smith's bible dictionary 1884 - Salt Lake Bible College

• To bring their tithes, together with their votive and other offerings and first-fruits,
to the chosen centre of worship, the metropolis, there to be eaten in festive celebration
in company with their children their servants and the Levites. (12:5-18)
• All the produce of the soil was to be tithed every and these tithes with the firstlings
of the flock and herd, were to be eaten in the metropolis.
• But in case of distance, permission is given to convert the produce into money,
which is to be taken to the appointed place, and there laid out in the purchase of
food for a festal celebration, in which the Levite is, by special command, to be included.
(14:22-27)
• Then follows the direction that at the end of three years all the tithe of that year is
to be gathered and laid up “within the gates” and that a festival is to be held of which
the stranger, the fatherless and the widow together with the Levite, are to partake.
Ibid. (5:28,29)
• Lastly it is ordered that after taking the tithe in each third year, “which is the year
of tithing,” an exculpatory declaration is to be made by every Israelite that he has
done his best to fulfill the divine command, (26:12-14) From all this we gather—
(1) That one tenth of the whole produce of the soil was to be assigned for the
maintenance of the Levites. (2) That out of this the Levites were to dedicate a tenth
to God for the use of the high priest. (3) That a tithe, in all probability a second tithe,
was to be applied to festival purposes. (4) That in every third year, either this festival
tithe or a third tenth was to be eaten in company with the poor and the Levites.
(These tithes in early times took the place of our modern taxes, us well as of gifts
for the support of religious institutions.—ED.)
Titus
Our materials for the biography of this companion of St. Paul must be drawn entirely
from the notices of him in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the Galatians,
and to Titus himself, combined with the Second Epistle to Timothy. He is not mentioned
in the Acts at all. Taking the passages in the epistles in the chronological order
of the events referred to, we turn first to (Galatians 2:1,3) We conceive the journey
mentioned here to be identical with that (recorded in Acts 15) in which Paul and
Barnabas went from Antioch to Jerusalem to the conference which was to decide the
question of the necessity of circumcision to the Gentiles. Here we see Titus in close
association with Paul and Barnabas at Antioch. He goes with them to Jerusalem. His
circumcision was either not insisted on at Jerusalem, or, if demanded, was firmly resisted.
He is very emphatically spoken of as a Gentile by which is most probably meant
T
1054