Dr Creflo Dollar is the senior pastor of the World Changers Church, based in College Park, Georgia, Atlanta in the United States. He is popular and renowned as a teacher of the Word of Faith. Lately he has stirred up Christendom with his most recent teaching about tithing. This is not new, but what is, is the fact that he has recanted what he taught in the past. He told members of his congregation, “I will say I have no shame at all at saying to you, throw away every book, every tape and every video I ever did on the subject of tithing, unless it lines up with this. I’ve done some corrective teaching in the last year but not to the degree we’re getting ready to do now.”
For those relatively new to this
topic, a tithe is a tenth of the income that God told the nation of Israel to
give as a matter of necessity in the Old Testament. In the law of Moses this
was mandatory and the consequences for not adhering to it were very severe. This
was one of the many points the popular preacher pointed out as he taught on his
new stance. Pastor Dollar said that the gospel of grace does not contain this and
he could not clearly understand it before. “I had not yet been confronted
with the gospel of grace, which has made the difference. I won’t apologise,
because if it wasn’t for me going down that route I would have never ended up
where I am now.”
He declared that he was doing
this because he had learned that his teaching was not correct and he had to
come out publicly. For him this is very important because religion would
continue to hold sway and use fear and guilt to keep people enthralled. So, this
meant that what made religion so powerful had to be exposed. “And if one
subject the church has used to keep people in guilt and fear, it is in that
subject of tithing. And it has to be corrected and it’s got to be corrected
now. I may lose some friends and preachers may not invite me anymore but I
think I’ve already been through that.”
In his sermon the pastor reminded
listeners that that tithing is an Old Testament concept, but after the death of
Jesus Christ it was abolished. Furthermore, since Jesus came and fulfilled the
law (Matthew 5:17) the born-again believer now under grace was not obligated to.
For those that argue that Abraham paid tithes before the law was established he
categorically stated, “You can’t use Abraham and assume about his giving tithe,
that was one time…too many assumptions!”
The cleric cited many scripture
references and kept telling the congregation to read further and study personally
what he had said. Searching the scriptures, he pointed out is important and not
something a Christian can neglect.
In the light of these and many
more encounters the people have it is important for us to seek out what God has
said and by so doing develop convictions that will help you weather the journey
of life. A good place to start might be to watch the videos of the teachings by
Dr Dollar and then decide which line you will walk.
Some scripture references used
in his teaching - Romans 6:14, Numbers 18:26, Deuteronomy 14:24-25, 2 Chronicles
31:5 (NLT)
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