The Tithe Contract

There is a close spiritual connection between the practice of tithing

and our relationship to God. The Israelites prospered when they obeyed

God and were faithful in tithing. In contrast, they fell on hard times

when they didn’t. They seemed to follow a cycle of obedience and

prosperity, and then disobedience and problems. It was during one of

these periods of unfaithfulness that God, through the prophet Malachi,

proposed a bilateral contract with His people.

Read Malachi 3:7–11. What are the promises and the obligations

found in these verses?

God promised the people that if they would return to Him, He would

return to them. When they asked what He meant by returning to Him,

He explicitly said, “Stop robbing Me of tithe and offerings.” Their rob-

bery was the reason they were being cursed. Here is God’s solution to

the problem of the curse: “ ‘Bring all the tithes [the whole tithe] into the

storehouse’ ” (Mal. 3:10, NKJV). And if you do this, then “ ‘I will . . .

open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing

that there will not be room enough to receive it’ ” (NKJV). If we don’t

have room enough to receive it, we have a surplus with which we can

help others and help to advance the cause of God.

“He who gave His only-begotten Son to die for you, has made a cove­

nant with you. He gives you His blessings, and in return He requires

you to bring Him your tithes and offerings. No one will ever dare to

say that there was no way in which he could understand in regard to

this matter. God’s plan regarding tithes and offerings is definitely stated

in the third chapter of Malachi. God calls upon His human agents to

be true to the contract He has made with them.”—Ellen G. White,

Counsels on Stewardship, p. 75.

One of the positive cycles of obedience is recorded during the reign

of good King Hezekiah of Judah. There was a genuine revival in Judah,

and the people started faithfully returning their tithes and offerings to

the temple storehouse. So much came in that it was piled in heaps at the

temple. Second Chronicles 31:5 tells what happened when the people

“brought in abundance the firstfruits of grain and wine, oil and honey,

and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the

tithe of everything” (NKJV).

What does your tithing (or lack thereof) say about your own

spirituality and relationship to God?