Rockefeller Tithes (Sermon Illustration)

If we don’t make a habit of tithing when we are poor, would we really tithe if we were rich?

In his book The Little Red Book of Wisdom, author Mark DeMoss tells a story about John D. Rockefeller. The Standard Oil founder, who died in 1937, was one of the world’s richest business barons. In his lifetime he gave away today’s equivalent of $5 billion. He told his story this way: “I had to begin work as a small boy to support my mother. My first wages amounted to $1.50 per week. The first week after I went to work I took the $1.50 home to my mother. She held it in her lap and explained to me that she would be happy if I would give a tenth of it to the Lord. I did, and from that week until this day, I have tithed every dollar God has entrusted to me. And I want to say that if I had not tithed the first dollar I made, I would not have tithed the first million dollars I made.”

Dave Ramsey, EntreLeadership (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 208.

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