Friends,

This is another message to this community outside of strict Bible commentary, but I believe it is an important one that touches all of you.

You know where I stand in this election. I have tried to make my case largely on the basis of the president's power to nominate Supreme Court justices. I am not as articulate as some in making that case, so if you value my service and leadership, and you are still weighing your vote, I encourage you to listen to a message on this subject by a Dallas-area pastor whose teaching I respect.

A reminder: this Tuesday, November 8, is the one day to vote.

Blessings, Yujin Han dailyqt.org

AI-Expanded Reflection

Christians have long debated how directly pastors, teachers, and ministries should speak to partisan questions. Some hold that leaders should address moral issues from Scripture while leaving specific candidates to individual conscience; others believe it is right to speak plainly when they judge the stakes to be high. Both positions are held sincerely, and Scripture does not settle the matter directly.

What Scripture does emphasize is the danger of dividing the church along lines other than Christ. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for forming parties — "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos" (1 Corinthians 1:12) — and asked, "Is Christ divided?" Romans 14 gives a model for handling disputed matters: each is to be "fully convinced in his own mind" (14:5), and neither to despise nor to pass judgment on those who see differently (14:3–4, 10). The kingdom of God, Paul says, "is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace" and joy in the Holy Spirit (14:17). Christians in every generation have to hold together conviction about public matters and charity toward believers who reach different conclusions.

But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others (Luke 11:42).

This verse has been used by pastors to argue that Jesus commanded Christians to tithe, albeit in a somewhat backhanded way. But is this right?

First, Jesus was speaking to the Jewish leadership about the Law of Moses, even correcting their application of it. This is validated by the parallel in Matthew:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone (Matthew 23:23).

In Jesus' discourse in Matthew, He began the section by commanding that everyone listen to the Jewish leaders because they teach the Law of Moses:

Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe…” (Matthew 23:1–3).

I would ask those that try to argue that Jesus taught Christians to tithe from these texts, should Christians then follow all the Law of Moses, for this is clearly what Jesus taught the Jews to do here?

No, of course not, we do not live under the Old Covenant Mosaic Law, which was already becoming obsolete in the first century and has no direct reference whatsoever to us now:

In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away (Hebrews 8:13).

Jesus' death on the cross ratified the New Covenant, which constitutes our new rule for living. The New Covenant in Christ has replaced the Old Covenant of Moses. In Christ, we have died to the written code of the Mosaic Law and serve under the new way of the Spirit:

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (Romans 7:6).

Friends, let no one judge you because you do not tithe your income to the church. The Judaizers of the first century were judging Christians for their failure to keep the provisions of the Law of Moses. Paul clearly told them not to let anyone make such groundless judgments against them:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ (Colossians 2:16–17).

In fact, let no one judge you for how much you give or don't give. There's never such an indictment of any Christian in the Scriptures. This is your decision alone, as you seek to fulfill God's calling on your life. In fact, there is no instruction with respect to tithing whatsoever for the Christian. Yet, there are instructions to care for the needs of poor believers in the church, and even these instructions are given not so much as a command but as encouragements, so that believers would give cheerfully without any compulsion:

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7).

It is a constant frustration of mine when I see ministers twist Scriptures out of context to justify guilting their members to support their often grandiose financial initiatives. Christians do not sin by choosing not to give, but these ministers violate this principle of giving, namely, that it should be done without any compulsion.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Luke 11:42 condemns an inversion of priorities: meticulous attention to small tithes accompanies neglect of justice and the love of God. Jesus’ final clause does not make those larger obligations optional, nor does it imply that the smaller observances can compensate for their absence. The original is right to ask whom Jesus addresses and within what covenant setting. A command spoken to Jewish religious leaders about their practice cannot be transferred to a modern church budget without considering the New Testament’s account of Christ and the law.

That question has produced different Christian answers. Some understand the tithe as a continuing norm, some as a useful voluntary discipline, and others as a requirement belonging to Israel’s covenant arrangements rather than a mandated percentage for the church. The original argues for the last position. Its strongest point is that a church should not attach divine authority to a financial demand without showing how the relevant texts actually support it. A fundraising objective, however desirable, does not settle the interpretation.

The new-covenant emphasis must nevertheless be joined to the New Testament’s substantial teaching about generosity. Second Corinthians 8–9 rejects coercion while discussing readiness, proportion, equality, concern for others, and the example of Christ. First John 3:17 asks searchingly how God’s love abides in someone who has resources yet closes the heart against a brother in need. James 2:15–16 exposes empty words offered in place of necessary help. These passages prevent freedom from a fixed percentage from becoming a declaration that every decision not to give is beyond moral examination.

Likewise, the old covenant’s obsolescence does not make its Scriptures irrelevant. Paul appeals to Israel’s law and history when teaching Christian communities, while interpreting them in relation to Christ. The issue is not whether we can learn from Moses, but how the covenant’s commands function for those who belong to the risen Lord. Hebrews itself argues from the earlier Scriptures at length. A careful new-covenant reading therefore avoids both unexamined transfer and wholesale dismissal.

For church practice, willingness and accountability should reinforce one another. Leaders can explain needs, report spending, make space for questions, and avoid promises that a donation guarantees material prosperity. Members can consider their responsibilities and capacity without being measured by a public comparison. They can also ask whether reluctance reflects prudence or merely an increasingly defended comfort. Cheerful giving is not necessarily effortless giving; it may involve deliberate sacrifice freely embraced. The goal is a community in which resources serve love and the gospel, rather than a system in which guilt secures revenue or the language of freedom protects indifference. Christ’s grace releases the conscience from unsupported demands while forming the generous life those demands could never manufacture.

The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me (Luke 10:16).

Does this language sound familiar to you? It is not the first occasion where Jesus ties himself to his disciples. They are his representatives. When people rejected the disciples, it was as though they were rejecting Jesus. When people received, embraced and blessed the disciples, it was as though they were doing these things to Jesus. This helps us to understand the often confused passage in Matthew 25:31–46,

They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life (Matthew 25:44–46).

Matthew 25 is not a general passage teaching believers to give alms to the needy and poor. It is a prophetic pronouncement against the nations of people (cf. Matthew 25:32), who will either accept or reject Jesus' disciples ("one of the least of these"). Those that feed and care for Jesus' disciples would be blessed while those that rejected his disciples would be cursed. The implication here is not that the people merely received the men but also their message. As additional evidence that Jesus had disciples in view and not merely general people, consider this passage:

Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward (Matthew 10:40–42).

Now, there are other passages that teach believers to take care of the poor and needy; however, Matthew 25 is not one of them. This passage is concerned with the fate of the world of people, Jews and Gentiles, who either receive or reject Jesus' disciples and their message.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Luke 10:16 gives the mission of Jesus’ representatives extraordinary significance. Their message is not simply one more private opinion offered in the marketplace of religious ideas. Jesus sends them, and receiving or rejecting their witness has a relation to receiving or rejecting him. Yet the preceding instructions portray these messengers as vulnerable: they travel with limited provision, depend on hospitality, offer peace, heal, and announce the nearness of God’s kingdom. Their representative authority appears in dependence and service, not in a claim to personal grandeur.

This context makes the connection with Matthew 10:40–42 especially illuminating. A cup of cold water given to a disciple is not a spectacular religious achievement. It is an ordinary act of care toward someone identified with Jesus. Reception includes the material conditions that make witness possible: shelter, food, protection, and welcome. The original comment rightly resists separating treatment of the messenger from response to the message. At the same time, receiving the message must not become an excuse for ignoring the bodily needs that Jesus explicitly names.

The application to Matthew 25 deserves a carefully stated conclusion. Understanding the king’s brothers as vulnerable disciples or missionaries has substantial contextual support, including Matthew’s language about Jesus’ family and the earlier mission discourse. Other Christians understand the passage more broadly as identifying Jesus with people in need. The disputed identification should be made visible rather than presented as a question every faithful reader has already settled. On the narrower reading, the passage still concerns feeding, clothing, visiting, and welcoming actual people; it does not collapse into agreement with a theological proposition.

Neither interpretation authorizes indifference to people outside the church. Luke 10 immediately moves toward the command to love one’s neighbor and the Samaritan’s costly compassion (10:25–37). The same Gospel that dignifies the reception of messengers exposes attempts to limit the circle of those who deserve practical mercy. Care for missionaries and care for other vulnerable neighbors need not compete. Both can express allegiance to the Lord who sends his people into the world and teaches them to become neighbors to those in distress.

There is also an essential boundary around representative authority. A modern leader cannot simply identify every criticism of himself with rejection of Christ. The messengers’ authority is tied to the commission and message of Jesus; Scripture itself requires discernment regarding teaching and conduct. Supporting a worker does not mean hiding misconduct, refusing financial accountability, or tolerating manipulation. Conversely, fear of imperfect messengers should not become an excuse for withholding all encouragement and help. The passage invites discerning hospitality: welcome faithful testimony, attend to the real needs of those who bear it, and remember that small acts can possess a significance invisible to ordinary measures of influence. Christ honors care that the world may regard as insignificant because he has bound his mission to people who need to receive it.

Luke 10:7 instructs the seventy-two to stay in one house, eating and drinking whatever they are given, for the worker deserves his wages.

This expression is generally taken as a basis for pastoral salary and other compensation in the church. But is that a proper interpretation? As far as we know the expression originates here. Considering the context, it becomes clear that money is not in view. The seventy-two were sent to preach the nearness of the kingdom, and were told not to take a purse or bag (verse 4) — they were not to collect a wage as such. Yet Jesus commands them to accept the hospitality of those who receive them, eating and drinking whatever they are given, and again to eat what is offered (verse 8). They are not to ask for things but to accept what is given. The wages in view were a basic measure of support arising from a host's hospitality.

The same phrase appears in Paul's letter to Timothy, where elders who direct the affairs of the church well are said to be worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching — supported by two quotations, not muzzling the ox that treads the grain, and the worker deserving his wages (a reference to 1 Timothy 5:17–18).

AI-Expanded Reflection

This project has taken up the same argument twice before, so the response can be brief: the exegetical point about Luke 10 is sound, and the picture there really is hospitality meeting immediate need rather than salary.

Two things keep it from settling the larger question. First, the 1 Timothy passage the comment cites is doing something different from the Luke passage it quotes. Paul applies "worthy of double honor" to resident elders in an established congregation, not to itinerants, and the surrounding chapter is concerned with material support — the same chapter discusses the financial support of widows at length. Second, Paul's fuller treatment in 1 Corinthians 9 spends most of its length establishing that preachers have a genuine right to live from the gospel before he explains why he personally declines it.

What follows for how a congregation should compensate a pastor today involves circumstances the first-century texts do not address. The comment's underlying concern about proportion is legitimate and worth hearing; the texts themselves support a right that may be waived rather than a prohibition.

I love the story of the Good Samaritan. An expert in the law stands up to test Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks what is written in the Law, and how he reads it. The man answers with the commands to love God with all one's heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love one's neighbor as oneself. Jesus tells him he has answered correctly, and that doing this he will live. But wanting to justify himself, the man asks who his neighbor is.

In reply Jesus describes a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who is attacked by robbers, stripped, beaten, and left half dead. A priest comes down the same road, sees him, and passes by on the other side. A Levite does the same. But a Samaritan traveling that way comes to where the man is, takes pity on him, bandages his wounds, puts him on his own animal, brings him to an inn, and cares for him — and the next day gives the innkeeper two denarii, asking him to look after the man and promising to reimburse any further expense. Jesus asks which of the three was a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers. The expert answers: the one who showed him mercy. Jesus tells him to go and do likewise (a paraphrase of Luke 10:25–37).

Jesus teaches a powerful message about loving our neighbors, consistent with what He says elsewhere about care for the least among us (see Matthew 25:37–40).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The move Jesus makes at the end is easy to miss because the parable is so familiar. The lawyer asked who qualifies as his neighbor — a question about the boundaries of obligation, and one with a defensible answer available in the tradition. Jesus does not answer it. He tells a story and then asks a different question: not who counts as a neighbor to me, but which man acted as a neighbor to the one in need. The category has been shifted from a status others hold to a role the questioner either fills or doesn't.

The lawyer's answer registers the shift and its cost. Asked to name the hero, he will not say "the Samaritan" — he says "the one who showed him mercy." The identification is correct and the word is avoided, which tells you what the parable had just done to him.

Luke 10:20 — Jesus warns the disciples not to rejoice that demons submit to them, a work done through them, but instead to rejoice in the work done for them, from which they benefit — that their names are written in the book of life. Rejoice in God's work! Leaving no room to claim His glory for ourselves.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The distinction Jesus draws here — rejoicing in power exercised through you versus grace given to you — anticipates a warning He gives more starkly elsewhere: some will point to prophesying, casting out demons, and performing miracles in His name on the day of judgment, only to be told He never knew them (a paraphrase of Matthew 7:22–23). Spiritual power flowing through a person, in other words, was never meant as evidence of their own standing before God — this comment's own instinct to redirect the disciples' joy toward salvation itself, rather than the impressive work done through them, tracks exactly with the danger Jesus later names explicitly.