This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 4: “Offerings for Jesus”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- The author separates offerings from tithes and makes offerings the sign of our gratitude to God.
- The lesson guilts people into giving large gifts from their assets, not just their liquid funds.
- The Teachers Comments say “spontaneous offerings” are not elective but were part of atonement.
This lesson constructs another unbiblical paradigm designed to guilt Adventists into digging deeply into their assets in order to give sacrificially to the Adventist organization. The first day’s lesson opens with these words:
Besides tithing, there are offerings that come from the 90 percent that remains in our possession after our tithe is returned to God. This is where generosity begins.
First, this lesson is clear that offerings are in a separate category from tithes. Last week the lesson taught that God has a “tithing contract” with humanity, that tithing is non-negotiable and is what everyone owes God in order to please Him and to receive His blessings.
This week the lesson instructs the reader that in addition to 10 percent paid on gross income, each person is to give offerings as well. Furthermore, the lesson doesn’t leave this obligation up to a person’s conscience but constructs seven lessons designed to obligate the reader to give not just from one’s liquid assets or easy-to-access funds, but to give liberally from one’s non-liquid assets.
The lesson is sprinkled liberally with Ellen White quotes to bolster the demand for money, and the quote above is intended to create obligation in the heart of the reader by saying that in the giving of offerings from the 90% of people’s money left after tithing is “where generosity begins”.
The manipulative force of those words is hard to ignore when one is inside the organization that claims to guard and deliver the one true message for the last days. God, the lesson insists, rewards generosity, and generosity begins with the giving of offerings above the required 10% tithe.
In plain fact, the Adventist tithe is taught as if it is a church tax; offerings are required beyond tithe, and the generosity of those offerings determines the blessings a person will receive. As we have said before, Adventist “systematic benevolence” is nothing more than a partially-disguised form of “prosperity gospel”.
Not A Church
In the first place, this lesson’s teaching the Adventist expectation for sacrificial giving as a sign of thanks to God for His love is utterly illegitimate.
Seventh-day Adventism is not a church. It is a religion that mimics Christianity but in reality teaches another Jesus and a different gospel (2 Cor. 11:4) that is never taught in Scripture. Adventism requires its members to obey the Law—especially the fourth commandment—and to observe the “health message” and the rules for systematic benevolence in order to demonstrate that one loves God. These expected [required] acts of obedience are the means of ensuring one’s salvation, of keeping oneself “saved”.
This expectation is not the gospel. We are saved by believing the gospel of our salvation, that Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to Scripture, and when we do, we are born again and sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
The lesson bases almost all of its demands on EGW quotes and Old Testament references with a sprinkling of New Testament texts applied to this Adventist paradigm.
All to say, Adventism has no legitimate right to use Scripture to support its demands for the money of its members. It teaches a false gospel, and the Bible is not the source of its theology. It is illegitimate to guilt its people with the word of God in order to get them to support a false religion.
The Teachers Comments go into detail to help the Sabbath School teachers to teach this demand for money. In a crazy-making “word salad”, these comments try to redefine the words “voluntary” and “freewill”, and “optional”. Consider this quote from page 53:
In general, the Bible uses the word “freewill” for offerings given in a spontaneous sense (Exod. 25:1, 2; 2 Cor. 8:3). In terms of worship, spontaneous—or freewill—doesn’t necessarily mean optional. Before sin, duty and obedience were performed with a spirit of joy and willing love. Sin broke the unity between duty and a willing spirit. But, in the Holy Spirit, duty and willingness are restored and reside in perfect unity once more.
Voluntary means to do something of one’s own freewill, without being pressured or compelled by someone else to do it. In general, the Bible tells us that voluntary offerings in worship, proportional to the blessings or possessions received, were essential for worship. Thus, because of their essential nature, voluntary offerings were not optional—except if the person made the decision not to serve the Lord.
A voluntary offering, however, isn’t necessarily pleasing to God. It is possible that even freewill offerings can be based on wrong motives. People may develop gifts, give all to the poor, and even “voluntarily” give their bodies to be burned, yet have no love (1 Cor. 13:1–3).
On the other hand, the word “optional” generally means something elective, something that you are free to do or not to do. In the context of worship, vows were an example of optional acts. But offerings were part of the atonement, forgiveness, gratitude, and dedicatory aspects of worship. Spontaneous, offerings, therefore, cannot be optional in worship. Thus, “freewill” offerings refer to offerings that originate from a heart that is filled with love and joy in obeying the Lord and in giving Him the most and best of what one possesses.
Notice how the author twists the definitions of “voluntary” and “freewill” to arrive at the conclusion that “voluntary offerings” are not optional. Rather, they are essential. This entire conclusion is based on playing with the Old Testament use of offerings within the levitical system of sacrifices. The author illegitimately equates Old Testament offerings prescribed by God with offerings today, and without concern for the differences between the old and the new covenants, it attempts to guilt Adventists into the confusion of feeling obligated to “voluntarily” give sacrificial gifts from their assets as an expression of gratitude.
Perhaps the most revealing sentences are these: “But offerings were part of the atonement, forgiveness, gratitude, and dedicatory aspects of worship. Spontaneous, offerings, therefore, cannot be optional in worship.”
Notice this: “offerings were part of the atonement, forgiveness, gratitude, and dedicatory aspects of worship.”
This sentence negates the entire gospel and the finished work of the Lord Jesus. The Old Testament offerings were shadows of Jesus. The lambs, the firstfruits, the thank offerings—all of the produce and livestock that Israel was to bring to the priests were shadows of the work of Jesus!
For us on this side of the cross, we can never say that offerings are part of atonement. We cannot even refer to Israel’s use of offerings within its levitical system as an example of proper giving today because Jesus has already given HIMSELF as the once-for-all offering of atonement!
To use that argument is to completely erase the gospel. This lesson reveals that Adventism is not Christian at the core. An Adventist has no business giving offerings with the thought that his giving is part of his receiving God’s grace or blessings.
Only in Jesus do we find atonement, forgiveness, gratitude, and dedication.
Those gifts of Jesus are absolutely FREE. Our offerings are not predicated on Old Testament models of giving because those were shadows within the sacrificial system foreshadowing Jesus.
This entire lesson is driving its readers back under the law. It is guilting them into feeling they have to give beyond their means in order to somehow make it up to Jesus for His sacrifice. This lesson destroys the free gift of Jesus’ atonement and forgiveness of sin for all who believe and trust in Him.
If we are giving because we feel obligated to give, we are not giving biblically.
Significantly, the lesson never quotes 2 Corinthians 9 which clearly exposits how we are to give FREELY and GENEROUSLY and NOT UNDER COMPULSION.
This lesson is the opposite of Paul’s instructions on giving. It induces a heavy sense of compulsion and obligation and even hints that one’s giving is connected to receiving atonement and forgiveness, that one demonstrates one’s worthiness to be forgiven and atoned.
The New Testament commands for generous giving are only for true believers, for those who have believed the gospel and have been born again. If a person has not been born again, these commands do not apply. In fact, they become mandates, as Adventism’s demands have demonstrated. One cannot apply Paul’s instructions to Adventism because Adventism is not part of the true New Testament church. It is a religion which must support itself any way it can, and guilting its members becomes normal to them.
If a person has not trusted Jesus, these commands are not for him or her. Instead, such a person needs to deal with the Lord Jesus and trust Him and His finished work. THEN the New Testament commands have meaning and can be observed.
Scripture is the best antidote to the subtle twisting of God’s word, so we will end this commentary by quoting 2 Corinthians 9:6–15, Paul’s reassuring instructions to a true church of gentile believers:
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift! (ESV)
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