Tag Archives: Featured

Tithing: 5 Key Answers | Interview with IBC Perspectives Magazine

Read more helpful content at IBC Perspectives Magazine.

IBC: Why is it so important for Apostolic Christians to tithe?

DJ: The Bible is clear that believers are to dedicate every aspect of their lives to the Lord. Dedicating all except the financial aspect is not all; it’s excluding something. While Christians disagree on what submission in this aspect may look like, the most common error by those who are against tithing is to mistake New Testament passages about “Emergency Relief Effort” type giving as supposedly being how all giving should be done by Christians, yet that type of giving is but one layer in a biblically modeled approach. One cannot ignore tithing and have a truly complete biblically modeled approach.

IBC: What happens if a Christian fails to tithe? Are they lost?

DJ: To presume to declare all such people as either saved or lost is to place oneself in the Lord’s place as judge. We can envision situations in which a believer knows better and willfully disobeys, and in which they don’t know better and are not willfully disobeying. The default position of fallen humanity is lost and cursed. If a believer is himself redeemed, yet he allows an existing curse to abide on his personal finances, might God allow that level of granularity? Save their soul even while their financial life is still cursed? He may well allow it in some and disallow it in others. He’s the Lord who knows the heart and judges rightly.

IBC: Should we tithe on our gross income or net income? Why?

DJ: The biblical answer, which is that tithing is to give 1/10 of all my “increase,” leads to a lot of sticky questions that various believers approach differently. In addition to gross v. net, what about inheritances, insurance settlements, birthday and anniversary gifts, or a litany of other windfalls? Consider Luke 6:38. Generally, the more I include as realized increase, the more room I grant in the “bucket” that God uses when causing future increase to come. Based on Romans 14, I grant fellow believers liberty in how they decide such matters, but I personally tithe on my gross. God has blessed us for it. In our assembly, saints tithe on their home garden’s produce. Our family enjoys every bite. Bottom line: tithing is to be based on all “increase.”

IBC: Offerings are given in addition to the tithe. What should a faithful Christian consider giving for offerings?

DJ: Since the needs vary, the amount or percentage could also vary. The New Testament indicates saints were called upon for longterm sacrificial giving due to needs as a result of emergencies, such as fellow believers starving in another region due to famine. Yet how much is too much? Each believer is free to make up their own mind on their gift (2 Corinthians 9:7). Both willingness and abundance are prerequisites for acceptance of offerings (2 Corinthians 8:12). One should avoid going into debt to give to other believers’ needs. A believer should not reduce himself to being in need while trying to meet another believer’s need.

IBC: How has tithing blessed you?

DJ: From my youth up I have always been as faithful as possible regarding tithing. God has honored His promise and has blessed me and my family abundantly. I am a genuine “testimonial” advertisement for the success that comes when adhering to a biblical model from God’s word for submitting the financial aspect of my life to Him.

How To Tell the Difference Between a Blessing and Dumb Luck

I received this excellent question from a friend:

“How can I tell the difference between a blessing and dumb luck? A series of events [that occurred] over the past three months has me questioning my understanding of how things work. These were events for which I have no rational explanation.”

My answer:

There are various theories, ranging wildly from those that claim there is no such thing as a “blessing” all the way to those that hold there is no such thing as “luck” or a “happy coincidence.” The truth seems to be somewhere in between those extremes.

We tend to lack the proper context to even evaluate whether something is a blessing or not, because we lack certain knowledge of the future and we view things from a limited, human, carnal perspective. However, one verse we can trust (if we can understand it) is James 1:17 —

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

So, if we mistake our luck for being a “perfect gift,” yet it later turns out to our detriment, we can finally assess that it was not from God. Conversely, if we mistake our perfect gift as something bad, when it later turns out to have been perfect, we can assume it was from God.

Mistaking a gift from God as “luck” would seem to simply illustrate a lack of faith. I don’t think there is any lasting harm in trying to give God credit and praise for whatever seems at the time to be a genuine blessing. If we later find out we misjudged things, I don’t think God holds that against us. I try to “err” on the side of giving Him praise as opposed to withholding it.

You canned what?! (That last item really got me!)

This amazing article on canning was really intriguing. You won’t even believe what some people have canned, and for how long it can remain editable, and even improve in flavor instead of degrading. The last thing on the list will blow your mind! Read the full article.

Biased and/or Poor Reporting

This WCHS channel 8 report is either biased or hugely ignorant: it paints the Democrats’ recently defeated bill as being about “free contraception,” when it was actually about overturning the Hobby Lobby ruling, which was about (and specifically limited to) abortifacients as pertaining to an unlawful effort by HHS to force persons to pay for the abortifacients, even if against their religious convictions.

Furthermore, the report inaccurately implies that the bill was about “restoring” something that American women supposedly lost due to the Hobby Lobby ruling. That is either deliberately misleading or ignorantly misguided, as the whole point of the Hobby Lobby case was that the unlawful HHS mandate tried to impose a brand new burden on religious persons (that of paying for abortifacient coverage for employees) which was not something that American women ever “had” previously.

Since there never was such a mandate lawfully implemented against religious persons, there is nothing to be “restored.” The HHS mandate itself was not implemented by Congress. It was conjured out of thin air by HHS, and insomuch as it sought to overpower religious persons (via coercing closely-held corporations), it was against the law from the start. In other words, it was always illegal from the start. It never legally existed as far as closely-held, religious, for-profit corporations are concerned. Not only was the mandate itself unlawful from the start, but it never actually took hold—an injunction was granted. Then it was invalidated by the US Supreme Court before ever being enforced for even a single day against Hobby Lobby.

Both before and after the ruling, any American woman employed by a religious person/corporation had and still has the legal occasion to buy and pay for certain abortifacients, on her own. To reiterate, those women still have that option now. There was only an unlawful, failed attempt by HHS to create a government mandate that all corporations, even closely-held religious ones (both for-profits and non-profits), be compelled (by penalty of crippling fines) to pay for abortifacient coverage in violation of religious conviction. It was struck down, as pertaining to closely-held, religious, for-profit corporations. American women lost nothing by that ruling. There was never anything to be restored. How can the reporter be so mistaken on this?

Furthermore, it is both alarming and sad that Senator Manchin is so easily confused and so utterly mistaken on the true issues at stake here. According to the report, Senator Manchin holds that if one is a religious person then he or she is not permitted to make a profit as a corporation and still have his or her religious freedom protected. The senator is simply, sadly, horrendously wrong. Religious persons are indeed free to make a profit, even as corporations, and not check their religion at the door. So says the law, in clear language, and thus it was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Why I’m Oddly Glad the Obama Admin Overreached with HHS Mandate

There is some odd confusion regarding what’s at the heart of the Hobby Lobby case—resulting in part from [willful?] misleads by the liberal media (notice Bill calling out CBS Radio regarding blatant false reporting) and liberal politicians (for example, Hillary Clinton, the clear early frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race, proves in her response to the Supreme Court’s decision protecting Hobby Lobby from the Obama HHS mandate that she really has no fundamental understanding of what the case was about). It seems many on the left incorrectly think the case was in regard to “all” contraceptives (i.e. Hobby Lobby supposedly being exempted from paying for any contraception). Yet the Christian-owned company already pays for 16 of 20 contraceptives that the HHS mandate insists upon. Only the four that could cause the abortion of a fertilized embryo were contested. Even then, the case was not about blocking anyone’s “access” to those four abortifacients, but rather about preventing Obama’s HHS from compelling business owners to pay for the abortifacients in violation of the owners’ religious beliefs.

However, there is an underlying issue at stake, just as important as the obvious one.

Ever since America fell so far as to have many of its citizens think that only non-profit persons/entities can be permitted to hold religious convictions, this is the first time that such a bogus and dangerous notion has been tested and decided upon at the highest level. You only get one chance to have a legal “first impression” in the highest court of the land.

Punishing owners of for-profit businesses simply because they are unwilling to check their religious beliefs at the door is the edge of a legal razor blade that was bound to eventually strike at the judicial heart of our society. The precedent set here will have ramifications so far reaching that it’s practically beyond the description of words—and the timing is crucial, because the worldview of the SCOTUS justices serving at the given moment will determine where they come down on this, and likely will dictate pretty much forever afterward how related issues will be decided.

It is disturbing that four of the nine justices dissented in this case, discounting the hallowed American tradition of protecting our right to free exercise of religion. This judgment almost went the wrong way. By a margin of only one vote, freedom of religion was upheld. It is alarming that the decision was even close.

Had Kathleen Sabellius and her HHS minions not overreached at this point in history—if their challenge were to have occurred later, after additional moral decline and perhaps even the replacement of conservative justices with liberal justices, or perhaps just after gradual changing of the minds of some justices—the decision could have gone the other way. Thankfully, America got a 5-4 decision in favor of religious freedom.

The Obama Administration’s HHS department overreached so far that their unlawful demands resulted in threatening all closely-held corporations (e.g. family-owned, for-profit businesses) with massive punitive fines so steep it would bankrupt the businesses unless they comply and pay for abortifacient drugs. That forced the matter to be dealt with.  Before the judgment was announced, I was quite concerned. In the end, I’m relieved that it was now and not at some later time. The forces of the left jumped the gun. At a later time the same overreach might have resulted in a bad decision instead. As it was, we got a good decision from the court.

The struggle for right is far from over, though. My friend and fellow author, John F. Harrison, summed things up powerfully when he said to me recently, “It irks me that people are so unclear on the issues, and the mainstream media is deliberately making them unclear. This was never about ‘access’ to contraceptives or anything else. Or have we become so infantalized by the nanny state that we believe we only have ‘access’ to something if it is provided free by the government or paid for by a third party?”

Exactly, my friend.

Everything We Think We Know About Marriage and Divorce Is Wrong | Shaunti Feldhahn

It’s common knowledge that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, right? Only problem: That stat is wrong. 

Have you ever quoted the facts about the 50 percent divorce rate? Yeah? So have I. Have you ever lamented the fact that the divorce rate was the same in the church? Or that most marriages are just hanging in there, not vibrant and happy? … I had no idea that every one of the statistics I was quoting—statistics that fit both with conventional wisdom and what I saw reported in the media—were nowhere close to true…. [read more].

Should We Surrender the Cultural Wars? | Bob Russell

“In recent years, many churches have dropped all images of war in favor of a peace treaty with the world. We speak of Jesus as a healer and leader, but not Lord and King. We shout grace, whisper repentance and make inordinate attempts to ingratiate ourselves with those who oppose us. We retreat into silence in the face of horrendous evil and hope it will all go away….” [read more]

Sex, Millennials and the Church: Five Implications | Thom Rainer

“Views on sexuality among young adults are dramatically different from previous generations. As a Boomer, I thought I was part of the generation that ushered in the sexual revolution. But I had no idea that views on sexuality would change so dramatically with the generation of my three sons. The implications for local congregations are staggering…” [read more]

The Demise of the Preacher’s iPhone

The-Demise-of-Preacher's-iPhone

This was loosely based on a true story, except I was trying to get Siri to put my phone in a “do not disturb” mode. (That was before Apple had ever added such a feature. I think I’m the sole cause they did.) I had worked all day, all night, and all day, and had only a few minutes to grab a quick nap before having to get up again. I tried every way I could get to Siri to stop my phone from ringing for 40 minutes and then have her switch my phone back to normal. (I was concerned that putting my phone in silent mode would hinder its regular alarm feature. I’m still not solid on that.) After many attempts and many ever weirder replies from Siri, I exhaled with a “Pffhh” of frustration. Siri replied, and I quote, “There’s no need to curse.” At that point I remembered I was arguing with a computer program, set the regular alarm, and went to sleep. True story.

PS: The Siri quote, “I’d rather you didn’t,” is also based on a true story. One day she got things so turned around she actually said that to me. I cannot now remember the exact weirdness, but it was up there with the weirdness of “There’s no need to curse.”

How Old Is Our Planet?

The age of the earth is hotly debated among Christians today. This issue is not really whether God created Adam but whether our planet is as old as most secular scientists insist. The conflict is that the text of Scripture does not appear to allow for anything like millions or billions of years—and if the scientific dating techniques are as accurate as portrayed, then it is difficult to take the book of Genesis at face value.

Institute for Creation Research (ICR) teams have conducted thorough technical research on the dating processes, and there is plenty of scientific evidence indicating our planet is much younger than the supposed 4.6 billion years secular naturalism suggests.

The focus of this article is to challenge Christians to trust the integrity and accuracy of God’s revealed Word over the interpretative suggestions of secular scholars and scientists…. [Read more]