vertical priesthood animal sacrifices, and the religious festivals in Christ that is like the freedom, the blessing the loving kindness of our God. And if that's true, then the question I think we ought to ask, and we often don't is why are we trying to hold on to the tide, which was part and parcel of all these old testament ordinances?

Tony Arsenal 47:44
Yeah, you know, the other thing about the Old Testament tie that most people miss is there's actually provisions in the Old Testament law for what to do. If, for example, you can't, you had such a bumper crop that you just physically can't Get all of your all of your crop 10% you just can't get it to Jerusalem, because that's the other element, right Ty was supposed to be brought to Jerusalem. You're not bringing this to light the local priest in your, in your town, you're bringing this during the festival seasons. And so you know, there's this provision in the law, where if you're, if you have such a good year, you have so much abundance, so you can't even carry all of it to Jerusalem, you sell that you convert it to some sort of liquid money, some sort of currency. And then what do you do with that currency? Well, you don't bring that currency to the priest. You go to Jerusalem and you throw a party, like this idea that the money the money that is generated automatically goes into the coffers of the church because that's just what you happen. We're going to get to it I don't want anyone to think that we're saying don't give to your local church. But this idea that the money that your your financial money because essentially like you're the finance guy, but essentially money is this made up concept Where we keep track of people's labor and how much productivity they've generated, and then allow them to trade this made up thing for other people's productivity. So rather than me and you try to try to finagle how much my how much my time, helping people at the hospital is worth in terms of buying a TV at BestBuy. Like rather than trying to quantify that the hospital quantifies and says, You're worth this much imaginary number. And Best Buy says this TV is worth this much imaginary number. So now we're going to make that exchange. But in the Bible, in the Old Testament, when that kind of exchange is made, where you take the productivity of a person, you convert it to currency, that productivity doesn't go into the church. The stuff that goes into the Old Testament Church is practical things that were used to forward the ministry of the church in an actual concrete ways, right. It's it's great that's used to make the sacrifices. It's meats that's used for sacrifice ISIS and defeat the priests, it's materials that are able to be produced and purchased in order to make repairs to the temple. So this idea that our money automatically goes into the church, and that's the only way that contributions make that is intimately tied to this idea of 10%. Because that's all surrounding what happens in the Old Testament that 10% is there, sort of as a tax. The Old Testament tied is really more of a tax. It's a religious tax, it's a civil tax. That's why it's part of the ceremonial and civil law.

Jesse Schwamb 50:33
Yeah, and you do it that just reminded me that when we get to the book of Samuel, and the people of Israel are requesting a king, and Samuel goes before God and God says to him, it's not you they rejected It's me. And then Samuel, does this a wonderful thing. He's like, almost like a typical lawyer here where he gives all of the it's like a giant PSA like here is all of the warnings of what's going to happen if you get the king and the people who know all this stuff. And they're like, yeah, that's fine will totally be down with that. Yeah. And you know, there's some very, almost like demanding, they're gonna be exasperated with the king of times. One of those things is that they will basically owe him 10%. So it's interesting that we have even there like an expression of all that to say it's more about tax than it is about the low bar for giving. And so like, let's launch and by way of conclusion, to at least get to some of them what the New Testament says, because it strikes me that we should have put a disclaimer earlier in a conversation that said something like, Listen to the end of this podcast, we're not shutting down giving, what we're trying to do is understand what the scripture gives us in terms of a freedom and flexibility and a standard forgiving, that is more aligned or, or is just aligned with the new covenant as opposed to just the old just like we would look at that standard and any other realm of living. So the interesting thing to me about the concept of tithing under the New Testament is actually it's almost a virtual absence. Yeah, now There is four passages that mentioned tie the knot often they're using a pejorative way. And so we probably don't have time to get into all those, unfortunately. But what I would say is this, the New Testament never gives a percentage point as an obligatory and required standard for giving. And instead it's it's almost if you want to say it this way, it's almost worse. Yeah. Because the scriptures declare, let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart not grudgingly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. And we're quick to quote that because it makes sense with the character of God to understand that God is the one who gives and any understanding of giving must begin with the fact that God is a given God For God so loved the world that He gave. Loving leads to giving, and love apart from a willingness to be inconvenienced is not genuine. So the Old Testament tithe was required by law, Matthew, hopefully we've made that up a point of saying that the Jews were under compulsion to give it the New Testament. Teaching on giving focuses on its voluntary character. So Paul says in Second Corinthians 834, I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave up their own accord. So this voluntary giving is exactly actually what Abraham and Jacob were doing before the institution of the law. And it's what all Christians are to be doing today. So my conviction is that believers today are free to give the amount they choose to give. If they want to give 10% as Abraham and Jacob did, they're perfectly free to do so. However, if we decide to give 9% or 11%, or 20% or 50%, then we might do that as well. The standard of giving is not a fixed percentage, but the example of the wonderful Savior for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. So like if we're speaking to are those in the family and this is a family conversation. So loved ones. Salvation is the generosity of God and if That is the standard, that it's very possible that 10% is not enough. Because if we're to give in such a way where there is a pain that comes along with the sacrifice, then it's very likely that 10% is not enough and we shouldn't think that it is. Does that make sense?

Tony Arsenal 54:18
It does. And you know, when you think about the nature, we're going to get a little philosophical here, when you think about the nature of do it compulsion, right. It is not possible to be to demonstrate love by doing something compulsive. And what I mean is, if, if my, my manager tells me that I have to do task a right, and I want to show my manager how much I appreciate their mentorship, how much I appreciate all that they've done in teaching me my job, blah, blah, whatever it is, I want to show them my appreciation. The reason we talks about going above and beyond, is because if you don't go above and beyond that, which is required, you're not actually demonstrating love. You're just doing what's expected. You know, it's kind of like the I don't remember exactly the the context of the parable. But there's that passage where, you know, they say at the end of the day, we're just unprofitable servants. Right? Jesus talking to his disciples, and he's using this language to talk about like, what if all you do is that which is required of you, then you're just you're just following orders. And that's, that's why Paul says in Second Corinthians eight, eight, I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine. And so the church in Corinth, and I want to read a little bit of a longer passage here, just as we close this out. The church in Corinth is being exhausted, not just to give what is required of them, because there isn't anything required of them. They don't have to give to

Jesse Schwamb 55:54
them. Exactly.

Tony Arsenal 55:55
They've already made a commitment. they've committed a certain amount of themselves. So Paul is in a certain sense saying like, Hey, you guys, you guys said you were going to do this and people are depending on it. So you better step up and actually do what you said. But here's, here's what he says. Starting in chapter nine, verse one, now it's superfluous to me, for me to write to you about the ministry for the saints, for I know your readiness, which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia saying Acacia has been ready since last year and your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I'm sending the brothers so that are boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be and then he goes on and he says the point is this, whoever sow sparingly will also reap sparingly whoever sews bountifully, will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all times, all things all times you may abound in every good work, as is written, he has distributed freely he has given To the poor His righteousness indoors forever. He supply seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. Now, if you go through this section where Paul is talking about the gift of the collection for Jerusalem, there are several really clear principles that come out. The Corinthians are supposed to give commensurate to their means, right? He's not asking like someone who only makes $200 a week to give $300 like, he's not asking for that. But they're also supposed to give sacrificially, right, you should be giving enough that it hurts a little bit, that you have to give up something and and you should be giving generously and cheerfully, not out of compulsion. And so the whole principle of the Old Testament ties is that God's people were compelled by law to do a certain thing. The whole principle of the New Testament principle of generosity is that God's people are no longer compelled. And here's where the kicker is. Is that God loves a cheerful giver, not because of some principle in God where like he needs your money. And he's really thankful that he gets it because he really needs it. But because in giving cheerfully and freely, we reflect our love for each other. Because we reflect God's love for his people. God gave freely, therefore, we should give freely, God gave sacrificially, therefore we should give sacrificially. God did not give by compulsion, but he did so by grace. So it's important as we look at the tide, as we look at how much money we give to the church, it's important for us to keep those principles in mind. Otherwise, we can go all sorts of crazy, you could be donating 50% of your income. And if you think that that is required of you by biblical law, then you're not actually going above and beyond what you think is biblical law. You're not actually giving freely out of your abundance. You're giving out a compulsion. If you think What's required of you is 2% or 1%, and you give 2% or 1%, then you're also giving out a compulsion. The key to it in terms of New Testament Christianity is that and this is this is all of the civil and ceremonial law, the Old Testament type of the law, the law was determined and was there to show you, we didn't go there, but I wanted to, was to show how far short you fall reach it, how far short you fall of the standard of God, everything in the New Testament, all of the fulfillment of those biblical laws, all of the modifications of what you might call the the Christian ceremonial law. All of those are designed to reflect to the abundance of God's grace which has been given to us. And you know, we won't go there but go back and listen to our episode on Christian liberty. We talked about Christian liberty, we talked mostly in the arena of like drinking alcohol or watching TV shows, but this is another area, the beauty, the beauty of the modification of the principle of giving Is that now we are free to give whatever we want. And everything we give, because it's not compulsory. Everything we give to the church, if we give it out of a good out of the right motivations, if we give it out of out of a heart that desires to love the Lord Jesus Christ and to serve his people, all of that is gracious and out of our abundance, we are free to do that for God and for our neighbors.

Jesse Schwamb 1:00:24
And this is one of those disciplines, I think, a spiritual discipline even that is so important, because what it does is it reveals something about the character of God as we express it. So think of it this way. And this is what I've been really pondering a lot. Is that in those passages, those scriptures that you just read about the Corinthians, what they were willing to do, and I think this is the new rule of law with application of giving is they were willing to forego a legitimate want so that they might supply a legitimate need. Yep. And the question is, do we give like that? Do we give it away that we're willing to give us something that we could reasonably buy with our own money that We could reasonably enjoy, so that we might need me in a practical sense to meet the needs of others in the church. And so the beauty of this is that because Christ gave it all, he asked that we do the same type of thing. And this is not to say that we can't enjoy the resources and the gifts that God gives us. But it is to say that we do not get our sense of giving so tightly coupled with something that is outmoded, like this requirement of 10%. And that puts a different kind of burden on us, but the burden of love is the burden of freedom. So that like you said, we are not compelled in such a way where there is a standard by which we feel if we do not achieve the standard, we do not get some kind of meritorious reward that we ought to have earned. But instead that love always in every way, is expressive in sacrifice and the sacrifice. Just like basically Jacob serving for his wife is like so small in comparison to the love of God that we say it's almost like I didn't even notice it. Yeah, it's getting to that kind of heart attitude. And so I think of like one final example you know, my wife showed me this video. Around the time of Halloween. It was a video that was captured in candid it was from a one of those like, like security cameras in somebody's house. And these people did what some people often do on Halloween night and that is they left out a giant bowl of candy with a sign that said like help yourself or take one. And so it's this little captured incident of this young boy. I don't know how old he is like maybe three or four. And he comes up to you see him approach the bowl is this giant bag of candy that he's bringing along with him in tow. And when he sees the ball, he rise that's totally empty. And there's this moment that's almost as if it were dramatized or scripted where he looks at the ball and he looks at his bag he looks back at the ball and he sees their other kids coming behind him up to the house and seeing that his ball or his candy his bag is entirely full. He starts to take some of the candy out of his bag and put it into the ball so that others can have it behind him. Yeah, I think all of us have this kind of Hallmark moment our hearts leap. When we hear that kind of thing we think it's so touching. And I think the reason why is you and I don't have children, but I know from the children I've witnessed in the wild, so to speak, or the ones that are friends of mine who have children, that they love it, unless there's anything better actually, they love it. When their children the young children are volitionally generous, yeah, especially when they share something like candy or their desserts, you know. And so it made me start to think, what kind of children do parents want? And then what kind of child of God do I want to be? Yeah, because the standard is not just that, as we raise our children that they might obey some kind of prescriptive law that says, Well, you really ought to give regardless of how you feel about it, and here's the standard, but they we want our children to be volitionally generous, out of love. And so I think that's the kind of standard That the New Testament sets for us by way of a juxtaposition in comparison with the Old Testament standard, which was, therefore means and for time to demonstrate the heart of God. And in fact, we lost it. We didn't see the the heart of God behind the precepts. And so Jesus comes to clarify that not just by way of his preaching, which he does exceptionally well, but by the giving of his own life unreservedly, such that he didn't give himself and a 10% or 20% or 50% way, but 100% that's the standard. Yeah. And so I think, in answering this question, I hope what we tried to do is, one kind of decouple this idea that what it means to give us to give 10% to the church, and to second to couple tightly, this idea that what it means to give is to give it away that's Christ, like with freedom and with love and with concern, and I say that not in any disrespect, but with deference to everybody who's listening and especially to you and I, because that's The challenge of good Christian living is to live that kind of way. And it's measurably more difficult because it's easier just to say the Bible says it, I believe it, I'll do it. Yeah, it's much more difficult to weigh out what it means to say it's not about how much you gave, but how much you keep. Or it's not about how much you write the check for, but the heart attitude with which you write that check. All those things are far more complicated and require the kind of introspection and processing that I think is related to good Christian living. And so that is, I think, really what the divides we're after, when they put together all of these different expressions and the confessions and I think, really what we ought to be after. So I'm really hoping that people don't feel like we're saying, well, they shouldn't give 10% it's not necessarily at least what I'm saying. What I'm saying is I think we're held to a higher standard, and we ought to examine our convictions to make sure that the gravitating toward that higher standard,

Tony Arsenal 1:05:58
yeah, yeah, let me put it this way. We at the risk of potentially canceling out everything we've said so far. giving giving to the church financially supporting the church is not optional for Christians. Oh, for sure. And and, you know, this is the way that I like to think about it. And this is how I sort of reshaped my thinking because I used to sort of have this perspective of like, Well, you know, like, the church doesn't need my money. And if I have a little bit of extra, then I'll give it to them. But if we go back to what we said about what what money is, right, money is this way that we sort of translate productivity into some sort of universal language that we can then keep accounts with. And so when I choose to give my money to the church, essentially what I'm doing, in essence, is I'm giving my productivity to the church, when I go to the hospital and I work for eight hours and I make X dollars I have the choice to either use that productivity that I generated my time and my effort, I either have the choice to give that to to God and his people and his ministry, or to use it for my own purposes. And God gives us the freedom to make a decision about how much of our productivity we give to the church and how much we give to, to our own purposes, right, if we go back to the Sabbath, and actually, I think there could be some really fruitful ground in a future discussion about how the fourth commandment actually relates to this concept of the tide. But if you go back to that, the facts that God gives us if I love the way that the Westminster Confession, or the Westminster catechism phrases, this is when it says what's wrong or what is you know, what are the reasons and next to the third of the fourth commandment? The reason is the next of the fourth commandment are in part that God allows us six days of the week to do to go about our common business. So So if you break it up into seven, he only asks for a seventh of our time. In terms of, of our mandatory, you have to worship, you have to spend this time worshipping Jesus, He only asks for a seventh of our time. We have the freedom in the other six days of the week to use them, however we see fit as long as we're not sitting, right? The tide is very similar to that. I don't think you can make an argument that that there is a mandatory requirement of any percentage. But if you're not giving something, I think 10% is actually a very good starting point, if you're not sure. 10% is not that much. Like most people can cut 10% out of their budget by by simply like driving a little bit less, take the bus two or three days a week or don't stop at Starbucks for a day or two, like 10% is not that hard to carve out of your budget. So if you're looking for a way to get started to sort of build habits and to sort of step out in faith in terms of demonstrating to god i'm willing willing to sacrifice even though I'm scared even though I don't understand how my budgets going to balance if I if I cut this 10% out, this is not some sort of like reward principle. Right? Right when Paul says that God supplies freely, all things, all sufficiency and all things at all times, he's not talking about temporal things. If you cut out 10% of your budget, it's possible you might go a little hungry. Like it's possible that you may not be able to pay your bills. But stepping out in faith is a way to say God, I trust you to take care of me, even if I don't understand even if I don't quite know how my bills are going to get paid or if my bills are going to get paid. I trust you to take care of me. And so so I think that that's a good a good guideline. And the Christian. Here's the paradox, and I'll end on this. The paradox of the New Testament. New Testament principle on giving Is that what you're required to do is give voluntarily, and I don't know how to explain that. I don't know how to account for The fact that we're required to voluntarily do something. And somehow that still makes it not voluntary, except to say that this is just what Christians do. Christians voluntarily give of themselves because our Lord voluntarily gave them himself. That's what it really boils down to.

Jesse Schwamb 1:10:18
Yes, I agree. I mean, I think that's a good way to wrap this up is this idea that this is not unlike irresistible grace, isn't it? It's this concept that when God has so thoroughly transformed us and regenerate us that we cannot help but give. And so it is both the standard and both reflective of our own volition because that's what love does. I mean, people who are married, if you were to ask a husband or wife, why is it that you want to watch a movie with the other or make them dinner? They would say like, well, because I love them, right? So they would say, like both, I'm required to do those things, in a sense, because it expresses that love in the most practical of ways, in the realm of generosity, but also because it is what I do in that role. And so I think that's what we should We ought to like land on is this idea that Christians ought to be expressive of their love and their generosity toward Jesus Christ and God, the Father and the Holy Spirit in a way of giving this practically demonstrate in the handing over of money. But we need to be careful about how we try to associate that with the Old Testament and draw uniquely and specifically from some kind of mandate that was specific to a time and a place. It's almost like, we cheat a little bit, so to speak, the sense of what it means to give by tying it directly just to tie then the Old Testament, the standard is far greater than that. And actually far better than that, when we look to what Jesus Christ has modeled for us. And so like, I wish we had another two hours because there's so much fertile ground here where I think I actually think that what God requires for us in giving is one of the ways One of the very deep, profound ways that he breaks us for His glory, because I always think about coming from a pastor's family. I have this proclivity any way to feel very strongly about the giving to the church, because I know that that supports the work of my father who labor's desperately and deeply and profoundly and meticulously and over many hours to bring the scriptures and to counsel and to reveal be a shepherd. But beyond that, I think of the example in the Old Testament, where God says, even to the Levi's, you need to give as well. And I remember growing up in the church and talking to my father, I know if you've ever talked about this before, but in talking to him and saying, when I was much younger, why does it like the church just cut the middleman out like I can do the math here, why they just pay you 90% of what your stated salary is, because you always have to turn around and give it and what he expressed to me was the intent of God's law in this way, was to demonstrate a ritual and habitual way of volitional giving for everybody, including those who are being compensated by the church. And I was like, that preaches that attitude that says Like, This is what God intended for us to do, is to give. And in many ways, it's so easy for us to write the check sometimes in our culture as opposed to giving of ourselves. And Paul talks about that. But let me end by saying this. I think you're right on the challenge that you gave is very strongly pressed on me even now. And that is, I think, in the most of the Western culture, what we're asking for, is not even necessarily the kind of giving that says, I might not eat as well as I want right now. But it's the kind of giving that looks at how we live and says, How extravagantly are we living? How much do I need to pay for coffee? How much do I need to pay for like these incidentals? How many times do I need to go out and saying instead, is it possible that I ought to give up some of those things to forego a legitimate want? So I might supply a legitimate need, you know, and that is a profoundly difficult question to answer. And the only kind of question that we couldn't turn back I think to our listeners and say, at least for me, I have enough problems with my own heart. So all I can do Leave your heart in God's hands to evaluate how you give.

Tony Arsenal 1:14:04
Yeah, yeah, I could be super uncouth and ask everybody to give us money, but I'm not gonna do that. Instead, I will just wrap this up Jesse, thank you for bringing this topic to us Jackson. Thanks for sending in the voicemail. Keep them coming people we are probably going to do between the end of mica cast and whatever whatever we do next, we're going to do several episodes that are just kind of grab bag episodes. Some of them will be me and Jesse come up with the topic. Some of them will be questions that we've gotten in the backlog. So get your questions in. We want to answer them we want to approach them do so check it out. Send us a voicemail or send us an email. We love to take your questions and turn them into an episode.

Jesse Schwamb 1:14:46
Yeah, we're kicking it old school. That's how we used to do it is we'd go from topic to kind of topic and we've got a little bit of a backlog there but we want to get after some things maybe that we love to chat about have an excuse to speak of that. We haven't before. And so I hope I appreciate Jackson's question because we've gone longer than we usually do. But I hope people perceive that's because like, this is a rich topic. Actually, I feel like we could speak a lot more. There's so much stuff that I'm sure you want to get into. And I wanted to get into that we can't, so maybe we'll revisit it. But I love the willingness of our listeners to basically open the door on something that they're thinking of. And when they do that, it's super gracious because when they're putting themselves out there to ask a question, and to I always think this, somebody else has asked the same thing or is afraid to ask the same thing. So this is such a great service to brothers and sisters by just being willing to do it. So dial the number. leave a voicemail. Drop a question. start the conversation.

Tony Arsenal 1:15:46
I like the little cadence you had going.

Jesse Schwamb 1:15:48
Did you like that? There was a lot of head nod that only it was all there. It was good. People immersive body experience. People could

Tony Arsenal 1:15:54
hear the head nod. It was It was great.

Jesse Schwamb 1:15:57
I came to the audio.

Tony Arsenal 1:15:58
Well, Jesse Until next time, honor everyone.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:02
Love the Brotherhood.