Hebrews Lesson 82 March 22, 2007
NKJ Acts
Hebrews 7
Before I left on vacation and
we had the conference, we were studying in Hebrews 7 with the episode with
Melchizedek. So let’s turn in our Bibles
to Hebrews 7 and sort of anchor where we are there. Hebrews 7 is beginning a new section, the
fourth section, in the book of Hebrews focusing on the uniqueness of Christ’s
priesthood based on the royal priesthood of Melchizedek in the Old
Testament. Of course there are only
about 2 or 3 verses in Genesis 14 that deal with Melchizedek; yet under the inspiration
of God the Holy Spirit the writer of Hebrews is dealing with the episode in
Genesis 18 connecting that to Psalm 110 and from that developing the implications
and significance of that Melchizedekean priesthood in relationship to the
priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now when we come to verse 2
of chapter 7 we read that…
NKJ Hebrews 7:2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth
part of all, first being translated "king of righteousness," and then
also king of
Then we have in verse 3 an
explanation of his background.
NKJ Hebrews 7:3 without father, without mother,
without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made
like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
As I have stated the last
couple of lessons, the phrase “without father, without mother without
genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life” is not a reference
to the fact that he didn’t have a mama or a daddy, that he wasn’t born, that he
didn’t have any physical lineage or ancestors.
It is talking about what is in the text of Scripture. The text of Scripture doesn’t tell us about
his father and his mother and his lineage because that wasn’t relevant to this kind
of priesthood. The Melchizedekean
priesthood was an appointed priesthood. It
was a priesthood based upon the individual’s relationship to God.
We don’t know much more about
that other than it was a royal priesthood.
The emphasis from about 2b (where we start reading being translated the
king of righteousness) down through the end of 3 is sort of a parenthesis as a
reminder of who Melchizedek is. It seems
like the driving point of this paragraph from verse 1 down to verse 10 centers
around the event of the fact that Abraham paid these tithes to
Melchizedek. The point of all this is to
show the superiority of Melchizedek because Abraham paid tithes. Basically he gave a tribute payment to
Melchizedek. That indicates (because this
was the custom in the ancient world that the one to whom you gave a tribute
payment. You paid a tithe and it was usually a 10% figure. That is what tithe means – 10%.) that you were honoring someone who was in
authority over you. The writer of
Hebrews is going to draw some implications from that. As we got into this whole issue of the
paying of tithes, we find in verse 4 where we read…
NKJ Hebrews 7:4 Now consider how great this man was,
to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.
That is important to
understand so we had to stop and talk about this whole doctrine of tithing. It is very interesting.
There was a young pastor here
during the week who comes from up in
I have been in churches and
places where in the course of the church service you might have as many as
three different offerings. Now sometimes
it can be valid if you are taking up offerings for different things. If you are really driving and manipulating
and making people feel guilty about what they are giving, then you are out of
line. That creates a false motivation
for giving. So much is what you have in many churches is tithing, tithing,
tithing. You hear that phraseology over
and over again.
What I started to show the
last time was that the concept of tithing is an Old Testament concept related
to the Mosaic Law primarily. There are
two examples prior to the Mosaic Law - one is the case of Abraham, one in the
case of Jacob as he is at
We looked at the Mosaic
Law. We saw that in the Mosaic Law there
were actually three tithes. Nobody ever
talks about that although I am aware that there was a pastor with a rather
large church here in
There were three tithes as I
pointed out. One is in Leviticus 27:30 giving the tithe of the land which was
everything. You had the first tithe
which dealt with supporting the bureaucracy, the theocracy of the priesthood in
Number 18:20-23.
NKJ Leviticus 27:30 'And all the tithe of the land, whether
of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's. It is holy to the LORD.
Then the second tithe
provided for a national celebration of the grace and provision of God. That is explained in Deuteronomy
14:22-24. Those were annual tithes.
Then there was a third tithe that
was taken up every third year to support the Levite, the alien, the orphan and
the widow. That is explained in
Deuteronomy 14:28-29.
The tithes were taken up and
in the land that money was kept in the storehouse (the treasury) of the
temple. These were mandatory gifts. It was legislation for the support of the
theocracy as it were - the priests and the Levites - and also to take care of
the widows and the orphans and those who for one reason or another had lost
what they had and did not have the general means of daily sustenance.
There were also free will
offerings as I pointed out last time in the Old Testament. These are referenced in Proverbs 3:9-10,
Exodus 25:1-2 where Moses raised money through free will offerings to build the
tabernacle. Then there are various other
passages that were given in the law. Leviticus
2:28-23 and other passages are related to tithing. It is
all related to paying this tax to support the nation and the bureaucracy which
was the priesthood.
Now I pointed out last time that
this is the background for understanding for what happens in Malachi, one of
the favorite passages that people go to that you will hear. I have
heard them in so many congregations and churches. It is based on Malachi 3:8-10. The principle here is that this passage in
Malachi 3:8-10 recognizes that the storehouse, the national bank for the tithe,
was the temple. In Malachi 3:8 God is challenging them. Remember that this is the generation that has
returned from the captivity and they were back in the land. By this time they have been back in the land
about 100 years - maybe about 90 years.
They rebuilt the temple, but everything was really falling apart. The structures that had been established were
not being taken care of properly. Part
of it was because the entire tax system that God had established had been
broken down. Because the tax system had
broken down, the temple was in disrepair.
This dishonored God so God is confronting and challenging the people for
their disobedience to the law.
Now the law remember is given
in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and is restated in Deuteronomy. So the law becomes the basis of prophetic
challenges. The best way to understand
the role of a prophet in the Old Testament isn’t someone who told the
future. That isn’t what a prophet
did. That was secondary. It was ancillary. It was what went along but that wasn’t his
purpose. His purpose wasn’t just to be a
preacher. His purpose was to serve as
sort of a prosecuting attorney for the Supreme Court of Heaven to the nation of
Tommy was saying last night that
in
Often the reason you bring in
the futuristic element is because as God was through the prophet itemizing the lawsuit
against them, He would say, “As a result of your failure I am going to judge
you.”
Yet these things will happen
in the future and all of the future or predictive elements were designed to
encourage the Jews with the fact that God wasn’t disciplining them or taking
them out of the land permanently.
But yet He did have a future
for them and would not forsake them on a permanent basis. So the challenge in Malachi 3:8-10 coming
from God is – “Will a man rob God?” If you don’t give your tithe to the nation
“You have robbed Me.” God
says.
But you say, “In what way did
we rob You?”
See, they are so
innocent. They can’t understand.
“We haven’t robbed you.”
God says, “In tithes and offerings.”
NKJ Malachi 3:8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you
have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and
offerings.
NKJ Malachi 3:9 You are cursed with a curse, For you
have robbed Me, Even this whole nation.
That takes you right back to
Deuteronomy. Even the whole nation is
going to come under divine discipline.
And then God commands them in verse 10…
NKJ Malachi
Now that is the phrase that
you often hear pastors go to. In other
words, give you money to the church. But
that is not what it is saying. The
“bring” is the hiphil imperative second person
plural. It is addressed to the
nation. The hiphil
is causative. It means “cause to bring”. The imperative is a mandate to bring all the
tithes. That means the 10% for the
priests and the Levites, the 10% for the annual celebration and the every third
year tithe to support the widows and orphans.
The word for storehouse is
the Hebrew word otzar which is one of 9
different words used for treasure. This
word is used of either the treasury in the king’s house. It is used of the treasure in the temple or it
is also used of the material possessions and treasure that an individual would
bring together. There are 9 references
in the Old Testament where this word describes the temple treasury.
A couple of these are Joshua
6:19 and I Kings 7:51.
NKJ Joshua
That’s otzar.
In I Kings
NKJ 1 Kings
So there was a temple
treasury in the house of the Lord.
In I Kings
NKJ 1 Kings
This refers to the plundering
of the temple treasury. So this term is
a term that refers to the temple treasury.
So Malachi
God says, “Do this so that
there will be food in My house. Try Me
on this. Go ahead and test Me. If you don’t do it, you are really going to
get disciplined.”
That is what He is saying.
In other words if you do
this, “I will bless the nation. I will
prosper the nation.”
That is exactly what He had
promised back in the Mosaic Law.
“If you obey the law I will
pour out blessing upon the nation. If
you are disobedient to the Mosaic Law, I am going to discipline you.”
So we had several summary key
principles.
All
of a sudden they come up to a grace oriented church and they say, “Phew! I
don’t have to give any more.”
They
may go through a reaction for awhile.
Grace doesn’t mean that you don’t have responsibilities. Grace doesn’t mean that there is no giving.
Grace means that there is an obligation to give, but that it is between you and
the Lord and it is based on your inner motivation and your gratitude. There
is no set percentage. It is as God has
prospered you. Trust me. “As God has prospered you” is a lot more convicting
and more challenging than 10%.
We have fabulous things that happened
here. As I talked about the conference
and the ministry, there are a number of people who gave generously and sacrificially
and gave in abundance in order to meet the financial needs of that
conference. So many people came and
didn’t have to pay for a room at the hotel.
They didn’t have to pay for meals.
For them it was free, but somebody was generous and took care of that. They were able to be graced out in that
situation.
Grace is the principle that
continues into the Church Age. You have
grace in the Old Testament and grace in the New Testament. So in the New
Testament the word tithing is mentioned in the gospels only in reference to the
legalistic practices of the Pharisees.
Let’s go to Luke 11. Turn in your Bibles to Luke 11. Let’s look at the context. Luke 11:42.
The reason I make this point here
is a lot of people think that tithing is legalistic. Tithing isn’t legalistic. There is no such thing as legalistic blessing
in the Old Testament. When the Jews functioned under the law, it wasn’t
legalism. That was still grace. Grace doesn’t mean that there is no
responsibility and obligation. Grace means
it is oriented to God’s undeserved, unmerited favor. The point that I am making is what the
Pharisees did was instead of recognizing the tithe in its biblical context; they
start making it the basis for gaining God’s approbation, His approval. You see that is the difference. You can do the same thing. This person over here does it over here and
it is legalism. This person over there
does it and it is grace because it is grounded in the motivation and gratitude
that is in the individual soul of that believer. This person over here puts $500 in the
collection plate and they think that this is their tithe, their 10 %
contribution. God is going to bless them
because (Aren’t they great?) they are giving their 10%. They are fulfilling their obligation to tithe. That is legalism. This person over here puts the same 10% in,
the same amount.
They are saying, “What a
great thing God has done for me. I want
to share what He has given me with others so that they are able to hear the
Word of God and are able to respond to it.”
The difference is in
motivation. What the Pharisees did was
take the law. Paul said the law was
unholy, unrighteous and bad. Right? No, he said the law was holy and righteous
and good. The law included tithing. Therefore tithing cannot be in the Old Testament
- in the right context - cannot be legalistic.
It was good. It was holy and it
was righteous. But it was done
consistent with grace orientation. But
what the Pharisees did was come in and make this ritualistic law the basis for
gaining God’s approval and God’s blessing.
So we come to Luke 11:42 and Jesus says to the Pharisees…
NKJ Luke
They get it down to the most
minutia and they pass by justice and the love of God. You see they are applying the tithe down to
the minutest thing. They are going to
make sure that they are going to cut that 10% down to every minor possession
that they have. In the process they are ignoring
the justice of God which here is the word
krisis which is His judgment, the
operation of His justice. It is not dikaios, righteousness. It is the operation of it in terms of justice
and the application of God’s character. They
ignore that and the love of God. So it
is all about just doing the right thing without having the right relationship
to God.
Let’s look at the
context. As you go on to read it, in verse
43 he pronounces another woe on the Pharisees.
NKJ Luke
They are all about
approbation. They want everyone to
recognize them as having arrived spiritually.
So they are going to sit up front.
They are going to be in the market place where they are seen and
observed. Then in verse 44 Jesus says…
NKJ Luke
So his emphasis here is on
their legalism. It is all about the
external and not about the internal attitude of the soul and its orientation to
the grace of God.
Another verse in Luke, the
second use of tithing in the gospels is in
Legalism isn’t saying, “Thou
shalt not”.
Legalism is saying that
observing the “thou shalt not” is what gets you approval with God. That is how you get saved. That is how you get blessed by God. It is a rejection of the whole doctrine of imputation
of Christ’s righteousness as the basis for God’s blessing. So Jesus tells the
parable.
NKJ Luke
NKJ Luke
NKJ Luke
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus
says that if you give, give in such a way that the right hand doesn’t know what
the left hand is doing. Giving is a
matter of privacy. It isn’t done before
men. It is to be done in privacy. It is to be unobserved. It is unannounced. It doesn’t matter what other people see. If you think your reward comes from what
other people see because they recognize what a great giver you are and how
generous you are then that is your reward - no reward later on at the Judgment
Seat of Christ because you put your hope in the flesh and in men.
NKJ Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is
the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs
from the LORD.
So that is the Pharisee. That is what makes it legalistic. He is putting the emphasis on what he does.
The tax collector in
contrast…
NKJ Luke 18:13 "And the tax collector,
standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but
beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'
He is so aware that he had no
business being in the presence of God. He
has true genuine humility. He is
recognizing that as a sinner we don’t bring anything at all to the table. God does everything. The tax collector standing afar off would not
so much as raise his eyes to heaven.
NKJ Luke 18:14 "I tell you, this man went
down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who
exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be
exalted."
The path to preeminence is
humility and recognizing that authority orientation.
2. The Lord also taught as our second point that
giving was to be a private matter between the believer and God – nobody else’s
business.
NKJ Matthew 6:2 "Therefore, when you do a
charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I
say to you, they have their reward.
NKJ Matthew 6:3 "But when you do a charitable
deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
NKJ Matthew 6:4 "that your charitable deed may
be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you
openly.
Giving should be done in such
a way that people can preserve their privacy.
Sometimes people say, “Well,
sometimes I can’t preserve my privacy when we pass the plate in church.”
I have been in churches that
take up a collection by passing the plate and others that put a box in the
back. Sometimes we all forget. I think that passing a plate is a good
reminder. We all forget. A lot of times people put something out in
the hallway and people do forget so I don’t have a problem in passing a
plate. Some people are concerned about
privacy.
I have heard people say
this. “Somebody down the row might see
my check pop open and see what I gave.”
Great! Put it in the
mail. Don’t get wrapped around the
axle. Everybody wants to over think
stuff. The issue is that it is between
you and the Lord, not letting it be known to other people.
3. The New Testament clearly recognizes free
will giving that is based on gratitude and soul and not on the basis of a
prescribed percentage. In Luke 21:2-4 we
have the story of the widow who puts the two mites into the collection.
NKJ Luke 21:2 and He saw also a certain poor widow
putting in two mites.
NKJ Luke 21:3 So He said, "Truly I say to you
that this poor widow has put in more than all;
NKJ Luke 21:4 "for all these out of their
abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all
the livelihood that she had."
That is they looked at how
much is left at the end of the month in their checkbook and then they decide
how much they are going to give based on what is left over. Kind of like Dr. Cate
said the other night that happens in Islam.
They are supposed to give 3.2% or 3.5% or something like that. They wait until the end of the year. It is not based on how much they made. It is not based on their gross.
I hear Christians say,
“Should I give 10%? Is that 10% of net
or 10% of gross?”
It is 10% of grace. Okay?
Don’t worry about the numbers.
Worry about the grace and that’s it.
What the Moslems will do is give 3.5% of what is left in the checkbook
at the end of the year when everything is paid for. That is pretty negligible. So here what Jesus is saying is that it is a
decision that is made up front in the budgeting process. You are going to decide that you are going to
give this amount of money for the local church and missions and you know that
God is going to bless and honor whatever I am going to give and Him to take of me
and I am going to trust Him to take care of me.
It is not done irrationally or irresponsibly, but it is done in light of
a thought out procedure according to I Corinthians based on how God has
prospered you.
Later on we are going to see
how the Macedonians were praised by Paul because they gave out of their poverty
to help support the Jewish believers in
They didn’t look around and
say, “The Lord really hasn’t really given us that much.”
They said, “The Lord hasn’t
given us that much, but I still have a responsibility to help others.”
The Macedonians demonstrate
the same principle of giving out of their lack, not out of their abundance.
Next time we will come back
and go to point 4 dealing with what is going on with Abraham’s tithe. Then we will wrap up with the other
principles and two other key passages in the New Testament for giving - I
Corinthians 16 and II Corinthians 9.
We need to ask the question,
“Is there a reason and is there legitimacy for churches, for pastors, for
seminaries to let people know what their needs are?”
There are some ministries
that say, “If you let people know what your needs are, you are just asking for
money.”
Is there a basis for that biblically? We will look at that when we come back next
Thursday night.
Let’s bow our heads.