Manna & Mammon
Daniel Propson on the Wisdom of Giving a Tithe to the Lord
For many years, when the subject of tithing came up, I laid low. Many of my fellow Christians seemed rather uncompromising about it, thinking that every Christian ought to tithe a full ten percent of his income, no excuses.
I didn’t disagree to their faces, of course; they had the Scriptures to back up their claims. I had—what? A few petty rationalizations, at best. I could cite circumstances that would justify withholding a full ten percent (to pay for an unanticipated surgery, for example), but this line of reasoning was no good; my friends weren’t out to deny me my needs. So in the end, the brutal fact staring me in the face was this: I didn’t need a tenth of my income; I kept it because I wanted it.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Daniel Propson is an English teacher at Lincoln High School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He and his wife attend St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Detroit, and are members of the Word of Life community in Ann Arbor. They live with their two young children in midtown Detroit.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor