2 For the building of mine house, and for the laying of the foundation of Zion and for the priesthood, and for the debts of the Presidency of my Church.
3 And this shall be the beginning of the tithing of my people.
4 And after that, those who have thus been tithed shall pay one-tenth of all their interest annually; and this shall be a standing law unto them forever, for my holy priesthood, saith the Lord.
5 Verily I say unto you, it shall come to pass that all those who gather unto the land of Zion shall be tithed of their surplus properties, and shall observe this law, or they shall not be found worthy to abide among you.
6 And I say unto you, if my people observe not this law, to keep it holy, and by this law sanctify the land of Zion unto me, that my statutes and my judgments may be kept thereon, that it may be most holy, behold, verily I say unto you, it shall not be a land of Zion unto you.
7 And this shall be an ensample unto all the stakes of Zion. Even so. Amen.
Notice nowhere are blessings mentioned. This revelation only states that if we fail to obey it we will not have our part in a Zion community.
But what about The Lord opening His window and pouring out blessings upon us? That often cited scripture is, and has been for decades, taken out of context. Here is the full passage from Malaci 3:
1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.
6 For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
7 ¶Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?
8 ¶Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.
13 ¶Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
14 Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?
15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
16 ¶Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.
17 And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
This passage is describing the Priests who pilfered the tithing money for their own benefit rather than the benefit of God's people. And God is saying they will be blessed but only if they are true to their tasks and responsibilities.
God is not promising blessings for paying tithing. Nowhere in this passage, or any other I have found, does God promise blessings for tithes. But the brethren do.
And they say it is God who promised when in fact He did not. He only promised us we would lose our place in Zion and fail to even build up a Zion people if we fail to pay tithing.
So it seems that correlation has twisted God's own words against us. Because surplus and interest do not mean net or even gross income.
So here I present a large chuck of Rock Waterman's piece "Are we paying too much tithing." So bear with me. This section covers what the words "surplus" and "increase" mean as they are the key words in the D&C 119 law of tithing.
In the largely agrarian society of the early Saints, that might be additional chickens, cattle, apples, or anything over and above what a person might require for his family's needs. The early Saints would have been surprised at the modern assumption that tithing should be paid before you pay anything else, because in order to pay from your surplus, you have to wait and see what you have left over. That's why tithing was paid annually. In the Missouri-Nauvoo period, you would have to get your bills taken care of first, otherwise you would have no idea what your surplus was going to be. Surplus is that which is left over after all other expenses have been deducted.
The word Surplus is also defined in Webster's 1828 as being synonymous with the word "overplus," a word seldom used anymore but which happened to be the term to describe tithing used by John Corrill, one of the scribes who had been enlisted by Joseph Smith to write an early history of the Church. (Corrill's fascinating book, A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, published in 1839, has been hard to come by until quite recently. You can now find it reprinted in its entirety in The Joseph Smith Papers, Volume 2-The Histories). Here is how Corrill explained tithing among the early Saints:If a man gives for the benefit of the Church, it is considered a voluntary offering. Yet the law requires or enjoins a consecration of the overplus, after reserving for himself and family to carry on his business.(Emphasis mine.)Common sense would tell us that the suffixes "plus" in the words surplus and overplus would mean something like "in addition to," or "above and beyond," but you would be surprised how many Mormons will look at verse one in section 119 and remain convinced it means the early Saints were to give up everything they owned.Never underestimate the effectiveness of the indoctrination you received in Primary.
We see in verse four of God's law of tithing that after giving this initial surplus, "those who have thus been tithed shall pay one tenth of all their interest annually." Well, that's an unusual word in that context, at least by modern standards. Not sure about the meaning of the term "interest" to the early Latter-day Saints? The pertinent definitions provided by Webster's 1828 inform us that it is a "share; portion; part; any surplus advantage." There's that word surplusagain. It turns out that Interest is practically synonymous with surplus. As is also the meaning of increase.
Not sure what is meant by "surplus advantage"? For the definition of advantage we find "Benefit; gain; profit" also "Interest; increase;" and look, there's overplus again. But wait. Back up. Doesn't "gain" mean the same as earnings or wages? So in modern times when we are paid wages we have gain, right? Aren't we then supposed to tithe ten percent of our wages, since our wages represent a gain?
Nope. Not so fast. the meaning of Gain as it pertains to a person has always been akin to what profit would be to a business. The money coming in to a business might consist entirely of what it gets for selling its products, or sales revenue. But all that revenue does not give an accurate picture of how much money the business has actually gained, because a lot of that money has to go back out to cover expenses. What is left over after expenses constitutes how much money the business actually ends up with. That is the profit. Only when the business sees the profit left over has it experienced gain.
Similarly, your wages or earnings have always been defined as compensation for your time and labor. It is an even trade of value for value. It is not gain. There is no "gain" accrued when you receive your wages. You are simply being evenly compensated, which means given even value. Everything is still in equal balance when you got paid. You made an even exchange of your time in exchange for their money. There is no gain or overage involved in that transaction. There is no gain because there is no increase involved. Only after you have met your expenses can you enjoy your gain which is the money you get to use as you wish, to buy what you want, to save for some future purchase, or even to fritter away.
Still with me? Gain, Increase, and Interest are all synonymous with what you have left of your wages after providing for your needs. After you have provided for your needs, you get to use the rest of your money to satisfy your wants. (By the way, being able to tell the difference between what you need, and what you merely desire, is the mark of a mature adult. If you can honestly differentiate between the two, congratulations, you're all grown up.)
Today we might call this surplus our "discretionary income," the money we have left over after our fixed costs have been met and our basic living expenses covered. That's why complying with God's law is easy. Tithing isn't ten percent of everything you have. It's more like ten percent of ten percent. Who can't contribute ten percent of their discretionary income to help pay the costs of running a Church?
Well, actually, some people can't. That would be those who have no discretionary income, no surplus whatsoever; for whom everything they take in is immediately required just to survive. Unlike the way many believe today, the Lord never intended for the sick, the crippled, and the widowed to give what they did not have. Section 119 verse 3 tells us "and after that, those who have thus been tithed" (i.e. those who had a surplus to begin with) "shall pay one tenth of all their interest annually." That isn't everybody.
Only those who had already possessed tithe-able surplus were expected to continue to tithe ten percent of their additional surplus at the end of each subsequent year. The truly destitute have no surplus, so they are not expected to tithe. God is not a monster. Your Sunday School teacher may insist that tithing be paid before the rent and food, but the scriptures don't teach that. The scriptures teach "if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."
So I hope this shows The Lord and His Prophet Joseph Smith meant surplus rather than net or gross income or wages. I also find it interesting that the brethren past and present seem to be the ones robbing The Lord's treasury to invest in businesses and luxury shopping malls which Tge Lord and our Savior never mentioned or intended His money to be used to invest in business but to build up Zion by helping the poor, the Widows, the fatherless, the sick, the downtrodden and those children of God in need. We should as Jesus did help his children who struggle and suffer rather than line the pockets of businessmen. We can't do both because we can serve but one master; Mammon or our one true God.Capitalism is a religion. Banks are churches. Bankers are priests. Wealth is Heaven, poverty is Hell. Poor people are sinners and commodities are blessings because money is God. I feel that our church looks more like an example of capitalism than what the church looked like and behaved like in the book of Acts or in the D&C section in the law of consecration. Which is unfortunate. Unfortunate for us all really. If you scratch the surface of almost any sin underneath you find the sin of pride.Pride cares about who is right, humility cares about what is right but disciples care about putting things right.Suffering, according to Buddha, is the nature of existence but rising out of that to being completely self-aware thus becoming fully understanding, compassionate and loving which is Nirvana. Or that's how I look at it.So much of what I see going wrong with regard to financial transparency is that the church is no longer being governed by common consent.There is a petition to urge the church to rectify their mistake of not allowing for governance by common consent and especially allowing for full financial transparency.
I hope you read through it to see why it's important for the church to live up to their responsibilities regarding financial transparency, common consent and tithing rather than leaving the body of the church on the hook while they absolve themselves.
“And all things shall be done by common consent in the church”
DOCTRINE & COVENANTS 26:2
As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it is our desire to faithfully fulfill our obligation to our church by at least annually giving our “voice and Common Consent” as to the allocation of the funds that have been and are currently being donated by us to our Church.
We believe as President Hinckley stated that the financial information of our church “belongs to those that made the contribution”.
For most of our history our church provided full disclosure of its funds. Even in times of financial difficulties members could share in the joy of knowing that good works were being accomplished with their collective donations. We have confidence that a full annual financial disclosure will vindicate the virtue and integrity of our church’s financial affairs that are consistent with the principles taught by our Lord. Such open transparency will also dispel all mystery that often leads to unverifiable speculation both without and within our church: “And He doeth nothing, save it be plain.” (2 Ne. 26:33). We seek complete transparency in all our financial affairs by following the Lord’s counsel that monies placed into His treasury shall “not be used, or taken out of the treasury, only by voice and common consent” (Doctrine and Covenants 104:71).
Therefore, we the undersigned members formally request that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once again publish a full annual financial report that provides sufficient details so that we as members can once again give our “voice and Common Consent” as to the allocation of monies expended by our Church.
