Dr. Couch, you are my favorite dispensational teacher and I really appreciate your advice. I know you have been butting heads for years with problems in churches and I am becoming so frustrated with what is going on here in my assembly. My church is a Southern Baptist congregation that is trying to pay off a huge building debt. They are putting massive guilt on everyone for the problem and calling everyone thieves from the Malachi passage. I am so tired of the legalism and the condemnation. On top of it all they do not teach the Word of God. How should I handle this in my heart?
ANSWER: You have to learn to accept the stupidity of the church today and the lack of biblical discernment of leadership. The bad news is it is going to get worse; the good news is the Bible told us there would be such legalism and that an apostasy will someday overtake the church. The church age will fail!
And you observe well, the Malachi passage is not applicable to the dispensation of the church. It was for the dispensation of law. The passage you are referring to is the "old" "bring your tithes into the storehouse" in 3:8-10. The storehouse was the temple treasury. The tithe was a tenth and was required by the law.
We are not under the law but under the dispensation of the church age, or under grace. Under grace the key passage is 2 Corinthians 9:6-13. We are to give just as one has "purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver." This could be even more than a ten percent of what one gives! Under grace God is looking at the heart and the intent not the figure of ten percent. However, since God knows the heart there is a rule attached to giving and that is found in verse 6: "He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully." If one has the ability to give a certain amount but is stingy with God there will be a limited return of blessing from the Lord. Notice that in the passage the heart is involved. God knows us and examines our motives.
You will not change your church from bottom up. The only choice you have if it is doctrinally intolerable is to leave.
Thanks for asking.
Dr. Mal Couch
ANSWER: You have to learn to accept the stupidity of the church today and the lack of biblical discernment of leadership. The bad news is it is going to get worse; the good news is the Bible told us there would be such legalism and that an apostasy will someday overtake the church. The church age will fail!
And you observe well, the Malachi passage is not applicable to the dispensation of the church. It was for the dispensation of law. The passage you are referring to is the "old" "bring your tithes into the storehouse" in 3:8-10. The storehouse was the temple treasury. The tithe was a tenth and was required by the law.
We are not under the law but under the dispensation of the church age, or under grace. Under grace the key passage is 2 Corinthians 9:6-13. We are to give just as one has "purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver." This could be even more than a ten percent of what one gives! Under grace God is looking at the heart and the intent not the figure of ten percent. However, since God knows the heart there is a rule attached to giving and that is found in verse 6: "He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully." If one has the ability to give a certain amount but is stingy with God there will be a limited return of blessing from the Lord. Notice that in the passage the heart is involved. God knows us and examines our motives.
You will not change your church from bottom up. The only choice you have if it is doctrinally intolerable is to leave.
Thanks for asking.
Dr. Mal Couch
