This covenant, which was made with Abraham when he was 99 years old, was an agreement that if Abraham would obey God and always do what was right in His sight, then God would bless him and his descendants; He would greatly multiply his descendants as the stars in heaven; he would be the father of many nations; He would give him and his descendants the land of Canaan. As a physical symbol of this covenant relationship, every young male was to be circumcised, and any man who was not circumcised could not be one of God's people. By performing this rite Abraham demonstrated his acceptance of the covenant and his willingness to be God's man.
Up until New Testament times this ritual was a purely physical act performed on every Jewish boy, but then Jesus put a new interpretation on circumcision. The apostle Paul states that to obey the law is as good as circumcision, and that true circumcision is something that happens deep in the heart and not something done to the body (Romans 2:28). So, nowadays our relationship with God does not depend on a physical act but rather on a decision of the mind or heart, a willingness to obey God and to do what is right in His sight. This willingness involves the honoring of God as the Creator by keeping the Sabbath day sacred and holy; it involves observing the rite of baptism as a symbol of the death of the "old man of sin" and a rebirth into the new life of service for God; it involves the observance of the ordinance of humility (feet washing) and the taking part in the communion service which commemorates the death and resurrection of Christ. It also involves the giving of a tithe, a tenth of one's increase, to the Lord's work.
The practice of paying tithe is very ancient; the first reference is found in Genesis 24:20 which describes Abraham giving a tithe to Melchizedek, king of Salem. Moses reinstated the practice as a part of the law (Lev. 27), stating that all the tithe belongs to God, and was to go for the support of the temple service and specifically for the support of the Levites who were the priests and had no inheritance in Israel. In Malachi 3:10 we are commanded to pay tithe as a symbol of allegiance to God, and a blessing is pronounced on tithe paying similar to that given to Abraham's rite of circumcision. Just as Abraham offered the tithe to Melchizedek, so we offer our tithe to Jesus who claimed to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek (6:13-7:10). Thus both the giving of the tithe and maintaining a spiritual circumcision of the heart are characteristics of the spiritual descendants of Abraham, the father of the faithful. Would it not be appropriate, then, to say that the tithe, a tenth of one's increase, represents a "financial circumcision"?
