We Should be Arrested for Tithing
I was dumbfounded when I read an article in the national Post about a “mystery man” roaming the city of Halifax and handing out large sums of cash to complete strangers at random. The mystery man turned out to be a Richard Wright who wanted to give generously to strangers. His generosity caused suspicion amongst the police and he was arrested and placed in a psych ward for this behaviour.
Is this strange behaviour? Sure is. If a random guy came up to me and handed me 100 bucks and said, “Thank God and pass it along!” I might wonder about his mental stability. BUT…is this reason to arrest him? IS this reason to lock him in a psych ward? If the police can simply trample over a man’s civil liberty and can arrest him because he is giving his money to those less fortunate, saying, “Thank God,” I shudder to think what would happen if the police knew what most of my brothers and sister’s do every Sunday again.
Really, in the eyes of the secular world what would be more insane? Giving $100 to a random person on the street, or giving 10% of all my earnings to an invisible God?
We got a nice tax return this year, and I am sure many of my brothers and sisters did as well. I would assume that most of us gave a substantial portion of it away to an invisible God, out of thankfulness. Not much different than Richard Wright giving $100 to a stranger and telling him to thank God…is it? Imagine that the police arrest me and the psychiatrist assesses me and asks why I gave so much of my money away, and my response is because God has commanded that we give of our first fruits in a book written thousands of years ago… I really shudder to think what that assessment would be…
Honestly, if Richard Wright should be arrested for giving money away…what should happen to Christians? If we follow the logic, I guess we should be arrested for tithing.
As Christians we need to be aware of this and speak out against it. To quote Pastor Ken Wieske, commenting on this article, “If the State can, at its own discretion, deprive a citizen of his or her freedom when no law has been broken, then the State can do that to us too… As Christians who are citizens we ought to be vigilant for signs that the government is overstepping its God-given authority, and we ought to speak out while we still can.”
