I have been convicted to start tithing as you have all read in previous posts.  Jamie and I have decided to start tithing as of the 1st of the year.  This would mean that our first tithe would actually occur on the 15th, unless we decided to use the one on Dec 31st to begin.

I have continued to be conflicted in who to tithe to.  I do not feel it is right to tithe to a church based on the standard organized church definition of tithing.  I believe that the tithe as preached there is an admonishment to sin rather than to live righteously because it puts the gaining of money for the use of "the church" above the direction of God's money for use as he sees fit.  It basically places "the church" in place of Jesus who is the true receiver of our tithes.

However, I came across a passage that threw my conclusions from before as to the "who" that we tithe on their head.  This came shortly after I learned of the expectation of the "church" that God led me to (of this I have no doubt that God led me to them) that we are to tithe.  I have a feeling I will have to chide myself publicly again and again as I learn more about Christ and how to live by the word of the Holy Spirit.

Here is the passage that threw my conclusions into disarray.

1 Co 9:4–14 (ESV) - Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

This seems to indicate an expectation in the first church to give to those who were apostles, preachers, teachers (not a limiting list) to give materially to those who have give spiritually.  So this seems at direct odds to what I concluded previously.  So which is right?  Which is wrong?  Or, am I both right and wrong.

This led me to a chase for other interpretations and examinations on the practicing of tithing.  And I ran across this pdf.

I read that document and it made sense to me.  I can't find any fault with it in my heart, mind or spirit as yet.  Now, I still have some questions for my church to make sure that their expectation in the tithe is sound and of the right spirit, but now, I have no internal question as to the appropriateness to tithe to my God led to church.  If their reasoning is unsound for how they use the tithe or why they expect it, well, maybe I can be a teacher.

Read Romans 1:1-6:23

Jesus saved us through a gift of grace performed in his death on the cross and rise from the dead. By accepting that gift through faith, through belief, we are justified to God and are no longer held to the ultimate wages of our sin, death.^{(Ro 5:1, Ro 6:23)}  There is a belief that I am aware of and run into directly that as a christian, because we are now children of God, it is impossible for us to be "possessed" of unclean spirits.  I put possessed in quotes there as I do not necessarily mean "The Exorcist" variety of possession but more specifically the indwelling of spirits which will influence us and have dominion over us in areas of our lives.  They are the jail keepers to prisons of our sin.

Yes, my experience is directly at odds with this belief.  Unclean spirits indwelt me even after I became a Christian and my heart, desire and spirit was changed forever.  I may still have unclean spirits residing in me that I need to purge.  Admittedly they are probably not very comfortable right now but that doesn't mean they aren't there.  So what is the truth?

I have been keeping my eye out for some kind of speaking on this matter in my reading, yet I haven't been seeking it per-se.  Well I got to Romans this morning and I ran into these passages towards the end of my reading.

Ro 6:12–19 (ESV) -Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

This passage here, what does it tell us.  First of all, it is speaking on the human level, the natural level or worldly level.  This means your day to day lives and where you live right now.  Remember we are IN the world but not OF the world.   It limits the infection of sin to your mortal body!  This is important.

There is a distinct difference in us between our body our mind and our spirit.  Our bodies will eventually perish and we will have new bodies.  That's somewhere in Revelation, don't know where exactly but I remember its there.  I'll get to that book.  Our spirit has been sanctified and reborn to new life in Jesus.  We (our spirits) are new creations.  Our heart and desires that live in our mind are new wine skins that hold the new wine of the Holy Spirit. 

But what of our bodies?  They don't change, they are not sanctified.  They are still imperfect and doomed to death.  And here in Romans 6:16 we see that you can still live and ACT in obedience to sin and thus be slaves to it.  Well, the doorway and housing for unclean spirits, for demons, IS SIN.  I think this is why sin is talked about in very similar terms to the way in which Satan (an unclean spirit) or the enemy or demons are talked about.

Ge 4:7 (ESV) - If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
1 Pe 5:8 (ESV) - Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Mal 3:11 (ESV) - I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts.

So sin creates a doorway into you mortal bodies by which a demon can grab hold and grab dominion and authority over your mortal body.  Now, your body and your mind is connected.  your body houses your mind.  So if there are members of your body, rooms and areas of it that are dwelt in by your enemies, They have access to influence and attack your mind.  Does this mean schizophrenia or something psychologically weird or something?  No of course not, its much simpler.  Desires, suggestions, prodding towards sin and greater imprisonment of your body and affliction of you mind.

 So, in one sense, A christian can never become possessed by an unclean spirit, that is his own spirit and sanctified soul can never be harmed by that spirit directly or have its justification be ruined by that spirit.  Yet in the other sense, the mortal bodies by which we go about in this worldly realm are pathways to our daily lives being ruled by sin and hence ruled by the enemy. 

But, we have the tools to fight the enemy and we have abundant grace to overcome the enemy through the name of Jesus Christ.  As children of God we inherit his authority and when we call on Jesus, he is there in us right then and truthfully always, being the master and triumphant victor of the battlefield.

So Paul exhorts us to take hold and fight for the sanctification of our bodies and mind because they ARE a battlefield that Jesus has won, but if we don't enforce that victory, if we allow the enemy to run rampant through our own willingness, than what good is that victory to us in our daily lives?  How does that glorify God?  It does not.  It doesn't remove glory but it most certainly does not add glory to God.  So do as Paul instructs.

Ro 6:19 (ESV) - For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.