The "popular" teaching of today from many pulpits concerning giving centers on the tithe. Preachers will rightly say: "The Lord Jesus tithed" inferring that if He did it we must follow His example. However, one of His missions was to "fulfill the law" and in so doing He tithed. He came to fulfill all righteousness by fulfilling the Old Testament law, every jot and tittle. He also sent the leper to the priest to "offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded" (Mark 1:44) but I am sure He would not expect that of the New Testament child of God. No, the child of God does not have to go to the priest, but now instead is the priest under our Great High Priest the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in this age of grace, thank God, we are no longer under the law!
And so, the good news is: Jesus' fulfilling the law gives us His righteousness, the righteousness of the only Perfect Man, God in the flesh, when we receive Him by faith as our own personal Saviour from sin. Oh Yes, the wages of our sin was paid by His Blood, we therefore do not receive the penalty of sin, which is death, for sinning against God's holy law! Instead we receive God's grace through the Lord Jesus' atoning death on the Cross! Hallelujah, praise Him for fulfilling the law, and then He went on performing the greatest act of giving by dying in our place! And now, in the process, a new standard is set for giving, the high standard of giving ourselves, just as He gave Himself "a ransom for many."
Paul gives additional New Testament instruction in I Corinthians 16:2 "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him." So, the child of God now, not only is expected to give himself to God, which is only reasonable, but we are instructed to give through our local church every Sunday in proportion to God's blessing. The attittude is set by first giving ourselves to the Lord, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. Then comes the action of giving of our substance to the Lord, in an act of worship to Him, to the degree He has blessed us!
This method of giving allows us to enter in the Lord's experience of giving Himself for us, we in turn give ourselves for Him. This desire for Christlikeness is reflected in Paul as he pours out his heart: "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being made comformable unto His death." The privilege of entering in to the Lord's experience comes as we give ouselves to Him!
If this blessed and simple, sacrificial opportunity for worshipping the Lord is not followed we can experience the danger of becoming a "Ten-Percenter" thereby losing the blessing, and the great opportunity to show our love for the Lord Jesus Christ. By just methodically writing a ten percent check, we, in many cases, are just giving with an attitude of "getting it over with" as it were, thereby fulfilling our so called "duty" to God. This method of giving is due mainly to the "Give ten percent, give ten percent, give ten percent" message that is being parroted in multitudes of messages to God's people.
Although the Old Testament principle of tithing was right for the nation of Israel at that point in time, it must not replace the New Testament teaching which calls for a much higher standard, providing the child of God with the opportunity for entering into the experience of the Lord Jesus, blessing the heart of God, and receiving an eternal reward as a bonus for rightly worshipping Him!
When it comes to giving, Paul's giving of himself, in direct response to our Lord's sacrificial gift, must be our desire and practice as we give our lives first, and then our substance for the Lord's service: "And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you" (II Corinthians 12:15) literally Paul is giving his own substance and on top of that he was willing to become God's currency, being spent to benefit the souls of men!