Jesus did not pay tithes and never directed his followers to pay – AAUA Don.

….says it’s a goldmine for churches

A Professor of New Testament at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Olu Alana has questioned the payment of tithes in Nigerian churches.

The scholar who delivered the 36th Inaugural lecture of the institution last Tuesday, maintained that tithes are not recommended in the New Testament contrary to claims.

He added that “Jesus did not pay to any nor receive from anyone, and he nowhere directed his followers to pay to anybody, as he did in the case of the two-drachma temple tax (Matt. 17:24-27).”

The Don affirmed that tithe has become a goldmine for several churches in Nigeria today. 

“If the time and energy deployed to driving home the necessity of tithes in churches were spent on loving-kindness among Nigerians, there would be more peaceful coexistence in Nigeria”, the Don said.

The Inaugural Lecturer explained that the colonial missionaries did not leave any blueprint for the payment of tithes in the church.

According to him, “By their policies, they did not expect that a class of the wealthy could ever emerge. Since they believed that Africans did not have the common sense by which they could make money or develop themselves economically, their expectation was for Africans to forever remain hewers of wood and drawers of water for the development of their countries.

The Inaugural Lecture was titled, “Decolonising the New Testament’s Portraits and Narratives in Africa”