Modern tithing: the principle where every earner pays 10% of their income to the church group that they belong to and this pays for the up-keep of the building, the ministers' wages, admin costs and maybe church ministries. Sounds good in principle: 10 earners in your church and you get an income equivalent to one average wage.
However, it gets taught as if this were the same thing as the Old Testament (OT) system of tithing. In the OT there are cases of people tithing (giving 10%) to priests (e.g. Abraham tithing to Melchizedek) and of course the whole system of tithing to the OT temple, the Levites (the priests who ran the temple) and the poor. Thus, a Jewish man would be giving 3 tithes of his income away (plus whatever the king then taxed him on).
When Christ died on the cross and rose again, the whole OT order of things finished; no more priests or temple. The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is now the equivalent of the High Priest Melchizedek. So, it is now impossible to tithe in these new-covenant times. (Call it what you want, it isn't technically a Biblical tithe!)
In fact if you do a word search in the NT there is no mention of tithing in the early church. The only time it's talked about is when Jesus is telling people about still following the OT law before he had died, and hence when they were still in OT times.
So, tithing does not apply in NT times and should not be part of our churches.
The NT tells us we should give sacrificially and in a planned way. Of course, pastors need to be paid, church organisations need to be administered and lots of church groups have buildings to look after.
So, why not just be honest about what these costs are, tell people roughly how much they need to be giving for the church group to run and make adjustments along the way.
All this Bible bashing about tithing in unbiblical. But most importantly, because it's not actually God's will, it must therefore be masking the truth of what God wants us to be doing with our finances in church.
The Western church is not living in God's will for giving and receiving money because it has settled for the pseudo-religious cop-out of a OT-style tithe. It's easier to bash people over the head and condemn them into paying your pastoring salary than it is to trust God to move in people's hearts and let them give as He directs.
