Tithing — Answering the Objections

Abraham paid tithes four centuries before the law of Moses existed. Jesus endorsed the practice by name. And the objection that gets raised today is not really about the law at all — it is about the money.

Three Objections, Stated Fairly

The attacks come in three forms, and they are not all the same argument. Each deserves its own answer.

The theological objection — tithing belonged to the law of Moses, which Christ fulfilled. Requiring it now is putting believers back under a yoke Paul spent Galatians tearing down.

The pastoral objection — a church with substantial reserves takes ten percent from widows, students, and the working poor, and conditions temple attendance on it. That is not charity; it is a toll.

The financial objection — the reserves were not disclosed, and in 2023 the SEC brought and settled charges over how the filings were made.

All three get answered here, and the third gets answered with the actual documents rather than the headline.

Tithing Is Older Than the Law of Moses

The first objection collapses on a date. If tithing were a creature of the Mosaic law, it could not appear before that law existed. It does.

Genesis 14:18–20

“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God… And he gave him tithes of all.”

Abraham paid tithes to a priest of the Most High God roughly four hundred years before Sinai. Jacob covenanted to do the same at Bethel — “of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee” (Genesis 28:22) — also before the law.

Then the writer of Hebrews does something the objection cannot survive. He argues at length that the Melchizedek priesthood is greater than the Levitical order, and his evidence is the tithe Abraham paid: “the less is blessed of the better” (Hebrews 7:1–10). A New Testament author, writing to Christians about the priesthood that superseded Moses, treats tithing as belonging to the HIGHER order.

And the Savior mentions it directly. Rebuking the Pharisees for straining at trifles while neglecting judgment, mercy, and faith, He says: “these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone” (Matthew 23:23). He had every opportunity to abolish the practice in that sentence. He did the opposite.

The Widow Objection — and Who Raised It First

The strongest version of the second objection is not about doctrine. It is about a specific woman with two coins, and it deserves to be met on that ground.

So notice who tells that story, and how. Jesus watched the rich cast in much, and a poor widow cast in two mites, and He said she “hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury” (Mark 12:41–44). He did not stop her. He did not return her money. He held her up as the example, in front of everyone, precisely because she gave out of her want.

The reading that turns this into an indictment of temple finance has to make the Lord a critic of the very act He praised. He was certainly capable of that criticism — He had just condemned scribes who “devour widows’ houses” two verses earlier. He knew the difference between exploitation and consecration, and He named the widow’s offering the second one.

There is also a plain fact about the arithmetic that critics rarely mention. Ten percent falls hardest on nobody, because it is a PERCENTAGE. The widow’s tithe is small in dollars and identical in proportion to the millionaire’s. Every flat-rate alternative — a fixed pew fee, a membership charge, a subscription — is harder on the poor than a tithe, not easier.

The Widow Is Not Left to Starve

The objection also assumes tithing is a one-way street, which misdescribes the system it is attacking. In the law of Moses the tithe was the mechanism by which the poor were FED — “the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied” (Deuteronomy 14:29).

The same structure operates now. A member who cannot pay rent asks a bishop, and the bishop draws on fast offerings — a separate contribution, given by skipping two meals and donating what they cost, that goes directly to the needy. Nobody is turned away from bread for lack of a tithing receipt. The person the objection worries about is the person the system exists to catch.

The SEC Question — What the Order Actually Said

Here the answer is to read the document rather than the headline, because the headline and the document say different things.

In February 2023 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a settlement with Ensign Peak Advisors, the Church’s investment manager. The issue was the form of quarterly disclosure. Managers above a threshold must file Form 13F listing their holdings. Rather than filing one aggregated form, Ensign Peak had filed through a set of separate limited liability companies — an arrangement adopted on legal counsel in order to keep the portfolio from being tracked. Ensign Peak paid a $4 million penalty; the Church paid $1 million. The filings are now made as a single aggregated 13F.

Now read what the charge was NOT. There was no allegation that a dollar was stolen. No allegation that funds were misapplied, that donations were diverted, or that anyone enriched himself. The entire matter was the structure of a disclosure form — a filing question, resolved, with the practice changed and the penalty paid.

Ask the honest question that follows. Does a reporting-form dispute, settled and corrected, tell you anything at all about whether Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, or whether Jesus told the Pharisees not to leave it undone? It does not touch the doctrine. It is an administrative matter being asked to carry a theological argument it cannot lift.

On Reserves — and Who Else Keeps Them

The deeper complaint is that a church should not hold reserves at all. Test that instinct against scripture and against sense.

Joseph stored grain through seven years of plenty so that a nation could eat through seven years of famine (Genesis 41:48–49). He was not hoarding. He was the reason Egypt survived. Every university endowment, every pension fund, and every prudent household operates on the same principle, and nobody calls those greedy.

A church that must fund chapels, temples, missionaries, universities, and humanitarian relief across the world, through wars, depressions, and currency collapses, and that intends to still be doing it in a century, is doing exactly what Joseph did. The alternative — spend to the last dollar each year and trust the next year to be good — is not faith. It is imprudence with an offering plate.

What the Gospel of Jesus Christ Actually Teaches

Tithing is not a purchase and it was never priced as one. It is a covenant obligation on a covenant people, and it is the only place in scripture where God invites men to test Him.

Malachi 3:10

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse… 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.”

“Prove me.” That is an invitation to experiment, offered by God, on a commandment He expects to be able to defend. Latter-day revelation puts the standard in one line: it is “one-tenth of all their interest annually” (D&C 119:4) — no assessment, no audit of your finances, no invoice. You declare it yourself.

And what it purchases for the giver is not a seat. It is the loosening of a grip. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). A commandment that regularly separates a man from a tenth of his money is a commandment aimed at the one idol nearly everyone actually keeps.

The Verdict

Tithing is not a Mormon invention and it is not a relic of Moses. It stands on both sides of the law and outlives it.

This is what Abraham did, centuries before Sinai. This is what Jacob covenanted at Bethel. This is what the writer of Hebrews used to prove the Melchizedek order superior. This is what Jesus told the Pharisees not to leave undone. This is what Malachi invited every believer to test for himself.

And the modern objection, stripped of its volume, is a disagreement about a disclosure form — one in which nobody was accused of taking a dollar.

Reject the law of tithing and you have not rejected Joseph Smith. You have rejected Genesis 14:20, Genesis 28:22, Malachi 3:10, Matthew 23:23, and Hebrews 7 — and you have made the poor widow, whom the Lord singled out for praise, into a victim He failed to protect.