Reply to SBC Tim Guthrie, 1-10-2010

To Tim G

Unable to refute my biblical arguments, you continue to attack me personally. Yet I have not read this hermeneutic in any SBC book on hermeneutics.

For somebody who represents the entire Southern Baptist Convention, you are making a laughing-stock out of its scholarship, theology, hermeneutics and ability to defend its doctrine. If this is the best you can do then you might as well stop trying to defend your position by attacking somebody else's persona.

Tim: The heart is one of two places:1. It desires to find a way out of things that God says are Holy:or2. It desires to love God more and more each day! Russ: YOU are the one trying "to find a way out of things that God says are Holy." On the other hand I literally believe that what God calls holy is holy in its context. For example the Sabbath Day was called "holy" for national Israel. Do you worship on Saturday or Sunday?

I provided 17 texts which prove that God defined the tithe as "food from inside His holy land" as "holy." Your definition of tithe as "income from outside Israel" is in DEFIANCE of what God called "holy."
Tim: The pattern of a few today is to say; "what can I get by with" instead of "what more can I do!"

Russ: This sounds like something Doctor Eck would have told Martin Luther and John Calvin. Shame on you. You are merely making wild stabs into the air and making yourself look silly. Do some serious theology sometimes.
Tim: Some who teach NO Tithe simply look to prove NO tithe and in so doing miss the picture that God clearly gives in His Word.

Russ: Stop acting childish and attach real biblical statements, texts and principles to your goofy comments. Show us where God "clearly" agrees with your conclusions. You do not want to get into the Word but you want to keep insulting others who disagree with you. This is simply arrogance.Tim: Here's a simple question:If God says something is HOLY does that not stay HOLY or can/does it change?

Russ: Here's a simply way to answer your own question:
(1) Use a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(2) Look up the word "holy": it occurs 94 times
(3) Read each and every one of the 94 references
(4) Determine which of the 94 are still in use by the New Covenant church.

Simple Answer: Most of what God called "holy" in Leviticus under the Old Covenant is NOT "holy" for the church under the New Covenant.

Your Dilemma: Redefining tithes contrary to God's Word; keeping your definition of "tithes" as "holy" while not keeping everything else called "holy" in Leviticus.

Question for You: If tithing was so important, why does the word not appear an ANY SBC Faith and Message? Why were the tithing texts not inserted into the SBC Faith and Message until 1963? Why did the 1925 Message not contain any of them? Why did the SBC wait until 1895 to attempt to force the doctrine onto the Church? See your own website for these facts.