Bishop David Oyedepo, the presiding pastor of the Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel has finally broken the silence on tithe controversy.
While speaking at the church’s annual programme, Shiloh 2017, he shared the importance of tithing and according to him, God never opens the windows of heaven on non-tithers.
Oyedepo preaches:
I can’t pray for you to have faith, I can only pray for you for to grace to be committed to build in your faith.
There are some prayers we pray that don’t have any biblical backing. Oh Lord open the windows of heaven upon everybody, he won’t do it. He said bring all your tithes… I can pray for you to receive grace to be a genuine tither, a habit tither. But for God to open heavens, he’s breaking scriptures. He won’t open the heaven over a non-tither, no matter how many people join hands together.
Oyedepo further continues, the whole church might be fasting for a year, but let that person be a tither ’cause the scriptures cannot be broken.
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The issue of TITHE has been trending on social media recently because of David Oyedepo’s statement that ,”The windows of heaven will be shut to non-tithers.” Even though his followers will call anyone that says anything contrary to his preaching Anti-Christ, it’s important that Christians understand the teachings of Christ better than the teachings of pastors.
Christ said that charity will be the criteria for accepting people in His kingdom, not tithing (Matthew 25:31-46). But many have embraced the teaching of these pastors on Tithing because it promises earthly rewards, not heavenly reward as Christ promised for those who do charity.
Christ only mentioned Tithe twice in the Bible. In Matthew 23:23 and Luke 18:12 where he talks of a Pharisee who brags about his obedience to the law and tithing. The only place that Tithe was mentioned again in the New testament was in Hebrews 7:5-9 which is the epistle written to the Jews. The apostles never mentioned it in the epistles to the Romans, Thessalonians, Galatians, Ephesians, etc. So why must Nigerian pastors mention it daily in their preaching?
In Matthew 23:23, Jesus was speaking to the pharisees when he said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”
But these pastors have altered the last sentence of this bible verse to mean that Tithing should not be left undone by Christians. But they fail to realize that Jesus was talking to the Scribes and Pharisees who were not Christians, but were advocates of the Jewish laws. Jesus simply meant that we should not neglect the requirements of the law of the land, while we perform our obligations as Christians.
Today pastors talk about tithe so much because they want to buy private jets and build private universities for the rich, while Christ rode on a donkey and taught people free of charge. But when anyone speaks against that, the sentimental members of their congregation call it an attack on ‘men of God’. When the disciples of Christ began the early church, Christians sold their lands and belongings and brought the proceeds to be shared among the congregation and everyone received according to his needs(Acts 4:32-35). These pastors will never preach that because it will not be in their interest to share their enormous wealth with the less privileged members of their congregation.
Tithing is a Jewish law, just as the the observation of the Sabbath day is. Traditionally, there are 613 Hebrew laws which the Jews have been observing since the 3rd century, and Tithing is the 253rd of them. The 86th is: ‘To circumcise all males on the eighth day after their birth.’ But Christ and his apostles welcomed the uncircumcised gentiles because Christ did not expect his followers to be bound by Jewish laws as he has called us from different nations.
Their law required the Jews to pay tithes to the High priest who made sacrifices for them. But Christ has made the ultimate sacrifice for us, and has become our High priest today. What Christ requires of us is Love, Charity and Forgiveness.
It is not wrong for anyone to give 10% of his earning to the church, but it’s wrong for any pastor to preach that tithing is a criteria for receiving God’s blessings and salvation.