Earl has a way of making simple things more complicated than they need to be. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s actually one reason he’s been so good at taking care of things over the years. He does his research, crunches the numbers, and sometimes builds elaborate spreadsheets before someone else has sharpened their pencil. If something can be calculated, Earl will calculate it. If it can be optimized, he’ll optimize it. And if it can be done with seventeen tabs instead of three, you can bet Earl will use all seventeen (I’m not sure Excel has a limit). His wife, Dot, has learned to accept this about him, though it took some time. She’s come to realize it’s just part of who he is—his attention to detail and thoroughness have proven valuable assets.
So it was entirely predictable that when the question of tithing in retirement came up—which it does, because Earl thinks about these things, which is more than can be said for some—it arrived not as a simple question but as a complex one. Mainly because many people have more than one source of income in retirement, which complicates the “tithing question.” Between pensions, annuities, Social Security income, Required Minimum Distributions, QCDs, dividends, interest, capital gains, and Roth withdrawals, determining what constitutes the “tithe base”—if that’s how one wants to approach this—isn’t straightforward. Each income stream has its own tax treatment, its own timing, its own relationship to what you originally put in and what you’ve already accounted for. Earl had built a preliminary model—it has seventeen tabs. Still, he brought the question to Pastor Dave. Perhaps the spreadsheet approach didn’t seem quite right to him—is it really just about a formula? Perhaps there’s more to it than that.
Pastor Dave didn’t need a spreadsheet. Not that he wouldn’t have understood most of it; he just viewed Earl’s detailed calculations as largely irrelevant from his perspective, which he gladly and honestly shared.
“Why don’t you just give generously—proportionally, sacrificially, and cheerfully from your heart (2 Co. 9:7-15),” he said, with the calm of a pastor who has answered many complicated questions with a few wisely chosen words and some loaded verses.
Dot, who had seen this particular exchange coming from about three weeks away, observed Pastor Dave’s straight, simple answer approach with a supporting biblical text—and that it would sure save Earl a lot of calculating time. She was not wrong. Tippy, who had followed the conversation with his usual focused attention (as though he understands tithing), noted that Earl likes doing calculations, which is also not wrong, and he means it respectfully and affectionately in his own small way, both literally and figuratively, which for a dog is pretty impressive.
Here’s what makes 2 Cor. 9:7-15 one of the most liberating and also one of the most challenging passages in all of Scripture on giving: it doesn’t give you an amount, a percentage, or a formula. It gives you a posture and a heart attitude to guide your decisions. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he wasn’t giving them a formula to follow. There were no “spreadpapyrus” or “spreadparchment” back then, as far as I know. He was describing the kind of giving that truly matters to God. It’s about giving with a godly purpose, not just going through the motions. It’s about being generous, not giving begrudgingly—not feeling forced to give out of duty or mere obedience.
This kind of giving comes from a heart that’s been completely changed by God’s grace. It’s the kind of giving that happens when we’re so caught up in God’s love and mercy that we can’t help but want to give back. So, when deciding what to give, we should remember it’s not just about the amount, but about the heart behind it. “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart” (v.7). “God loves a cheerful giver” (v.7). “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (v.10).
The tithe, which is the ten percent that runs through the Old Testament from Abraham’s gift to Melchizedek through the Mosaic law to Malachi’s storehouse principle, isn’t explicitly named in this passage, and there’s a fair amount of well-intentioned theological debate about whether the tithe as a fixed percentage is still binding on New Testament believers or whether it functions better as a floor, a starting point, rather than a ceiling above which nobody needs to go beyond. What’s not debated, by anyone who reads this passage carefully, is where it ultimately leads us: the New Testament consistently pushes toward more rather than less, toward sacrifice rather than formulas, toward the kind of giving that costs something rather than the kind that has been optimized to cost as little as possible while technically meeting the requirement.
Which brings us back to Earl’s spreadsheet. The seventeen tabs are not, in themselves, the problem. Understanding your income streams and their tax implications can be useful; a good steward knows the condition of his flocks (Prov. 27:23), and knowing what you have received and the other God-ordained purposes for your money is a reasonable first step toward deciding what to give from it. The problem arises when the calculation becomes the focus, when the question “how do I calculate the tithe?” sometimes becomes a proxy for “what is the minimum I’m obligated to give?” Because that question, however dressed up in spreadsheet sophistication, takes you to a different place than where 2 Cor. Ch. 9 is. The cheerful giver is not looking for the minimum they can get by with. The cheerful giver has been so captured by the gracious generosity of a Holy God toward them as repentant sinners that the question of the minimum doesn’t arise at all—it’s more a question of how much.
Paul’s closing verses in this passage make the theological foundation unmistakably clear. Generous giving, he says, not only meets the needs of God’s people but also produces thanksgiving to God, and it does so because the givers are demonstrating the surpassing grace of God in their lives: “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (v.15). The gift is Christ. The giving these verses talk about is in response to that amazing gift.
Earl knows this. He’s read the passage and has probably highlighted it. But he also has his spreadsheet, and like many of us, is wrestling with the hard questions it presents. Pastor Dave is patient because he knows the verse is all-sufficient. Dot has noted that it would save a lot of calculating, and she is right about that, too, though she is wise enough to know that the calculating is also, in its own way, Earl’s form of taking the question seriously.
Tippy freely offers affection and unsolicited commentary, and his observation that Earl likes doing calculations is spot on. But 2 Cor. Ch. 9 says that God LOVES a cheerful giver. Tippy may show his affection, but God wants our generosity to model his own and the way he has lovingly and graciously given us every good gift, the greatest of which is the gift of his only Son for our salvation. I think it’s part of His way of getting us ready for heaven.