Day 3

Bruce Miller, author

This week, we are reprinting Chapter 3 of  Bruce Miller’s book, Giving: Three Questions. We’re answering the question, “How much should you give?” This week we’re talking about “3 P giving.” Yesterday we discussed how our giving should be planned, today we’re talking about how it should be proportionate.

Proportionate

You can find this truth as far back as Moses in Deuteronomy.

Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you (Deuteronomy 16:17).

In his instructions to the Corinthians about their giving, Paul says,

Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have (2 Corinthians 8:10–12).

Notice your giving is not based strictly on income, but on how the Lord has blessed you, according to what you have. This is broader than income.

Having said that, you may have very little or even nothing. If you are in deep poverty, your church family should come around you to help you. Let them know. They may not be aware of your situation. No member of a local church should go without basic needs for food, clothes and shelter. The rest of the church family is ready to give to you.

Your giving is to be in proportion to how you have been blessed by God. To the Corinthians, Paul said they were to set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income (1 Corinthians 16:2).  He commended the amazingly generous Macedonian Christians for their model because, they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability (2 Corinthians 8:3).

Most of us in the western world have been blessed financially far beyond the majority of people in the world and yet our giving is terribly disproportionate to our income. You can go on the Internet and find websites where you can compare your income to the rest of world. It’s embarrassing, because at least for me, I had to stare at the fact that my income puts me in the top 1 percent of the world.

In a study of data from IRS tax returns, Scott Burns, a financial writer for the Dallas Morning News, discovered an alarming trend.

Households with less adjusted gross incomes gave a much higher percentage to charity than those with higher adjusted gross incomes. At the low end, households with adjusted gross incomes of $10,000 to $15,000 gave an average of 11.6 percent. Households with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000 gave 2.5 percent. 

Burns says if you study the entire table, you find that “Giving and income are inversely related. People with higher incomes give less.”[1]

This phenomenon is the opposite of the biblical principle. As your income increases, your giving should increase. Generous giving is proportionate. Many Americans can give more than 10 percent and still handle other obligations responsibly.

Let’s look at the actual giving for a church. This data comes from my own church several years ago based on annual giving. And I’m told these percentages are common in American churches.

• 16 percent of the households gave over $4,000 with an average gift of $9,508.
• 29 percent gave between $400 and $3,999 with an average gift of $1,596.
• 20 percent gave $1 to $399 with an average gift of $122.
• 35 percent of households gave zero.

Try to find yourself on the list. Into which category did you fall last year in terms of giving to your own local church? Of course, the amount of your income makes a big difference in the amount of your giving. One problem is that as our income increases, our spending increases, but too often our giving does not increase.

Let’s get practical. Figure out what percentage of your income you gave last year. Look at your last paycheck for the year or your

W-2. Or just look at your income last month, and the percentage of your income that you gave last month.

Honestly face the truth about your giving in terms of the percentage of your income. One couple in our church really impressed me. They did this exercise and confessed they did not feel good about their giving and wanted to be held accountable. So they gave me an envelope with a copy of the page from their 1040 tax return that lists their adjusted gross income and a copy of their contribution statement from the church. Then they wrote the percentage of their giving to the church. The first year it was something like 2.8 percent, but over the next two years, they have given me the same envelope, and every year the percentage has grown.

Once you figure out what proportion you are giving today, take a step forward. Take one step up from 3 percent to 4 percent. Or from 10 percent to 11 percent or up to 25 percent or even 50 percent. One family in our church gave 50 percent of their income and they loved it. You can’t out give God.

If you have any income at all and are giving nothing, I encourage you to start with something. If are you giving something, I encourage to pray about 10 percent. Make a big faith jump. If you are at 10 percent, I encourage you to pray about a step beyond that.

But what if you are in debt? Should you pay off your debt before you start giving? No. Give first. Honor God above your creditors. What if you are barely paying bills? Give something anyway. Take a hard look at where your money is going, especially in discretionary areas such as clothing, eating out, entertainment, including cable and satellite TV, and your cell phone plan. Your giving may not be 10 percent of your income, but give more than zero.

Giving is one of the only areas where God invites you to test him. I invite you to take God up on his invitation in Malachi, where God says,

 ^“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it” (Malachi 3:10).

I’ve encouraged many people to take this “Malachi Challenge” and no one has ever regretted it. God keeps his promise. The blessings may not be financial. They might be better than money.

How much should you give? Your giving should be Planned and Proportionate. Those are the first two Ps. Here’s the third. Our giving should be Progressive.  

We’ll discuss progressive giving tomorrow.

Reflect

• According to Deuteronomy 16:17 and 1 Corinthians 8:10–12, how much should you give?
• What would be a “proportionate” amount from your current income to give?

[1] Scott Burns, The Disciple of Giving, “Asset     Builder,” December 25, 2005.