Giving shows he is Lord of our lives. First and foremost, God wants us to give because it shows that we recognize he is truly the Lord of our lives. Giving is an expression of our thankfulness and praise to God. It comes from a heart of worship that recognizes everything we have and give already belongs to the Lord.

Proverbs 19:17 (NIV) “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward them for what they have done.”

The money that is given is used to construct and maintain its buildings as well as to further the work of the church. None of the funds collected from tithing is paid to local church officials or those who serve in the church.

The good news: The U.S. has never forced civilians to give 10% of their income to a church, although it’s still held as the gold standard of charitable donations to your place of worship. There are lots of references to tithing in the Bible, which many Christians regard as the word of God.

The easy answer to “Why tithe?” is because it works and God tells us to do this in His word in Malachi 3:10. “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” quotes the Bible.

Tithe, (from Old English teogothian, “tenth”), a custom dating back to Old Testament times and adopted by the Christian church whereby lay people contributed a 10th of their income for religious purposes, often under ecclesiastical or legal obligation. The money (or its equivalent in crops, farm stock, etc.)

The tithe gift is discussed in the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 18:21–26) according to which a tenth of the produce was to be presented to a Levite who then gave a tenth of the first tithe to a kohen (Numbers 18:26). Tithing was seen as performing a mitzvah done in joyful obedience to God.

Defending the faith in the God revealed to Moses against the calf worshippers were the Levites, who became the priestly caste.