Building on the Foundation

  After the death of Moses, the Israelites crossed over the Jordan River and entered the Promised Land. God told Joshua, Moses’ successor, “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them — the children of Israel” (Josh. 1:2). On the appointed day, God stopped the Jordan River for the Israelites, much as He’d parted the Red Sea for their fathers, and the people crossed the Jordan on dry ground (Josh. 3-4). After crossing, they camped near Jericho, the first city they encountered in the Promised Land. Now, the Canaanites who dwelt in this land were exceedingly wicked and sinful in the sight of God, committing all manner of sexual abominations (Lev. 18:3-28) and even burning their children in the fire as sacrifices to pagan deities (Deut. 12:31). So God commanded the Israelites to annihilate every city they came to; to kill every Canaanite man, woman, and child; and to destroy every vestige of pagan w...

Tithing, surprisingly, can be quite a controversial subject. There are those who question its applicability in today's day and age and those who think that it must be practiced. Among those who think that it must be practiced, there are disagreements on how they think it should be applied. To get around all those people, today, we are going to ignore the first issue and focus on what exactly tithing was. How was it done, and when? This is a larger issue than it appears on the surface, and it bleeds over into the other offerings quite a bit, especially freewill offerings. We will keep it strictly to tithing as much as we can today, and in the future, we will explore the other offerings. I say the other offerings because tithing is an offering, too. It is a form of giving back to God a portion of what He has blessed us with. However, it had a practical application for God's people as well. God never asks us for more than we can bear, and every offering takes the person giving it ...