To see the historical will of God concerning spending income from labor and commerce, as applied to present time, we can find the common basis of Secular and Religious economics displayed in the workings of traditional family organization. Under Mosaic Laws and Ordinances given by God, the Church is the State. Public matters involving Government services were tended to by the Priests of the Sanctuary of God. Moses, in present understanding, may be considered (along with his brother Aaron) the head of state, the president; and the evangelist, the senior pastor.

   Tithes, in Old Testament times, were equivalent to the modern income tax. From Moses, until the people asked for a king as other nations were pleased to have, the living God of Creation was the Head of State and all collective and public functions of government were established and completed through the hands of the Church functioning as the State. Not coincidentally, the Constitution of the United States of America was formed with the understanding that an income tax may be levied only in cases of wartime because wartime diverts attentions from daily peaceful and private living to defending a nation publically under the divine establishment of God in Christ for His glory as the “Church of Philadelphia” – a nation of, by, and for the people unto God.

   The kings of Israel necessarily established an integrated division between Church and State because a man, instead of God, took a paradoxical position between the High Priest and God and between the High Priest and the people. Thus, government became intertwined with church where tithes as taxes were allocated by the church and also the state. State ‘tithes’ became taxes and Church ‘taxes’ became tithes. By the time of Roman occupation in Israel during the time of Christ’s ministry, the taxes of “protection” by Rome were drawn through the Synagogue as pious justification via the priests to use the law of Moses as formula for public and private social control to prosper the Roman State.

   With Christ’s Resurrection the veil of the temple to the Holy of Holies was rent giving each and every head of household, man as one with his wife, authority in Him to live unto God as the High Priest of his family. As families gather together in a community building called a sanctuary, they share in common concern for their collective society with respectful regard for the place(s) marriage and private endeavors find through Christ unto God. Identifying well being needs of each of the families, as well as faithless non-church participants who are members of neighborhoods, towns, cities, states, and countries, is what tithe giving of income is stipulated for, by God.

   This confusion about taxes being different from tithes causes a misunderstanding about the Church where tithes become a “required response” to word and works from pastors – as if pastors are in the Old Testament role of the priests and must thereof derive their income. So, the Church, large organization or small community independent, becomes a business that takes authority over men and women’s family faith authority rather than being the power of joyful freedom God designs the Church to be. In Christ, if a man professes to live his vocation being a minister of God’s Word, the Gospel, he is in the stance and position to draw his income from unrequested offerings and not tithes.

   Many congregations are subject to on-the-spot panhandling as an integrated segment of “worship services”. But, people are confused and/or eager to profit concerning the purposes of tithes as God provides. Offerings take on an emotionally guilt-ridden compensation to relieve concern about other’s hardship in charitable giving. Pass-the-plate offerings, by their subversive nature, pressure resentful sharing by appeasing one’s flesh selfish nature with an elevated self-esteem over personal generosity. So tithing, as lawfully required by God, becomes an emotionally stable sense of obligation by "faith".

   Oftentimes (Mostly?), church organizations will appeal to the very greed and pride of their “believing members" (as considered somehow different than visitors and guests) in calls for their tithes and offerings with a “payback” incentive of seeds of growth from God – and often in opposition to the tax burden against tithes people are suffering. Vending machine preachers hoard their corner on the Truth of God to scrape through their follower’s pockets, thereby stripping them of their own freedom of God’s Word of life directly in their own strengths of understanding.

   The traditional difference between taxes and tithes (with the understanding that taxes and tithes are actually both Tithe in their specific portion of income) has been taxes generally are taken to provide public services of protection and utilities while tithes are taken to provide personal health and welfare services. Since taxes, according to God’s design and according to a man and woman’s income are actually tithes, one can understand that governmental taxes over ten percent – and without regard to church dealings in society - are cruel and oppressive at the precise point they claim to be beneficial. Another form of hidden tax usury used to profit from needs and fears is insurance in its many forms. Trusting insurance is nearly a direct substitute for tithing in its faith for protection in the face of risk.