Friday, June 17, 2011

Giving Back To God

    One of my good friends is the wife of a minister. Because of my friendship with his wife, he and I have had a few candid discussions about his career. Often I believe that he has one of the most frustrating and difficult jobs in the world.

    I have heard him say that there are some subjects he knows he should do sermons about, but he avoids them because they are such touchy topics. One of them is giving back to God.

    Leviticus 27 tells us the rules God gave to Moses about dedicating people, animals, homes, and land to God. It gives the guidelines on how the priest should judge the value of these things. This chapter makes very clear that one tenth of everything we own should be given to God.

    At that point the many interpretations come into play. What does it mean to "Give" to God? Does it only mean giving to a church? What about charities? What about giving of your time?

    I don't have many answers to these questions, and I have asked them of enough people to get a wide variety of answers. Here, then, are my thoughts and my beliefs.

    My husband and I do not give ten percent of our income to our church. We give a percentage, but it is smaller than a tenth. However, we have never turned away a friend that was in need. In the past eight years of knowing each other, we have given cash to several different families that we knew needed money and would never pay us back.

We also send monetary donations to charitable organizations. We send canned goods to food banks. We volunteer our time to our church, and we even ran a campaign last month to raise money to buy children's Bibles for a local homeless shelter.

This topic doesn't have an easy formula or an easy answer. If we truly gave a tenth of our earnings to our church, the church would be the only benefactor. If we split our giving, we feel like we have the freedom to give when someone approaches us with a need. Many would not agree with this method, but it is the method that works for our family.

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