Why Do We Give Money to the Church?
Why do we give money to the Church?
This is a question we might recoil at. While we’re happy to discuss 501(c)(3) statuses and potential loans turned to grants (which are worthy topics of discussion in their own right), does it strike you as odd that we rarely discuss giving money to the Church?
It feels awkward, if I can use that word again. It doesn’t feel quite right to our sensibilities. We squirm when people start talking about money.
Let’s burst that bubble. Let me ask again: Why do we give money to the Church?
I’ll be honest. I’m not interested in your family budget, ways to trim the extras to the bare necessities, and therefore get more for the Church. Neither am I very interested in the amount you’re giving. I don’t care to discuss percentages, whether we give pre- or post-tax, or whether you earmark the money. While these are worthy conversations to have, for the purposes of today's discussion I want to get more basic.
So I’ll ask it again: Why do we give money to the Church?
There may be a lot of reasons. You may like the building and want to renovate certain parts. You might appreciate the sermons and blogs by the ministry staff, and I pray they edify you. You may recognize the Church is uniquely gifted to care for the material needs of others, and you hope to see the deacon’s fund filled with resources for them. Perhaps you’re more pragmatic and know that someone has to pay for the electricity! Above these, and other, good reasons to give to the Church, I hope there is something bigger and greater. I hope your answer includes something like this:
We give to the Church because we want to honor who God is.
God is the reason we gather and sing. God is the reason we pray and listen to sermons. God is the reason we baptize and take communion. God is the reason we are the Church, and he is the reason why we do everything else we do in worship. This leads me to ask myself: Is God the reason I give to the Church? In answering that question, we need to remember 4 biblical principles vital to our understanding of God and giving money to the Church.
God Owns Everything
The Bible is replete with what we call the aseity of God. The aseity of God is familiar to you, though perhaps in different language. Simply put, God is utterly independent from anything.1 This means that God does not need anything from you or me to be God. He does not need us to be happy and joyful, to be lovely or majestic. God is totally and unquestionably self-sufficient. He doesn't need some paper bills with old presidents printed on it.
Yet, in his goodness and graciousness, God decided to create all things by the Word of his power. This means everything in the universe, everything that exists that is not God, owes its existence to him, the independent God. Thus the Psalmist proclaims: For every beast of the forest is mine; the cattle on a thousand hills (Psa 50:10). God does not need sacrifices to exist or to be happy (nor indeed to forgive sins! Heb 10:4), but the Psalmist takes this principle further. Not only does God not need it, but when we offer him things like sacrifices (not any more) or tithe checks, or even things like our homes or our very lives, we are reminded that they were his already.
Allow your mind to sit with that for a moment. God needs nothing, and even the things we try to muster up as offerings are his already!
Now proclaim with the Psalmist: The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein; for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers (Psa 24:1).
God Demands Everything
If God owns everything, then it would seem to follow that God demands everything. This is in fact what Paul says: He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him (Col 1:15-16).
We normally consider this demand in a discussion about sin and righteousness: God demands perfect righteousness and nothing less! While true, this demand for perfection is… well a demand for perfection. Perfection is not just giving utterly and totally of one aspect of our lives, but the entirety of who we are, all the time, to the fullest. This is what it truly means to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matt 22:37). God demands complete and total devotion and adoration. He calls us to give our very bodies as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1).
You see how this relates to money, then. God owns everything; there are no riches we can offer him from our treasure boxes, for they are not only his, but he demands them be given to him. He demands moral, emotional, internal, external, complete and total submission; yes, God demands financial submission from all his people. Cue the squirming.
God Deserves Everything
This discomfort rises up within us because we don’t really like being told someone else owns what I have, and we certainly don’t like being commanded how to use our things, our homes, our time, or our money. Friends, this is because we haven’t seen this ownership-and-demand for what it is. We conceive of this paradigm in our own terms, how we would do it, and what motives we’ve seen others have when making these demands.
Yet, we’ve not considered that God is deserving of everything. God is not just the owner of everything, he is the only worthy owner. Only God is the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God. Only God is all wise, powerful, holy, just, good, and truthful (WSC q. 4). Only God could redeem humanity from our sin, and the Lamb is found to be worthy to take the scroll (Rev 5:6-10). Jesus Christ owns all things and demands all things as the thrice holy and only worthy God; for as he was in the beginning, he is now, and ever shall be. Amen!
Note that this worthiness is on the basis of who God is, not necessarily what he will do with all things. Yet, even in that, God has proven himself worthy. He uses everything for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28), even if others mean it for evil (Gen 50:20). All good and perfect gifts come from his treasure boxes (Jas 1:17). He gives life (what greater treasure?) and life abundantly (Jn 10:10). God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8).
God Uses Everything
We should not be surprised, then, when God uses everything. This is who he is, a glorious, gracious, giving God. Regardless if you give much or give little, God can and will use it for much. Consider all the well known stories of God using the small, unusable, or dispensable: God promises a holy offspring from an unholy couple (Gen 3:15), redemption to a crazy old man (Gen 6-9), a son from an old man and woman (Gen 15:1-6; 17:15-21; 18:9-15), freedom to a scared man with a speech impediment (Exod 3-4), victory to a tiny little nation (Deut 7), a mighty king from an unimpressive stone-slinger (1 Sam 16-17), and countless others.
What was God doing when he came as a lowly man from Nazareth, allowing others to spit ridicule and scorn at him? What abundance did God give in the torture and death of such a man?
Friends, you see God’s using little to bring abundance goes far, far beyond a few loaves of bread and fish. It is nothing for God to bring the manna and quail. While God does not need even an iota of what we have to offer to accomplish his purposes, he demands we give to him everything that we have, so that we would be a part of what he does! This understanding of who God is drove the woman to give all she had to God, a mere two copper pennies, casting her entire livelihood and very being upon God, the owner of cattle on a thousand hills (Luke 21:1-4).
True enough, God does not need us. But God desires us to give all things to him, so that we would be a part of what he is doing for his church, his kingdom, his Gospel, and ultimately what he is doing for his Son, Jesus Christ.
Friends, why do we give money to the Church? The answer is most fundamentally because of God. We give as an act of humility, obedience, and worship. In our giving, God has invited us to participate in his giving for others. For our God is a giving God himself, and calls us to give as he does. And what has God given?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn 3:16).
Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow!
Praise Him all Creatures Here Below!
Praise Him Above, Ye Heavenly Hosts!
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
1 For an excellent discussion of the aseity of God, see Mark Jones, "God is Independent," in God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017), 65-70. I highly recommend the rest of the book, too!