I’ve attended more than a dozen churches in my lifetime. Some of the ministers I met encouraged me to seek God for myself and obey Him without hesitation. Such were the men who led me to Jesus and who married me and my wife. Both remained genuine and loving brothers in Christ who would never come between me and the Lord, except perhaps to stop me from doing something that would harm my relationship with Him. The former was like a 2nd father to me during my teen years, the latter a sweet friend and counselor, who could always be found on Saturday evening standing in the pulpit delivering his Sunday sermon before God and an empty sanctuary. Sadly, some others questioned whether I could really hear God’s voice for myself and insisted I obey them instead. Through them God taught me to stand up for my freedom and to respond like Peter who said: “judge for yourself whether it is right to obey you, or God”.

Examining what it means to be a Free Son takes several forms: identifying ways in which we’re free, and the things that hold us back. Often that means coming to terms with falsehoods we’ve embraced and the people who taught and reinforced them. No one ever said rising from the dead was going to be easy (Luke 9:60, Ephesians 5:14). Imagine Lazarus, passing peacefully in his sleep, only to awaken days later on a cold slab in a dark tomb, tightly bound in linen cloth with 75 pounds of burial spices wrapped up with him (John 19:39-40). However did Lazarus manage to get to his feet and stagger out of the tomb? Likewise, when we awaken from our slumber, how do we come out from under the heavy burdens placed on our shoulders by false teachers and teachings (Matthew 23:4)?

Among the rude awakenings that challenged me to search out scripture for myself and to stop accepting the teachings of men without question, was a gentle rebuke from the Father about a false teaching I had embraced. One of the “spitfire trio” whom I met the day Betsy received Christ, called me laughing about a church in town where half the congregation sneaked out during the pastors long and guilt-laden prayer about tithing following an even longer sermon about “Robbing God!” When the pastor finally said “Amen” and opened his eyes, he cried out “half my church is gone!” I couldn’t help but laugh with her and snark “they must have fled the conviction of the Holy Spirit”. But the Father replied “No! They fled from error and guilt-based giving” and challenged me to study tithing with Him. It hasn’t been easy to forgive the men who taught falsehoods and profited from my ignorance. And the tens of thousands of dollars I gave to a false doctrine? Let’s just call it my tuition fee. Thankfully, in the years since, the Lord has more than restored what the locusts have eaten.

In the big top tent of traditional religion where the circus of man’s church system performs before a captive audience, the center pole is the tithe doctrine and the men who promote and profit from it. Without a moment’s hesitation the Lord took an ax to the center pole of the big top and dropped it to the ground on my first day of school with the Holy Spirit. From there He had my undivided attention. With the Holy Spirit as my teacher, I studied tithing for a year and published 7 long articles documenting what He taught me. Among the first few responses to my article “To Tithe or not to Tithe: the $earch for Truth”, was an accusation that claimed “You’re destroying the holy church of God”. Written in a lofty tone that really shook me up I took it to the Father, who simply said “if my church can be destroyed by cutting off the cash flow, it should be destroyed.” Thereafter I wrote with abandon.

With regard to the Holy Spirit as our teacher, in John 14:26 Jesus said:

The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you.

We are reminded again of what Jesus said in 1st John 2:27 which says:

But as for you, Christ has poured out his Spirit on you. As long as his Spirit remains in you, you do not need anyone to teach you. For his Spirit teaches you about everything, and what he teaches is true, not false. Obey the Spirit’s teaching, then, and remain in union with Christ.

Do you hear the subtle inference contained in that passage? The difference between the teachings of the Holy Spirit and men, is the difference between truth and falsehood. Not that everything men teach is false, rather, men often teach from their understanding which is received through the understanding of those who listen. Potentially, that introduces yeast. The Holy Spirit on the other hand, teaches from God’s Spirit to His Spirit within us where the flesh can not introduce yeast. Consider 1st Corinthians 2:13-14 which says:

We don’t speak about these things using teachings that are based on intellectual arguments like people do. Instead, we use the Spirit’s teachings. We explain spiritual things to those who have the Spirit. A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the teachings of God’s Spirit. He thinks they’re nonsense. He can’t understand them because a person must be spiritual to evaluate them.

It was 25 years ago the Lord awakened me from religious slumber and began teaching me by the Holy Spirit. And still He shows me something new concerning the falsehood of the tithe doctrine every now and then. As the Lord is prone to do, like the wedding banquet where He saved the best wine for last, so also He saved what I regard the most eye opening revelation concerning the tithe, for last.

You see, the tithe doctrine is really nothing more than a side show. An issue that keeps brothers stirred up and divided, and under guilt and condemnation. According to the Law of Moses the tithe is food, brought by food growers, to the temple in Jerusalem, for the tribe of Levi. That is indisputable. So how did the tithe become money, from wage earners, brought to the local church building, for the clergy? How can men so boldly reinterpret the scriptures when Paul wrote to Corinth saying “do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6), and John wrote “do not add to or subtract from this book of prophecy” (Revelation 22:18-19). By what authority do men change the Word of God? And why don’t we challenge them by the Word when they do?

Perhaps the reason men habitually grieve and quench the Holy Spirit, is to protect their interests in the profitable circus that is man’s church system. For if the Holy Spirit were loosed, you can be certain that the Truth would be proclaimed, and the Truth would set the captives free! But the reality is, man’s church system is sustained through witness suppression and that witness is our friend the Comforter – God’s Holy Spirit!

When we resist the temptation to argue over the side show, the truth begins to emerge. Christ told his disciples to serve the gospel for free. When they went out from Christ to find the lost sheep of Israel, He told them take no purse or extra provision, stay with someone worthy and eat the food set before them because “the worker deserves his meat”. Meat is food and last I checked, the tithe is food. Thus Christ sent them out to minister the gospel while conforming to the Law of Moses as it pertains to the Levitical priesthood. The disciples were compensated with food, not money. Having dispensed with the side show that is the tithe doctrine, I remember thinking to myself “if only Jesus had shown us what to do with an offering”.

He replied: “I did, but you missed it”.

Jesus had spent all morning and afternoon teaching and healing people and He was hungry. Everyone was. But there was no food; not until a boy came forward and gave Jesus a basket with 5 loaves and 2 fishes. Now if ever a man was worthy of his meat for preaching the gospel, it was Jesus. He could have kept the loaves and fishes to feed Himself. After all, it was His right under the law. Instead, Jesus denied His own hunger, blessed the boy’s gift and gave it back to the people so they could eat and be filled.

Their sacrifice, both the boy who gave up his lunch and Jesus who denied Himself, so moved the heart of God, He multiplied that meager offering to feed 5,000 people with 12 baskets of leftovers.

That’s what Jesus the Good Shepherd does with an offering. He makes Himself least by putting the people first, and takes His portion from the leftovers God made.

Our focus on the side show that is the never ending tithe debate, distracts us from seeing and calling out the men who never follow Jesus example of selflessness, but instead, keep the gifts and offerings of the Church for themselves. I can’t recall ever seeing or hearing of anyone in man’s church who follows Jesus example of what to do with an offering. Sadly, as often as I’ve tried to share with a minister in man’s church, what the Lord has taught me about the tithe, I’ve been rebuffed. And that I take as my cue to leave.

Having shown me these things about the circus that is man’s religious system, I had no choice but to come out altogether and join Christ “outside the camp” to share in His reproach (Hebrews 13:13). He, Christ, was only too glad to receive me: a man accused of “destroying the holy church of God”.