I agree completely!
The reason I lean to the institutional church and not the Home church paradigm is for "accountability".
My experience with Home churches is that they are dependent upon the personality of the host. He may be totally insufficient in Bible doctrine and knowledge, but if he is a loved personality and he gets his knowledge from internet blogs, people will listen and follow.
NO my brother.....I am not referring to you. I am talking about what I have seen happen in my life and community.
It's interesting what you said. I was a member of a church organization that was in the construction phase of a new facility, with our services held in the gymnasium. That preacher was the personality of that large church melting pot of people of all colors and backgrounds. He eventually ended up in prison for 10 years for money laundering for what he thought was drug cartel from Columbia, but was actually federal agents.
Needless to say, I was blessed to have walked away from that organization before he laundered the money from those agents through the organization. His wife almost ended up going to prison too since she was the one padding the offering trays with the cash he laundered for the agents, but he agreed to their terms, and she was not charged for her crimes.
This is a part of my mention here because cultic personalities are all over the place, both in home churches, institutional churches, parachurch and charity organizations...everywhere. Can't escape them. So I'm glad you brought this up.
The false teacher personality cult church leaders teach the requirement for tithing today with no shame whatsoever, thus enslaving their people under the Law and/or under the false principle of tithing allegedly exemplified by Abraham.
In the following, I will allow the scriptures to illustrate for everyone that not even Israel followed some man-made, contrived "principle" for tithing allegedly played out by Abraham. Let's look at Numbers 31:
Numbers 31:9-31
9 And the children of Israel took [all] the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. 10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire. 11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, [both] of men and of beasts. 12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which [are] by Jordan [near] Jericho. 13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp. 14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, [with] the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle. 15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. 17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. 19 And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify [both] yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day. 20 And purify all [your] raiment, and all that is made of skins, and all work of goats' [hair], and all things made of wood. 21 And Eleazar the priest said unto the men of war which went to the battle, This [is] the ordinance of the law which the LORD commanded Moses; 22 Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead, 23 Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make [it] go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water. 24 And ye shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterward ye shall come into the camp. 25 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 26 Take the sum of the prey that was taken, [both] of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the congregation: 27 And divide the prey into two parts; between them that took the war upon them, who went out to battle, and between all the congregation: 28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, [both] of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep: 29 Take [it] of their half, and give it unto Eleazar the priest, [for] an heave offering of the LORD. 30 And of the children of Israel's half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them unto the Levites, which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD. 31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.
As we see from this, the men who fought handed over only 1/500th from their share of the spoils, and the people who didn't fight, they handed over ten times more, to the tune of 1/50th of their portion. No 1/10th, no tithe, nothing of the kind.
So, given that not even Israel as a nation followed that elusive, non-existent principle taught as being from God through Abraham, I'm left wondering about that avenue of false teaching that's so pervasive among false teachers. I've even heard David Jeremiah teaching along that vein, although I'm not sure he's still on that roadway of teaching right now since I don't listen to him.
If Abraham is going to be blamed for establishing some "principle" of tithing from monetary wages negotiated between employer and employee on the basis of spoils of war, then someone will have to do a better job of showing to me that connective parallel that simply escapes me at this time. Maybe I'm not smart enough to see the connection, but perhaps someone here can open up my eyes to it.
I don't mean to make this sound as though I'm going to be adversarial in my approach to this. That's not the case at all. It's just that I will need something with more substance behind it than for someone to do little more than to accuse all us non-tithers of being greedy, and therefore not wanting to give. I need some feedback from someone who's going to lay down a solid foundation of biblical hermeneutics in defense of the requirement in the place of what is written in the Epistles to us concerning giving whatsoever we purpose in our hearts.
Thank you all for participating in this topical discussion.
MM