Christian almsgiving and tithing

What it is

Christian traditions differ widely on giving. This entry draws mainly on the Bible and Catholic teaching, with one example from another church.

The tithe, a tenth, comes from the Hebrew Bible. Part of it supported the Levites, who had no land of their own, and Deuteronomy adds that every third year the tithe was to be stored in local communities so that the Levite, the resident foreigner, the orphan and the widow could “come and eat and be satisfied.” In this form the tithe was partly a way of feeding people in need.

Jesus taught that alms should be given quietly, without seeking praise, so that the left hand does not know what the right is doing. In his parable of the Last Judgment, those who fed the hungry, welcomed strangers, clothed the naked, cared for the sick and visited prisoners were told they had served Christ himself. In the Book of Acts, the first believers held their goods in common and sold property to share according to each person’s need.

At first the clergy lived on voluntary offerings. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the earliest church laws on tithing came from the Councils of Tours in 567 and Mâcon in 585, and Charlemagne’s laws enforced tithes by the end of the eighth century. Today practice varies. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for example, asks its members to give one-tenth of their income.

Charity and justice

The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists the works of mercy, including feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless and clothing the naked. It calls giving alms to the poor one of the chief signs of love for others, and also a work of justice. It goes further: the demands of justice must be met first, and what is already owed in justice should not be offered as if it were a gift. Quoting Saint Gregory the Great, it says that meeting the needs of the poor gives them what is theirs, not ours. The U.S. Catholic bishops describe this as an “option for the poor and vulnerable,” judging a society by how its most vulnerable members are faring.

Through the source lens

The works of mercy are relief, and the tradition treats them as a duty, never as a lesser good. Its teaching that justice comes before charity, and that a society is judged by how its poorest fare, also points upstream, toward the structures that decide who is poor in the first place.