Every Spiritual Blessing
Try to follow my line of thinking here, because I think we’re going to take a lot of twists and turns. I’ve been spending some time (really, too much time) lately arguing for a Biblical view of giving. One of the things that always comes up is the difference between spiritual and material blessings. Or, better put, the priority of spiritual blessings over material blessings. Or even, to try one more time to get it right, how material blessings are really spiritual blessings.
As I had this on my mind I stopped by one of my favorite blogs, Pyromaniacs, and found a great post by Frank Turk about the priority of preaching Christ. His argument is that Jesus Christ and the gospel are the solution to culture. That Jesus Christ is the solution to our problems. Marital difficulties? Christ is the answer. Money problems? Christ is the answer. Spoiled kids? Christ is the answer. Not self-help guides. Not 5-step processes to be a better person. Not man’s wisdom. Christ and Him crucified.
That may sound a bit oversimplified and you also may be wondering what in the world that has anything to do with material vs. spiritual blessings. Here’s where they start to come together. Since we are in Christ, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly places. I think a lot of our problems stem from a misunderstanding of this important gospel truth.
See, we’re looking to God to supply more, special blessings, like our visiting tithe proponent talked about in his posts on tithing. We expect God to operate simply on the physical plane. When God promises healing, we expect it to be physical healing. When God promises blessings, we expect material blessings. We expect a back-scratching type of relationship with God. I scratch God’s back with my tithe, and He’ll scratch my back with “special, material blessings”.
Let me illustrate this. As I was reading Frank Turk’s post about Christ being the answer, my mind, of course, ran to Third Day’s excellent song, Cry to Jesus (please follow the link to listen to it; they’ve disabled embedding, so I can’t place it here directly, but it is well worth listening to). I looked up the video on YouTube and enjoyed a few moments of focusing on Christ as the answer to my problems. Then I scrolled down to the comment area. Wow. Let’s be honest. Anyone who’s ever been on YouTube knows that the comments section is not the place for enlightened, honest, intellectual discussion. And this was no exception. But what several people said was very enlightening.
Mac Powell sings this as the chorus,
“There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He’ll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus”
And the problem people run into is that when he says “hope for the helpless” they assume he means physical hope. When he says “mercy and healing” they assume he means physical healing. And so when they cry out to Jesus, they are assuming physical categories. They cry out to Jesus for their mom to be healed of cancer and if she’s not, then they assume the whole things was false. They cry out to Jesus because of their poverty and expect God to provide a new job, or higher salary.
But that ignores the fact that God has already provided us every spiritual blessing. We just need to live in the reality of that fact and put our focus in Christ for healing, spiritual healing that is. Christ is the answer to all our problems. And He has provided me with every spiritual blessing. So if I am trying to gain more favor from God by giving my tithe, I’ve missed out on the point of giving. And I’ve missed out on the fact that even if God leaves me in poverty, that is a spiritual blessing in my life. That if God leaves me in poor health, that is a spiritual blessing. That everything that happens in my life has been ordained by Him for my good and His glory. So talking about extra, special, material blessings that you can unlock by giving a tithe is just nonsensical.
But a materialistic view of God is not only poor interpretation of Scripture, that view creates atheists. They come to God looking for God to solve their material problems and when he doesn’t do it the way they expect, they assume that the problem is with God. And when they reject God and still see material wealth or physical health, they think that invalidates God. Over and over on the YouTube combox. But the problem is not with God. The problem is with a faulty view of God. So focus on Christ when you run into problems and understand that Christ is not necessarily going to fix your problem, rather focusing on Him is the solution to your problem.
Tagged as blessings, Christ, preaching, Third Day + Categorized as Theology
Nice. Well put.
At times one wonders if pro-tithers read the same bible that we do. What you have said is simply a no brainer – a materialistic view of God truly poor interpretation of Scripture and I still cannot understand why these guys decide to choose works over grace.
Unlocking wealth and health through tithing is all garbage. All those five steps to achieving this or that is simply new age nonsense that has further muddied the waters.
Very good post.
Yeah, I think the problem, which EnnisP has amply illustrated, is that they’re not really concerned with what the Bible actually says. They think tithing is a good idea, and its seems like a good way to raise money for a church, so they try to force it into the Bible. His assumption that Abraham tithed regularly is just comical.
And the materialistic view of God doesn’t even play out in real life. EnnisP went so far as to say that you can’t get ahead unless you tithe. I can list a lot of people who have gotten ahead materially without tithing. How does he explain that?