I wasn't really sure what this book was going to teach me. To be truthful, I thought that tithing was pretty cut and dried stuff. You were supposed to put 10% in the offering plate when you went to church, period. Well, I've seen that there is more to it than just sticking a couple of bucks into the plate.
This book isn't an educational book, per se, on the history or the "righteousness" of tithing. It is more of a book of show and tell. It shows us several different people and tells us how they view tithing. They give accounts of how tithing has affected their lives and how they see what God has told them about tithing. The people profiled in the book come from different faiths and different backgrounds. I found it refreshing that the author didn't go with the standard, "my way is the right way." Instead, by giving these views, the book lets you come to your own conclusion about how tithing fits into your life.
Each chapter of this book seemed to have a little pearl of wisdom to impart. To me, the one that hit home the most is the quote from Randy Alcorn, "What I always say to people is that if you take the standard of 10 percent and say God required it of the poorest people in the Old Testament Israel, and now we're under the grace of Jesus and we have the indwelling Holy Spirit and we live in this incredibly affluent culture, do you think he would expect less of us? Does God still have expectations of New Testament people? Clearly he does. In fact, Jesus' message is, 'You have heard that it was said, but I say to you.' And then what does he do each time? He raises the bar." I say that is pretty powerful stuff!
I also liked the illustration that Ed Bacon gave of people being like bodies of water. In essence what he said was that examine two bodies of water, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The area around the Sea of Galilee is alive with trade, etc. i.e. LIFE. Compare that to the area around the Dead Sea, which is void of many places of commerce i.e. DEAD. The difference between these two bodies of water is that the Sea of Galilee has water flowing into and out of it, while the Dead Sea only has water flowing into it. Thus, we should take the blessings that flow into us, as people, and let them flow back out of us onto others and we will be alive. If we don't, and only let blessing flow into us, we will be dead. If thought that was a really awesome picture he painted!
There are many, many, many, more great examples of tithing and the blessing of giving back the tithe in this book. I didn't agree with everything that was written, but I found that made the book more authentic. If you are wanting to study the "why" of tithing this would be a good book to read.
(I did receive this book from Booksneeze.com in return for a review. I didn't not have to give a favorable review if I didn't not want to do so.)
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