Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

The Levitical Tithe

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Levitical Tithe

Genre:

Track: 36

Dictation Name: RR181T36

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee that thou and thou alone art the author of all good, that it is thy will that shall be done, and not the will of ungodly men, that thy purposes shall prevail, thy judgments stand fast, and thy deliverance be for time and eternity. We come to thee therefore, rejoicing in thy government, trusting in thee, pledging ourselves to thy service, and waiting on thy mercies. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is from Numbers 18:25-32, and our subject: The Levitical Tithe. Numbers 18:25-32. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Thus speak unto the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering of it for the Lord, even a tenth part of the tithe. And this your heave offering shall be reckoned unto you, as though it were the corn of the threshingfloor, and as the fulness of the winepress. Thus ye also shall offer an heave offering unto the Lord of all your tithes, which ye receive of the children of Israel; and ye shall give thereof the Lord’s heave offering to Aaron the priest. Out of all your gifts ye shall offer every heave offering of the Lord, of all the best thereof, even the hallowed part thereof out of it. Therefore thou shalt say unto them, When ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshingfloor, and as the increase of the winepress. And ye shall eat it in every place, ye and your households: for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation. And ye shall bear no sin by reason of it, when ye have heaved from it the best of it: neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die.”

Again, as we conclude this eighteenth chapter of Numbers, God is repeating here something because He regards us as slow learners, and He is right, because there are very few things that people have learned less and have shied away from more than what this text teaches us.

The priests and the Levites had a common purpose; the service of the Lord. The priests were primarily centered n sacrifice and worship; whereas the Levites had instruction as their basic purpose according to Deuteronomy 3:10. Although, in the wilderness, the care of the sanctuary predominated for the Levites, once in Canaan, only a small minority of the Levites was needed for the sanctuary service. The rest had broader duties, basically related to instruction. They were the scribes and the lawyers of Israel, dealing with the word of God.

In the church today, the division is somewhat clear, although not as sharp as then, but it is still there. The work of the clergy centers on worship, but basic to worship now is preaching, which is a Levitical service. The clergy thus, is an heir of the priests, but also the Levites. The modern Levites are Christian scholars. It is important to note how early thinkers and teachers, writers and philosophers were basic to the life of the early church. No one has written about the significance of that. The closest any book has come to it has been Charles Norris Cochran’s Christianity in Classical Culture, but thinkers, teachers, writers, philosophers were basic to the life of the early church. The surviving literature of the church fathers tells us how important scholarship was to the early church.

The pagan scholars were not connected with the various temples, nor to the pagan gods. They were tutors to the wealthy and had only contempt for the common man. The ideas represented by Plato’s Republic, and Cicero’s Republic, and other like works because they are plentiful, are the manipulation and total control of most people by philosopher kings. This was a basic theme of pagan thinkers. Scholarship was an adjunct of aristocracy, not a religious function in pagan antiquity. It was a province of the state in some instances. Thus, the support of scholarship by Christians was a remarkable development in the world’s history, and it is worth noting that the Reformation was the work of Christian scholarship, even as every revival throughout the Middle Ages was similarly a work of scholars.

In this text, we are told first, that the tithe was to be paid normally in whatever form it was given to the Levites. A man could be the administrator of his tithe, but if he paid it to somebody, it was to the Levites, not to the priests. These gifts are holy, and they belonged to God for the work of His kingdom. To misuse the tithe was to pollute the holy things of the children of Israel and it would bring God’s judgment of death. This is what we are told in verse 32.

Then second, the Levites were, in turn to tithe the people’s tithe to the priests or sanctuary for the purpose of furthering worship. So the tithe went basically to instruction, to scholarship, and a tithe of the tithe for worship. If what the Levites received was in the form of ranch and farm products, the best of the tenth had to go for worship, with nine-tenths retained for Levitical purposes. When our Lord, in Paul, required the support of the servants of God, they had reference to this law in Matthew 10:9-10 and 1 Corinthians 9:3-10, and 1 Corinthians 16:2. The observations of James Phillip on this text are excellent. First, we must see that in God’s plan, everything depends on the fact of tithing. It provides the funding for a variety of activities; worship, health, education, welfare, and scholarship. The tithe is God’s tax. It is the rent which is His due for our lives, but no man nor institution is empowered to collect it. God leaves it to the individual, to be responsible to Him. What this means is very, very important. A people get the kind of society they pay for in their tithing. A people get the kind of society they pay for in their tithing. It is plain to see that everything in the Israelite economy really depended on the principle of tithing being adopted and strictly adhered to. Only thus would the system work, said James Phillip. Only thus would the system work, God’s system. We can add that the alternative to a tithing society is a tyrant state and its oppressive taxation.

Second the spiritual impoverishment of our time is due to the failure to tithe. Men seem to prefer the Internal Revenue Service and its power state to tithing and a free society. Then third, in Phillip’s very telling words, “The significance of the tithe is that it is similar in principle to the institution of the Sabbath day of rest. Israel was to keep the Sabbath day holy, and to devote it entirely to God as a symbol that all days belonged to Him. IN the same way the tithe is a symbol that all we have is the Lord’s. To practice tithing is, therefore, a standing witness of our recognition that this is so.” Both the tithe and the Sabbath rest tell us to rest in the Lord and in the confidence that His government alone gives us peace and prosperity.

Then fourth, the subject of tithing is referred to in Deuteronomy 12:6 and 11, and Deuteronomy 26:12, and Deuteronomy was used in the instruction of children. The tithe is important in shaping the future, and therefore, children need to be taught its necessity.

Then we can add, fifth, a non-tithing culture is a dying one, because it does not provide for its future under God. A non-tithing culture is a dying one, because it does not provide for its future under God. This is why Christendom has been unique in world history, because whenever it has tithed, Christian scholarship has again and again revived culture by providing a framework for the future. When we look at the modern academic community at its best, we see some men who are able critic, analysts and historians, remarkable ones, but their orientation is to the past and to the present. They are more than incompetent in their views of the future. Not being Christians, they have no valid view of the future. No other religion, no other culture has ever had any provision resembling this, and we have forgotten about it. The Magi, or wise men of Babylon were state-trained, and state-controlled experts in various fields. The purpose of their work was to serve the state, but Christian scholarship is to serve the future under God, to serve God and His purposes.

As I said earlier, the very quick rise of scholarship in the church has never received sufficient attention. It is as though it just happened and it didn’t mean a thing, but the background is {?}. Paul says of Christ’s purpose for His people, “And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting (or maturing) of the saints, for the work of the ministry and for the edifying, the instruction of the body of Christ.” This is Ephesians 4:11-12. The prophet word here means one who speaks for God, one who enlightens us to see things in God’s perspective. The word teacher is, or means an instructor, a master, a doctor, a teacher. The early church thus had its doctors or teachers, who were philosophers, theologians, historians, and so on. These were men supported by the believers.

In ancient China, and until recently, various scholars, Confucians especially, were state officials, and all scholarship was state-oriented and state-governed, and China had an orientation to the past. This has been the pattern wherever in any culture we find the scholars. The exception has been ancient Israel and since Christ’s day in particular, Christendom. This aspect of our faith needs reviving. This is why God repeats himself here. The Levites were not allowed to neglect worship. They had to tithe, and thereby witness to the priority of the worship of God. The top tenth of the tithe to them had to go from them to the priest for worship, but nine-tenths remained with the Levites in order to further the dominion mandate of the faith, whether in the area of knowledge, agriculture, science, and in all things else, we are required to exercise dominion, and the key to that is Christian scholarship. Without the tithe, without the support of Christian scholarship, we get at best a static society, and static societies are very, very prone to decay and collapse.

The purpose of Christian scholarship should be to clarify our vision of the past and present, to make clear God’s requirements of us, to further our knowledge in every sphere, to give freedom under the arts and sciences under God, and much, much more. Without the tithe and the provision for the Christian teacher and scholar, a moral paralysis overtakes the church and society.

This church has seen the moral paralysis of men and nations, and we have seen recently in talking to Dr. Ellsworth McIntyre how jealousy has found the church, of the success of the Christian schools when he conducted them under the auspices of the church. They insisted on reversing God’s order, and God will bring a judgment on such a thing. This moral paralysis of men and nations is a crisis that will not go away automatically. There is no historical pendulum saving men and nations, and bringing them back into health when they are willfully committing suicide. The crisis is deepening daily, and the popular solutions are more and more ridiculous and in name. We have, as a nation and as a world, bought disaster, and we will have nothing else unless we turn to God’s law, and way. Let us pray.

Our Father, thy word is truth, and thy word declares unto us, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” Confirm out hearts to thy word. Make us joyful in the privilege of serving thee and of being thy people. Teach us that thou art our great landlord, as well as our redeemer and our savior, that thou hast given thine only begotten son to die for our sins, to atone for us, and what thou hast asked of us is as nothing by comparison. Make us joyful in serving thee. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions on our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Well, once the clergy here lost control of the universities, the universities have been in charge, practically, of our culture, and I don’t know of any church groups that are sponsoring art works today, outside perhaps of the Catholics.

[Rushdoony] The universities were once all Christian. In fact, to 1900, seventy-five percent of them were founded by Scots who felt very strongly about what I am talking about. They have since lost that character, and what Christian college there are, are usually not Christian colleges. They are church colleges, and there is a difference. The Levites are not placed under the church, and the Levitical function, while not as high a priority as the worship function, nonetheless gets nine-tenths of the tithe. So that, while there is an order of priority religiously, financially the priority is with the Levites, scholarship, and this has been neglected. The universities have been made adjuncts of the state. There are virtually none I would say, probably none that do not receive federal funds. In fact, some Christian colleges do receive federal funds, and I know one very, very widely respected evangelical college, and I say evangelical because that’s how it’s still termed. When I visited it at the beginning of the sixties, was receiving enough grants from the federal government, the National Science Foundation, to keep their entire science faculty going, which as you can expect, was hardly biblical in its perspective. So, we are returning to the Babylonian concept. The Magi, the state controlling all its learning because it regards it as too dangerous in independent hands, which also the Chinese model.

That’s why Eugen Rosenstock-Huessey, in his book The Christian Future: or The Modern Mind Outrun, spoke of John Dewey, and this was some years ago, as the man whose purpose was the Chinafication of the United States, and he did that after some study of China and of the lectures that Dewey delivered in China. I think he was right. Statist education from kindergarten on through the graduate level has, as its purpose the Chinafication of America, or to use the older term, to turn us into another Babylon, and this is why, I believe, what we have begun here is so important, because we’re trying to restore God’s priorities. We believe both in worship and in instruction, scholarship, and I think that there will be no Christian reawakening this time without that. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] Can a Christian be a Christian who doesn’t pay his tithe?

[Rushdoony] Yes, just as you can be a man if you’re minus a leg and an arm, but it is a handicap in your life.

[Audience] A man once told me that people, a lot of people read Bibles to see what they can get away with.

[Rushdoony] Well, that very well may be true with some people, and certain some of the theologies today are designed to see what people can get away with. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] I can’t recall anybody in the Bible getting away with anything.

[Rushdoony] What?

[Audience] I can’t recall anyone in the Bible getting away with anything.

[Rushdoony] No, that’s for sure, and sooner or later in life, no one gets away with everything, and sometimes it’s a joy to see them get it. Did you read the item in the last National Review about the man in a large mobile home in Florida who, late at night, heard a noise and he thought, since he had a large gas tank, somebody was siphoning gas. So he hurried out to call the police. They came, and they found the man lying on the ground gagging. He had put his siphon in the sewage tank by mistake. So, it’s nice to see the wicked get it now and then. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, it is good for us to be here. Thy word is truth, and by thy word and by thy spirit, our souls are refreshed, our vision clarified. We thank thee. We pray for thy blessing upon us and our loved ones. Guide them in the way of righteousness and truth. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.