The basic principle of giving is established in Exodus 25:2. Offerings to the Lord are to be voluntary. The Hebrew text reads literally, Let everyone bring their offering “whose heart urges him to give.” The core of this is that God wants us “to want to.” Wanting to advance God’s purpose and plan and to share in the responsibility of God’s people is essential in dedicating anything to the Lord.

I’ve been asked where the Israelites get all this stuff! If they were so destitute in Egypt how could they have so many riches. The answer of course is that they got these things from the Egyptians themselves. The Egyptians compelled them to take Gold and Silver and other luxuries in their eagerness to see them leave Egypt and take their omnipotent God with them! (The God who had sent the plagues.) God saw to it that Israelites were richly blessed by the world (Egypt) just like you and I have been richly blessed by the world we live in. So another principle of giving is illustrated. What we give is simply a return of What God has already blessed us with. We give back only what God was instrumental in seeing that we received!