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NASB | Acts 13:39 and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 13:39 and through Him everyone who believes [who acknowledges Jesus as Lord and Savior and follows Him] is justified and declared free of guilt from all things, from which you could not be justified and freed of guilt through the Law of Moses. |
Subject: tithing |
Bible Note: In addressing the Christians at Corinth, Paul entered more fully into the right of Christian ministers to the support of the faithful, I Corinthians 16:1, whilst to the Christians at Rome, his words on the subject of almsgiving may serve as a broad general principle for all churches. "If the Gentiles have been made partakers of their [the Christian Jews'] spiritual things, they [the Gentiles] owe it to them [the Christian Jews] also to minister unto them in carnal things," Romans 15:27. The Christians of Philippi, likewise, may be mentioned in this connection, their liberality being recognized by the apostle, who wrote that "in the beginning of the Gospel no church had fellowship with me in the matter of giving and receiving, but ye only: for even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my need," Phil.4:15-17. There were other churches where, for good reasons, Paul chose to forego personal remuneration, I Cor.9:12, but he did not thereby give up his right thereto; for, with the Corinthian Christians, he argues thus: "Have we no right to eat and to drink? . . . What soldier ever serveth at his own charges? . . . If we sowed unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we shall reap your carnal things? . . . Know ye not that they which minister about sacred things eat of things of the temple, and they which wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar? Even so did the Lord ordain that they which proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel," I Cor.9:4-14. Here the apostle seems to have in mind two sources of maintenance for the Jewish priesthood. The one probably included tithes brought to the storehouse of the temple, Nehemiah 10:37-40, and the other consisted of those portions of the sacrifices which were brought to the altar and retained by the priest, Deuteronomy 18:3, as signified by the words: "They which wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar." Some may contend, however, that the law was abrogated under the Gospel. If so, how much of the law, and in what sense? Is the law so abrogated as that we may now, at our pleasure, murder, lie, and steal? Would that all who for excuse argue that the law is abolished, and so try to evade their responsibility as to setting aside a proportion of their income for God, could be thus quickly convinced! Have we not already seen that Christ came to fulfill the law -- to confirm it to the least iota? Matthew 5:17-18, and fulfilling is the perfecting, not the destruction, of anything. Hence the payment of tithes and offerings applicable to the support of the ministry, and to other religious and charitable works, is clearly the duty of Christians, unless it can be shown that Christ repealed God's law previously promulgated. And this, as Leslie writes (Divine Right of Tithes, Toronto edition, p. 81): "He never did, but rather confirmed it by approving the tithe payments of the Pharisees, and by ordaining that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. Some would have the Gospel merely eleemosynary -- nothing due, but all freewill offerings. But was this so in the Temple? I trow not: for though there were freewill offerings, there were also tithes and other offerings, the withholding of which was counted as robbery. Moreover, if the ministers of the Temple were sure of at least a tenth, whilst the ministers of the Gospel are not sure of a hundredth part of some men's incomes, where is the truth or appropriateness of the apostle's comparison?" Besides, what was it that the Lord ordained? That every man should give just what he pleased? This men could do without any ordinance being issued to that end. That which leaves every man perfectly at his own liberty is no law at all; and if every an were left thus to act, Christ ordained what amounted to nothing. [The Rev. Richard Duke, of Stirling, Ontario, an earnest advocate of tithe-paying, in support of his conviction that the tithe law is binding upon Christians, argues thus: 1. It is a principle in jurisprudence that when the reasons which originated a law continue to operate, and there is no explicit repeal of the law, the law remains in force. And this principle appears to have the lucidity and force of an axiom . . . 2. That which passed away was the symbolical and figurative. Tithing was neither one nor the other, but a duty issuing from the moral law, which is of perpetual force. 3. True, there is no formal re-enactment of the law of the tithe. But why should such a formal re-enactment be looked for? The law had not become obsolete; it was not indifferently observed. On the contrary it was conspicuously honored in the observance. Similarly there is no formal re-enactment of the Sabbath law; but Christians recognize the law respecting the seventh of time, and by a parity of reasoning should recognize the law respecting the tenth of substance. "I also agree, your view of tithing is not a true teaching." |