• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

  • About
    • About us
    • Why SeedTime?
    • Our Beliefs
    • The Story of SeedTime
  • Podcast
  • Free Book
    • Get your 1st copy free (+S&H)
    • Order multiple copies here
  • Programs
    • Login
    • Mission-Driven Millionaire
    • True Financial Freedom
    • The Real Money Method (unbudgeting) course
    • The 10x Investing course
  • Churches
  • Blog
    • The 14 Financial Tools We Actually Use
    • Our strategy for giving away millions
    • 5 Bible Verses You Should Know (Free PDF)
    • 25 Ways to Save Money
    • Why we began giving our age as a percentage
    • My Checklist To Financial Freedom (Free PDF)
    • Tithing: an honest look and what we do
    • Why I took a Sabbatical YEAR (and how I did it)
    • How to travel for FREE [161 hotel nights and 103 flights all free]
    • 4 Financial Lessons from Solomon: The Richest Man Ever
    • How to become a millionaire by turning $2k into $1 mil
    • How to get out of credit card debt (Free PDF)
    • How I made $2,145 Last Month by decluttering
    • How I Broke Free From the Rat Race (in less than 2 years)
    • We just checked off the biggest goal in our life
    • Our Honest Medi-Share Review after 14 years
    • 4 Money Habits To Start (that basically guarantee financial success)
  • Email

Should you tithe while paying off debt?

written by Bob Lotich, CEPF® | Biblical Personal Finance

(The following is a transcription from a video I recorded. Please excuse any typos or errors.)

One of the questions I get a lot is, Should I tithe while I'm paying off my debt?This is a great question that is not easy to answer. In help with answering this, I want to bring in some resources for us to help with making this decision.

One of the questions I get a lot is, “Should I tithe while I’m paying off my debt?”

This is a great question that is not easy to answer. In help with answering this, I want to bring in some resources for us to help with making this decision.

The book, Master Your Money, is a classic on biblical money management. It’s a great read.

Ron Blue, the author of the book, has something that I think is pretty good to say with regards to tithing.

But, before I get into what Ron has to say, if you’d rather join our YouTube SeedTime community and watch my discussion about this topic, you can do so here:

God Owns It All

I like the way he wrote it. He says:

“I’m often asked whether couples in a heavy debt situation should tithe or not, and I have two thoughts regarding this.

First of all, tithing is no more or less spiritual than debt repayment if you know that God owns it all. However, because God does own it all, the tithe, as a priority, is a statement of your recognition that God owns it all. In other words, I don’t believe it’s a yes, no question. Rather, it’s a question of what is best relative to the individual and the circumstances.

A person must, however, bear in mind two principles. Number one, God owns it all, and as a priority, giving is commanded in the Bible. The question of whether to use the tithe money to fund debt repayment is a very serious spiritual decision that can only be made with much prayer and godly counsel.

Remember, faith requires a first step without fully understanding and without seeing how it’s all going to work out. Getting out of debt requires elements very typical of the faith walk. In most cases for the Christian, it requires faith to even take the first step.”

Trusting God

One of the problems that many Christians make is they compartmentalize their money, and they think, “Well, I’ll give God 2%, or I’ll give God 10%, but the rest is mine.”

But in reality, if we come back to the Bible, we learn that all of it is God’s. Now that doesn’t mean that He’s going to have us give it all away. That’s not normally what He leads us to do.

The point is that if He did, we should be in a position where we’re willing. We’re that open-handed that we can trust Him that He’s going to provide for our needs if he did lead us down that path.

Obeying God

So with Linda and I, in our particular situation when we were paying off our debt, after praying about it, we not only felt like we were supposed to continue to tithe, but we actually felt like we were supposed to give more.

So for me personally, that was a pretty big challenge because I had run the numbers, and I had figured out how long it was going to take. An increase in our giving was just going to slow that down, or at least according to my estimation.

Looking back on it, I’m really glad that we obeyed and that we followed that leading where the Lord was leading us because we ended up paying that debt off way faster. Years faster than I had planned.

So, even though it was completely counterintuitive and didn’t make sense, God knew what He was doing, and that’s what He led and asked us to do.

My Advice To You

Summing all this up, my advice to you is to take this to the Lord in prayer, see what He’s leading you to do, and then obey.

Do what He says. He knows better than you.

Our Money Mastery Quiz

Hey, thanks so much for watching the video. If you haven’t yet taken our Money Mastery Quiz, be sure to do that.

It’s just a super quick two-minute quiz, and it’s going to help you understand how good you with your money.

And, it’s going to provide a custom report giving you specific suggestions on how you can reach your financial goals up to 10 times faster. Head over to seedtime.com/quiz to get started now.

Related posts:

  1. Budgeting Software: 13 Great Free Budget Software Tools
  2. Why I use credit cards instead of debit cards or cash
  3. 12 Side Hustles That Pay Well
  4. Biblically responsible investing: should Christians invest in morally questionable companies?

About Bob Lotich, CEPF®

Bob Lotich, CEPF® is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance and has over 15+ years experience writing about Biblical personal finance. He is the award-winning author of Simple Money, Rich Life and has been named a top 20 social influencer in personal finance. Check out his on-demand Christian financial class for couples, small groups and churches called True Financial Freedom.

IFCFH Book of the Year
"The best combination of personal finance and the Christian faith that I’ve read"
– James T. (SMRL reviewer)

In this biblically sound and grace-filled money book, you'll discover the NEW rules of money that will transform your financial life. Say goodbye to outdated advice and hello to a simple, automated system that helps you achieve better results with less time and effort.

"The best combination of personal finance and the Christian faith that I’ve read"
Learn more
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Primary Sidebar

Bob Lotich

Hi there! We are Bob & Linda Lotich. Jesus followers, authors, podcasters, and undying fans of Michael Scott.

This site contains the lessons we learned on our journey from being stingy, debt-ridden fools, to being able to reach our biggest financial goal of giving $1 million by age 40, having zero debt & a paid off house by age 31, and peace with money in the process.

Now we share our best lessons with people like you, groups, and churches with our Award-winning book Simple Money, Rich Life and our 6-week video course True Financial Freedom.

Grab our book!

Simple Money Rich Life

Legal Disclaimer

The articles on this site should not be taken as financial advice. Please contact a financial advisor (or coach) for specific advice regarding your situation. Any references to interest rates, giveaways, deals, products, and websites are subject to change without notice. We try our best to keep the information current, but things are always changing so it may be different now than when it was first published. Also, all the pages on SeedTime help us pay the bills by using affiliate relationships with Amazon, Google, eBay and others but our opinions are NEVER for sale. Find out more here.

Footer



SeedTime is a 2x Plutus award winning website.
seedtime money logo



SeedTime BBB Business Review
seedtime instagram seedtime money youtube channel seedtime money twitter with Bob Lotich


Our book Simple Money, Rich Life was named 2022 book of the year!
  • Home
  • About
  • Beliefs
  • Blog
  • Courses
  • Churches
  • Press
  • Shop
  • Affiliates
  • Login

Privacy Policy | Terms | Reviews | Earnings Disclaimer | Contact | 636-344-0438
625 Bakers Bridge Ave Suite 105-134 Franklin, TN 37067
©2007-2025 · SeedTime (Formerly ChristianPF)