Chronicle of Tithing

The origins of tithing can be found in the Bible, yet many Christians and non-Christians alike, practice some form of tithing today.

Tithe is a traditionally a Christian term that means to contribute one tenth of your income to charity or to your Church as a form of Chrch giving. However it has similarities with practices in other religious cultures. In Islam it is called ‘Zakat’. In India the Sikh religion also provides for such practice called ‘Dasvandh’ meaning one-tenth part of income to be devoted for religious purposes. Tenth Master Guru Gobind Singh started this practice. In Classical Indian society the Upanisads and the Bhagavadgita commend ‘true alms’ given with a sense of duty in a fit place and at a fit time to a deserving person from whom one expects nothing in return.

The word tithe derives from the Hebrew word ‘asair’, which means to donate one-tenth portion of something, mostly a person’s earnings. Nowadays tithes or tithing is optional and is given in cash. Still, in some European countries church can demand tithing and thus make it enforceable by law.

Denmark is a case in point where a church tax is mandatory for members of the Church of Denmark. The tax varies in different municipalities. It is mostly about 1% of the taxable income. And in Finland members of state churches have to pay a church tax ranging between 1% and 2.25% of their earnings and the Church taxes are included into the general national taxation process.

However the practice of regular tithes was not established until after Exodus. Tithes were common throughout the ancient Near East, as well as in later Lydia, Arabia, and Carthage.

The Hebrew habit of tithing is recorded in the Bible, the first mention being the gift from Abraham to the Canaanite priest and king Melchizedek (Genesis–:20). Ancient Arabia, Lydia and Carthage were places where the custom of tithes existed. Tithing was implemented by the early Christian church, and had found mention in councils at Macon in 585 and at Tours in 567. They were granted formal recognition during the time of Pope Adrian I in 787.

Tithing in certain Christian churches is a disputed issue as it deals with an Old Testament process to a New Testament institution (the Church). There is no proof in the New Testament that tithing can be applied to Christians. In fact, it was obligatory only on those Jews who were living in the Promised Land to pay the tithe according to the Old Testament, as it was in reality a form of income tax required to support not just the government of the Israel of the Old Testament, but also its religious institutions and priests.

Present day Tithing

In spite of its origins in the Bible and olden day Christianity, nowadays it is a perfect way to give every time you get something. Giving EVERY time you get things is such a perfectly beautiful form of giving as it allows the giver to feel in fullness something indescribably powerful – more on that afterwards.

Let us return to history. That section of the Bible that Christians refer to with regard to tithing is Malachi 3:10. Lots of Christians tithe to their church as they feel that they are under obligation to do so according to the Bible. And many Churches then as well as now insist that their members contribute to the church to help it carry on its activities. In spirit though, if the giving is not done out of free will and with a happy intention, it does not accomplish its proper benefit – if in fact you want to create a proper benefit by the gift.

Disagreements about Tithing

Tithing has often been a contentious topic. The issue whether a Christian should pay tithe is often argued in many Christian congregations.

In an article in Wall Street Journal regarding tithing named ‘The Backlash Against Tithing’, Suzanne Sataline says, ‘As Churches push donations, congregants balk; ‘that’s not the way God works’.’

Unfortunately, the mix of ideology, desire to control, and a limited perspective, can often create a Jekyll and Hyde result – the simple purity of giving being lost in the mist and confusion of theology. Despite the controversy, tithing is still a totally and amazingly powerful action that anyone can do to turn their lives around to face a more abundant direction.

For those who are interested in finding out more about a Christian perspective in tithing there are plenty of materials to go through. For those who are keen on knowing the reason WHY tithing is so compelling, what follows will be useful.

Why is Tithing so amazing?

This is indeed a very compelling question because if you just blindly carry on something without any idea of what it indicates, you could be proceeding in the wrong direction.

If more of the people who do regularly practice tithing knew exactly why tithing is effective when done in the full spirit of a perfect gift, then it could possibly release a better yearning to give even more. And for those who give not on a regular basis, it could motivate them to give every time they get something.

To analyse the real ‘why’ of how routine giving leads to more we have to understand something about Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Physics. The laws of these realms vary a lot from that of our own material or Newtonian world.

The picture ‘What the Bleep’ paints the quantum world through easily graspable examples. The link to the movie here gives some details about how matter gets converted into waves and behaves like liquids when seen from a quantum physics angle: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1349535/4653525.

The movie describes an amazing world viewed from a quantum space. When a beam of electrons is fired through a plate with a slit in it onto a wall – as you would expect, it would it within a single line on the wall straight opposite the slit.

If the experiment is conducted by using an energy wave that reacts the way a water wave does, one gets a foreseeable result. As the wave strikes the plate it rebounds off the plate but where there is the opening, a part of the wave goes across through the opening. Coming out of the other side of the opening, the surging water moves out in the pattern of an arc, resulting in a new wave just as in the old laboratory tests done in schools in analysing wave patterns. As the surge of water strikes the wall across, it will have maximum force in the middle straight opposite the opening and will have lesser force all across the wall. This is exactly like the line the electrons make.

If we created one more opening in the plate, again the upshot would not be totally unexpected while experimenting a wave – two smaller waves would be formed through the openings and when the waves come into contact, they would dissolve each other and make an intervention pattern. Many waves would now strike the wall across, giving a stripped effect. These are standard patterns of wave behaviour and so there is nothing unexpected in the result.

Here is where the whole experiment takes on an entirely different direction. When electrons are sent through the two cuts in the plate, what should ordinarily result are two lines in the wall opposite. On the contrary what one sees is a stripped appearance with an intersecting pattern. This is unbelievable. The matter seems to have been turned into a wave. We can perhaps imagine that electrons were hitting against each other and ricocheting and causing a wave pattern; so if electrons are sent across separately the result should be different. But it is not, it is the same. The explanation has to be that the electron leaves as a single particle, and splits into a wave on collision with the plate, then goes across through the cuts and intervenes with itself after that on the other side. This idea of solid having fluid properties -or mattering acting like a wave – is totally surprising. The world is much more than we understand it to be.

Despite the apparent ’solidness’ of this world that we live in, it would appear that actually we live in a world that is more like a liquid – liquid energy or flux, which behaves like liquids in our physical world. And as we know from simple physics that fluids of a similar nature always come together and those of a dissimilar nature move apart and separate into clear areas of distinction. Oil and water is a simple example of this. Chromatography also shows the effect very graphically when a single substance can separate into its individual substances in clear bands much like how large groups of people split off into smaller groups of similar interest, energy or intention.

The key is that when we give we feel joyful and experience joy. As a giver we receive the most divine gifts of all the gift of joy. Often we think that it is the receiver of a gift that receives something and it often overlooked that the giver actually is the greatest receiver. If you’re not too sure about this, then watch yourself around children and see how you feel when you give to them and observe how you feel no matter how they respond.

When we recognize that it is to we ourselves that we are giving when we make the gesture of giving and we do it for the gratification we feel, we have the clue. This clue opens the door of comprehension of giving. And when we give repetitively the force builds up with a snowballing effect enlarging more and more the more we pour to it with our continuous gifting.

The reality that we feel contented when we give someone something modify our perspective literally – we feel empowered and on that instant we appear more beautiful to others. There may be peddlers on the street offering napkins or other sundry things that one is not in need of, but one day you may buy it just to see that smile lighting up the face of the peddler in relief and thankfulness. It is the same satisfaction one gets by responding to a street musician.

A happy person exudes a natural warmth that attracts others to him and in doing so he becomes rich in life’s lessons. It is so easy. They draw to them those who have never known that sensation and so want to feel it, or even those who have fully known the pleasures of that feeling.

Similar to water and oil, givers and non-givers tend to collect together in different places. And the greatest place to get something is a place where givers come together! But of course you will be allowed entry into that group only if you are ready to give! Givers relish to give to those who love to give.

We may be able to look at quantum physics for resolving things, but these are very much in front of us all the time. Alike attracts alike – right. See what is going on all over the world. Lions like to be with lions, students like to be with students, women prefer the company of women, guys like other guys, ‘poor’ people prefer to be with ‘poor’ people and ‘rich’ people like to form groups with ‘rich’ people. And yes – givers like to make friends with givers.

So if you give from a sense of self-reproach then it will only boomerang on you – you will just attract to you like-minded others who have a guilt complex and cannot be contented and delighted. The borderline between remorse and anger is narrow; so people gifting things out of a sense of guilt tend to turn in that direction. Joy is one of the highest of human emotions – and from there one can only turn to love – and that is what all of us are forever searching for.

So when you initiate the act of giving, you are very close to knowing perfect love – really wonderful to know that it is. More so as we know that most people are continuously trying to find love. We now know that the answer is so easy – begin giving! And gifting money is only an aspect of giving – giving on the whole will create a special place of joy for us, no matter how ‘little’ the amount.

There is also an emotional aspect to giving consistently. This aspect might not in the beginning appear to have connections to the sensation of joy – in the end it completely bonds us to the absolute bliss of joy.

When we gift a thing – especially a thing which is definitely not in surplus in our lives, we are sending a strong message to ourselves that life is reliable. When we have accomplished the act of giving and afterwards see that act in retrospect we understand that we can form a perfect relationship with that reliability. The opposite of reliability is fright. A group of frightened people are unlikely to be happy and delighted and so will not be able to attract any one. On the contrary, a group of reliable people would be contented and so would be quite appealing to those who are seeking such enriching experiences. At the end of the day, when reliability gets transformed into delight and again we find ourselves very close to that which we yearn most – love.

So the essence that has been forgotten over the ages is right here today for anyone to connect with simply and easily. My son received a lot of money for Christmas and I asked him what he was going to do with it. He said he was going to save most of it. I asked him how much he was going to give. He had not considered that an option until I shared it with him. What would happen if the first thing we did when we received was to give some away – do you think we would experience more joy

Transaction based donating – or transaction based benevolence

This leads us to the power of transactional giving. Many businesses give when they have lots of money. When they have little they tend not to give. Because of this their potential levels of joy are always go up and down based on the market trends – they have no control. But those who give EVERY time they receive are in control and connected with their experience of joy regularly.

Transactional giving rather than single payments is connected with the ups and downs of profit so it is an easy way of giving. The rule is that whenever you get something you give proportionately – easy. If you have a bad season you might give, but less depending on sales. And when business is better one can give more.

One of the key powers of transaction based giving is that you can share the joy of giving so easily with all stakeholders – customers/community – staff – and business. Because a customer knows that when they buy from you they get to give without it costing them anything except the energy to choose and shop with you they feel ownership of the giving – hence traditional CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility, coverts readily to Customer Social Responsibility, with your customer being able to powerfully respond to the giving by talking about you and have an additional emotional albeit intangible reason, for choosing to continue shopping with you.

Members of the staff also get a chance to participate in the pleasure because every time they are part of making a sale, they know full well that they had their role in giving something to someone who needed that help. The event generates a strong sense of camaraderie within the team that promotes team spirit and motivates the team members.

Any business, including startups with no profit, can do Buy1GIVE1 transaction-based giving – there literally are no barriers to entry and the business controls everything. The contribution amount per transaction starts from just one cent and goes up to thousands of dollars with each business choosing their own level of giving and charity cause project to support depending on their business type and profitability. There is simply no reason not to give this way when the benefits of giving are so numerous. Businesses who are currently giving to a cause can usually convert very quickly and easily to Buy1GIVE1 transaction-based giving while still supporting the same cause providing extra tangible benefits to the business.

When the game is over business -based giving is a present day form of tithing that is practical and possible for anyone, at any place. Now that we realise that it is not about the actual money that we give such as a tenth of the income, but only the fact that we are gifting it that makes the change. When we enter the fraternity of donors we move into a special and fortunate world that only those who give to others are allowed to enter. And unless you start giving today itself, you just may not start doing it and might never will till you start. So begin today.

‘We’re not here to donate to ‘get back.’. We’re here to give more and more.

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