On the legislated Tithe

There are detailed biblical studies out there as to why the legislated tithe is actually an abomination. I do not think that they are really very necessary, for the case against tithing is simpler than that.

At its most simple a legislated gift given under compulsion is bribery. We who tithe under compulsion would bribe God. The sin of this should be self evident,

God's gifts are free. If they are not free they are not gifts, and indeed to attempt to buy them is to insult the Holy Spirit. This is the sin of simony as mentioned in the book of Acts where Simon Magus sought to buy the  power of the  Holy Spirit.  [ reference] Although in medieval church history this term changed its meaning to the purchase of church offices with money, something no protestant Christian would dream of doing let alone have the opportunity to do, yet the original meaning is sufficiently broad as to convict us of the very same sin of Simony.

But it is also said that God loves a cheerful giver [ref]. This is true but context must be supplied. God also loves the whole world, John 3:16 and He commended his love for sinners by dying for them. [ref] So clearly He does not love any the less those who decline to give,  lest one thing He does indeed show is favouritism or as the KJV  puts it,  is  a respecter of persons. Moreover to force oneself to give because God loves a cheerful giver is to pretend to cheerfulness, a self defeating exercise.

As with everything  pertaining to the things of God the validity of the deed comes down to motive. I Corinthians 13 makes it utterly clear that  good deeds without love do not in fact count for anything.

I submit that if one forces oneself  to anything this is not obedience at all, given that God commands total obedience from a completely willing and joyful heart and that anything less, as James says,  being guilty of one point in the law is a breach of the entire law. [ref]

Why do we force ourselves to tithe? Because it is commanded? Even if it is  we do it not out of joyful gratitude against which latter  I have not the slightest objection. I am not against anyone who cheerfully and joyfully gives, only against coercion. So we do it under compulsion in the name of "obedience"  to get something. But this is purchase not the receipt of grace. And as such it is the very way of the world. Or it is done to attempt to buy off His wrath. Again this is an utter insult to the Father Who we claim to believe loves us, and I submit the legalism shows we do not believe this. Is the gospel a protection racket? Then we play into the hands of the likes of   the now late Chris Hitchens, militant God haters who say as much and rail against God for it

What does it say to a new convert that he may have experienced the grace of God but is then told he has to pay one tenth of his gross income into the Church coffers without  fail or else he is robbing God?  [ ref] It says that his salvation is not free  and requires maintenance by the payment of money.  But the Old Covenant ordinances are gone. There is now  no priesthood to maintain as the separate priesthood  ordained for the making of sacrifice was abolished at Calvary for its function was fulfilled. And as for maintaining the pastorate, although a man is worthy to receive a just and modest payment enough to support him, St Paul the Apostle refused to take such and supported himself by his own trade as a tent maker. He was not going to open himself up to accusations of being in the business for money or as the KJV Bible so eloquently describes it, for filthy lucre.

Your church does not need your money and if they demand it by force of Divine Law they are extortionists as well as heretics.

Naturally the notion preached by the Word of Faith preachers that gifts are seeds is an outright abomination; and they are rich in money not because of any just means but by extortion and theft.

It is said that God is no man's debtor, by which they mean that God will never let himself be in our debt as He will pay such debts immediately. But who is in debt to who? This is outright blasphemy for the Bible says that it is us who are in debt to God [ref] to such an extent that we cannot possibly pay, hence the Cross of Christ.

I might  say that God is no man's debtor but for the entirely different reason  that it is impossible to put God in our debt and it is blasphemous extortion to try.

His gifts are free. He gives only  gifts to His children. Indeed the only thing He gives as payment is damnation for the wages of sin is death. [ ref]

There is another tragic outcome of legalism concerning the tithe.

People have neglected their family's welfare. This churches think is a good thing for they love to say "give until it hurts"  but why does it hurt? Because it moves beyond one's peace as if "be led by the peace in your heart"  [ref]  is a scripture not applicable to this matter.

But there is also harm to the children, not to mention oneself or other dependants  through neglect in providing the necessities of life. But scripture is most clear  "He who neglects his family has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" [ref]. A family close to the breadline in terms of income is not able to afford the tithe and it can lead them to destruction to demand it of them.

A church that demands money by force of Divine Law in fact covets money and of course covetousness is idolatry. When people give to get they are giving out of the same covetousness, and it can cause suffering. For indeed the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil [ref]

On a personal note, the Lord the Spirit said to me  over thirty years ago, "I do not want so much as a penny piece from you, child, lest you think you bought your healing."  So I stopped  trying to bribe Him. He is not so stupid as to be taken in by a bribe for He knows all things, including the motive behind such bribery and He will absolutely not accept such a filthy offering

Now I know I am miserly, but forcing myself to give is no solution to this. My being unwilling it is in fact an expression of miserliness not its remedy, just as all legalism is an expression of the sin it fights, is even the very sin it fights, and no remedy to it. Some have accused me of copping out but again this is boasting in their own works if they condemn me for not doing them also. It is still the case as scripture says  that it is not of works that any man should boast [ref]

But his Grace continues to me now that I keep my money, and indeed he has prospered me well, not as in the dreams of avarice of the prosperity teachers but according to my needs.

And this is so as He will not  have his favour bought

A Paradox of Faith

I will not say this is THE paradox of faith  for there may be others, but what I would speak of today is A paradox of faith.

Our standing on the word of God, our resisting our own thoughts, our coming against imaginary demons because we refuse to admit that the verse as a man thinks so he is actually applies to our spontaneous thoughts and  not to our conscious force against them, all this is a blasphemous, painful and dangerous waste of time, for we are tempted by our own lusts, not outside forces, as St James said

In the end, in one on one counsel with the Holy Spirit in personal conversation, I have found that I simply had to come out and say to Him, time and time again, as He led in the context of our conversation

"I DON"T BELIEVE YOU!"

I have actually found that it takes more faith to say that to God's face  as it were than to constantly look inwards (for such effort is only inward looking) and rebuke such and such a thought or stand on a bible verse which every fibre of our being is saying we do not believe.

Such a warfare is a private war, but I know for a fact that I wanted this as it made me look like a hero. Even a Titan in chains.  And I see this everywhere. It is grandiose self dramatization. It is merely  the self destructive antics of a kingdom divided against itself whereby, as we are individually that kingdom, such effort could and often enough does lead to a final falling away to perdition, for I have always rejected that dangerous false security which is Once Saved Always Saved


No.

I come to believe anything, particularly  as pertains to Christian living, by confessing as sin the contrary unbelief. But not of course as a legalistic strategy. Such is what I call "reportage."  It is not honest and so is a total waste of time , for as God know it already if we do not mean it for it comes not from the heart, then it is indeed a total waste of time.

Of course it is totally counter intuitive that I should come to faith by confessing unbelief, but how can it be otherwise? We are carnal minded if our fruit are carnal. Our doctrine may be sound but it is not honestly believed. And this makes Pharisees of us for we confuse commitment to a doctrine with believing it. Indeed, if it were honestly believed surely it would bring forth endless joy and we would be known by our love joy and peace.

And being carnal minded then of course I think the gospel is utter insane nonsense, self indulgent tripe, you name it. This is what I might call "flesh" but to separate ourselves from it is deadly and the essence of legalism.

The solution? we prefer to make grace a reified force  at our beck and call, something we use to help save ourselves. This is something God will never do and it shows why God never helps our efforts. If we manage to repress a behaviour so deep that we no longer do it this is no victory.  WE have merely deepened our hypocrisy and the tension of our lives show we will pay for it.

The solution? As always there is only one: personal one on one dialogue with the Holy Spirit of Christ.  This is what prayer is

As part of our healing will, as sure as Christ will return someday, our healing WILL include conviction of sin, including the sins of unbelief; but this will only happen as we let it out and stop pretending that we believe him or most assuredly that we love him, for with such blasphemies that will come out as engendered by our effort, distilled by the high pressure we put ourselves under, we surely do not love God and likely never have.

Be honest with him.

But of course I know full well this is anathema to the religious  heart and  mind which insists on being good where it is not, so even the reality of being honest with Him will only come about by His leading us to it.

It is all much easier than struggling with our thoughts and thing we are heroes for the effort.

But it is still written that His yoke is easy his burden light

Western Democracy

I believe I have had a flash of insight as to western politics. Someone to whose comment I was replying on you tube was expressing disappointment that they elect a leader and he turns out to be a crook. Do they want a messiah? Now that is precisely the problem. What we want is  a God King who will make it rain in season and of course make the trains run on time. And when he does come he will be none other than  the antichrist

No, the matter should not  be a leader, for power corrupts. Rather the matter of politics should be POLICIES promulgated by PARTIES and policed by a politically savvy and active PEOPLE of whom the government is afraid as they know full well that an active populace would vote them out if they break a promise

But again, no, this will not happen, for democracy requires vigilance and work; but this is something modern western man is too lazy or uneducated to do. So the result is that cynicism in the political process becomes justified and the cycle follows that laid out by the Greek Philosophers whereby democracies become tyrannies.

So when this happens we in the West will deserve everything we get.

There is a God King Who is eminently fit to rule, but His rule has been rejected and even when it was professed as real it was subverted by the people who most devoutly expressed claims as to be His most loyal subjects.

Who?

Jesus Christ

A Lesson in Bigotry

I have just received a rather bitter lesson in the nature of religious bigotry.

Getting home from work and checking my youtube recommendations I come across a quote

"The cross shows us a different way of measuring success. Ours is to plant the seeds. God sees to the fruits of our labors. And if at times our efforts and works seem to fail and not produce fruit, we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus Christ and his life, humanly speaking, ended in failure, the failure of the cross."

If you will bother to read this without prejudice, and to aid in this I will withhold for now the name of the person saying this, you will see that there is in fact nothing wrong with this.

Humanly speaking the cross was a failure, but divinely speaking it was something else entirely. By no stretch of the imagination can the speaker be said to be saying that the cross was a failure  in its intrinsic essence. He was saying, or at least gave no reason to have us think he was denying, what all Christians know,  namely that it was only apparently so, humanly speaking  To hold any other meaning those hostile to the  speaker have to ignore the phrase "humanly speaking" as well as the very opening of this quote  "The cross shows us a difference way of measuring success".

How can the cross be offering a different measure of success if it was a failure?

I invite you to reread the quote.

Done?

Very well, I will tell you , if you do not know , who said this

It was the current pope. Francis I.

They are saying that the pope is saying the cross was a failure.

Moreover they are screaming blue murder and denouncing him with all self righteous fury

He was not saying this, however. There is nothing wrong  with this quote

In their hatred they have twisted the words that this man uttered in order to make these words something to justify their hatred

This is seen not by appealing to hatred as some kind of a priori, but by simply examining the words spoken. When we do we see that the true statement such as this can only be twisted by motivations such as hatred

A true statement, then,  is twisted into a blasphemy then the speaker is railed at for speaking blasphemy.

This reflects on the evil of those who think that libel is the way to serve truth. It is not, and neither is railing against the perceivedly evil person, for it says in Jude verse  9 that "when the Archangel  Michael was disputing with  Satan over the body of Moses he did not dare bring a slanderous accusation against Satan but said 'the lord rebuke you.'"

To rail even at evil is sin.

To bring false charges against it is open defiance of the Word of God

The arrogance of this filthy underbelly of Protestantism s quite literally a disgrace, as it the warping of minds that such hatred produces.

Even if Catholicism is riddled with heresy to bring false charges against it is only to encourage them in their error.  But alas this is something the anti-Catholic bigot does not care to consider