“Dave Ramsey says pastors should not ask 'broke people' to tithe until they first work on their debt and budgeting.”

Yeah, no surprise there. Ramsey is not really known for his careful exegesis and application of biblical texts.

I never directly ask anybody to tithe and I don’t look at the records to see how much anyone tithes, or if they even do tithe.

[TylerR]

I never directly ask anybody to tithe and I don’t look at the records to see how much anyone tithes, or if they even do tithe.

…by simply knowing how much someone gives, how would a pastor truly, actually know if someone is “tithing”? (Further assuming the person is filing accurate tax returns…)

One of the ways tithing improves your life, is that it helps you better control and manage your money. It helps to balance your life. That will make you better able to pay off your debts.

While I don’t know if someone is tithing unless they tell me, whatever your situation, a believer should give tithes and offerings to the Lord. As my dad used to say, I can’t afford not to tithe; I can’t afford to miss out on God’s blessings.

Give ten percent to the Lord, ten percent to yourself (retirement), and manage well the remaining 80 percent. I often agree with Dave Ramsey, but disagree with him on this matter.

David R. Brumbelow

…that both sides of this debate are really skimming around the edges of what it means to “tithe”. Ramsey avoids the principles of the widow’s mite and 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, Bentley simply uses the term “tithe” or “tenth” to describe any donation of any size. I would dare suggest that they’re really talking past the other person’s argument, and in practice, they largely agree with one another. From the context, I believe both would concur that a person in fairly heavy debt ought to scale back his donations from the customary tenth.

And for the record, I agree with them.

In that article it even further quotes Ramsay:

“Unless,” he [Ramsay] said, “you’ve done two sermons on … debt — one on getting out of debt and one on getting on a budget.

“That’s the ratio for me instead of just tithe, tithe, tithe,” he said. But when pastors fail to address debt and setting a budget, he said, the reaction to a sermon about tithing is often “yeah right, I’ve got a light bill. That’s a great spiritual concept. Maybe someday I’ll get around to that.’”

So Ramsay’s point appears to be “stop asking broke people to tithe” without first offering some help on giving them financial wisdom. In his Financial Peace University, on his budgeting plan, at the very top, first in the list, is the category of “Charity,” and within that category are two subcategories, the first one of which is “Tithes” (the 2nd is “Charity & Offerings,” i.e. any giving above that given to one’s support of their church). So Ramsay is not against the asking of a tithe from the poor in toto, but rather in the how it is asked.

Ramsay’s real message, I believe, is

• Teach people the biblical issues with debt, and exhort them how to get out of the slavery of it.
• Part of teaching them how to get out of that slavery is in the forming of a budget.
• Part of a properly formed budget is to factor in one’s tithe.

His goal is to get people tithing, but getting them there through a wise means of it, not just haphazardly tithing or ignoring tithing for the apparently more pressing “urgent” need of said “light bill” or other expense or debt.

Why on earth would I preach a sermon about how to set a budget? This kind of thing makes me laugh. If you trolled the internet, and cataloged every single “important thing” pastors are allegedly supposed to focus on and preach about, a pastor would go mad. And, not coincidentally, Christ would be minimized or pushed out in favor of a sermon about debt principles.

Many of these issues will be addressed as a matter of course during the regular, systematic preaching through the books of the Bible. I spent a GREAT DEAL of time chatting about a Christian’s relationship to civil government when I went through 1 Peter. I had to because the text dealt with it.

[TylerR]

Why on earth would I preach a sermon about how to set a budget?

…it wasn’t really Scott’s suggestion that it be the subject of a sermon. But in the venue of a seminar or elective course offered to the congregation, it could be helpful.

My church (for example) has offered personal finance seminars on, say, a Saturday morning or a weeknight. It can be helpful to many folks to provide a venue where such a topic can be taught from a biblical point of view.

I was referring to Ramsey, not Scott! I’m glad some churches have the personnel and resources to offer personal finance elective courses to folks on a Saturday morning. I’ll think about them as I sit in my pajamas and sip coffee this Saturday … !

All joking aside, it seems like a good plan if you have the resources to swing it. Most people don’t. And, I’m not sure it’s really a core function of a local church to teach personal finance. It’s important, but not core enough for me to devote my resources to. You gotta prioritize based on what you think a church’s mission is supposed to be.

At best, I could swing a Sunday School series that lasts several weeks.

I can see doing a topical/word study sermon based on Exodus 20:17 and related passages, and a part of that would indeed be a budget that would be intended to restrain spending to one’s actual income. That’s actually one of the things I at least used to “not like” about both Ramsey and Crown; they didn’t do near enough regarding how the big problem most people have, financially speaking, is covetousness, not the lack of a budget or will or whatever. Hopefully that has changed in the past ~ 8-9 years.

I wouldn’t do it on budgeting alone, since that’s really only tangentially mentioned in Scripture—“counting the cost” and all—but I can see a lot more sermons on covetousness/greed, and can see it as a very profitable (no pun intended) area of counseling.

So a couple comes to you. They have good jobs, but past decisions, some “covetous” or maybe just unwise, but a few big ones caused by health issues (read as $$$$$) with a child that keeps regularly hitting them in the pocketbook, caused them to eventually have more month than paycheck after years of trying to do fix the problem. The debt is just too much. They give half a tithe, let’s say, but not the full because literally to do anything more would cause them to have to not pay a bill. They already work as much as they can… but their jobs just never give a pay raise and insurance keeps absorbing more and more of their check. In the past, they gave 10% or more without concern over the budget, but the years have caught up with them and they cannot do that anymore. They know they are biblically wrong, but they literally would have to not pay bills to “tithe.” What do you recommend? Avoid pat answers like “sell stuff” and “don’t eat out at McDonald’s that once a month you splurge.” By the way, this is a real situation I have encountered and I would appreciate your genuine response.

Moderator note: Slightly edited (Jim Peet)

Tyler,

Since you preach more exegetically (I believe), then you probably don’t have the primary issue that I suspect Ramsey (and I don’t have any excuse for why I mispelled his name in the first post!) is referring to, which is probably the topical preacher that every [insert some period of time a year or less in length] preaches a sermon on tithing, while excluding preaching about debt or wise financial choices from Scripture.

But even exegetically, whenever one is preaching in a true tithing passage in particular (where 1/10th was the expectation), one is already discussing an aspect of budgeting (setting aside 1/10th of the increase to give), so a bit more discussion of that could be included.

There are also other passages where some attention might come to that: Prov 22:7 (and an illustration of that in Neh 5:3-5, though that was partly due to the greed of those exacting usury, v.6); Ps 37:21 (how many Christians have declared bankruptcy?: a legal action in the U.S., but a wicked one in God’s sight, unless one actually reorganizes in order to repay); the illustration in Isa 55:2 assumes an understanding of how to spend wisely; the illustration in Lk 14:28-30 is a budgeting illustration to understand a spiritual truth, so it is assumed one understands budgeting there (which is a big assumption in our modern day of overspending).

So I agree, spending an inordinate amount of time on debt and budget in preaching would be a detriment, but spending no time on it would not fulfill teaching the whole counsel of God, since there are passages related to the wise use of finances that intersect with debt and budgeting.

And yes, possibly having a special session could work. Or it may be that you don’t have people in your congregation that struggle at all with this issue, and so you really don’t need to address it. Recall that Ramsey was opposed to preaching to the poor about tithing, without giving them the tools to overcome their habits that may have made them poor (so it may be that a one-on-one set of counseling sessions are needed to intervene in this matter, not a sermon).

You can do what you gotta do. It is possible to live on a lot less than what you think you can, but discipline and realistic views of needs, wants, luxuries, etc., are a must. Somewhere in all that you have to figure what you “gotta do”, and that very well may be some sort of regular giving plan.

My experience: a person who won’t/doesn’t give when finances are tight will find other reasons not to give when finances aren’t. Just an observation.

That’s a great spot for counseling, and I’d hope I’d start by saying that in light of the widow’s mite and 2 Cor. 9:7, that tithing is not a New Testament requirement. We need to remember that the early church consisted significantly of slaves who had their bread and that’s about it, and quite frankly asking them to give up a tenth of a meager ration of bread would have been just plain cruel.

Now we’re not slaves on meager rations, to be sure, but I can see a place where someone with more month than paycheck might serve God best by striving to rectify that. “OK, let’s use that tithe to cover some overdue bills, and if you’re current, let’s try to get an emergency fund going, and then start getting ahead on one of these debts….and we may have to have a chat with the little one about how much the things he wants actually cost.”

A big part of the trick as well is to model frugality. One of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten, one that wasn’t intended as such, was “you never buy anything.” Well, not technically true, but I buy little enough so that they see me driving the same vehicles, wearing the same clothes, and so on—quality over quantity and all that.

Make a point of displaying frugality gently—have people over for dinner, let them see you cook, give them a house tour, all that. Good luck!