Summary: The need for tithe and offerings to sustain God’s work is even more urgently necessary than it was in the Hebrew economy and the tithe is to be used to support the ministry of God.
In the days of Israel the tithe and freewill offerings were needed to maintain the ordinances of divine service. Should the people of God give less in this age? . . . As our blessings and privileges are increased--above all, as we have before us the unparalleled sacrifice of the glorious Son of God--should not our gratitude find expression in more abundant gifts to extend to others the message of salvation? The work of the gospel, as it widens, requires greater provision to sustain it than was called for anciently; and this makes the law of tithe and offerings of even more urgent necessity now than under the Hebrew economy. If His people were liberally to sustain His cause by their voluntary gifts, instead of resorting to unchristian and unhallowed methods to fill the treasury, God would be honored, and many more should would be won to Christ.--Patriarchs and Prophets, pp 528, 529.
Read carefully the third chapter of Malachi, and see what God says about the tithe. If our churches will take their stand upon the Lord’s word, and be faithful in paying their tithe into his treasury, his laborers will be encouraged to take up ministerial work. . . .The tithe is the Lord’s and those who meddle with it will be punished with the loss of their heavenly treasure unless they repent. Let the work no longer be hedged up because the tithe has been diverted into various channels other than the one to which the Lord said it should go. Provision is to be made for these other lines of work. They are to be sustained, but not from the tithe. God has not changed. The tithe is to be used for the support of the ministry. The opening of new fields requires more ministerial efficiency than we now have and there must be means in the treasury.-- The Use of the Tithe, Echoes From the Field, June 21, 1905.
