Brought to you by YReFi. Refi ends your defaulted private student loans today at YReFi.com slash Ramsey. Today's question comes from Daniel in Oklahoma. My church is very big on encouraging its members regarding tithing.
Our church leadership recently said, Do not focus on investment for retirement, but focus on investment given to church and the word of God. Retirement investment can go up and down, but investment in your church and God's word will always prosper. Should we stop investing in order to fund our local church? Well, if, all caps, if a leader of the church said this to an individual, to you, or corporately from the platform, if they said this, this is not biblical, Dave, and so the answer would be a resounding all caps no from us.
It would be a resounding change of churches if someone's done that. Let's walk through what portion of this is accurate, and I don't know if you've twisted this or not, Daniel, or you've heard it through a different lens of some kind. So I'm not positive what church leadership has said, other than what you told us. So we have to go on what you told us because it's the only information we have.
Now, number one, the tithe is not in place of retirement. The tithe is a tenth of your income. The word, when you look it up in the Hebrew or in the Greek, Jesus used the word tithe twice. When you look it up, it literally means tenth.
It means ten percent. And evangelical Christians have taught for over a thousand years that we believe that a tithe, a tenth of our income, goes to our local church to support the work of God. So if you're attending a church, you're an evangelical Christian, that's a standard teaching in a Baptist church, in any kind of normal Protestant church out there, that a tenth of your income, a standard evangelical belief in teaching, I've taught it for 30 years, and I tithe a tenth of my income in my local church. That's what I believe.
I believe that to be biblically correct. Above that ten percent is not more tithe. Because by definition, you can't say, I'm going to tithe more than ten percent because the word means ten percent. So anything above that is called an offering to support the kingdom of God or to support the community work that the church is doing, which is good work usually.
And so, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. And you do want to be doing a portion, if not a good portion, of your generosity in your budget to things that are eternity-oriented, where moth and rust don't destroy, which this person said. Retirement investment can go up and down, but investment into the kingdom of God. They said church and God's word.
You're not actually giving God's word money. You're following God's word when you give money into God's kingdom. God's word is the scriptures. You don't give the Bible money.
That's incorrectly stated. That's why I'm kind of thinking, Daniel, you've misinterpreted this or heard some of it wrong. I don't know. I hate to accuse your pastor of craziness, but just the way you presented this, it sounds like crazy.
So, yes, I tithe, and yes, you should put money where moth and rust don't destroy. You should put money towards things that matter in eternity, not things that matter short-term. And retirement compared to eternity is short-term. And the Bible says you should save for your needs.
In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. The diligent prosper. These are actual scriptures from the Bible that I just quoted. And so, wise people save money for a rainy day.
They save money for purchases, and they save money in our society to retire with dignity so they don't have someone else having to take care of them. They don't become a charity case of the government or a charity case of their church because they took care of themselves. They were wise. They were diligent, and they prospered.
And in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. So, the Bible very clearly teaches to tithe, to invest money into God's kingdom where moth and rust does not destroy. And the Bible teaches to save and invest. The Lord your God, it says in Deuteronomy, that gives you the power to build wealth.
Hmm. How is that consistent with give it all to the church and don't save any for retirement? It's not consistent. That's what you said in the opening part on this.
Not biblical. Okay? So, this sounds like a money crap, the way you presented it. But that could be that it's how it felt to you, and you changed the words around to match your feeling.
I don't know what was really said by church leadership here. I know what you say they said. And, again, I have to go on that because I don't. But I don't know many churches that would say this.
I agree with you. And we work with tens of thousands of churches across America, and almost none of them say something like this. If someone's actually saying this, it's probably some kind of sick, toxic little small church. There's something going on that's wrong.
If they're actually saying this, give us all the money, don't save anything for retirement, and God will take care of you. That is not what the Bible says. It doesn't say that. And so, you know, we're not going there.
But do I believe in tithing? Yes. Do I believe in giving to eternity? Yes.
Do I believe giving to eternity is more important than saving for retirement? Yes. But it's also important that you do both, according to God's love letter to me, which is called the Bible. My heavenly father, which if we, being evil, know how to give our kids good gifts, how much more so our father in heaven.
Our father says that loves us, that the diligent prosper, and that in the house of the wise are stores of choice, food, and oil. Wise people save money. Diligent people prosper. It's the Lord your God that gives you the power to build wealth.
This is all from his mouth, not from your preacher's mouth. And so that's what you can measure this stuff against to figure out, okay, to what extent is church leadership out of line with what the scripture says? And if they're too far out of line and seem to be self-serving, that's a disqualifier as a place to go. That's right.
You need to leave. That's right. Full stop. You know, you don't hang out in a place that's got, you know, they're trying to milk the cows every Sunday.
That's manipulative. Trying to shear the sheep every Sunday. That's right. It's evil.
That's just nuts. But is it wise? I wish more pastors would do a better job of teaching the importance of giving versus consumption. Because it's better for you.
If you're listening to me, you will have a better life if you consume less as an American. And we consume massive amounts in this country. We spend more on our dogs and cats than most people in other countries spend raising their children. Now you've gone and stepped in it.
Yeah, I know. I did, literally. No pun intended there. And I've got a dog that I like more than most humans.
But that doesn't matter. I mean, we consume. And I'd love for us all to talk about consuming a little less and being a lot more generous. It's just a couple of percentage points.
You could shake this entire country up in ways that would blow your freaking mind. If we said, okay, I'm going to cut back on pet and Christmas and Halloween by 5%. You can fund entire children's hospitals for two years with that amount of money. It's hundreds of millions of dollars.
Would I allow preachers to talk more about that and more about giving into the kingdom of God and the work in the community and charitable work? Yes. But I don't want you doing it this way. If this guy's really doing this, I'm going to call him out and say, no, honey, you're not following the word of God.
And I'll challenge you on that, and I actually know what I'm talking about. And you don't want to get an argument with me on this. It's the only thing I've studied for the last 40 years. I actually know what I'm doing.
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