Legal questions aside, one could infer from your posts that you are defining the laws of tithing in such a manner as to pay as little as possible. I am struck with comparisons to the stories of the widow’s mite, the legalistic interpretations of the Pharisees, and Thomas B. Marsh and the milk strippings, only you claim to be the one with the higher virtues.

I hope your actual feelings are not as strident as your posts portray them. I have so many other things to worry about that if the Lord lets me keep 90% for all that I get, that’s okay. And if the government wants another 10-20-30% (pick your favorite number here), and I get fire protection, police protection, mostly beneficial laws, and fairly decent public schools for my kids, that’s okay as well. That way, I can focus on my family, my church callings, my blues guitar chops, and immense collection of science fiction novels.

If you need a reason to pay tithing, go beyond Malachi 3:10, and look at the next verse:

11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts

The word interest was re-defined by Howard Hunter in 1964. He said, “The law is simply stated as ‘one-tenth of all their interest.’ INTEREST MEANS PROFIT, COMPENSATION, INCREASE. It is the wage of one employed, the profit from the operation of a business, the increase of one who grows or produces, or the income to a person from any other source. The Lord said it is a standing law forever’ as it has been in the past.” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1964, 35).
I believe that the church modified the definition of interest because of their massive budget problems of the late 1950s.

And what is it about you people with unsold moral centers and Leavenworth, Kansas? Lots of you take up residence there.

I probably know more than even you, the cases in which you never cited. Those are probably those whose kangaroo courts never even allowed the law to be debated, succored by those judges whose moral centers amount to being bent, bought, and then, benched.

And never mind the cases I can cite in defense of my position, as if yours were the only that mattered; with a major difference being that the judges I cite stood against status quo powers seeking to circumvent their constitutional prescriptions; as opposed to those idiosycratic puppets on a string aforementioned.

Frankly Sir, I am ashamed of this so-called government of the Free. And assuming you are a brother/sister in the church, I am ashamed that you would defend economic tyranny so easily. But, I would be a fool to think that even within our ranks, there are neo-cons who have sold out their moral centers for a worthless federal note.