Should Companies Tithe?

Recently, a C12 member business owner emailed their Chair the following questions on the issue of financial giving from a business.  See if you can relate:

"Can you shed some perspective on how to identify tithe-able earnings in the company?  We've had a good year profit-wise and I've been growing in my conviction that we need to return our tithe to the Lord, but ALL the money we've made has either gone to debt/principle reduction, reinvestments in the company (showroom, equipment, etc.) or my distribution.  I don't want to rob God by ‘nickel and dimeing' the figure that we'd base our tithe off of, but we don't have a dollar more in our checking account today than we did in January, so I don't want to be foolish either.  The question, I guess, is how to define "first fruits," and whether they're synonymous with retained earnings?  Do we tithe out of savings?  Just wondering what the conventional/biblical wisdom is on this subject."

These questions raise several issues regarding our personal vs. collective responsibilities before the Lord, and what godly stewardship looks like in differing situations.  As with all instances of applying Biblical truth to real world situations, C12 desires to be faithful to Scriptural principles without overreaching by being unnecessarily prescriptive or binding each other's consciences based on imperfect human interpretations.  Our intent is always to surface Scriptural wisdom and to engage our members in the process of individually applying these principles in practice as they're led in their personal relationship and specific business situation with the Lord. C12's response to the member's questions was as follows:

• C12 doesn't prescribe how a company should ‘tithe' since Scripture doesn't give specific instructions regarding tithing from the revenue or net proceeds of an enterprise.  Further, companies have several stewardship-related issues which may impact on precisely how giving is best done through the business.
• Scripture is clear on many aspects of giving, especially in the Old Testament, which aren't countermanded by the New Covenant in Christ in the New Testament.   This means that they still apply if you understand the whole of Scripture to be God's counsel to man (which C12 does!).   These instructions include tithing a tenth (Gn 14:20), honoring the Lord with the "firstfruits" of our wealth (Pr 3:9), bringing in the whole tithe (Mal 3:9), and seeing giving as a heart issue in which we're to be "cheerful" givers (2Cor 9:7).
• Business Owners and CEOs receive annual compensation, distributions, or dividend income from a business (different company legal forms lead to differing income ‘pass-through' issues) to which the concept of tithing clearly applies.  But company profits may also be retained or reinvested to grow the business or fund future working capital requirements as necessary to fuel the continued growth and operation of the business.   In such cases, good stewardship and generosity may look vastly different across different types of companies, differing seasons, and given different ministry strategies (e.g., in-kind services to Christian causes, expensing aggressive ministry support along the way which results in less net profit being generated, etc.).  This clearly isn't a ‘one-size-fits-all' situation.
• For each of us, the surest approach to tithing relates to us asking and hearing from God as we develop our business plans, manage the day-to-day operations of the business, and choose what to do with the net proceeds of the business to be most faithful and fruitful in our calling.  We've known of Christian CEOs who foolishly ‘tithed' from gross revenue in a modestly profitable business and later found themselves unable to sustain healthy operations or ‘forced' to take on debt to operate due to giving away so much to Christian causes without truly understanding the cash needs of the business. This isn't faithful or trustworthy stewardship.  Businesses will often plan their growth by setting aside a portion of profits to fund growth (i.e., working capital and incremental capacity) and then distribute the rest of the profits to owners and employees who may then tithe from their individual portions.  The big question is whether the Kingdom use of the funds will be more beneficial by being retained and reinvested in the growth of the business and its related ministries, or by being dividended out.  We need to look at this each year before the Lord, given the God-given opportunities we have to grow our platform for ministry and bless others through business.

more