They DID Exist

This is an interesting day.

For a long time, I have been criticizing Steve Munsey’s “seven blessings” doctrine. He claims all the Jews went to Jerusalem on Passover, Pentecost (Shavuot), and Yom Kippur (not Sukkot) and brought “their very best offerings,” which means money, and that God gave them seven blessings (Exodus 23:20-30) as a result. He says Christians have to do the same things, except for the Jerusalem part. We have to give God money three times a year, and he will give us seven blessings.

My church is doing this now. They’re asking us to sign offering pledges. I know vows were big in Judaism, but Jesus told us not to swear unnecessarily, so I will not sign one until I find a scriptural basis for doing so.

It’s pretty disturbing. We are being told to give our money to the church before paying our electric bills, car loan bills, and other just debts. Steve Munsey is known for this kind of thing. He told his church God wanted their tax refunds.

Of course, paying for blessings does not work. The blessings of Exodus 23 don’t appear to have any direct connection to offerings. Read it for yourself and see. And Munsey got one of the holidays wrong. MALE Jews (only) went to Jerusalem on Sukkot, not Yom Kippur. That, alone, should tell you what you need to know about the solidity of his doctrine. If you can’t tell the difference between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, why are you teaching about Jewish holidays?

Still, today I learned that I was wrong about something. Or that I may have been wrong. I’m checking it out, and I don’t have all the info yet. It turns out there WERE “gifts” at Passover, Shavuot, and SUKKOT (not Yom Kippur or “the atonement,” as Munsey teaches). I studied this stuff a lot, and I asked Jews, but I missed this anyway. The Bible says that at these feasts, the Jews had to bring gifts, in proportion to how God had blessed them (Deut. 16:16-17).

So now I’m trying to find out what the nature and size of these gifts were. I know the offerings of the ancient Jews were not always monetary. A prayer is an offering. Animals were sacrificed constantly, as offerings, and then eaten, which is something money-hungry preachers don’t talk about. I don’t think they want people to realize the Jews sometimes benefited directly from their offerings. People would bring buckets of chicken to church as offerings and then eat them in the parking lot.

There were monetary offerings, but were Jews expected to give big sums of cash on these holidays? I don’t know yet. It seems to me that “as God has blessed you” means you give what God has given you, or maybe a sum reflecting that. But I’m no rabbi.

Interesting questions: were Jews required to give offerings after the Temple was destroyed and the people were scattered? Were Gentiles allowed to give at the feasts?

As far as I know, the Jewish laws governing giving NEVER applied to Gentiles, and some only applied to Jews while they held Israel and had a functioning Temple to support. But there were Gentiles known as “God-fearers” who were involved with Judaism without becoming Jews. I wonder if they gave at the feasts.

I believe the Holy Spirit tells Gentiles when to give. We have never had sacrificial laws or a schedule of offerings. I think tithing is a good practice, but I do not believe anyone has ever shown that it’s mandatory. I think that if you listen to the Holy Spirit, you’ll end up giving more than the tithe, so it’s somewhat counterproductive to tell people tithing is required.

I also believe alms are extremely important. Charismatic preachers RARELY talk about giving to the needy, except through their ministries. That’s because they want control of the money, so they can take what they want before passing it on. Sorry to say it, but that’s the obvious truth.

You can’t be like God unless you give, so you should give as he inspires you. But giving mechanically, based on laws that aren’t found in the Bible, to ministers who may or may not use your money to help the poor…that seems stupid to me. And it takes the human contact out of giving. There is a big difference between giving to someone you know and swiping a credit card at your church. I believe God wants us to have that connection from time to time, because he has it every time he gives.

My church doesn’t do a whole lot for the poor. We have a sister charity, but it gets government grants, and it’s really a referral service. I know a guy who went to them for help. He said they send you to other organizations. We give away things like frozen Thanksgiving turkeys and free toys for Christmas, with lots of fanfare, but if you go to my church on a quiet Thursday and ask for help with your rent, they probably will not pay it. So the church and the charity are not my vehicles of choice for getting help to the needy. I think this is a major problem, but as long as we are spending money we don’t have, we are going to have bills to pay, and that doesn’t leave much for the poor.

Steve Munsey is almost certainly wrong about the “seven blessings.” He is wrong about Yom Kippur. And I’m 98% sure it’s wrong to tell people not to pay their bills. It seems to me that if you cheat your landlord to give your church money, and a blessing follows, your landlord will get the blessing, and God will give you a boil or something. But I want to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. If God wants Gentiles to give cash offerings at Passover, Shavuot, and SUKKOT, I don’t want to get in the way. And I don’t want to come across like someone who opposes supporting churches.

I want to be honest about my mistake. Still, the “seven blessings” business seems legalistic, scripturally wrong, and greed-based. I’ll post more info if I get it.