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Ep. 332 | Deuteronomy 14 Tithing · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  But the principle here is amazing. Once a year, take some of your tithe money and eat it. You know, like eat your tithe.
• 0:12
  What's up, guys? Welcome back to 5-Minute Fatherhood. So we have just finished an awesome season as a family called Sukkot. Sukkot is the Festival of Tabernacles, which is a day where adults build forts with their kids outside their house for seven days. And it's one of the most fun times we get to experience as a family. So
• 0:36
  We've been sharing a lot of pictures, and we got a lot of reaction from a particular picture that we put up the day before or the day of Sukkot started. We do an annual tradition where we go to a grocery store. In this case, it was Costco.
• 0:53
  And we call it our Deuteronomy 14 Costco run. And basically, we buy whatever our appetite craves or our heart desires, depending on what translation. And people are like, what? What is that? Because there's a verse, which a lot of people don't know, one of the longest passages in the entire Bible tells us to spend some of our tithe money
• 1:18
  on things that our appetite craves in order to rejoice with our household. I'll read this to you guys. And if you're really religious, this is going to offend you. But if you're not, this is such an interesting sort of part of understanding the heart of God. This really has impacted our family, our kids especially. So Deuteronomy 14, I'll read starting verse 24. It just says,
• 1:45
  He's talking about when you're going to Jerusalem as a family during the pilgrimage festivals, which Sukkot is the biggest one. He says, And if the way is too long for you so that you are not able to carry the tithe—so he's saying, take your tithe with you when you go on the pilgrimage festival—
• 2:02
  When the Lord your God blesses you because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, talking about Jerusalem, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place the Lord your God chooses, and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen, sheep, wine, or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice you and your household.
• 2:29
  So one of the things that the people of Israel were commanded to do with their tithe, and this is, again, not religious. We don't think anybody needs to do this. We just got really excited about this verse and said, hey, let's just take that one. Let's apply it in principle. We're not able to do it precisely, of course. We're not living in Israel, making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But the principle here is amazing.
• 2:56
  once a year, take some of your tithe money and eat it. Eat your tithe. Ask your appetite, what do you crave? What wine, strong drink, meat? And so that's what we did. So we filled up a couple of carts with what we and our kids craved, and it was all part of
• 3:20
  really creating that atmosphere of festival joy. There's a phrase in scripture, like festive joy, which is that if you really wanna experience the peak of joy, then what you have to do is experience a festival. And what is a festival? Like we don't know how to do festivals, but this is really sort of festival 101.
• 3:40
  how you create a festive atmosphere is you have to go and take some saved up cash and buy some awesome food, right? And drink. But yeah, Jeff, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah. I mean, the only thing I was going to say to you is just I think you have to always ask yourself...
• 4:00
  which, how do I say this? Like which parts of God and who he's like that the scripture seems to reveal, are you hiding from or, or ways in which specifically butt up against our culture? And I think this is in religious culture specifically, this is one of them. Like it's, it's, you have to let those speak to you so you don't just make a God in your own image. And there's, and, and I would, I would go so far to say that I do think God is,
• 4:28
  revealed in scripture, revealed in Jesus, is one who seems more willing to just feast and eat and celebrate for its own sake in the sacredness of the relationship and the table and the people that are around and good community.
• 4:43
  than we sometimes give credence to. You know what I mean? Like it's more than we would say. Like it always has to have a bigger meaning or a bigger thing or, and it's like, and it does at some level. And that's what festivals are for. It is to put a sacred meaning on like a party. But I just always find that interesting that, yeah, he's always basically, the short end of it is God's more willing to party than we are. And so like, just let that be true, you know, and recognize that.