Book review: Sunday Morning Stickup

★★★

It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. –Matthew 21:13

This book is a passionate plea to quit supporting a prosperity gospel. Tithing is no longer scriptural, and your tithes aren’t used in a scriptural manner anyway. David Lee wrote the book “out of obedience to a mandate from God on my life,” and I can’t emphasize the word “passionate” enough. David has had it with misuse of money. He misses the good old days of revivals and cozy corner churches, not megachurches and Rolexes.  Man, what power the church had back then, when the Spirit ruled the house! REAL laying on hands, REAL healings. Thank you, Jesus!

The downside of this passion is that it manifests itself in condescending reader participation (exercises and instructions and pleas to read the book over and over), and David sometimes comes across as preachy or as a bit of an alarmist. So the book’s atmosphere didn’t really gel with me.

Yet the topics were worth reading. The New Testament shows no evidence whatsoever of tithing, and in fact, Paul boasted that he provided the gospel without pay, and supported himself by working on the side. Paul, of course, had no church building. Moreover, tithing in the Old Testament wasn’t about money; it was about goods, which would feed the priests and the hungry. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give freely of our time, money and goods! It just means obligatory, guilt-inducing tithing no longer has a place.

So what changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament? Jesus. Tithing in the O.T. is symbolic of Jesus, who would offer his life on the cross as a living tithe.  See Hebrews chapters 7 through 10. An interesting theology, which I hadn’t considered before.

So if you don’t find the style off-putting, read the book and share in David’s indignation.