I was talking about the traditional tithe, from later, extraBiblical church tradition, not the Biblical one.
I may have confused that with where you did mention and talk about the biblical tithe.
In Acts 21 for example, James mentioned how many Jewish believers there were who were zealous for the law. A chapter later, Paul would describe Ananias, who baptized him, as deeply devoted to the law. In an earlier chapter, we read that many priests were obedient to the faith. Jesus had taught of the scribes and Pharisees 'Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do."
Yes, it makes sense Jesus upheld the law to the people who were still under the law before the inception of the New Covenant.
Early in Acts, believers were selling off fields and possessions. I do not know if they all sold everything or if newer batches of converts later in Acts, located in Jerusalem, had sold off all their lands to support the other saints in the church. If they sold off their lands, they probably would not have had any tithes to pay. But before they sold their lands in Acts, and any who had lands after would have been required by the law of Moses to pay tithes of the crops and herds. So if no single Christian Jew in the holy land owned land, then you may have a valid point. Otherwise, if they were devout according to the law, they most likely did pay the tithes required in the Old Testament.
Most of the people were not the wealthy land owners. Most were laborers and craftsmen, none of whom were required to hand anything over to the Levites. The Gentile believers who were far greater in number than the Jewish converts by the time Paul went on his second missionary journey, they who had lands sold some to have sustenance to hand over to provide for the needs of fellow believers. It makes no sense that the believers sold "all" they had, and therefore impoverishing themselves out into the gutters only to become additional burdens upon the local Church. The Gentile believers did take up collections to be sent to the Jewish believers when the great persecutions began in that region, but none of that is known to have been given for the temple since that building no longer had any meaningful significance with the Lord's presence no longer filling that place.
They did not stop being Jews were observing the law (attempting to do so) because they were Christians. This is apparent from the book of Acts.
We don't know what that entailed for the the Jewish believers to be zealous for the law. All we can is speculate. What we can know is that their zeal wasn't a matter of them trying to go back to any attempt at placing themselves under the law. Doing so was a matter of falling from grace. Paul made that abundantly clear in Galatians 5.
Again, tithing only had to do with the Levites and the temple, and never was it wages from those who did not possess anything from which the tithe was required by the law. We can both probably agree with this.
I am assuming Jewish farmers still paid tithes according to the law of Moses in second temple Judaism. There is probably some material on this. I cannot think of any off the top of my head. There was also a temple tax. At certain points in history, Rome misappropriated that.
We saw what Jesus thought about the temple tax, which was to have a coin extracted from a slimy fish's mouth handed over to those collecting such a tax.
I do not know where you get this. Paul made this argument about 'if ye be circumcised....' Judaizers would try to persuade Gentiles to convert to Judaism and relate to God through the law of Moses. A Gentile believer in Christ doing so would be putting his trust in the law to justify him, rather than putting his trust in Christ. But Paul did not try to convince Jewish believers not to follow the law. He encouraged the one called in uncircumcision to remain in uncircumcision and the one in circumcision not to seek to become uncircumcised. Paul paid the expenses of some men going into the temple to fulfill a vow at the request of the elders who encouraged him to do so to demonstrate that he did not teach Jews not to circumcise their children or not to obey the law. Paul had cut his own hair in Cencrea, for he had made a vow, so he may have been going to the temple with them to fulfill his own obligations in the temple and go through the rituals as well. If Egyptians were still hairless in the first century (the royals weren't) it could be that he was mistaken for an Egyptian because he'd just had a Nazarite cutting and shave.
Well, let's see what is written:
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
The bondage of which Paul was speaking is understood to be the law of Moses. This was written to both the Gentile and Jewish believers in Galatia.
Galatians 5:2-4
2 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye
be circumcised,
Christ shall profit you nothing. 3 For I testify again to every man that
is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do
the whole law. 4
Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.
So, the Gentiles who bought into what those wicked Judaizers told them, that they must be circumcised and follow the law of Moses to be saved, it is put in its place. Acts 15 is a great study on all that. Seeking to obey the law, whether it be Jews or Gentiles, it had the same damning effect upon both. Zeal for the law in the manner spoken of in the scriptures, in light of the warning against living by the law, leads us to believe that they were simply selecting those portions of the law that they so desired to uphold as a lifestyle rather than a justifying requirement on the grounding of a works-based salvation. It can be a lifestyle choice for diet and such, yes. I too am zealous for the law in that I fully understand that the law is righteous. I also understand that our righteousness is based upon our faith in Christ Jesus who fulfilled the perfect obedience to the law that no other man could possibly hope to achieve. Again, I'm sure we can agree on all this.
The law says do not murder. If you do not murder someone, does that mean you have fallen from grace? If you do not eat pork, have you fallen from grace? If you never eat ostrich, have you fallen from grace?
We don't need the letter of the law to know to what we must obey:
Jeremiah 31:33 But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After
those days, saith the LORD,
I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Romans 2:15 Which shew
the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and [their] thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another
What the Lord writes into our hearts is far more effective and meaningful than the letter what kills.
Matthew 22:37-40
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself. 40
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
So, what's written in our hearts can be summed up in these two, which leads to the obedience to what the Lord has called us.
There is an issue of trying to be justified by the law here, not just keeping an Old Testament commandment, intentionally or incidentally.
Yes indeed.
MM