The History and Use of the Tithe

Chapter 17—No Special Issues or Crises Apparent as Responsible for the Counsel

The question has been raised whether in 1904 or 1907 there were special issues or crises either in our educational work or the colporteur ministry. Very careful examination of the minutes of the General Conference, of the correspondence between Ellen White’s office and leading church workers, and the E. G. White files themselves, fails to reveal that there was any special crisis situation which led Ellen White to write as she did. HUT 16.4

The 1884 Butler pamphlet in which he expresses his conviction that tithe money should help support the newly established colporteur ministry was, however, in circulation in 1904, the year of writing of the statement in question. HUT 16.5

As to the payment of colporteurs, the records from 1901 to 1904, which we have examined, make no reference to the suggestion that colporteurs might be paid from the tithe. HUT 16.6

These facts give support to the conjecture that Ellen White’s statement concerning “school interests” and “colporteurs” appears only in general terms in the context of a statement dealing with the tithe and its use, and was written to safeguard the use of the tithe. HUT 16.7

It should be ever kept in mind that the burden of many of the E. G. White statements regarding the use of the tithe and the diversion of tithe funds is that there shall always be ample funds in the treasury to adequately pay the ministers and to support the strong evangelistic thrust throughout the world. She wrote: HUT 16.8

“There should be an abundant supply in the Lord’s treasury and there would be if selfish hearts and hands had not made use of the tithe to support other lines of work.

“God’s reserved resources are to be used in no such haphazard way. The tithe is the Lord’s, and those who meddle with it will be punished with the loss of their heavenly treasure unless they repent. Let the work no longer be hedged up because the tithe has been diverted into various channels other than the one to which the Lord has said it should be. Provision is to be made for these other lines of work. They are to be sustained, but not from the tithe. God has not changed; the tithe is still to be used for the support of the ministry. The opening of new fields requires more ministerial efficiency than we now have, and there must be means in the treasury.”—Testimonies for the Church 9:249, 250.

October, 1975

Revised February, 1990