Is tithing 10% still required for Christians today?

Few financial questions generate as much disagreement among faithful believers as this one. Some Christians hold that the tithe remains a binding minimum, pointing to its roots before the Mosaic law in Abraham's example. Others argue the tithe was tied specifically to Israel's covenant and the Levitical priesthood, and that the New Testament replaces it with a different, higher standard. Both camps care about honoring God with money; they differ on how the Old Testament law applies now.

It is worth taking both positions seriously rather than assuming the answer is obvious, because Scripture itself does not settle the exact percentage question with a single explicit verse addressed to New Testament believers.

Strikingly, the tithe is never commanded of Christians anywhere in the New Testament epistles. Paul, writing extensively about giving in 2 Corinthians 8-9, never mentions a percentage. Instead he points to the example of the Macedonian churches, who gave beyond their means out of extreme poverty because of an abundance of joy (2 Corinthians 8:2-3). His guiding principle is proportional and cheerful, not fixed: “if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have” (2 Corinthians 8:12).

Paul also tells the Corinthians to set aside a portion as he may prosper on the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:2), a pattern of regular, planned, income-based giving, but again without naming ten percent specifically.

Those who see the tithe as no longer binding argue from the broader shift the New Testament describes: believers are no longer under the Mosaic law as a covenant of obligation but live under grace, guided by the Spirit (Romans 6:14, Galatians 5:18). Just as Christians are not required to keep kosher food laws or Sabbath regulations in the exact Old Testament form, the argument goes, the tithe's specific percentage was part of that same national covenant system.

On this view, grace does not lower the bar on giving; it raises it. Jesus commended a poor widow who gave two small coins, all she had to live on, above wealthy donors who gave far more from their surplus (Mark 12:41-44). A flat ten percent can become a ceiling rather than a floor if it lets someone stop growing in generosity once the math is done.

Others respond that Jesus himself affirmed tithing in principle. He rebuked the Pharisees for their legalism, but added, regarding tithing, that they ought to have done it, without neglecting the weightier matters of justice and mercy (Matthew 23:23). This suggests Jesus assumed tithing as a continuing practice, even while insisting it not replace deeper obedience.

For many believers, ten percent remains a wise, tested benchmark, simple enough to remember, substantial enough to require real trust, and rooted in thousands of years of God's people acknowledging his ownership of everything they have.

This debate tends to push sincere Christians toward one of two unhelpful extremes. The first is a quiet legalism, feeling condemned or spiritually second-rate for giving nine percent instead of ten, as though God is keeping a ledger and docking points for falling short of a specific figure. That posture misses Paul's own warning against giving reluctantly or under compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7); guilt over a percentage is not the fruit the New Testament is after.

The second error runs the opposite direction: using Christian freedom as cover for minimal, stagnant giving, treating the absence of a New Testament command as though it were a command to give less. Neither error honors the actual New Testament pattern, which assumes generous, sacrificial, growing giving even while declining to legislate an exact number. Freedom from a fixed law was never meant to produce less generosity than the law required, only generosity flowing from a different motive.

Despite their disagreement over whether ten percent remains binding, both camps affirm several things without dispute: giving is expected of every believer, not optional; giving should be regular and planned, not sporadic; giving should be proportional to income; and giving should never be reluctant or driven by guilt. The disagreement is narrower than it first appears, confined mainly to whether a specific percentage carries binding force.

This shared ground matters practically. Whether you land on the still-binding side or the fulfilled-and-surpassed-by-grace side, the path forward looks remarkably similar: set a meaningful, planned percentage, hold it before God in prayer, and remain open to increasing it as your income and spiritual maturity grow.

Whichever position you land on, the danger to avoid is the same: treating giving as a box to check rather than an act of worship. Whether your number is five percent, ten percent, or twenty-five percent, the real question Scripture asks is whether your giving flows from love and trust in God, or from guilt, obligation, and grudging duty.

A wise, common approach is to use the tithe as a meaningful starting point while remaining open to giving beyond it as God prospers you and as needs arise, always circling back to Paul's standard: not reluctantly or under compulsion, but cheerfully, because “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).