I had two young gentlemen come to my door this evening from the Church of Latter Day Saints and enjoyed my discussion with them. I actually referred them to your website as a good base for information for people not of the mormon faith to have questions answered about this religion. I respected and to a degree envyed, their total belief in something beyond themselves.

When they left, I checked again about mormonism. The issue I don't understand is tithing. How do people, with the increasingly cost of living, pay 10% to the church? As well, if people join the church later in life and have debt, how are they expected to pay the tith, pay their bills and support their families?

Please help my further understanding of this aspect of mormon faith.

Thank you for yur consideration of this question.

8 ¶ Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. 9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. 10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. (Old Testament | Malachi 3:8 - 10)

There are millions of members of our Church who will tell you that the Lord does not break this promise. As a matter of fact, yesterday I visited the temple in Perth, Australia and one of the temple presidency was there and he said that when he was baptized, his wife had a problem with the law of tithing for the very same reasons you have stated. But then they said something that I've never heard before. They said that because the church has helped change their life for the better like eliminating smoking and drinking as well as other things that could drain the bank account necessarily, somehow, it all worked. She was baptized a week later.

The practice of this law is critical to the growth of our church. As an example, for the last many years an average of over one new chapel has been completed each workday of the year. Additional offerings support a welfare system that provides the essentials of life for the members of our church who are in need. This involves farms, orchards, ranches, factories, and other such production storage and shipping facilities in the world to help people whether they are members of the Church or not. In addition, over a billion dollars in cash, medicines, food, clothing, water wells, wheel chairs, neo natal medical care training, cataract treatment, and other such services have been available to the suffering of the earth. The Church Humanitarian Aid Services have been first to respond to major disasters around the world with emergency supplies and human helping hands. Thousands of young, under privileged men and women mostly in Latin America are given loans to obtain technical training. I mention these because I am convinced that these opportunities to serve are directly related to the prosperity and blessings tied to honoring the commandment and promise of the Lord concerning tithes and offerings.

We simply believe that all that we are and have are gifts from the Lord and it is but a small compensation to support his kingdom with the tithes and offerings as he prescribes. There are numerous stories of how people made this leap of faith without any idea of how they were going to survive financially and how miracles occur in their lives as a result.

Please let me know how it goes with the missionaries and please feel free to email me if you have any other question.

Sincerely,

Donny Osmond


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