7. Holding Back
There has been a widespread and simultaneous decline and increase in giving to charities in many countries in recent decades. How can this be – that giving is going up and down at the same time? The answer is that while some few people are giving much more, a great many are giving less. In the U.S., for example, while two thirds of all households made charitable donations in 2000, by 2015 this figure had declined significantly and only just over half of American households donated something to charity. On the other hand, while many were increasingly holding back from giving, a relative few were giving more and more. In 2015, just 20 percent of U.S. households gave over 80 percent of donations.
It is not entirely understood why this decline in giving is occurring among many people, though it seems likely that it may be connected more to widespread loss of religious faith and activity than to economic factors. In any case, it is clear that while some are giving more, many people are giving less today than in the past.
Giving, But Less Many centuries ago, the prophet Malachi wrote about a similar situation in his time. The Jews had recently returned from captivity in Babylon and while we might expect that the freedom and new life they had been given would be reason for an outpouring of generosity, such was not the case. God spoke through Malachi regarding this situation:
Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How are we robbing you?' "In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. (Malachi 3:8–10 ESV)
Notice that in this passage of Scripture God's complaint against the unthankful Jewish individuals he addressed was not that they were not giving, but that they were robbing God in not giving as much as they could or should. God says "Bring the whole tithe" (vs. 10) showing that people were skimping on their offerings and giving less than what was right.
Many other verses in the Old Testament show the principle of giving fully and generously – for example: "Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely" (Psalms 112:5), and "A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed" (Proverbs 11:25). The Hebrew word translated "generous" in many of these Old Testament verses does not simply mean someone who gives, but someone who gives freely and extensively. We are blessed not for giving a little, but for giving deeply – as much as the circumstances warrant. New Testament Giving When we look at the New Testament, we find that Jesus spoke about that kind of generosity when he said:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth … But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven …The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness …You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:19–24) The Greek word for "healthy" in these verses can also imply "generous," and the word used for "unhealthy" can imply "stingy." Given the context of serving God or money this is doubtless the meaning of the passage – that we should have a generous outlook rather than a stingy one. We should, Jesus tells us, be more concerned about saving treasure in heaven than stingily being unwilling to share what we have on Earth. That is why Jesus taught:
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Luke 6:38) We already saw that we should never give just to get, but Jesus spoke to the spiritual reality that we are blessed for giving – and to the degree we give we are blessed. As we also saw in a passage we quoted earlier, the apostle Paul reinforced that truth when he wrote: "whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully… for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:6–7 ESV).
While the Old Testament regulated the minimal amount that God's people were to give to help others in the form of the "third tithe," the New Testament gives no percentage rule for this kind of giving, but we should all strive to give what we can. As C. S. Lewis famously wrote in Mere Christianity: "I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare." This perhaps need not always be the case, but while giving doesn't have to "hurt" in order to help, we should always be willing to give and to give to the point of sacrifice when that level of giving is needed (2 Corinthians 8:3).
Many people rationalize that they are too far in debt or that they don't make enough to give, but if we let ourselves be guided by biblical teaching and the Spirit of God, we will see that we can always give. No matter how little we have, there are those who have less. Certainly, if we are blessed with the means to live a reasonably comfortable way of life (for example, if we are reading this book on a computer, phone or e-book reader), we probably have the ability to give. And if we are able, we are called not just to give, but to give generously.