Beyond Tithes and Offerings: I Am the God of Recompense

By Dr. J. Gayle Gaymon

Early in our Christian lives we are taught the importance of tithing and making offerings. It is a way to show our love for God and desire to live in faith under his rules. But do we really know the background and importance of the call to tithe?

Dr. J. Gayle Gaymons Beyond Tithes and Offerings: I AM the God of Recompense takes an in-depth look at the principle of tithes and offerings under the Mosaic Law. Scriptural references are provided to support her conclusions. She considers the question, If there is no longer Jew or Gentile, and you are grafted into Gods redemptive plan, does He require anything less from you? The author also discusses what it means to be wholly or partially in the body of Christ and how it relates to being called a Christian. You will also learn what else it takes to be a true Christian.

Beyond Tithes and Offerings: I AM the God of Recompense will expand your faith knowledge, which will help you become a better servant for God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491762820

Dr. J. Gayle Gaymon

Dr. J. Gayle Gaymon earned a bachelor of arts in religious studies from The College of New Rochelle, a master of science in administration from Metropolitan College of New York, and a doctor of ministry in congregational ministry from the New York Theological Seminary. She lives in Westchester County, New York.

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Copyright © 2015 Dr. J. Gayle Gaymon.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6283-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6282-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015906677

iUniverse rev. date: 8/12/2015

Contents

Preface

Book 1

Tithes And Offerings Under The Law

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Tithes And Offerings In The Torah

Chapter 3 Tithes And Offerings Under Mosaic Law

Book 2

Tithes And Offerings Under Grace

Chapter 4 Tithes In Early Church History

Chapter 5 A Little Church History

Chapter 6 The Law Is Abolished

Chapter 7 Tithes And Offerings Were Abolished

Chapter 8 From Saul The Persecutor To Paul The Apostle

Chapter 9 What Does The Apostle Say About Tithes And Offerings?

Chapter 10 Historical Background Of Salt And Salt Covenants

Chapter 11 The Holy Spirit Will Guide You

Chapter 12 Stewardship

Chapter 13 Believe In Miracles

Chapter 14 Beyond Tithes And Offerings

Chapter 15 There Is No Future Without Forgiveness

Chapter 16 Conclusion

Bibliography

Websites

Bible quotations marked ABPE are from The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain English- with Psalms & Proverbs. Copyright © 2007; 5th edition Copyright © 2010.All rights reserved. Used by Permission.

Bible quotations marked AMP are from the Amplified Bible.Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

Bible quotations marked CJB, are from the Complete Jewish Bible. Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Bible quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission.

Bible quotations marked JPS are from The Jewish Bible. TANAKH. The Holy Bible. The New JPS TRANSLATIONS ACCORDING TO THE TRADITIONAL HEBREW TEXT. Copyright © 1965 by The Jewish Publication Society. All rights reserved.

Bible quotations marked GWT are from the GOD’S WORD® is a copyrighted work of God’s Word to the Nations. Copyright 1995.

Bible quotations marked KJV are from the Kings James Version. HOLY BIBLE, King James Version, Cambridge Edition. Used by permission.

Bible quotations marked NASB are from the Holy Bible, New American Standard Bible, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Bible quotations marked NIV Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Bible quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

Bible quotations marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Bible quotations marked NRSV are from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha. Copyright © 1962, 1965, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1991, 2001, by the National Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Bible quotations marked OJB are from THE ORTHODOX JEWISH BIBLE, Third Edition. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Artists for Israel International. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

IN HONOR OF MY GRANDFATHER SOLOMON FRANKS.

IN HONOR OF MY MOTHER, ANNIE FRANKS JONES.

IN HONOR OF MY FATHER, JOSEPH W. JONES.

Preface

In Judaism, the Torah was written over a period of a thousand years. Part of the Torah was handed down by oral tradition and part in written form. Many years later, these traditions were edited, and the process took place at least four different times. The first time the ancient materials were collected in a set was during the ninth to tenth centuries (950–850 BC).¹ Those editors were called the J school because they were referred to as Jahweh or Yahweh, meaning God. The second group of arrangers in the northern part of Canaan produced a second version, and they were referred to as the E school because they used the name Elohim. The third group of arrangers and interpretation arose in response to a religious reform that swept through Judah in the year 621 BC. They were identified as the D school because they discovered a series of long-lost laws in the Greek that eventually came to have the name Deuteronomist. The fourth group of arrangers and interpretations of the tradition (550–450 BC) were writers known as the P school because it is believed that those interpreters were priests.

In Christianity, the Trinity or triune God allows for belief in Elohim, God the Father, Ben Elohim, God the Son, and the Ruach Elohim, the Holy Spirit. Present at Creation was the triune God, which are Elohim, Ruach Hakkodesh, and Christ, three personalities that are all coequal, with none having authority over the other. Elohim called forth mankind out of nothing, saying, Let us make mankind in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.² The plurality of the name Elohim in the New Testament accounts for the third person of the triune God, as it is written in scripture: And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.³

God created times and seasons that will continue until the end of the world. It is a solemn oath. When God made his covenant with Noah, the Lord declared, Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.⁴This scripture is a promise of the sure and certain hope of stability to an otherwise unstable world. The Noahic Covenant,⁵ which God made with Noah in approximately 3000 BC, after Noah left the ark, is an everlasting covenant that encompasses all of humanity and all living flesh. The rainbow symbolizes its eternity. The rainbow is the sign of the divine commitment that God made to never again destroy the earth with a universal flood.⁶ Upon this is a promise that stipulates the natural order of agricultural, climatic, and temporal dimensions of this world are coupled in four pairs and will never cease.

In the biblical narrative, Laodicea was the worst of the seven churches in Asia Minor. In his letter, Christ exclaims, I know your deeds [works], that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot.⁷ The church at Laodicea was not noteworthy. Since Laodicea did not have its own water supply, their water supply came from hot springs of nearby Hierapolis, and by the time it arrived, it was lukewarm and full of ground residue. It was unpalatable. Knowing but not remembering that the Lord participated in Creation and influenced them still, they lacked zeal. Therefore Jesus told them that they were just like their drinking water. It would have been equivalent to drinking unfiltered bottled water today. You would spit it out. Jesus said, So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.⁸What Christ wanted most was zeal, enthusiasm, fervor, and eagerness, and the hardest job I ever had in my life was that of being a passionate, active, avid, and loving Christian. How do we as Christians understand our obligation to God and ensure that we do not become lukewarm in our faith? How do we remain on fire for God, living in the likeness of Hieronymus Bosch’s, The Garden of Earthly Delights?⁹

How do we remain comfortable in our faith and uncomfortable in our Christian lives? How do we become salted and continue to walk in the light of Christ? I attempt to answer those questions by reading the Bible, with a hermeneutics of suspicion, always comparing the Hebrews Bible to original language. Comparatively, when reading the New Testament, I look at the Greek, always in context, interpreting it, as it speaks to me today.

The most difficult and ever-present task of every Christian is to ensure that you are known by your works and that you remain significant, passionate, and wholehearted in your Christian faith. How do you as Christians understand your obligation to God and ensure that you do not become lukewarm in your faith? That is the rub. This book hopes to address those issues in light of the apostle Paul’s patriarchal and cultural assumptions.

Book 1

TITHES AND OFFERINGS

UNDER THE LAW

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

I earnestly believe that, when you become a Christian and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and the master of your life, you take God at his word and grow in faith. Many people are hot-tub Christians. A hot-tub Christian sticks a foot in the water, just enough to get wet but not too deep. When it becomes uncomfortable, he or she takes it out. These types of Christians don’t want to change their lives; they don’t want to stop living the way they are living, thusly limiting the power of God in their lives. They never totally commit. Some want to have church membership, sing in the choir, be ushers, or be recognized as belonging to something worthwhile, but they are never all in. This book is dedicated to those Christians, because if you are not all in, you are not in at all.

I am the granddaughter of a farmer, Solomon Franks, from rural Pollocksville in Jones County, North Carolina. Solomon Franks was the son of Susan Simmons Franks and George Franks, of Jones County, North Carolina. Rachel and Solomon Franks died in 1949 and 1961, respectively. My grandfather was three times a widower. He reared twenty-one of twenty-three children on that farm and schooled them in a one-room red schoolhouse that was warmed with a potbellied stove, near the Craven County and Jones County borderline. It was a place of higher education, although it only provided the best possible first- through eighth-grade education for all of his children, including my mother, until the eighth grade.

My grandfather purchased two hundred acres of land in Jones County. Legend has it that during the Wall Street crash of 1919, Black Thursday, he sold or lost twenty-five acres of land. Afterward he was distrustful of banks, so he hid his money by burying it on his land.

I can boldly declare that I have never met a farmer who planted a seed and didn’t expect a harvest. He farmed most of the 175 acres that shaped my faith and developed my understanding of the Bible.

The Bible transmogrified my life. It was a segregated and isolated rural community that was surrounded by family. The white farmers in the next county, while they respected him, wouldn’t call him Mr. Franks. Conversely, my grandfather did address them with the title of Mister. However, they called him Uncle Solomon or King Solomon because he was an African American landowner, and that limited the extent of their respect.

For me, farming was an exhilarating life experience. Living on the farm with my grandfather Solomon Franks, an elderly cousin Chaney, my aunt Bettie and uncle Johnny Geiger, and my younger sister and older brother, from ages three and a half to ten and a half, simplified for me the principle of tithes and offerings in an agricultural economy with monetary means.

My grandfather had a Farmer’s Almanac, which he used in conjunction with my aunt and uncle’s unfailing ability to predict and make determinations on the weather and the prospects for planting and harvesting. The Farmer’s Almanac listed the best days for planting tables. Each year it predicted the planting timetables, as well as recommendations on planting, fertilizer, soil, and harvests. It was a cornucopia of information with the Sky Watch, dating the day, hour, and minutes of the new moon, first quarter, full moon, and last quarter moon. Furthermore, it provided the weather forecasts for many regions in the United States. When the year expired, it was placed in the outhouse with the Sears and the Montgomery-Ward catalogues for further use.

We lived in a large white colonial-style house with electricity. In the front yard was a large oak tree. The farm’s backyard was scattered with an outhouse, a smokehouse for meats, a chicken coop, a pig sty with Yorkshire or Landrace pigs, a two-level barn for the cows and farm animals, and five tobacco barns. The barn was home to the pigs, the cows, two large, fat working mules named Cora and Dora, and a black pony named Ike. I loved that black pony. He was about fourteen hands high, was spoiled, and was Grandfather’s pony. On the upper level of the barn was stored hay for the livestock. We had two dogs named King and Topper that lived outside; that made every place their place.

It had a large kitchen with a stove, icebox, and water pump in the kitchen that was separated by a breezeway from the main house. It was a self-sustaining farm. We went to town once a week to sell produce and barter, which was largely for flour, sugar, and cornmeal. Daily chores consisted of feeding the farm animals, collecting eggs, cleaning the chicken coop, milking the cows, churning butter, chopping wood, and bringing in the firewood for the woodstove. It was a farm resplendent with pecan and black walnut trees, red and golden apple trees, peach and Bosc pear trees, a Scuppernong and Muscadine grape harbors, and a strawberry patch.

My siblings and I were rewarded for performing our many farm chores with coconut bonbon candy that came in strawberry, lemon, vanilla, and chocolate flavors from the town. However, cakes, pies, fruits, and nuts were always available to us in the kitchen too.

We had a vegetable garden too. It consisted of tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages, turnips, white potatoes, yams, onions, string beans, butter beans, collard greens, sweet peas, mustard greens, sweet corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, and honeydew melons.

Monday was wash day. Washing clothes was accomplished in the large black cauldron that sat on the woodpile. Clothes were hung on the clothesline with wooden clothespins. Delicate clothes were washed in an enamel washtub on a scrub board.

From the aforementioned vegetables and most of the fruits, we did canning. Canning was one of the many chores I did with my aunt Bea, and it was fun. Canning or preserving consisted of quart-sized mason jars that were boiled for sterilization, set aside, and strawberries, or tomatoes or butter beans or whatever the food item was poured into the cool mason jars, with a little space open to allow for space between the food and the top of the jar. The lids with a red rubber seal were placed on top, and after they were boiled, they were set to cool until the jar sealed itself by letting the air out naturally. They were stored in the kitchen food pantry on the shelves. There was always enough canned food for the entire year.

We picked wild blackberries and blueberries, and there were always blueberry dumplings and pies. We made watermelon rind preserves, blueberry and blackberry preserves, apple butter, and strawberry preserves, in addition to the vegetables. There was always an expectation of a harvest, and for each year that we farmed, there was always a harvest. I found that having an attitude of positive expectation is a determining factor in outcomes.

My uncle Jimmie and aunt Bertha lived closest to the county line, and north of our farm, and their oldest son, my cousin Billie James, drove the school bus. The first four stops on the bus consisted of thirteen cousins. Then we rode US Highway 17 to the Heights, then a dilapidated, congested area, and on to a segregated school. J. W. Willie Elementary School was off Main Street, in Pollocksville, North Carolina, and many of the teachers were cousins.

Every Sunday we went to church approximately eleven miles on US Highway 17 to Perry’s, now called Perrytown, to Timothy’s Chapel AME Zion Church, built in 1913, now called Bryant Chapel AME Zion. My sister and I were always in dresses with ribbons in our braided hair, white laced socks, white cotton gloves, and black patent leather shoes. We were given individually wrapped peppermint balls that we took to church on Sundays to keep us quiet and soothe a dry mouth.

A Farmer’s Life

The cash crop for Jones County was tobacco, and it was the cash crop for my grandfather, in addition to peanuts and soybeans. Generally, in January my family planted tobacco. They would burn off all of the undergrowth and weeds on the land that had cropped up since last year and then plow the land and fertilize it.

Tobacco seedlings have the delicacy and sensitivity of little children, so they are not put directly into the ground. Tobaccos seedlings are planted into seedbeds, where they are prepared by watering them, plucking weeds, and covering them with white gauze cloth to keep out worms and fungus. The plants remained covered with the gauze for about six weeks until they were mature. Afterward the tobacco seedlings were planted into plowed land with furrows that were prepared for planting. My brother, cousins, uncles, and day laborers would sit on the back of the tobacco transplanter that was pulled by the two mules, Cora and Dora. There were three people on the transplanter machine; one would put the plant in the hole, one would put in fertilizer, and one would add water.

Tobacco is a crop that you live with because you have to be concerned with the weather. If it is too cold, the plants will die. If the crops become infected with wire worms or blue mold fungus, it will destroy the crops. So as the tobacco plants began to grow, the male family members had to plow the land to get rid of weeds, and they had to prevent pests from eating the tobacco plants. They plowed the land and the weeds were turned under and the furrows banked with dirt against the tobacco plants. The tobacco hornworms had white stripes on the sides of their caterpillar-type bodies and a noted horn on their tails. Everyone who was of three feet in height prevented pests from eating the crop by pulling the green tobacco hornworm off the tobacco plants by hand.

When the tobacco plants began to develop a pink flower, it was