Doctrine · The Life of Grace
Whose Money Is It
The Bible settles the ownership question before any of the hard questions come up. The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. Everything after that — the tenth, the offering, the wages, the will — is about being a manager rather than an owner. Christians differ about the tithe and about prosperity, and this page shows those differences with the teachers who hold each, without handing down a verdict.
THE ARTWORKDe Poorter paints the part of the parable people skip: not the handing out, the handing back. Coin on a table, a master looking at it, servants waiting — the whole subject of this page is that scene, and everybody in Scripture who handles money is eventually standing in it.
Whose It Is
— the question Scripture closes three times, in three different centuriesNothing else on this page makes sense until this is settled. Scripture does not begin with how much to give; it begins with who owns the pile. And it says so at three separate points in Israel’s history — through Moses in the wilderness, through David handing over the temple materials, and through a psalm sung on the way up to worship.
The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.The sentence the rest of this page is a footnote to.
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in heaven and on earth belongs to You. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You are the ruler over all. In Your hands are power and might to exalt and give strength to all. Now therefore, our God, we give You thanks, and we praise Your glorious name. But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? For everything comes from You, and from Your own hand we have given to You.David, at the height of his giving, says he has given God nothing of his own.
You might say in your heart, “The power and strength of my hands have made this wealth for me.” But remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers even to this day.Even the ability to earn it was handed over.
Of thine own have we given thee - For from thy presence all good comes, and of the blessings of thy hands have we given thee. - Targum.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
1 Chronicles 29:14
The Word Is “Manager”
— Luke 16, 1 Corinthians 4, 1 Peter 4 — the same noun, twice about youThe Bible’s vocabulary for this is not devotional, it is administrative. Jesus tells a story about a man who runs an estate he does not own and is called in to show the books. Paul then applies that exact job title to himself, and Peter applies it to every believer. It is a lexical fact before it is a doctrine.
a household manager — 10 times in the whole Bible. Three are the man in Jesus' parable; two are Paul calling himself one; one is Peter calling every believer one. The parable's word for a hired manager is the letters' word for a Christian.
the management, the accounting — 9 times in the whole Bible, and three of them are in Luke 16 alone. “Give an account of thy stewardship” is a bookkeeping sentence, not a poetic one.
Jesus also said to His disciples, “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in to ask, ‘What is this I hear about you? Turn in an account of your management, for you cannot be manager any longer.’The manager is called in and told to produce the books.
So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.Paul takes the same job title for himself — and names the one thing required.
As good stewards of the manifold grace of God, each of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve one another.Peter hands the title to everyone: good managers of the grace of God.
THE ACCOUNT, KEPT THE WAY SCRIPTURE KEEPS IT
from the garden to the reckoning — what was handed over, and what went back
RECEIVED
RENDERED
the garden, to work it and keep it
Genesis 2:15→— the first stewardship, long before money existed
the spoils of four kings
Genesis 14:16→a tenth, handed to Melchizedek (Gen 14:20)
ma'aser · h4643the increase of the field
Proverbs 3:9→the first of it — not the leftover
reshit · h7225the materials for the temple
1 Chronicles 29:14→“of thine own have we given thee”
five talents, two talents, one talent
Matthew 25:15→doubled · doubled · buried
talanton · g5007another man's goods, to manage
Luke 16:1→“give an account of thy stewardship”
oikonomos · g3623the manifold grace of God
1 Peter 4:10→“as good stewards” — the same word, now of you
oikonomos · g3623Christ's own riches, through his poverty
2 Corinthians 8:9→cheerfully, as purposed in the heart
hilaros · g2431
AND THE LINE UNDER THE WHOLE COLUMN
Psalm 24:1 is not the last item in the left column. It is the statement that the left column was never anyone’s property in the first place — which is why nothing in the right column is generosity, and all of it is accounting.
Psalm 24:1 →The Tenth
— three readings, and the teachers who hold eachThe tenth shows up in Scripture before the law and inside the law, and the New Testament never mentions it again. Those three facts are what the whole disagreement is made of, and each of the readings below is holding all three.
Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine—since he was priest of God Most High— and he blessed Abram and said: “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of everything.Abram gives a tenth to Melchizedek — four centuries before Sinai.
Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you ask, ‘How do we rob You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.Withholding it is called robbery, and a promise is attached to bringing it.
Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your harvest; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.Honour the LORD with the first of your increase, not what is left.
a tenth — 32 times in the Bible. Genesis 14:20 has it four hundred years before the law was given; Malachi has it as a standing obligation. Both facts live inside the same word.
the first of — 51 times in the Bible, and it is the same noun that opens Genesis 1:1. Proverbs 3:9 asks for the first of the increase: the order it comes in is the point.
Still required
The tenth is a standing obligation, and Malachi’s language of robbery is taken at face value along with the promise attached to it. This is the ordinary teaching across much of the Pentecostal and Wesleyan-Holiness stream, including Kenneth Hagin, for whom giving is joined to covenant expectation. In the older writers it is carried by Adam Clarke, whose note on Malachi 3:10 is the warmest statement of it in the public-domain record.
Bring ye all the tithes - They had so withheld these that the priests had not food enough to support life, and the sacred service was interrupted. See Neh 13:10. And prove me now herewith - What ye give to God shall never lessen your store. Give as ye should, and see whether I will not so increase your store by opening the windows of heaven - giving you rain and fruitful seasons - that your barns and granaries shall not be able to contain the abundance of your harvests and vintage.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Malachi 3:10
And the historical detail most sermons on this passage leave out — what the robbery actually consisted of:
But they appropriated all the tithes, robbing the Levites of their due nine-tenths; as they did also, according to JOSEPHUS, before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Thus doubly God was defrauded, the priests not discharging aright their sacrificial duties, and robbing God of the services of the Levites, who were driven away by destitution [GROTIUS].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Malachi 3:8
A principle older than the law
Abram tithes to Melchizedek four hundred years before Sinai, and Jacob vows a tenth in Genesis 28:22 — so the tenth is not a Mosaic invention. But the Levitical tithe belonged to a Levitical system that no longer exists. On this reading the tenth is a benchmark rather than a statute: a proportion Scripture keeps reaching for, without a courtroom behind it.
he gave him tithes of all--Here is an evidence of Abram's piety, as well as of his valor; for it was to a priest or official mediator between God and him that Abram gave a tenth of the spoil--a token of his gratitude and in honor of a divine ordinance (Pr 3:9).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Genesis 14:20
And he gave him tithes - A tenth part of all the spoils he had taken from the confederate kings. These Abram gave as a tribute to the most high God, who, being the possessor of heaven and earth, dispenses all spiritual and temporal favors, and demands the gratitude, and submissive, loving obedience, of all his subjects. Almost all nations of the earth have agreed in giving a tenth part of their property to be employed in religious uses.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Genesis 14:20
Giving set free from percentages
On this reading the tenth belonged to Israel’s covenant order along with the Levites it paid for, and what the church is asked for is different in kind rather than smaller in size. It is the ordinary reading across much of the Reformed and free-church world, and the passage it stands on is the next section of this page.
What the New Testament does not say — named as silence, not filled inthe honest state of the evidence
The New Testament never repeats the tithe command to the church. It also never revokes it. Both halves of that are true, and neither one is an argument.
A page that turns the first half into “the tithe is abolished” and a page that turns the second half into “the tithe is binding” are both filling a silence with a conclusion the text did not supply. This page names the silence and leaves it standing.
What Paul Asks For Instead
— 2 Corinthians 8–9 — four criteria, no percentagePaul is raising money for famine relief in Jerusalem, and he has two chapters to do it in. He never sets a rate. He asks that it be purposed in the heart, not grudging, not forced, and cheerful — and he measures it against what a person actually has, not against what they do not. Then he puts the whole appeal on a different footing entirely.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.The motive is Christ's own poverty, not a statute.
For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.Measured by what a person has — never by what they have not.
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not out of regret or compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.As he purposes in his heart: not grudgingly, not of necessity.
1 OCCURRENCE IN THE WHOLE BIBLE
Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not out of regret or compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:7 →'For have in mind,' says he, 'ponder and consider the grace of God and do not lightly pass it by, but aim at realizing the greatness of it both as to extent and nature, and thou wilt grudge nothing of thine. He emptied Himself of His glory that ye, not through His riches but through His poverty, might be rich. If thou believest not that poverty is productive of riches, have in mind thy Lord and thou wilt doubt no longer. For had He not become poor, thou wouldest not have become rich. For this is the marvel, that poverty hath made riches rich.'
John Chrysostom· Homily 17 on 2 Corinthians, 407Church Father
2 Corinthians 8:9
"Let each man do according as he hath purposed in his heart." For a man when left to himself, does a thing more readily than when compelled. Wherefore also he dwells upon this: for having said, "according as he is disposed," he added, "Not grudgingly, nor of necessity." And neither was he content with this, but he adds a testimony from Scripture also, saying, "For God loveth a cheerful giver." Seest thou how frequently he lays this down?
John Chrysostom· Homily 19 on 2 Corinthians, 407Church Father
2 Corinthians 9:7
People who give reluctantly or under compulsion present a blemished sacrifice which should not be accepted.
Basil of Caesarea· The Long Rules 29, 379Church Father
2 Corinthians 9:7
Persons sometimes will give merely to satisfy the importunity of those who ask their charity, and what they give is in a manner squeezed or forced from them, and this unwillingness spoils all they do.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Reformed
2 Corinthians 9:7
THE ARTWORKPacher paints what 2 Corinthians 8–9 turned into on the ground: a deacon handing out the church’s money to the poor, one person at a time. The collection Paul was raising was famine relief for real people, and the church has been doing this with it ever since.
Michael Pacher, St Lawrence Distributing the Alms (c. 1465–1470) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Money, and the Love of It
— both halves of 1 Timothy 6 — because quoting one would be dishonest to the chapterOne chapter carries the New Testament’s sharpest warning about money and its plainest instruction to people who have it, eleven verses apart. Read together they say something more careful than either says alone: the danger named is not possession, it is attachment — and the remedy prescribed to the wealthy is not poverty, it is generosity.
Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.Godliness with contentment — and a root of all kinds of evil, named precisely.
Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, and to be generous and ready to share, treasuring up for themselves a firm foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.Paul's actual instruction to the rich: do not trust it; be rich in good works.
love of money — and the verse says exactly this much: a root of all kinds of evils is the LOVE of it. The famous misquotation drops that word, and the sentence changes meaning when it goes.
Therefore the man of good counsel says, "I have learned in whatever state I am to be content." For he knew that the root of all evils is the love of money. Therefore he was content with what he had, without seeking for what was another's. Sufficient for me, he says, is what I have. Whether I have little or much, to me it is much.
Ambrose of Milan· On the Duties of the Clergy 2.17.89, 397Church Father
1 Timothy 6:10
Where honoured teachers differ — and how each one frames it
Provision as part of the inheritance
On this reading, material provision is part of what Christ’s redemption secured (Galatians 3:13–14), received by faith and worked out through obedience in giving. Kenneth Hagin set this out in Redeemed from Poverty, Sickness, and Death (1983), and it is held across a wide part of the Word of Faith and Pentecostal stream.
Wealth held at arm’s length
On this reading the believer is a steward passing through, and pursued wealth is a spiritual liability whatever else it is. A.W. Tozer pressed it hard in The Pursuit of God (1948), as did Leonard Ravenhill. Charles Spurgeonargued it with his life as much as his pen: the royalties and gifts that came to him went into the Pastors’ College, the Stockwell Orphanage and the Colportage Association. Among living teachers, Vlad Savchuk gives most of his teaching away free, which is itself a position.
These are brothers reading the same Bible and weighting its promises differently. Both are represented here as they represent themselves, and neither is set against the other.
One thing worth reporting straightSeptember 2019
Benny Hinn publicly stepped back from prosperity-gospel teaching in September 2019, saying he was correcting his own theology and that the Gospel is not for sale.
The other half of the record belongs here too: the statement was received with substantial skepticism, because similar statements had been made before. Both halves are reported; no verdict is offered on either.
And a warning from 1832 against the crudest misuse of Jesus’ own words about money — the idea that ill-gotten wealth can be laundered into a place in the kingdom. Adam Clarke shuts it down flatly.
The mammon of unrighteousness - Μαμωνα της αδικιας - literally, the mammon, or riches, of injustice. Riches promise Much, and perform Nothing: they excite hope and confidence, and deceive both: in making a man depend on them for happiness, they rob him of the salvation of God and of eternal glory. For these reasons, they are represented as unjust and deceitful.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Luke 16:9
The Two Stories That End in an Accounting
— Matthew 25 and Luke 16 — neither one ends in a percentageTwice Jesus makes stewardship a story, and both times the story ends the same way: somebody comes back and the books are opened. The English word talent, meaning natural ability, comes out of this parable — which is why the parable is so often read as being about skill. In the story it is a weight of silver, and the servants are not being praised for being gifted.
For it is just like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted them with his possessions. To one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent—each according to his own ability. And he went on his journey.A man going abroad hands his property to his servants — each according to ability.
The servant who had received the five talents came and presented five more. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master!’Faithful over a few things — the commendation the whole parable turns on.
Finally, the servant who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Master, I knew that you are a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what belongs to you.’ ‘You wicked, lazy servant!’ replied his master. ‘You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received it back with interest. Therefore take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.The third servant's defence, and the master's answer to it.
a talent — 14 times in the Bible, and 13 of them are inside Matthew 25. It is a weight of silver, roughly twenty years of a labourer's wages. The English word for ability was borrowed from this parable, not the other way round.
Whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will entrust you with true riches? And if you have not been faithful with the belongings of another, who will give you belongings of your own? No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”Faithful in little, faithful in much — and then the line about two masters.
Gregory the Great preached on this parable more than anyone else in the early church, and he noticed the edge in it that comfortable readings sand off: a larger share is a larger reckoning.
This lesson from this Gospel warns us to consider whether those, who seem to have received more in this world than others, shall not be more severely judged by the Author of the world; the greater the gifts, the greater the reckoning for them. Therefore should every one be humble concerning his talents in proportion as he sees himself tied up with a greater responsibility.
Gregory the Great· Catena Aurea by Aquinas, 604Church Father
Matthew 25:15
The servant who returned the doubled talents is praised by the master and led to eternal reward, when it is said to him by the Lord's voice: "Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things; enter into the joy of your lord." For all the goods of the present life are few things, however many they may seem, in comparison with the eternal reward.
Gregory the Great· Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 9, 604Church Father
Matthew 25:21