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Dear Gramps,

I have a question about tithing. My husband and I both work, and our financial situation is still incredibly strained. Even so, I always pay my tithing right away after I get a paycheck, as I have faith that if I do that, I will be able to make ends meet other ways. My husband feels that as long as his tithing is all paid by the end of the year, he is still a full tithe payer and it doesn’t really matter. I feel like he is denying himself the continual blessings he would be getting by paying his tithing on a regular basis. He says this is how his parents paid their tithing, and it worked fine for them. I know the Lord knows what’s in our hearts, and my husband IS a full tithe payer. Am I just splitting hairs here?

Jennifer

 

Answer

 

Dear Jennifer,

Your husband may be a full tithe payer on the books, but I wonder about his honesty. All the money he receives in his paycheck at the end of the month actually belongs to the Lord, who owns everything, and made it possible for your husband to work and be paid for it. The Lord said—

I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine.

 

And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.

 

But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.

 

For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.

 

Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment (D&C 104:14-18)

So the Lord has made man a steward over some of his possessions. Now what kind of a steward is your husband, who takes the ten percent that the Lord required him to give back, and holds it for a year before turning it over. Is he as the wise steward to whom the King of heaven gave five talents, and he returned five more, or is he as the steward who returned to the Lord only that which he was given, to whom the Lord said—

Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:

 

Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.

 

Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents (Matthew 25:26-28).

It looks like your husband is treading on rather dangerous ground.

 

Gramps

 

 

 

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