Story of Tithing
The beginning of tithing can be seen in the Bible, yet many Christians as well as non-Christians have the habit of doing some type of tithing today.
The word tithe has Christian connotations, referring to the contribution of a tenth of one’s income for charitable purposes to Church as a kind of Church giving. Anyway, the idea is a part of most world religions. In Islam the word used for this is ‘Zakat.’ In the Indian religion of Sikhism, there is a rule of keeping apart one-tenth of one’s income for spiritual purposes and it is called ‘Dasvandh.’ The practice has been initiated by the tenth religious head Guru Gobind Singh. According to the Indian scriptures of the Upanisads and the Bhagavadgita, the ‘perfect alms’ are that which is offered with a sense of obligation in a correct place and at a correct time to a deserving person from whom the giver does not expect anything in return.
The word tithe derives from the Hebrew word ‘asair’, which means to donate one-tenth portion of something, mostly a person’s earnings. Nowadays tithes or tithing is optional and is given in cash. Still, in some European countries church can demand tithing and thus make it enforceable by law.
Denmark is an example where members of the Church of Denmark pay a church tax, which varies between municipalities. The tax is generally around 1% of the taxable income. And in Finland members of state churches pay a church tax of between 1% and 2.25% of income and the Church taxes are integrated into the common national taxation system.
However the practice of regular tithes was not established until after Exodus. Tithes were common throughout the ancient Near East, as well as in later Lydia, Arabia, and Carthage.
The Hebrew habit of tithing is recorded in the Bible, the first mention being the gift from Abraham to the Canaanite priest and king Melchizedek (Genesis–:20). Ancient Arabia, Lydia and Carthage were places where the custom of tithes existed. Tithing was implemented by the early Christian church, and had found mention in councils at Macon in 585 and at Tours in 567. They were granted formal recognition during the time of Pope Adrian I in 787.
Tithing in certain Christian churches is a disputed issue as it deals with an Old Testament process to a New Testament institution (the Church). There is no proof in the New Testament that tithing can be applied to Christians. In fact, it was obligatory only on those Jews who were living in the Promised Land to pay the tithe according to the Old Testament, as it was in reality a form of income tax required to support not just the government of the Israel of the Old Testament, but also its religious institutions and priests.
Present day Tithing
Despite the fact that it has originated in the Bible and earliest Christianity, now it is a unique way to gift something whenever you are given something. Giving EVERY time you are in receipt is a compelling form of giving as it allows the benefactor to experience something exceptionally eloquent – more on that later.
But back to a bit of history. Malachi 3:10 is the part of the Bible that Christians relate to when they talk about tithing. Many Christians tithe to their church because they feel it is their given duty by the Bible to do so. Many Churches now and in the past insist that their members tithe to the church to sustain its activities. In essence though, unless giving is done from free will and a with joyful focus, it does not achieve its greatest result – if in fact you ever want to create a direct result by giving.
Controversy about Tithing
Tithing has often been a contentious topic. The issue whether a Christian should pay tithe is often argued in many Christian congregations.
In an article in Wall Street Journal regarding tithing named ‘The Backlash Against Tithing’, Suzanne Sataline says, ‘As Churches push donations, congregants balk; ‘that’s not the way God works’.’
Unfortunately, the mix of ideology, desire to control, and a limited perspective, can often create a Jekyll and Hyde result – the simple purity of giving being lost in the mist and confusion of theology. Despite the controversy, tithing is still a totally and amazingly powerful action that anyone can do to turn their lives around to face a more abundant direction.
For those who wish to understand a Christian perspective in tithing there is no limit of materials to read. For those who want to understand the reason WHY tithing is so powerful read on.
Why is Tithing so compelling?
This is indeed a very compelling question because if you just blindly carry on something without any idea of what it indicates, you could be proceeding in the wrong direction.
If more people who are in the habit of tithing knew exactly why it works when done with the feeling of total giving, then it is likely to make people eager to give even more. And for those who do it intermittently, it could encourage them to give first every time they are in receipt of something.
To analyse the real ‘why’ of how routine giving leads to more we have to understand something about Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Physics. The laws of these realms vary a lot from that of our own material or Newtonian world.
The picture ‘What the Bleep’ paints the quantum world through easily graspable examples. The link to the movie here gives some details about how matter gets converted into waves and behaves like liquids when seen from a quantum physics angle: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1349535/4653525.
The film portrays a wonderful world seen from a quantum space. When a beam of electrons is shot through an opening in a plate onto a wall – as is expected, it would hit in a straight line on the flat surface just opposite the opening.
If the same experiment is done using an energy wave that has the properties of a water wave, again one can get an expected outcome. As the surge hits the plate the tendency for the wave is to ricochet but still because of the cut, some parts of the wave goes in through that cut. Emerging from the cut, the wave spreads out in an arched way, thus resulting in a new wave more or less similar to the old wave. It is exactly like the experiments one would have done in smaller classes regarding the behaviour of waves. It hits the wall opposite with a lot of force at the point just opposite the cut and hits with lesser strength all around the wall. This is just like the pattern the electrons create.
If we added a second slit in the plate, again we would get a predictable result with the wave experiment – two small waves would appear through the slits and when those new waves touch each other they would cancel each other out creating an interference pattern. Several waves would now hit the wall making a stripped affect on the wall. All this is as expected for wave energy behavior, so nothing new here.
All that is interesting about the quantum experiments come in now. As there are two openings in the plate, it is expected that there would be two lines on the wall opposite if electrons are shot through. But as against the expectation, what one gets are an intervention pattern and a stripped effect. This is not the expected result. So the matter has been converted into a wave. It can be assumed that electrons were rebounding off each other and creating a wave effect; so if electrons are shot only one at a time, the result should be different. But the result does not vary. This may happen if the electron break into wave like particles, when it strikes against the plate, then goes through the openings and then mixes with itself after it emerges from the plate. This results when matter is reacting like a wave, or rather a solid is reacting like a liquid. The world has perhaps too many mysteries that we do not understand.
Despite the apparent ’solidness’ of this world that we live in, it would appear that actually we live in a world that is more like a liquid – liquid energy or flux, which behaves like liquids in our physical world. And as we know from simple physics that fluids of a similar nature always come together and those of a dissimilar nature move apart and separate into clear areas of distinction. Oil and water is a simple example of this. Chromatography also shows the effect very graphically when a single substance can separate into its individual substances in clear bands much like how large groups of people split off into smaller groups of similar interest, energy or intention.
The key is that when we give we feel joyful and experience joy. As a giver we receive the most divine gifts of all the gift of joy. Often we think that it is the receiver of a gift that receives something and it often overlooked that the giver actually is the greatest receiver. If you’re not too sure about this, then watch yourself around children and see how you feel when you give to them and observe how you feel no matter how they respond.
When we recognize that it is to we ourselves that we are giving when we make the gesture of giving and we do it for the gratification we feel, we have the clue. This clue opens the door of comprehension of giving. And when we give repetitively the force builds up with a snowballing effect enlarging more and more the more we pour to it with our continuous gifting.
The fact that we feel joyful when we give changes our energy literally – we feel better and in that moment we are more attractive to other people. Have you experienced someone on the street selling something that you don’t want such as tissues and normally you do not buy, but one day you do and the only reason why is because the person is happy and smiling? You may have experienced the same with buskers playing music on the street.
Someone who is joyful exudes a natural attraction that draws others in and in doing so draws in better life experiences. It is simple. They attract to them those who are either wanting to experience that feeling or those who already experience it.
Similar to water and oil, givers and non-givers tend to collect together in different places. And the greatest place to get something is a place where givers come together! But of course you will be allowed entry into that group only if you are ready to give! Givers relish to give to those who love to give.
So even if we may turn to quantum physics for our solutions, they are very much there right in front of us. Similar attracts similar – simple. Wherever you look you see this going on. Lions group together with lions, students interact with students, women form groups with women, men makes friends with men, ‘poor’ likes to be with ‘poor’ people and ‘rich’ with ‘rich’ people. And in the same way – givers prefer the company of givers.
So if you give from a sense of self-reproach then it will only boomerang on you – you will just attract to you like-minded others who have a guilt complex and cannot be contented and delighted. The borderline between remorse and anger is narrow; so people gifting things out of a sense of guilt tend to turn in that direction. Joy is one of the highest of human emotions – and from there one can only turn to love – and that is what all of us are forever searching for.
So when you initiate the act of giving, you are very close to knowing perfect love – really wonderful to know that it is. More so as we know that most people are continuously trying to find love. We now know that the answer is so easy – begin giving! And gifting money is only an aspect of giving – giving on the whole will create a special place of joy for us, no matter how ‘little’ the amount.
There is also an emotional aspect to giving consistently. This aspect might not in the beginning appear to have connections to the sensation of joy – in the end it completely bonds us to the absolute bliss of joy.
When we share an item with someone – particularly something that we ourselves do not possess in abundance – we are sending a persuasive communication to our own brain that life is trustworthy. When we give something and later analyse the act we are connecting with the trust. The converse of trust is terror. So again, a group of terrified people are not likely to be happy and fine and so no one would find them appealing. On the other hand, a gathering of trustful people would themselves be happy and would attract many others to share their perfection. So finally when we believe the belief gets transformed into happiness and again we are very near to love – the most important thing that all of us are searching for.
The sum and substance of what has been ignored for years is fully in front of us for anyone to bond with in finely. For Christmas my son got a good amount of money. I queried him as to what he planned to do with all that money. He replied that he wanted to set aside almost whole of it. Then I enquired how much of it he would like to give to someone. It was something that he had not even taken into account until I introduced the idea. What would be the result if upon receiving anything our first consideration was to give away part of it – do you think we would know delight in abundance?
Transaction based giving – or transaction based philanthropy
This takes us to the force of transactional giving. Many enterprises give when they have enough of money to give. When they do not have much they do not prefer to give. So their possible levels of joy fluctuate depending upon market variations – they do not have any restraint. But whoever gives EVERY time they get something is in charge and has their relationship with perfect joy forever.
Transactional giving rather than single payments is connected with the ups and downs of profit so it is an easy way of giving. The rule is that whenever you get something you give proportionately – easy. If you have a bad season you might give, but less depending on sales. And when business is better one can give more.
One of the key powers of transaction based giving is that you can share the joy of giving so easily with all stakeholders – customers/community – staff – and business. Because a customer knows that when they buy from you they get to give without it costing them anything except the energy to choose and shop with you they feel ownership of the giving – hence traditional CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility, coverts readily to Customer Social Responsibility, with your customer being able to powerfully respond to the giving by talking about you and have an additional emotional albeit intangible reason, for choosing to continue shopping with you.
Your personnel will also be able to partake in the happiness of giving as every time they manage to close a sale, they realise that they have managed to give something to a needy person. This is an extremely satisfying experience especially in a team as it can get converted into motivating the team and encouraging the staff.
Any commercial transaction, including profitless ventures, can do Buy1GIVE1 transaction-based giving – there are absolutely no prohibition to entering and the business decides most of it. The charity amount per operation starts from just a single cent and rises up to any amount of dollars with each venture choosing his or her own level of donating and giving to help and support completely based upon their business type and productivity. There is absolutely no reason to refuse to donate in this manner when the advantages of giving are so endless. Commercial ventures that are presently giving to a purpose can change very fast and without difficulty to Buy1GIVE1 transaction-based giving while continuing to support the same issue delivering more visible results to their enterprise.
When the game is over business -based giving is a present day form of tithing that is practical and possible for anyone, at any place. Now that we realise that it is not about the actual money that we give such as a tenth of the income, but only the fact that we are gifting it that makes the change. When we enter the fraternity of donors we move into a special and fortunate world that only those who give to others are allowed to enter. And unless you start giving today itself, you just may not start doing it and might never will till you start. So begin today.
‘We’re not here to give in order ‘to get’. We’re here to have more to give more.
Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing. This and other unique content ‘business’ articles are available with free reprint rights.
David Anttony Business Business, giving, Marketing, self-help, spirituality, tything, women