(Matthew 23: 23-28)

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.  Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.  Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.(Matthew 23: 23-28)

Malachi 3: 6-12 speaks of tithing. The prophet Malachi says that the Israelites are stealing God's things. We should look at the difference between the Israelites stealing God's things and not paying tithing today.

In Deuteronomy 18: 15-22, looking at what God says, God said to the Israelites, "I will raise up a prophet like Moses among your brothers," because the Israelites feared God and could not go before God. Because. When God heard the voices of the people and said so, he said, "If you do not listen to him, I will punish you."『That shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. 』,『that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. 』, 『When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.』

If the prophet speaks for himself, he is killed. In the Old Testament, the words of Jeremiah and Hanyana (false prophets) are introduced. Hanyana died while lying. Even today, if you interpret the Bible according to your opinion and say it, you are wrong. Even today, we see many churches speak their own ideas about tithing. In the Old Testament, God told the people to pay tithing. It is based on the law that God has asked the people to pay tithing. Leviticus 27:30『And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's: it is holy unto the LORD. 』

Today, people find the basis of tithing based on the law, and before the law, Abraham gave to Melchizedek after the war or the origin of Jacob's vows. Even if they didn't say God, if they think in their own way and say, "God told the people of the church to pay tithing," they were wrong. There is nothing in the Bible that God has told us to pay tithing, except in the Old Testament law. God told Israel to pay tithing based on the law. In Matthew 23:23,

『Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 』

Jesus said that tithing is based on the law. Therefore, tithing was done according to the law. The reason God told the people to pay tithes according to the law can be found in Leviticus 25:23.『The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 』 The Israelites are strangers to the earth. So, because they are strangers or foreigners, they give the land's yield to God as a tithe. It is to leave God and be a wanderer in this world, to realize that it is a wanderer. In Leviticus 25:42『For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. 』

The Bible is said in Leviticus 25:55.『For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. 』 It is the fact that they are servants (workers) in the land of God. Those who cultivate the land of God.

We must look at how the ancestors of the Israelites testified. In Hebrews 11: 13-14,『These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. 』 These people represent the ancestors of the faith of the Israelites, such as Abraham.

They said they were looking for their own hometown because they were navigating to the land. The reason is that they had the heart to go back home. Abraham's hometown is Ur of the Chaldeans, the Bible says in Hebrews 11: 15-16.『And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. 』 If they thought that Abraham's hometown was Ur, they would have had a chance to return, but it means that they are eager to go back because they are God's kingdom, not Ur. Why is the kingdom of God our hometown to return to? Because it is from God. In order to make them realize, God told them to pay tithing. Today, paying tithing is the result of not knowing God's will. If the kingdom of God is home, we must find a way to return.

Israel's ancestors died according to faith and looked at the promise. That promise is the promise of the seed (Christ). Israel looked at the promise of the seed through tithing. Even today, if we realize that the world we live in is a traveler, there is a way to return. It is important to realize what it means to live apart from God and what the promise is.

In Malachi 3:10『Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. 』 The Israelites did not tithe properly. However, a complete tithe is a tithe that contains God's will in its entirety. Tithing in its entirety means tithing that they realize that they are strangers in the world. Jesus again explains tithing in Matthew 23:23. Although the people did tithing thoroughly, they just forsook the righteousness, mercy, and faith that the law says. Jesus' words point to the facts of the past. You must know exactly what the law says about righteousness, mercy, and faith.

Righteousness means imprisoning a sinner. The people are strangers on the earth, they are from God, but they are life locked in darkness in this world. It is God's righteousness for sinners to be trapped in darkness. If you don't realize that all humans are locked up, you won't get a chance to repent of God. There is mercy in the law. Although the people are locked in the law, when they realize that they have left God, they have given them mercy to find their way. Faith is the faith of Christ.

Although the people are trapped in the law by the wrath of God, it is the belief that they deliver salvation through Christ. This faith is in tithing, the law. Paying tithing means realizing your promises and having faith. However, Jesus said that the Israelites had abandoned all of these things. Tithing means “Look to Christ,” which means that Jesus was told to the Israelites to discover Jesus Christ in Matthew 23:23, because he had not found Christ.

In Malachi, "if you pay a full tithe, God will open the gates of heaven and bless you", not the blessing of this world, but the blessing of the kingdom of God. It is the blessing of faith through Jesus Christ. It means the blessing (seed of promise) that God spoke to Abraham. However, Jesus Christ came. Those who are already in Jesus Christ do not need tithing because the promise has been fulfilled. Nevertheless, if you emphasize tithing, you become a person who does not believe what Jesus has accomplished. Ephesians 1: 3-5 speaks of heavenly blessings.