Summary: The law God had established among the Israelites was to tithe the increase of their property for the support of the Levite priests. In addition to this, they were to also provide tithes to care for the poor and needy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints still follows this practice. Yet it has been learned that this church also has billions of dollars in investments. The question some have asked is, why does the church still require its members to pay tithing and what does the church do with all its invested money? This article answers that question.

In the Old Testament, we read, “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” (Malachi 3:10).

After Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land, he assigned each tribe a specific place that belonged exclusively to them as their inheritance, with the exception of the tribe of Levi. They had been called to serve as priests for all the people and as such, they lived among all the tribes. This meant they had no land on which to farm and therefore had no means of supporting themselves.

The law that God established to provide for the Levites was called tithing, whereby all the people would take ten percent of their increase and give it to the priests. In addition to this, the Lord also instructed the Israeites to pay tithes for providing for the poor as well as for the expense of certain religious festivals.

Since this was an agricultural society, they gave ten percent of their crops and animals. These items would be put in a storehouse from which the Levite priests would take what they needed to support themselves and the poor..

Today, nearly all Christian churches have priests, pastors, preachers,or ministers who devote their entire time to serving the people of their faith and, like the ancient Levites, they depend on others to provide for their support, yet hardly any of them follow the law of tithing. Instead, they use what is commonly referred to as a “collection plate,” which is a plate that is passed around the congregation during the worship service and each person puts in the amount of money they voluntarily want to give.

This money not only pays the salary of their pastor, but it also pays the salary of the staff who work for the church. It also pays for the upkeep of the church building, which includes paying the mortgage, utilities, and repairs. It also helps pay for all the supplies needed for the church to operate.

In contrast, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints follows the law of tithing, which is that its members voluntarily donate ten percent of their increase to support their church. Although their local leaders (bishops and stake presidents) support themselves because their service is not full time, yet there are those who do serve full time and therefore need to be supported by the contributions of others.

It is from the tithing money that not only pays the salary of these full-time servants, but also pays the salary of the staff who work for the church. In addition to this, the tithing money also goes to construct and maintain all the buildings used by the church, which includes chapels, mission home, temples, and church offices. It also goes to pay for all the supplies needed to support the various functions of the church, and since this is a worldwide church, the more the church grows and expands, so does the need for more funds to pay for the expanding costs.

Because the membership of the church is in the tens of millions, the amount of money it collects from tithing is considerable, but recently it’s been reported that the church also has been investing money which is reported to have netted them a hundred billion dollars.in available funds.

This news has caused some people to ask a number of questions. One is, if the church has that much money, why do its members still need to pay tithing? Another question is, what is the church doing with all their invested money? One of the complaints made is, why doesn’t the church use this money to feed the poor instead of hoarding it all for themselves? Another complaint is that the salaries of its leaders are exorbitant, while many of their members are struggling to make a living.

These kinds of questions and complaints stem from a lack of understanding of the purpose of the church and how it functions.

The reported salary of the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is around $250,000. That’s a quarter of a million dollars and far exceeds the salary of most Americans and certainly much more than those who live in most countries of the world. However, that’s comparing watermelons to grapes.

The First presidency and Quorum of the Twelve apostles are the CEOs of a worldwide organization, and those who hold similar positions in the private sector receive a salary of tens of millions of dollars. Television newscasters can be paid as much as professional athletes, which is in the tens of millions. Many of the preachers who are popular on television also make tens of millions of dollars. When we compare the salary of the leaders of Christ’s true church with that of others in comparable positions, we see that the salary of those who lead Christ’s church is only a small fraction of what their talents deserve.

In addition to this, when we compare their lifestyle to those in comparable positions, what we see is that nearly all televangelists live in luxury, with large, expensive homes, wearing expensive clothing, and often have a fleet of cars. By contracts, the leaders of Christ’s church live in humble homes, wear nice but not overly expensive clothes, and have no more cars than the average person.

Then what does the church do with the $100 billion fund they’ve accumulated and why don’t they use that money to care for the poor?

It’s interesting that the critics never make that complaint about all the money that other well-known preachers make, but to answer this question, we have to understand what tithing covers and what it doesn’t cover.

As outlined in D&C 42, tithing goes to pay for the operation of the church, which includes spreading the gospel all over the world. It helps pay for chapels, temples, mission offices printing and distributing Books of Mormon that are given away at no cost. It pays for the General Authorities of the church to travel all over the world to preach the gospel and, teach, and strengthen the members.

What tithing does not do is care for the poor and the sick. In ancient Israel, in addition to their tithing to support the priests, they were also required to give additional money to provide for the poor. In the New Testament we read how the church members were asked to give money that the apostle Paul collected from the various churches he visited and took back to Jerusalem for the church leaders to distribute. And that same principle is used in today’s church of Christ.

In addition to its members giving ten percent of their increase, once a month its members are asked to fast from eating three meals and donate the money they would have spent. This money is used to help the poor and needy. Members can also specify additional money to be used for humanitarian purposes.

But the amount of money necessary to help those in need far exceeds whatever the church collects from its members, and so to truly care for the needs of others, the church has to find other ways of generating much more money. But no matter how much money they raise, if all they do is spend it without replacing it, they will quickly run out of money.

For example, according to the World Bank, as of 2024 there are 700 million people who are living on less than $785 a year. If we were to equally divide $100 billion among them, they would each receive just $142 and then all the money would be gone with nothing left to give to anyone else.

According to the same World Bank report, there are another 3.5 billion people living on less than $2,500 a year. They too desperately need financial help. The point is, although $100 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, it is woefully inadequate to care for everyone who needs financial assistance. Therefore, that money has to be carefully managed to make sure there is always enough available to help when and where it is truly needed.

Since there is an ever continual need to help people, the first thing the church has to do is make sure they keep replenishing the funds they’ve spent so there’s always money on hand to provide for those in future need. It’s not important how this money is raised, as long as it’s done legally and ethically, and since there is an increasing number of people who need help, therefore, the amount of money the church needs to have on hand has to keep increasing.

Then what does the church do with all of that money? In 2024 the church spent $1.4 billion on 3,836 humanitarian projects in 192 countries.When people say, “Why doesn’t the church spend that money to help the poor?” that’s exactly what they’re doing with it.
.
But what kind of projects is the church involved in?

The most obvious is sending emergency aid to those suffering from natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, and devastating fires, as well as acts of man, such as those caused by war. And it isn’t just the money spent on providing food, water, clothing, medicine, and shelter but there is considerable cost involved in getting these items gathered, packaged, shipped, unloaded, delivered and distributed to those in need.

But there are many other areas when the church sees a need and steps in to provide help. For example, they work with other organizations such as the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, the United Nations, Catholic Community Services, and many other organizations, both religious and secular, assisting them in their mission to provide help to others.

However, this kind of assistance is only temporary. The church follows the philosophy that if you give a man a fish, you’ve fed him for one day, but if you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for life. Therefore, the majority of the humanitarian aid the church gives is meant to provide long lasting relief, mostly in the form of teaching self-reliance.

In poor countries where the people lack even basic services, the church has helped provide clean drinking water and installed sanitary systems to help prevent the spread of disease. They help poor communities care for the health of women and children by teaching others about nutrition, newborn care, and immunization. They not only provide medicine but provide education so the local people will be able to care for the health needs of their communities.

The church also helps build hospitals as well as providing some of the medical equipment necessary for the local doctors to provide better care for their patients.

They also train farmers how to improve the yield of their crops so they’re able to raise more food. This not only helps feed more people but helps the farmers improve their income. They also help build warehouses to store the food grown locally, and help teach farmers to be better businessmen.

Following the principle of teaching people how to become self-reliant, the church helps build schools and provide the teaching materials necessary for children to learn. It’s a known fact that when a person is educated, they’re in a much better position to improve their own lives.

These are some of the world-wide services the church provides on an as-needed basis. However, the church also provides many other ongoing services in addition to these projects. For example, schools in poor countries can only provide a basic education, and so the church also assists those who want to obtain a higher education and they do this in several ways. One is by providing scholarships and financial assistance to those who qualify. Another way is through a program called Pathways, which are online college courses that people can take from their home at their own pace without having to go to a college campus. In 2024 there were 76,000 people from all over the world enrolled in this program, and the numbers are increasing,

But getting an education is only the beginning because the ultimate aim of education is for people to be qualified to work at a good paying job. To assist in this area, the church also provides employment services to anyone who is unemployed or who wants to improve their employment situation. These services include helping people write better resumes, improving interview skills, networking and providing other assistance that will help improve a person’s chances of getting a job.

The church also provides assistance to those who are struggling financially and emotionally. One such service is called the Bishop Storehouses which provides food for those having financial troubles, thereby freeing up money for them to pay their bills without worrying about feeding their family.

There are also professional counselors who provide emotional help for those coping with a multitude of life problems such as divorce, substance abuse, addictions, family counseling, dealing with trauma, self-esteem and other emotional difficulties. The cost of operating these kinds of services is not small and comes from the investment funds of the church.

All of these programs are first rate, and are managed by highly qualified people. For that reason, these assistance programs don’t come cheap, and it is because of the investment funds of the church that it is able to provide the money necessary to help make these programs available.

But there is another area where the church is helping people, howbeit indirectly, and that’s through the purchase of farmland.

To provide food for those in need requires purchasing it from somewhere and that requires having dependable sources from which to buy the food. But if the church is able to produce its own food, it doesn’t need to depend on outside help. In other words, it becomes self-reliant.
.
When the church purchases farmland, they hire local farmers to care for and work the land under the supervision of highly competent church experts. In this way, the church provides jobs for farmers without them having to worry about the financial obligation and uncertainty that independent farmers face.

The church sells some of this food on the open market, thereby making a profit, but it also uses this food to provide for emergencies. Therefore, they build and operate facilities that process the food they grow for distribution and build warehouses to store it. Doing this not only ensures that the church will have food available to ship out on a moment’s notice but it lowers the cost of the food by eliminating the middle distributors, thereby making the use of its funds more cost effective.

The $1.4 billion the church spent on humanitarian projects in 2024 doesn’t include the cost of maintaining and operating all these facilities that make it possible to provide people with the help they need

Those who complain about the $100 billion fund of the church obviously have no idea of its purpose, which is to care for the poor and the needy.

 

Related articles can be found at The Nature of Man