Where would Armstrongism be without its commanded tithes and offerings rolling in to keep their bank accounts bloated?
The mother church, the old Worldwide Church of God, used to brag in the early 1980s that they were bringing in close to a million dollars a workday. That was evident in the 1970s through the 1980s as money flew out the accounting departments' windows at an alarming speed, paying for all kinds of excesses that the leadership, ministry, church, and college thought they needed. A large percentage of it never went to the so-called gospel but into enriching the upper-crust leadership's lifestyles and filling homes and properties with lavish artworks, gold, silver, and opulent buildings.
In church publications, sermons, and member letters, the guilt-tripping of members to give more money reached obscene proportions. Members were expected to open their wallets with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tithes, Holy Day offerings, general offerings, member letter appeals, building funds, and endlsss shakedowns on holy days as churches and feast sites competed to see who could give more. The crassest of all money demands were for health issues of leadership and their wives and/or emergencies in the church from being persecuted.
Never once did any of the money grubbers ever stop to reveal to members that tithing is NOT a new covenant command, and no one is expected to do it. Offerings, yes, but not offerings commanded by church leaders. The new covenant says people give according to how they have been blessed by God - not by the lunatic ranting of various COG leaders.
We are getting close to the so-called COG spring holy days, and yesterday, the most highly favored prophet of God to ever walk this earth had one of his "prosperity gospel" posts up. The Great Bwana, along with the rest of the COG con artists, need your money! After all, God is getting really pissed off and is just itching to annihilate 2/3's of the population of this earth, and they need to be ready to do their part in that massacre.
The Great Bwana Bob trots out Lero Neff to guilt members into adding more money to their envelopes.
Neff says:
The Church looks to God for its needs. Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, is its leader, its shepherd and its supplier of all things.
However, Christ provides for His Church’s needs through people. He instructs, He commands, He inspires and influences human beings to provide those needs. Depending on the spiritual condition of the Church and the real needs (not necessarily what the Church wants), God does supply.
In Armstrongism, if the spiritual needs of the church are in the shits, it is because of the members, not the leadership.
After all, God owns all things. He can and will supply those needs, depending on what we, the Church and Body of Christ on earth, do, and on what our collective attitude and spiritual condition is.
But how does God supply the needs of the Church? Through tithes and offerings of people.
Most of these people are Church members. The rest are people who have voluntarily become co-workers in this Work and from other people who come in contact with the Work of the Church and who voluntarily, without solicitation, send in occasional donations.
Can't forget about those holy day offerings...
Then there are Holy Day offerings.
What are Holy Day offerings? If you search the Scriptures, you will not find this term Holy Day offerings! Since the term is not in the Bible, are such offerings unscriptural?
Not at all, because this term aptly describes what is clearly commanded.
No Holy Day offerings in Scripture?
Some have improperly suggested that there is not scriptural support for Holy Day offerings.
Yet, the Bible itself provides instructions about taking up offerings on the Holy Days:
10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. (Deuteronomy 16:10)
16 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. 17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you. (Deuteronomy 16:16-17)
14 “Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); 16 and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field. (Exodus 23:14-16)
Clearly, the Bible shows that offerings were to be collected on the Holy Days.
Neff ends with this:
Contribute according to God’s blessing
The place that these gifts are to be presented is the place that God chooses, not where we may choose. If we had the opportunity to choose, some might remain at home or go to some other place, rather than assemble with the rest of the Church at the assigned festival site. It is the responsibility of the Church leadership, guided by God, to determine the place.
The last point in this passage relates to the size of the gift or offering. The amount we give should be according to the amount we have been blessed by God. When God blesses someone in a special or generous way, the person should respond proportionately with a generous offering. If God has not blessed the individual, then God does not expect as large an offering. God does not expect as much from the poor and needy as from those who are comparatively well off.
But remember, after God blesses us, He watches to see how much we believe He has blessed us, by observing the kind of appreciation we show in the size of our offering. (Neff L. Why Holy Day Offerings? Good News, September 1983)
Neff's last comment turned the light bulb on in the Great Bwana's massive head. Dollar signs immediately started floating in his amazing, one-of-a-kind mind.
The Great Bwana then says to give harder so that God will bless you harder:
There is a related factor that we all must consider — a law of nature that is also a spiritual law. This law is mentioned several times in Scripture: What you sow you reap (e.g., II Cor. 9:6).
If you are a farmer and you do not sow a crop, you will not have a harvest. If you sow a small amount, you will only have a small harvest. If you sow bountifully, or of full measure, you will reap bountifully.
A farmer who sows realizes that other conditions as well will help determine the size and the quality of the crop he will reap: the quality as well as the quantity and type of seed, the weather, the soil condition and the presence or absence of harmful insects or disease. God determines the weather, of course — if there will be rain and whether it will be in due season.
We see from this that we must do the necessary labor such as sowing, watering, weeding and fertilizing, and then God will give the increase as it pleases Him.
The Great Bwana needs your money for those periodic "spurts":
Each time we reach a low point in bank balances, we have a Holy Day offering, and then suddenly the balances increase considerably. Over the next weeks and months, the balances gradually dwindle to the next low point and then jump again after the next Holy Day offering.
Without the Holy Day offerings, we would not have these periodic spurts!
End your financial worries by giving it all to the church...
In conclusion, let’s look at one last scripture that should put all of this in a better perspective. This is a scripture that we ought to keep in mind as we prepare for the Holy Day offerings:
6 Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:6-9)
Do not be deceived. Do not be lukewarm. Do your part, which includes Holy Day offerings. Holy Day offerings are one way you can do good to all, including the household of faith.
14 comments:
Oh dear, I feel a migraine coming on.
Many tithed faithfully and loyally for decades. The reality is that not many if any, advanced more than their contemporaries in their respective neighbourhoods or church communities. But they did what they believed to be right at that moment in time. Myself included. And it was hard very hard at times. And stressful, very. Especially with kids and mortgages to pay. I got third tithe ‘relief’ but the underlying tension and stresses did not dissipate. Come to Me for My burden is light and easy Jesus said, the church was the burden we carried. The rest is history as they say. We turned liberty into burdens and wine into water. And now the ‘church’ has imploded and separated into hundreds of completing organisations. Who was blessed Mr Thiel?
Bob's a little bit (or greatly?) confused. He writes....."The first Holy Day where an offering is taken up is on April 12th in 2025." Yet on his "Holy Day Calendar" link April 12 is not listed as a holy day. It's April 13, etc.
This is pretty much boiler plate.
The problem with the old WCG was that they refused to be good stewards, who are by definition always accountable. Proof, you say? Well, yeah. Hell yeah! You didn't hear anyone during receivership volunteering information, or asking the authorities to go over the records and to make recommendations as to how they could use all those tithe moneys more efficiently..
When voluntary watch dog organizations emerged, neither the WCG, nor the splinters were lining up to obtain efficiency ratings, as in what percentage of each dollar donated goes towards the actual mission?
Obfuscation was always the rule. They said that this world's system should have no power over God's True Church and how it spent its money. So we had to hold them accountable ourselves, and boy do they ever hate that!
BB
As the American Empire dies these types of pressured drives for money will only grow even worse. This letter will be seen as very mild to what will be coming down the pipeline in the future.
Even with President Trump's 90 day tariff delay for the penguins and rest of the world, the new trade war 'to the end' with China has already caused Americans to stock pile basics from iphones to coffee beans.
It is somewhat ironic and perhaps a sign of the times that the bemoth of America never was able to produce their own tealeaves or coffee beans. Products that they are rushing to stockpile now.
God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Let him sell some off and give the proceeds to the church of His choice
I remember the ministers fighting back against accountability by claiming that the tithe money belongs to God, so mind your own business, members. Plus they claimed that all money belongs to God, yet in His generosity, He's allowing members to keep 90% of their money. So members shouldn't hold their church accountable, and should kiss their ministers ring for allowing them to keep most of their earnings.
Btw, probably most of third tithe is paying for ministers retirement. Bob advocated this in his blog. He claimed this was just since Herb had forbidden ministers saving for retirement, (which employer has the legal/moral right to do that) plus that "social security is broken."
The New Covenant has no tithing -- only generous giving as YOU purpose in your heart --- God loves a cheerful giver.
I remember the time when Rod Meredith got his ass nailed for using 3T to remodel his home on Waverly Drive. Of course, it was quickly covered up when it was discovered that other evangelists and ministers were doing the same thing. The church was and always has been a cesspool of corruption.
Since the majority of his members are in Africa, he should tell his followers to sell their cattle and goats to support themselves.
You mean the ones that were given under a UCG program, and then co-opted by the COGaWA, 9:28? I call foul! That is bovine splinter-surfing!
I see Bob changed date from 12th to 13th.
Coffee beans, 11:03, are only able to be grown in a very narrow, very specific climate band. I've often stated that Republicans will only admit that global climate change is reality when that climate band shifts or no longer exists, rendering coffee nonexistent, or extemely rare and expensive.
Herbie's "evening" is at beginning of 14th in Ex 12:6 but end of 14th in verse 18. Give a holy day offering, if you purpose, on the correct holy day....April 12.
We would have been much better off to send our tithes & offerings to groups like Samaritans Purse or the Humane Society or Saint Judes rather than Worldwide or Philadelphia Church of Gerald. It would have much likely done some good rather than going to buy HWA a Rolls Royce or get Gerald a jet. It would probably better off going to The Human Fund...money for people.
Post a Comment