A Tithing of Time

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work:

you, nor your son, nor your daughter,

nor your male servant, nor your female servant,

nor your cattle,nor your stranger who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth,

the sea, and all that is in them,

and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

There is an ancient principle found in the Scriptures in which God always sets something aside for Himself. In Eden, it was one tree among all the others. Adam and Eve could eat the fruit of any tree except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the Promised Land, it was one city among all the others. Joshua and the Israelites could keep the plunder from all the cities they conquered except the first one, Jericho. In Israel, it was one tribe among all the others. Twelve tribes were assigned property as their inheritance, but as priests, the Levites had no inheritance except the Lord. The tribe of Levi labored in the tabernacle and later the temple on behalf of all the others, and as a result, their sustenance and support came from the giving of the other tribes. When you harvested crops, a tithe went to the Lord. When your flocks and herds increased, a tithe went to the Lord. Firstfruits had to be offered, and the Firstborn had to be redeemed. In this way, your tithes supported those who worked in the house of the Lord.

The percentage seems to have been set by Abraham, who gave a tenth of all his possessions to Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of God Most High. Jacob also promised to give God a tenth of all his possessions. The word tithe actually means tenth, and the prophet Malachi says we rob God if we don't give him that much. In the Gospels, Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You're so careful to give ten percent of your possessions, but you ignore things like mercy and justice. You should pay more attention to the latter, while continuing to do the former."

So what does that have to do with the Sabbath? Think about this.

In a week, there are 168 hours--seven days of 24 hours each. A tenth of that time would be 2.4 hours a day, or 16.8 hours for the whole week. Now consider that in the 24 hours of evening and morning, 7 or so hours were allotted for sleeping, leaving roughly 17 hours of wake time. Is it possible that God set aside a tenth of our waking hours in the Sabbath and expected us to dedicate those hours to Him?

While I believe it is important to literally work six days and use the seventh for rest and worship, I think the deeper principle is that we should recognize God's presence every day of our lives and strive to give Him a tithe of our time. When I was pastoring my first church, we had Sunday School, Sunday morning and evening services, Wednesday night Bible Study and Friday night prayer. With five opportunities to attend a worship service of some kind, that was usually only about 8 hours of time a week, leaving 9 more to fulfill our tithe of time to the Lord.

What should we do with that remaining time? Personal devotion that includes prayer, praise and study of the Word is one way to consume the tithe. We should also devote our efforts to witnessing in the world, serving the members of the Body of Christ, and using our talents to benefit the local church. All that in addition to giving a tenth of our increase to fund the work and ministry that God has ordained.

In this way too, giving God 17 hours a week, we honor the Sabbath and keep it Holy.