Should I tithe while I'm in debt?

You want to give, and you want the balance gone, and there is only one paycheck to do both with. Many of us have run those numbers at the kitchen table, and Scripture says more about it than most of us were taught.

The short answer is yes

You can keep giving, and many of us find it easier when the gift is set aside before anything else gets paid. For most budgets that is a tenth. In a tight season it may start smaller and grow as the payments shrink, and in a season with nothing to spare it can take the form of your time. Scripture asks us to honor God and to pay the people we owe, and it does not make us pick one.

Firstfruits is an order, not an amount. The gift comes off the top of your paycheck, before the bills. When giving comes last, most of us give whatever is left, and in a debt season nothing is left.

The next verse promises barns filled with plenty. Proverbs describes how life usually goes. It does not promise that a gift this month brings money back next month.

Paul tells the church in Rome to give generously, and a chapter later he tells them to settle up with everyone else.

Paul is listing what Rome's citizens owed their government, and in the next breath he widens it to every debt except love, which stays open for life. Paying the car loan on time is part of obedience too. God is not asking anyone to skip a payment to protect a gift, which would only push the burden onto the lender and add a late fee.

Where the guilt usually comes from

A lot of the guilt comes from teaching that treats the tithe as a payment which buys protection or return. Give and money comes back multiplied. Hold back and expect trouble. That is not how a Father deals with His children, and it turns worship into a transaction.

We give because everything was His before it reached our accounts. We give in response to what God has already done, not to get Him to do something.

Paul asks for a gift you decide on ahead of time and give willingly. Nobody should be scared into it.

He goes on to say that God is able to make grace abound to you, so that you have what you need and something left over to do good with. God does provide for people who give. He provides because He is kind, and our gifts do not obligate Him to anything.

If a tenth is not possible this month

Sometimes the arithmetic is brutal. The minimums, the rent and the groceries take the whole paycheck, and a tenth off the top would mean a payment you promised goes unpaid. This is a conversation to have with God first, with the actual numbers in front of you. He already knows them. If it would help to have someone beside you, a trusted believer who can hear the whole number without flinching is a good person to ask.

If you are married, this is a conversation for the two of you before anything changes. When one spouse decides alone, to give more or to stop, it tends to turn into a fight.

While you sort it out, you can still give first, at whatever size this month allows. When Paul wanted to show the Corinthians what generosity looks like, he pointed at a church poorer than theirs.

The Macedonians begged Paul for the chance to give, and nobody pressured them. He tells the Corinthians he is not giving a command, and a few verses later he sets the measure himself.

So a smaller percentage, one you can hold every month without missing a payment, is a real gift. You can raise it as the balances come down.

When there is no money to give

Some seasons leave no room for any percentage. A layoff, a diagnosis, a stretch where every dollar is spoken for before it arrives. Paul notices something the Macedonians gave before any money changed hands.

They gave themselves first. When the money is gone, you still have hours to give. That might mean serving at your church, cooking for a family in a harder spot than yours, or offering the skill you use at work to someone who could never pay for it. Time will not settle a debt, and it is not a permanent stand-in for the tithe. It keeps you in the habit of giving until you can give money again.

Kingdom Cents was built with this season in mind. You can switch your giving from money to time, and the app logs hours served instead of dollars, with a monthly hours target to aim at. Your giving history and your streak stay where they are. Before it switches, it asks you to be honest before God that this is a season of need, and when the season turns, you switch back.

And if you stopped giving a year ago and have been avoiding the subject ever since, you can begin again this week, with money or with hours. There is no penance to work off first and no back payment to clear. God is not keeping a record of the months you missed.

Two things to watch for

The first is borrowing to give. A cash advance or a gift charged to a card is not firstfruits, it is one more debt at the worst rate you carry, and it will take more out of your giving next year than it puts in this week.

The second is quieter. A payoff plan can grow until it swallows every spare dollar, and giving falls off the page for a year or two. The balances shrink and so does your generosity, which is harder to rebuild than a budget line. Keeping even a small gift in the plan means you are still in the habit when the debt is gone.

What this can look like in a month

One example, drawn to scale. A $3,400 take-home, a tenth given first, then the minimums on four debts plus $250 aimed at one of them.

That is one household. Your rent may take a bigger share, your extra payment may be $40 instead of $250, and your percentage may sit below a tenth for now. The order can stay the same, with the gift set aside first, the extra payment on its own line in the budget, and everything else paid from what remains.

Giving while you pay it down

In the long middle of a payoff plan, when the balances barely move, it is easy to resent every dollar that leaves. A gift set aside first keeps generosity in the picture the whole way through.

In Kingdom Cents you set your giving percentage, and the app works out the gift each time you are paid. Your debts and your payoff plan live in the same app.

Keep reading: What does the Bible say about debt? and Debt snowball or avalanche →