by David Anttony
History of Tithing
The origins of tithing can be traced to the Bible, still it is customary among many non-Christians as well as Christians to do some kind of tithing today.
Tithe is conventionally a Christian term that signifies the contribution of one tenth of one’s earnings as donation to one’s Church as a type of Church giving. However, every other religious system has similar practices within itself. In Islam the word used is ‘Zakat’. In the Sikh religion of India the name for it is ‘Dasvandh’ which again signifies setting apart a tenth of one’s earnings for pious acts. It was Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh guru who started the practice. The sacred texts of Hinduism like the Bhagavadgita and the Upanisads state that ‘true alms’ is that which is given as a part of one’s duty in the right place and at the right time to a worthy individual, from whom nothing is expected 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 a case in point where a church tax is mandatory for members of the Church of Denmark. The tax varies in different municipalities. It is mostly about 1% of the taxable income. And in Finland members of state churches have to pay a church tax ranging between 1% and 2.25% of their earnings and the Church taxes are included into the general national taxation process.
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 practice of giving tithes was mentioned in the Bible, beginning with the gift from Abraham to the Canaanite king and priest Melchizedek (Genesis 14:20). Tithes were also given in ancient Lydia, Arabia and Carthage. Tithes were adopted by the early Christian church, being mentioned in councils at Tours in 567 and at Macon in 585. They were formally recognised under Pope Adrian I in 787.
Tithing in some Christian churches is controversial because it applies an Old Testament process to a New Testament organisation (the Church). No evidence exists in the New Testament for the tithe to be applied to Christians. Indeed, only Jews living in the promised land were required to pay the tithe in the Old Testament, as it was actually a form of income tax used to support not only the government of Old Testament Israel, but also the temple and the priesthood.
Current day Tithing
Despite it’s origins in the Bible and ancient Christianity, today it is a special way to give every time you receive. Giving EVERY time you receive is such a powerful form of giving because it allows the giver to experience something incredibly powerful - more on that later.
Let us have a little more of history. Malachi 3:10 is the section of the Bible that Christians hold in importance when they deliberate on tithing. Many Christians do tithe to their church as they feel that they are duty bound to do as per the rules of the Bible. Many Churches have all throughout maintained that their members should tithe to the church to help it conduct its activities. The core of giving is its voluntary nature and its delightful experience, without which it does not get its ideal effect - if in fact you are hoping to create an ideal effect by giving.
Controversy about Tithing
Tithing has often been a controversial subject.The question of should a Christian pay tithe is often raised in many Christian circles.
An article has been published in Wall Street Journal about tithing under the title ‘The Backlash Against Tithing’, in which the writer Suzanne Sataline says, ‘As Churches push donations, congregants balk; ‘that’s not the way God works’.’
Unfortunately, the potent mix of ideology, power equations, and a narrow perspective, can often give rise to a Jekyll and Hyde situation - the perfection of giving being lost in the mishmash and mix-up of mysticism. Despite the conflict, tithing is still a complete and amazingly forceful action that anyone can carry on to turn their lives around to come face to face with a more plentiful direction.
For those who are desirous of understanding the Christian perspective of tithing there is unlimited material available to read. For those who are interested in understanding the reason WHY tithing is so wonderful, continue reading.
Why is Tithing so amazing?
This is indeed a powerful question because if you just mindlessly follow something without knowing some key background pointers you may be heading 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 look at the real ‘why’ of how regular giving creates more we have to move into the world of Quantum Physics and Quantum Mechanics. The laws in this world are not the same as in our physical or Newtonian world.
The film ‘What the Bleep’ explains the quantum world through examples that can be understood by the layman. The link below explains things about how matter turns into waves and acts like fluids when viewed through a quantum physics lens: 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 experiment is conducted by using an energy wave that reacts the way a water wave does, one gets a foreseeable result. As the wave strikes the plate it rebounds off the plate but where there is the opening, a part of the wave goes across through the opening. Coming out of the other side of the opening, the surging water moves out in the pattern of an arc, resulting in a new wave just as in the old laboratory tests done in schools in analysing wave patterns. As the surge of water strikes the wall across, it will have maximum force in the middle straight opposite the opening and will have lesser force all across the wall. This is exactly like the line the electrons make.
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.
Here is where the whole experiment takes on an entirely different direction. When electrons are sent through the two cuts in the plate, what should ordinarily result are two lines in the wall opposite. On the contrary what one sees is a stripped appearance with an intersecting pattern. This is unbelievable. The matter seems to have been turned into a wave. We can perhaps imagine that electrons were hitting against each other and ricocheting and causing a wave pattern; so if electrons are sent across separately the result should be different. But it is not, it is the same. The explanation has to be that the electron leaves as a single particle, and splits into a wave on collision with the plate, then goes across through the cuts and intervenes with itself after that on the other side. This idea of solid having fluid properties -or mattering acting like a wave - is totally surprising. The world is much more than we understand it to be.
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 secret of it all is that when we give we feel delighted and know utmost joy. As a donor we get the best of gifts, which is the gift of contentment. Often we think that it is the one who gets a gift that gets the thing and thus overlook the fact that the giver is the real getter. If anybody is in doubt about this equation, then look at yourself with kids around and observe how intently you feel when you give to them and how much you enjoy irrespective of how they respond.
When we understand that we are first giving to ourselves when we give and that we do this because we want to feel joy then we have a key. This key unlocks the door of understanding to giving. And when we give repeatedly the momentum builds up just like a wave getting bigger and bigger the more we add to it with our giving.
The reality that we feel contented when we give someone something modify our perspective literally - we feel empowered and on that instant we appear more beautiful to others. There may be peddlers on the street offering napkins or other sundry things that one is not in need of, but one day you may buy it just to see that smile lighting up the face of the peddler in relief and thankfulness. It is the same satisfaction one gets by responding to a street musician.
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.
So just like water and oil, givers and non-givers gather in separate areas. And the best place to receive something is in a place where givers hang out! But of course you can only stay in the giving group while you give! Givers love to give to those who give.
We may be able to look at quantum physics for resolving things, but these are very much in front of us all the time. Alike attracts alike - right. See what is going on all over the world. Lions like to be with lions, students like to be with students, women prefer the company of women, guys like other guys, ‘poor’ people prefer to be with ‘poor’ people and ‘rich’ people like to form groups with ‘rich’ people. And yes - givers like to make friends with givers.
So those who give out of remorse cannot benefit from it - it will only help in attracting to him others with similar guilt complexes who are not able to sense joy or ecstasy. Guilt is very close to anger in the ladder of negative emotions; for those who give out of a sense of self-reproach anger might be their next step in understanding things. Joy is very near the pinnacle of human sensations - you can graduate from there only to love - something that everyone is trying to do.
When a person starts giving he is just a couple of steps away from love - rather surprising to realize that isn’t it. Particularly because most people are frantically searching for love. Now we know the answer is straightforward -start giving! And giving money is not the beginning and end of it, it is only a small part of giving - it will generate a niche of joy for us, however small what is given.
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 gift a thing - especially a thing which is definitely not in surplus in our lives, we are sending a strong message to ourselves that life is reliable. When we have accomplished the act of giving and afterwards see that act in retrospect we understand that we can form a perfect relationship with that reliability. The opposite of reliability is fright. A group of frightened people are unlikely to be happy and delighted and so will not be able to attract any one. On the contrary, a group of reliable people would be contented and so would be quite appealing to those who are seeking such enriching experiences. At the end of the day, when reliability gets transformed into delight and again we find ourselves very close to that which we yearn most - love.
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 donating - or transaction based benevolence
This shows us the way to the potency of transactional giving. Many organisations give when they have plenty of money. When they do not have extra they choose not to give. Due to this their level of happiness rise and fall on the basis of market fluctuations - they have no regulation over it. But those who share EVERY time they get are in command and bond with their feeling of joy consistently.
Transactional giving rather than total giving is based on the highs and lows of business and so is a self-evident way of giving. The method is that when you get something you also give something - straightforward. If your business is bad you might give but according to the income. And when business is marking a rising graph, giving can also improve.
A key factor of transaction based venture is that a person can celebrate the joy of giving mutually with everyone involved - clientele/commune - personnel - and venture itself. A customer knows that when he buys from a business he is giving without having to expend anything other than the time to select and buy from that outlet he experiences the power of giving - reason for the conventional CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility, to change instantly to Customer Social Responsibility, with the ability of the customer to effectively respond to the sharing by valuing the venture and have that added sensitive though subtle reason, for opting to do business with the venture.
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 business, including startups with no profit, can do Buy1GIVE1 transaction-based giving - there literally are no barriers to entry and the business controls everything. The contribution amount per transaction starts from just one cent and goes up to thousands of dollars with each business choosing their own level of giving and charity cause project to support depending on their business type and profitability. There is simply no reason not to give this way when the benefits of giving are so numerous. Businesses who are currently giving to a cause can usually convert very quickly and easily to Buy1GIVE1 transaction-based giving while still supporting the same cause providing extra tangible benefits to the business.
At the end of the day commercialised giving is the current day reincarnation of tithing that is simple and manageable for any person, anywhere. Now that we recognize that it is not about the amount that we give such as a specific percentage, but only about the fact that we are giving that is making all that effect. When we enter the brotherhood of givers we move into a restricted and exclusive world that only those who give can enter. And if you do not begin giving today, you may not ‘get’ giving and never will till you begin. So get going.
‘We’re not here to give in order ‘to get’. We’re here to have more to give more.
About the Author:
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