9 March, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One way for an aspiring Christian writer to get his name out in public and to get “something published” is to write about tithing. Churches seem to love to circulate such among their members to fan the giving fever from time to time to keep the money rolling in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hood’s Take God at His Word <\/em>is a vacuous essay serving perhaps the goal of church leaders to keep donations rolling in. (I can’t imagine any other benefit of it or purpose for its recommendation.) It propounds that church members are ideally motivated by that which brings them blessings (rather than the clear biblical instruction that disciples of Christ be driven by the goal of bringing glory<\/em> to the Triune God). <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the contrary, disciples of Christ are obliged foremost to be instruments of God’s glory. The primary means of accomplishing this is their participation in the Church and its mission: to BE Christ to the world and glorify God through Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The enticement of Christians to pursue their own blessings rather that the Glory of the God of heaven and the Savior sent for us is a disservice. Rather, motivate God’s people to honor God, to bring Him glory. That goal is attained through the Church. When the church is edified and productive of deeds which show God’s grace, might, and glory, God – Father, Son and Spirit – is honored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How does the church honor God? <\/p>\n\n\n\n By deeds! And what\nare those deeds?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Love of the brethren (activated by their strong bonds of\nfellowship which are developed primarily through home groups – dining together, serving one another)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Serving neighbors (even rescuing them as necessary!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Proclaiming the Truth (Law – justice – and Gospel)<\/p>\n\n\n\n We glorify God through the church – and that is our mission\n– therefore, we build it up! We do so by\nmany means: 1) loving and serving the brethren, 2) loving and serving the\nheathen which results in: 1) conversion of heathen, 2) praise to God given by\nangels, observers of the church, and recipients of the Church’s benevolence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To the extent that the building of the church requires\ncontributions, let that high goal be proclaimed. But the call to “give your buck to the\nchurch so that God will bless you” is a diversion of attention from that\ngoal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a way to both increase the blessings of church income and to obey Him in a much more profound calling. He commands that we, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Children are a blessing from God. If we would allow ourselves to be blessed by gifts from Him, the church would be blessed multiply [the adverb with the “y” pronounced as “ee”] – as would each family. (We would have manifold laughs and adventures even someone to take care of you in our old age. That would be a money-saving situation!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, the Church would be blessed with many more laborers\nand heaven would have many more attendants worshipping Him who is worthy of all\npraise from all His creatures, especially those created in His very image! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, and so we get a message from Dr. Hood about giving and\nthe blessings we will receive if we give more money to our local church. We will be “rich in every way” if\nwe give the church more money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah, the “power of giving,” as they say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hm. Well, indeed,\nthere is power in obedience. One\nattracts the favor of the Almighty when one obeys Him. Yes, even though our very obedience is a gift\nin as much as it is He would redirects our crooked hearts and turns them toward\nHimself. He does take pleasure as He\nobserves our obedience. And one of the\nmost important ways that He shows His favor toward us and blesses us in by\ngiving us children – those which are called “gifts from God.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hm. How about\nexperiencing the power of God’s blessings upon us when we receive all the\nchildren He would give us and with thanksgiving?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Church would be blessed by many more little\nmembers. And if they were properly\ndiscipled, they would make some significant contributions to the offering\nplate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Repudiation of THE great heresy of our time – birth control, were it exposed and denounced- might well solve the money problems and remove the temptation to preach the tithe-blessing heresy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 9 March, 2020 One way for an aspiring Christian writer to get his name out in public and to get “something published” is to write about tithing. Churches seem to love to circulate such among their members to fan the giving fever from time to time to keep the money rolling in. Hood’s Take God […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,18,21,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3282"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3292,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}