"Put Me to the Test": God and the Tithe

When you come to church, you don't bring your offering reluctantly. No one shows up on a Sunday to give against their will. We come because we have tasted the grace of God, and our offerings are the expression of our gratitude toward this God who has given us so much.

In the nearly fifty years I have served this church, I can testify that we have never lacked anything. The buildings were built, the staff salaries have never been delayed by a single day, the loans were paid off more than ten years ago, and the work has spread all the way to Sanda, to Okubo, to Mikiho. None of this came from American support. All of it happened solely through the faithful offerings of this church's members. That is something to give thanks for and to praise the Lord.

Today, I would like us to look together at what the Bible concretely teaches about the tithe, that tenth God claims as his share. Our main text is Malachi 3:8-10.

Sermon outline

1. Malachi 3: "Put me to the test"
2. Abraham and Melchizedek: the tithe before the law
3. Jacob at Bethel: giving by vow
4. The Levites: no one is exempt
5. David: everything comes from you, Lord
6. The widow's two mites: the faith that gives everything

1. Malachi 3: "Put me to the test"

Before we open Malachi, I would like us to first read Proverbs 3:9-10: "Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine." Here is the promise: giving to God does not make us poorer, it makes us richer. This is a principle found throughout the whole Bible.

Now let's turn to Malachi. This prophet is the last of the Old Testament; after him come four hundred years of silence, until John the Baptist. Malachi prophesied around 400 BC, at a time when the people of Israel had stopped practicing the tithe taught by Moses. And here is what God says to them through his mouth: "Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."

What should strike us in this passage is the word "test." It comes up twice. "Put me to the test," and "see if I will not open the windows of heaven." And yet, when the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness by telling him to throw himself down from the temple, Jesus answered, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." That is the great principle: we do not put God to the test.

So why does God himself say here, "Put me to the test, try it and see"? Because God knows our weakness. We human beings, myself included, are all fragile when it comes to money. We become attached to it. Money matters, we know that well. And because God knows this weakness in us, he stoops down, he comes down to our level, he bends the knee to come speak to us. He tells us, almost like a father would: "Try it, you'll see. If you give, I will bless you abundantly." Here is the humility of our God.

2. Abraham and Melchizedek: the tithe before the law

You sometimes hear it said that the tithe belongs to the law of Moses, that we no longer need to bother with it today. It's true that Moses speaks of it in several passages. But the truth is that the tithe appeared well before Moses.

Look at Genesis 14:20. Abram (he is not yet called Abraham) sets out with his men in pursuit of the kings who plundered his region and captured his nephew Lot. He catches up with them, defeats them, and recovers all the plunder. On his way back, he meets Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High. And what does Abram do? He gives him a tenth of everything.

Melchizedek is presented in the Bible as a figure of Christ. And Abram, with no law commanding him to do so, gives him the tithe spontaneously. We are about five hundred years before Moses: Abraham lived around 2000 BC, Moses around 1500 BC. That means that even before any written law existed, men of faith already knew that the tenth belongs to God.

3. Jacob at Bethel: giving by vow

The second example is Jacob, Abraham's grandson. In Genesis 28, he flees his father's house, falls asleep with a stone for a pillow, and sees in a dream a ladder set up between earth and heaven. When he wakes, he makes a vow to the Lord: "Of all that you give me, I will give you a full tenth."

Jacob too, well before Moses, knew that the tenth belonged to God. But Jacob is still Jacob: he adds a condition. "If you protect me, then I will give to you." He likes to negotiate with God, a bit like an executive who likes to close a deal. That's not exactly the ideal attitude. But let's still note that Jacob, in his own way, acknowledges that the tithe belongs to the Lord.

4. The Levites: no one is exempt

Next comes the law of Moses. In Numbers 18:26, the LORD says, "You shall speak to the Levites and say to them, When you take from the people of Israel the tithe that I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present a contribution from it to the LORD, a tithe of the tithe."

The Levites were consecrated to the service of the sanctuary. They had no land, they did not farm, they did not trade. They lived precisely off the tithes brought by the other eleven tribes. You might think they were themselves exempt from giving the tithe, since they were the ones receiving it. But no: God commands them to give a tithe of it as well.

Today, the Levites are those who serve God full-time: Pastors Kobayashi, Uchida, Kita, myself included. We are not exempt from giving the tithe just because we are pastors. Whoever serves the Lord also gives a tenth of what he receives. It has been more than sixty years since I came to Jesus, and I have never lacked anything because of it. On the contrary, I have been wonderfully kept.

5. David: everything comes from you, Lord

There is a passage that touches me deeply: 1 Chronicles 29:10-14. David is preparing for the building of the temple that his son Solomon will build. He himself gives colossal sums, and the whole people follow his example. Faced with this extraordinary generosity, David offers this prayer: "Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours."

And he adds this sentence I love so much: "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you."

Here is the humility that ought to fill us. No one can boast of having given. If Elon Musk, who is said to now possess twenty-two trillion yen, offered his entire fortune to the Lord, God would owe him nothing in return. Everything under heaven already belongs to him. Let us remember the words of Job: "Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine." All glory belongs to God alone.

6. The widow's two mites: the faith that gives everything

Let's finish with one last passage, Luke 21:1-4. "Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, 'Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.'"

Two mites is roughly two hundred yen in our currency today. Almost nothing. And yet Jesus says she gave more than everyone else. Why? Because he knew that these two small coins represented everything she had to live on. This scene most likely takes place on the Monday morning of the week Jesus would be crucified.

So we might ask ourselves: if Jesus knew she was giving away everything she had left, why didn't he stop her? Rationally, you'd expect him to say, "Don't do that, at least keep enough to eat." But Jesus did not want to hold back her faith. This widow believed that the Lord would provide for her needs for the day ahead. Her faith said, "I have given everything, but today I will be kept in the Lord's grace." Jesus honored that faith without saying a single word.

I am not saying we should always give everything. That is not what Jesus is teaching here. But if we could, somewhat in the manner of this widow, aim for that quality of faith in our hearts, what joy that would be.

Key takeaways

• The tithe is far older than the law of Moses: Abraham and Jacob were already practicing it out of pure faith.
• In Malachi 3, God stoops down to us and exceptionally invites us to put him to the test in this specific area.
• Full-time servants are not exempt from giving their tithe; like the Levites, they give too.
• David teaches us that no one can boast of what they give: everything already comes from God.
• The widow's two mites show that what God looks at is the faith behind the offering, not the amount.

Personal application

• Do I give to the Lord with joy, or out of obligation?
• Have I really dared to take God at his word in Malachi 3:10 and give my tithe regularly on my income?
• Do I see my offerings as something owed, or as a grateful response to the grace I've received in Christ?
• Is there pride in me when I give, or the humility of David who acknowledges that everything comes from God?
• Do I have the widow's faith, giving while relying on the Lord for tomorrow?

Verses cited

• Malachi 3:8-10
• Proverbs 3:9-10
• Matthew 4:7
• Genesis 14:18-20
• Genesis 28:20-22
• Numbers 18:26
• 1 Chronicles 29:10-14
• Job 41:11
• Luke 21:1-4
• 2 Corinthians 8

FAQ

Is the tithe an obligation under the law of Moses that still applies today?

The tithe appeared before the law of Moses. Abraham offered it to Melchizedek, and Jacob vowed it at Bethel, centuries before the law was ever written. It expresses a faith-filled gratitude toward God, to whom everything we have belongs. As such, it remains a valuable principle for the Christian today.

Why does God ask us, in Malachi 3:10, to put him to the test, when Jesus says we should not test God?

This is the one exception in the whole Bible. God states it this way because he knows our weakness when it comes to money. He stoops down to us and invites us to try it, so that we may discover for ourselves that he is faithful to his promise of blessing.

Do pastors and full-time servants also give the tithe?

Yes. The Levites received the tithes from the other eleven tribes, but Numbers 18:26 commanded them to also offer a tithe of what they received. In the same way, those who serve God full-time today, pastors included, give their tithe on what they receive.

Sermon by Wataru Sugawara, Kobe Christ Glory Church, December 6, 2025.