Why Our Family Pays Tithes and Offerings / Lloyd

It’s the end of the year and families, including children, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meet with their Bishop for annual tithing settlement.

Beforehand the ward (congregation) financial clerk provided us with a record of our contributions that year, which include tithing and freewill offerings in addition to tithing such as fast offerings for the poor, humanitarian offerings, and support of young men and women serving two-year proselyting missions.  Families come to tithing settlement having reconciled their records of contributions with Church records. Any differences are researched and corrected.

But the most important purpose of tithing settlement is our annual declaration to the Bishop that we are either full tithe payers, partial tithe payers, or paid no tithing at all. A full tithing is 10% of our annual increase. Our parents taught that we pay 10% of our gross earnings before any deductions. Other families may read that differently, but that is not at issue in our declaration to the Bishop. We declare that we have paid a full tithing that year or less.

Paying a full tithing is one requirement for worthiness to receive authorization from the Bishop to enter the Temple and participate in the most sacred ordinances of the Gospel: including marriage for time and eternity, and proxy baptism and other ordinances for our kindred dead which must be performed in mortality.

Reflecting on tithing, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland outlined reasons for paying tithing, which Judy and I can attest to after 49 years of marriage, raising our children, and paying our tithes and offerings. (Holland, “Like a Watered Garden,” January 2002)

ONE -- We pay our tithing to rightfully claim the blessings promised those who do so. “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Malachi 3:10-11)

TWO -- We pay our tithing as a declaration that possession of material goods and the accumulation of worldly wealth are not the uppermost goals of your existence.

As one young husband and father, living on a student budget, recently told me, “Perhaps our most pivotal moments as Latter-day Saints come when we have to swim directly against the current of the culture in which we live. Tithing provides just such a moment.

Living in a world that emphasizes material acquisition and cultivates distrust for anyone or anything that has designs on our money, we shed that self-absorption to give freely, trustingly, and generously. By this act, we say—indeed—we are different, that we are God’s peculiar people. In a society that tells us money is our most important asset, we declare emphatically it is not.”

THREE -- We pay our tithes and offerings out of honesty and integrity because they are God’s rightful due. Surely one of the most piercing lines in all of scripture is Jehovah’s thundering inquiry, “Will a man rob God?” And we ask, “Wherein have we robbed thee?” He answers, “In tithes and offerings.”(Malachi 3:8-9)  Paying tithing is not a token gift we are somehow charitably bestowing upon God. Paying tithing is discharging a debt.

FOUR -- We pay our tithes and offerings as a personal expression of love to a generous and merciful Father in Heaven. Through His grace God has dealt bread to the hungry and clothing to the poor. At various times in our lives that will include all of us, either temporally or spiritually speaking.

The Terrible Plight of Wealthy North America / Lloyd

 Having seen great poverty in other countries, I understand that in comparison the majority of men and women in this country are unbelievably wealthy -- no matter what we ourselves think.

Thus this scripture potentially applies nationwide:  

16 Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved! (Doctrine & Covenants 56:16)

The Consecration and Stewardship of Property is dramatically documented in the New Testament. First, consider this account of the Rich Ruler in Luke 18:18-26:

18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? . . .

20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.

21 And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.

22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.

24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

26 And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved?

Second, I recently recognized that the account of the Rich Ruler was preface, or foreshadowing, and the key to understanding “voluntarily having all things in common” as administered by the Apostles in the primitive Church of Jesus Christ. The importance of authentic and honest, voluntary agency is dramatically illustrated in this account of the Apostle Peter, Ananias, and Sapphira (Acts: 1-11). Entrance into covenants with God is voluntary. But once under covenant, He holds us accountable, and penalties apply.

1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,

2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.

5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.

6 And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.

7 And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.

8 And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.

9 Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.

10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.

11 And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.

Finally, compare these New Testament accounts of having all things in common with the Doctrine and Covenants.  Living the Law of Consecration and stewardship of property was attempted in the Church but temporarily modified until we increase in love for others and in faith and love for Jesus Christ to fully live the law of the Zion and of the Celestial Kingdom:

29 If thou lovest me thou shalt serve me and keep all my commandments.

30 And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support that which thou hast to impart unto them, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken.

31 And inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me; and they shall be laid before the bishop of my church and his counselors, two of the elders, or high priests, such as he shall appoint or has appointed and set apart for that purpose.

32 And it shall come to pass, that after they are laid before the bishop of my church, and after that he has received these testimonies concerning the consecration of the properties of my church, that they cannot be taken from the church, agreeable to my commandments, every man shall be made accountable unto me, a steward over his own property, or that which he has received by consecration, as much as is sufficient for himself and family.

33 And again, if there shall be properties in the hands of the church, or any individuals of it, more than is necessary for their support after this first consecration, which is a residue to be consecrated unto the bishop, it shall be kept to administer to those who have not, from time to time, that every man who has need may be amply supplied and receive according to his wants.

34 Therefore, the residue shall be kept in my storehouse, to administer to the poor and the needy, as shall be appointed by the high council of the church, and the bishop and his council; (D&C 42: 29-34)

When we consider the current enmity towards war refugees and toward undocumented families in our country, we're reminded of an incident when the United States refused protection and succor to Jewish refugees fleeing the Third Reich.  

“On 13 May 1939, more than 900 Jews fled Germany aboard a luxury cruise liner, the SS St Louis. They hoped to reach Cuba and then travel to the US - but were turned away in Havana.

“The captain then steered the St Louis towards the Florida coast, but the US authorities also refused it the right to dock, despite direct appeals to President Franklin Roosevelt. Granston thinks he too was worried about the potential flood of migrants.

“They were forced to return to Europe, where more than 250 were killed by the Nazis.” (https://goo.gl/lNqOA7)

“Wo unto [us], rich men, that [judge unrighteous judgement and] will not give our substance to [those in desperate need], for our riches will canker our souls; and this shall be our lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!”

America's Pride: Selfish Rich and Greedy Poor / Lloyd

In successive years members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints place study emphasis on a canonical book of scripture: the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, or Doctrine and Covenants.

In 2016  The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ was the year’s course of study. We learned that Pride was the deadly Disease that caused the denial of Jesus Christ and consequent total destruction of the Nephite and Jaredite Civilizations in Ancient America.

In 2017 The Doctrine and Covenants will be the year’s course of study. And unlike the historical and distinctive cultural perspectives of the Bible and Book of Mormon this study will be uncomfortably close to home. We will study the destructiveness of Pride in modern North American Culture.

Over and over again we will confront the corrosive and dysfunctional symptoms of Pride: the Greedy Rich and the Selfish Poor. Both factions were abundantly evident in this past election. (https://goo.gl/HveNmf)

The Selfish Rich

16 Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!

The Greedy Poor

17 Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!