i had just been directed to this site on tithing by the christzone website. don't know if they support the links or not. the paper is titled "tithing is unscriptural under the new covenant". never heard anything like this before.
http://www.bible-truths.com/tithing.html

the only thing that i can think of regarding your question about where the bible mentions tithing to go to pay church bills, pastors salary is where paul says that he could "rightly" be supported in his ministry by believers, but instead chose to support himself (tentmaking). interesting question. i was just thinking of posting it myself.

My dad is a minister. He went to school for years to get his Bacholars in Music and Masters in Divinity. He then got his Doctorate of Ministry in the 1980's.

I remember growing up and even upto a few years ago when he still worked full time he would spend almost all day Mon-Fri at the church, coordinating things, meeting people for cousuling, going to the hospital to visit sick members of the church. He would leave the house at 8-9 and sometimes he would not get home until 8 at night because of a meeting with the Deacons or Elders.

He did this along with 2 sermons every Sunday, which he would leave the house at 7am and then not come home until around 1:30 - 2 for Sunday Lunch.

He would do Weddings and Funerals on Saturdays to make a little extra money.

We never had new cars, always used cars, and we always had to live in a manse - until me and my brother and sister moved out on our own.

Minister's are some of the most overworked, underpaid professions there is. My Dad has 3 college degrees, yet doesn't make as much money as most people with 1.

He's probably worked 50-60 hours a week most of his working life.

He's given his life to preaching about God and helping other people. I think he deserves a salary as do most other ministers. I don't think God or Jesus would have a problem with my Dad or any other minister being paid, if its their full time job.


Cheers,
Mike

My opinion is that we as Christians are definitely to give. However, I'm not exactly sure that we are bound to always giving directly to every organization that preaches strongly on tithes. Aside from the obvious situation as described by Mike, there are way too many ministers who are living, as Ev said, riding on the hog (or something like that, anyway :-) I have seen ministers doing just that, preaching every Sunday about how we need to tithe if we want to see a return for our money (doing business with God?) and I see them living way better on our tithes than we could ever hope to live. Some are taking vacations to Disney with their families and buying nice new cars, when people in their congregations are having a hard time meeting their monthly obligations and going without necessities. When I see this kind of thing, I don't feel very compelled to paying a tenth of my income to their folly.

Even in the case that we are still bound by the old covenant commandment of paying our tenth of all our increase ( I dunno, where's R2R?) I for one feel that this tenth is as on to the Lord, and it can be given anywhere that we feel the Lord is leading us. For instance, why could we not consider that giving a tenth of what we receive should go to the needy, such as the hurricane victims right now, and give it as on to the Lord? Why not something like this, instead of feeling an obligation to give to a ministry or pastor who is doing better sometimes than most of us. Yes, there are many pastors who live the way Mike described his dad, but there are also many others who basically preach when at meetings and then have everyone else do the visitations, counselng, etc. Not only are they paid for all the work, but they have a red carpet rolled out before them, get prayers for themselves and their whole families from visiting ministers and derive a whole lot of benefits that others do not. I don't see anywhere in Scripture where these imbalances are comanded. Many pastors have forgottten thir calling is to be servants of the Most High first, and of the brethren second.

Malachi 3:10 is the text. I do feel it is abused.

I know I owe God 10% of all my gain, but It's hard to give it to someone that you wonder about. Nice house , new car , kids in college.

Should our money go to some one that's out of our league, Some one that looks down on us?

I'm not sure that giving a sermon and some meeting time are worth more than the hard work some people do. He only talks to people that come to him.

I have been in pain about this for some time now. I have been giving my 10% to the people that are reaching out instead of my church. I hope God will agree with that.

I'm wondering if you may feel the same way. This has been on my mind too.