Hello Lynn
Your observations are confirmed I believe in the following teaching: http:////www.bible-truths.com/tithing.html
"And the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God… I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess" (Luke 18:12).
And just what kind of a blessing did Jesus pronounced on this Pharisee for his "tithe"?
No blessing, no justification, just a promise that people like him will be "abased" (Ver. 14).
What does being an utter hypocrite and passing over "Judgment and the Love of God" have to do with "tithing?" That’s the whole point. These gross sins have virtually nothing to do with tithing!
Tithing to Jesus was so absolutely insignificant to the gross sins of failing to properly Judge the widows and orphans and fatherless and poor, and to not show any Love of God toward them. Tithing was the smallest most inconsequential thing Christ could think of to show the utter hypocrisy of this Pharisees. They were very meticulous about tithing (a law of virtually no spiritual consequence what so ever), and yet… and YET they would do the tithe thing and neglect judgment, love and mercy.
Now please don’t all write me at once telling me that I have missed the whole point of these two sets of Scripture by not realizing that it was their very gross sins that will bring "woes’ and "abasements" on them, and not that they are being condemned for what they did do correctly, namely "tithe." That is quite true. However, it appears that most have missed the very reason why Jesus gives two examples of two Phariees, who were gross sinners deserving the worst possible chastisements, and then says that they were both tithe-payers.
Christ’s attention to the fact that they were both meticulous tithe-payers, proved the hypocrisy of these two Pharisees. They would pay strict attention to very miner details of a law, and yet totally abandon a very reason and purpose for the whole existence of the law—LOVE, MERCY, JUDGMENT.
The Church pays meticulous attention to false teaching.
Arc