Tuesday, February 16, 2010

"Tithing" by Douglas Leblanc

I saw the title of this book, and thought, "I can always use a challenge to be less selfish and more generous with my money right?"
"Tithing" didn't quite meet my expectations, however. It is a journalistic account of 11 people's lives and their views on tithing - not necessarily being generous, but the notion of giving 10%. These people range from a peace activist to a widely - read Christian author to an Orthodox Jew. So while all of the advice is "good" morally speaking, only some of it is from a Biblical perspective. And some of the Biblical advice is very legalistic.
The author writes in a journalistic style that is disjointed at times. He spent more time telling me about people's lives than about their views on tithing. He throws out names, places, and dates quickly with very little context. This confused me.
However, Leblanc did manage to get across a few good challenges. My favorite quote was from Randy Alcorn.
“If you take the standard of 10 percent and say God required it of the poorest people in Old Testament Israel, and now that we’re under the grace of Jesus and we have the indwelling Holy Spirit and we live in this incredibly affluent culture, do you think he would expect less of us?”

I wrote this review as part of Thomas Nelson's book review blogger program. Learn more at booksneeze.com

No comments: