kceaster
Puritan Board Junior
This post is in no way suggesting that the argument I'm about to put forward justifies God's people to not give 10%. But I am interested in what you all think would happen.
Scenario: A church has about 100 members. Those 100 members are largely white collar professionals. Some have pretty decent incomes, some have moderate, some have modest. Let's say that these 100 members represent 25 familes. The combined income of those 25 families, breaks down like this:
5 families > $150,000 ~ $750,000 combined
5 families > $100,000 ~ $500,000 combined
5 families > $85,000 ~ $425,000 combined
5 families > $65,000 ~ $325,000 combined
5 families < $50,000 ~ $250,000 combined
The net of this is $2,250,000. Their combined tithe would be about $225,000. Assuming that their budget is about $125,000, they now have a yearly surplus of $100,000. They would be extremely blessed. In 10 years they could be sitting on $1,000,000.
My question is, would this be good for the church in general, or bad? Would the oft quoted, "Religion begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother," become a truism among Christ's church?
I think the biggest danger in having the resources we have in this country is that we wouldn't know what to do with more. We may begin to sit under our palm and feel good about ourselves too much. As such, God's sovereign design in the offerings of the church must be so that she has enough, but not too much.
I know the argument might be that we could do so much more in Home and Foreign mission work. Yet God is sovereign in this. He compelled the children in the desert to give so much to the tabernacle that Moses had to tell them to stop giving. Surely He carries on the mission work of the Church by His Spirit so that whatever is needed is provided.
Anyway, I was just curious to know what others thought about this.
In Christ,
KC
Scenario: A church has about 100 members. Those 100 members are largely white collar professionals. Some have pretty decent incomes, some have moderate, some have modest. Let's say that these 100 members represent 25 familes. The combined income of those 25 families, breaks down like this:
5 families > $150,000 ~ $750,000 combined
5 families > $100,000 ~ $500,000 combined
5 families > $85,000 ~ $425,000 combined
5 families > $65,000 ~ $325,000 combined
5 families < $50,000 ~ $250,000 combined
The net of this is $2,250,000. Their combined tithe would be about $225,000. Assuming that their budget is about $125,000, they now have a yearly surplus of $100,000. They would be extremely blessed. In 10 years they could be sitting on $1,000,000.
My question is, would this be good for the church in general, or bad? Would the oft quoted, "Religion begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother," become a truism among Christ's church?
I think the biggest danger in having the resources we have in this country is that we wouldn't know what to do with more. We may begin to sit under our palm and feel good about ourselves too much. As such, God's sovereign design in the offerings of the church must be so that she has enough, but not too much.
I know the argument might be that we could do so much more in Home and Foreign mission work. Yet God is sovereign in this. He compelled the children in the desert to give so much to the tabernacle that Moses had to tell them to stop giving. Surely He carries on the mission work of the Church by His Spirit so that whatever is needed is provided.
Anyway, I was just curious to know what others thought about this.
In Christ,
KC