Learning how to tithe correctly can be a difficult challenge because we live in a world that considers it responsible to hold onto your earnings, not give them away. It can often feel like a pointless act that isn’t making a difference in anyone’s life. This post will give you some benefits of tithing and show you how to do it!

Tithing has been around for ages, and often we just give our money away without even thinking about it. Sometimes it just turns into a thing that we do every week because we’ve always done it that way.

But have you ever stopped to consider exactly why tithing is important?

Sure, it helps to support the church, but tithing is so much more than that!

Today I want to share with you a few things that I’ve learned about the spirit of tithing. I will be sharing the benefits of tithing beyond just the monetary stuff, and I am also eager to tell you about the BEST tithing method I’ve ever seen!

How to Tithe and Why it’s Beneficial to Your Life

The foundations of tithing

How to pronounce tithe

The phonetic spelling of tithe is taith. I like to thing of it as “tie” mixed with “th” at the end.

What is the meaning of tithe?

Tithe comes from the Old English word teogotha, which literally means ‘tenth’. So many Godly people in the Bible functioned off of this idea of giving exactly a tenth of everything they own and produce back to God.

Who was the first person to tithe?

Abram was the first man who made a habit of tithing. He gave a tenth of absolutely everything! (You can find his story in Genesis chapter 14). Jacob did the same, and Moses even introduced it as an expectation by law:

“A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.”

Leviticus 27:30

Is tithing still relevant today?

Tithing is not something that God merely recommends. He says that it is vital to the Christian life, just as much as prayer and worship. There is no question that, even in this modern era, we are meant to tithe.

(If you want more Bible verses about tithing, check out these verses about tithing in the Bible. It is packed full of tithing references in the Bible).

“Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.”

Proverbs 3:9-10

How to calculate tithe

I am absolutely horrible at Math, but thankfully tithing is so straightforward that I can manage to figure this out consistently. If I can do it, so can you! All you do is take the final sum of money you earned and move the decimal place one to the left. That’s it!

So if you earned $100, then the amount you should tithe is $10. If you earned $3,470, then the amount you should tithe is $347.

Easy, right?

An in case you’re curious, if you are someone who is interested in tithing your time, giving roughly 17 hours a week would be 10% of your time each week.

5 Benefits of Tithing

Tithing is a wonderful thing to do for other people, but it also helps the giver in different ways. There are way more benefits than what I’m about to list here, but these 5 are the ones that I’ve noticed in my own life.

Benefits of Tithing #1: Tithing Teaches You to Trust God

We live in a world that deeply values money. We are expected to earn as much as we can and spend it wisely. It is not natural to set aside a percentage of our earnings and give it away. What about your emergency savings? What about that trip you wanted to take?

Getting rid of 10% of your earnings goes against human nature.

But when you make a practice of consistently reserving that money for God’s use, it is helping you practice obedience. It is also a chance to teach you that God can be trusted.

“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.””

1 Timothy 6:17-18

Every time you give away that money, you are practicing putting your trust in God. You can’t guarantee that things will work out or that you won’t need that money, but you will be confident that you are taken care of regardless.

Giving your money away forces you to put all of your trust in God. Tithing is a constant reminder that your trust should always be in him, not in money.

Related Post: How To Talk To God: 9 Creative Approaches To Prayer

Benefits of tithing #2: Tithing is a Way to Spread God’s Love

As a Christian, I am constantly questioning whether or not I am doing enough for God (and my honest answer is that I’m not). But tithing is one consistent way that I can share my desire to bring about God’s will.

Giving what we have can be a clear way for us to develop a giving heart that wants what God wants. Offering our earnings to others is a great way to show people God’s love, and that is reason enough to go for it!

Benefits of tithing #3: Tithing Turns Your Attention Away from Yourself

This benefit has been a huge one for me, and I bet it would be great for you, too!

We live in a ‘me-centered’ culture that cares a lot about how our personal lives are going.

Now, this isn’t inherently a bad thing. It is definitely important to practice self-care before taking care of the people around us. However, it is all too easy to become self-absorbed.

Instead of self-care, we practice self-pity, and that is not worthwhile.

Learning how to tithe regularly can help with that. When you give your money to someone who needs it more than you, it will help you realize that everyone has problems. You might even start to notice the blessings in your own life.

Whenever I offer help and encouragement to someone else (monetary or otherwise), I notice that my own problems don’t feel so big anymore. It helps me see that other people are struggling, too, and that I have good things in my own life that I can be thankful for. Tithing helps to readjust our perspective and recognize the needs of others rather than our own needs.

Benefits of tithing #4: Tithing Reminds You That What You Have is a Gift from God

This is my favourite benefit! Tithing is a great reminder that none of the stuff we receive on this earth is earned by us. Instead, it is a gift from God.

Every skill, personal belonging, and bank statement came to us from his generosity.

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.”

1 Chronicles 29:14

I don’t know about you, but oftentimes I fall into the trap of feeling short-changed because I think that I deserve more than I have. When I tithe my money, it reminds me that the money wasn’t mine in the first place. In fact, nothing on this earth is actually mine.

Even my own life belongs to God, and he can do with it what he wants. When I tithe my money, it reminds me of this fact and removes any bitterness I had in me. Instead, I just feel thankful that I have these gifts to give away. When you see tithing from this perspective, it will start to change the way you react to everything you give and receive.

Related Post: 10 Helpful Budgeting Tips When You Know Nothing About Finances

Benefits of tithing #5: Tithing Blesses the Giver

“All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:”

Deuteronomy 27:23

Though we might not want to hold this benefit as our biggest priority, it is one that comes with tithing. When we offer our money to God, we are obeying his requests. And obedience always brings about blessings. Not necessarily blessings in the form of money or success, but blessings that are worth so much more than that!

God gives blessings that have a lasting value and that cannot be taken away from us.

When we offer what we have to God, he gives us more to work with later.

How to Tithe correctly

Now that you know the necessity of tithing and its benefits, you are probably wondering how to tithe correctly.

The most typical form of tithing is simply to put your money into the church basket every Sunday.

However, like everything in our lives as Christians, nothing is black and white. There are many different ways we may be called to tithe and it is more important that we follow God’s requests, not the requests of society.

The only real way to tithe incorrectly is to do it without love. If you are giving consistently but you are grumbling about it the whole time, then you are not grasping the true purpose of tithing.

Now that we have established the importance of your heart while tithing, let’s go over some common questions that people have about how to tithe correctly.

How to tithe when in debt

I won’t lie, tithing when in debt can feel especially unnatural. It’s hard to feel that a lifestyle of tithing applies to you when you’re short on cash. But believe it or not, God still wants you to give 10% of your earnings.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be irresponsible with your money. Create a budget that will allow you to start paying off your debt after you have first given 10% to God, then trust that He will take care of the rest.

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How to tithe at church

It is perfectly appropriate to give 10% of your earnings to the church, but perhaps you will feel called to approach it differently…

I met a pastor who had a very unique form of tithing, and I think it is the loveliest way to tithe I’ve ever seen! The method he and his wife use is one that makes tithing dynamic and personal every month.

Here’s how they do it:

Each month, this couple saves a tenth of their earnings and holds on to it until the last Sunday of the month. During that time, they stay aware of the needs of the people around them that they know personally. If they come across a friend who needs financial support or hears from someone who needs a donation, they take their tithe money and give it to them without hesitation. At the end of the month, their remaining money is given to the church.

Sometimes, that means that all of their 10% will go in the church donation basket. Other times, it means that all their money will go directly to a friend in need. Either way, God will make it crystal clear where he wants his money to go.

Is it OK to give my tithe to someone in need?

Based on the approach I just shared, this is absolutely OK! When you are made aware of the needs of others, it is God suggesting that you intervene. Offering your tithe to another person in need is a great way to use God’s money.

Can I give my tithe to my family?

This situation is a little trickier, but as long as you are listening to God and being honest about what you hear from him, then this approach to tithing can be just as appropriate. The only thing you need to be careful of is that you need to be sure that you are not giving to family members in order to receive some sort of benefit later on. Are you only giving your sister money for college so that you can have her indebted to you in the future? Or are you genuinely trying to help? This is something that you need to be particularly aware of in this situation. For some, this will be a great way to tithe, but for others it’s not appropriate.

How to tithe when you don’t belong to a church

As you’ve seen, there is more than one way to tithe correctly, so if you are at a time in your life when you are searching for the right church to join or if you are in an in-between time of life, you can still make good use of your tithe money.

Here are a few options:

• Find a church somewhere in the world that you would like to support and donate online
• Give the money to a friend who has a church they go to and ask them to donate it
• Find a local charity you would like to donate to
• Wait for a situation in which a friend, family member, or stranger, needs help and give it to them

If you visited today wondering how to tithe correctly, I hope that this information has helped you feel more confident about it. The benefits of tithing are countless both for the giver and the receiver and I believe that it is a small habit that we can add to our lives that can truly change the world!

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