Fr Patrick OGrady

THE TITHE
A First Step in the Life of the Gospel

The biblical tithe constitutes a first step in showing honor to the spiritual superior. The primitive blessing--tithe exchange in the encounter between Abram and Melchizedek introduces this personal relational transaction. Then, by steps the Old Testament prepares mankind for the coming of greater things. Moses teaches that tithes are declared "holy unto the LORD," thus showing holiness--being separated from the commonplace--to be a hallmark of this sacred transaction. Tithed goods are no longer mere goods but they participate in God through His priests who in turn live off of the tithes. In the spiritual recoveries under Hezekiah and Nehemiah, the renewed tithe is a foundation of those restorations. It is only through the tithe that Israel expresses her recognition that the LORD is her superior. Hypocritical practice of the tithe was called out by the prophet Amos and indeed Jesus himself as a perversion of what was designed by God to guide man into the eternal relationship himself. The last prophet, Malachi, expresses more about the tithe than any before him: through the tithe, faithful Israel could discover the LORD's plenitude of blessings. The New Testament doctrine of tithing preserves all that is fundamental in the Old Testament and prepares us not for the cancellation of the tithe but for its transcendence. The tithe remains a spiritual baby-step, quite essential in spirit, leading to one’s complete self-dedication to the Lord of glory in the community of His holy Church.

The V. Rev. Fr. Patrick O'Grady is a lifelong pastor and an Orthodox priest, now serving as priest-in-charge of St. Peter the Apostle Antiochian Orthodox Church in Pomona, California. In addition to pastoral duties, Fr. Patrick assists the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America by providing oversight in liturgics and translation. Fr. Patrick contributed to the Orthodox Study Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2008) and has published several articles on liturgical themes. He recently published a major work on the liturgical books of the Orthodox Church (co-authored with Fr. Michel Najim), The Liturgical Books of the Orthodox-Catholic and Apostolic Church, Vol. 1 (St. John of Damascus School of Theology at Balamand, Lebanon, 2015).