“Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.”
— Malachi 3:8
There is a form of theft so common, so culturally normalized, and so rarely named that we have almost entirely stopped noticing it. It happens every week in churches across America. People sit in services, sing the songs, hear the Word, and then when the offering plate passes, they treat what belongs to God as though it belongs to them. God calls it robbery. We call it being practical.
Malachi 3 is one of the most startling passages in Scripture. God asks His own people a pointed question: “Will man rob God?” And then He answers it before they can: yes, you are robbing me. In your tithes and offerings. The tithe, the first tenth of everything, is not a suggestion that generous people might consider. It is the acknowledgment that everything belongs to God and that the first fruits go back to Him as an act of worship, of faith, and of gratitude.
Here is the context that changes everything: the tithe is not about what we give to God. It is about what we keep for ourselves with His blessing. He gives us ten dollars. He asks for one back as an expression of our acknowledgment that it all came from Him. And when we grip that one dollar and keep it, we have not just been ungenerous. We have been dishonest about who we think owns the money.
But then God does something extraordinary in Malachi 3. He invites a test. “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse… and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need” (Malachi 3:10). God does not make many offers like this. He says: test me. Try the tithe. See if I do not overwhelm you with blessing.
I have been doing this my whole life. I have never met a faithful tither who regretted it. Start where you can. Move toward the full tithe. Give God the chance to prove His word.
YOU CANNOT OUTGIVE GOD. BRING THE TITHE AND LET HIM PROVE IT.
