ELY, NV — Eddie Gronkowski, the pastor of New Vine Community Church in uptown Ely, has calmly asked the members of his church to please stop tithing a tenth of their mint, dill, and cumin.
"Where are you even getting this stuff?" the pastor asked during Sunday announcements.
Membership was reportedly confused at the admonishment because Jesus specifically mentions mint, dill, and cumin in the book of Matthew. Gronkowski had to sit down with several members to explain that the passage only incidentally brings up mint, dill, and cumin.
The pastor sighed and gently explained, "This is about the Pharisees ignoring portions of the law in favor of keeping up appearances. This passage isn't actually about tithing."
"Ah, but here Jesus says, 'these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others,'" church member Howard Strata said. "So he expects us to tithe mint, dill, and cumin. We have to do everything."
According to church sources, the tithing of mint, dill, and cumin became a major problem when one of the deacons fell gravely ill from a severe cumin allergy. "I was passing around the offering plate and people kept throwing spices in it and I almost died," he later recalled as others prayed over his weak body. "Something has got to be done about this."
The pastor was determined to resolve the matter by discussing it at the midweek Bible study, a decision he later lived to regret.
"According to Leviticus 27:30, God called on the Hebrews to tithe a tenth of their produce, 'whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees.' It didn't actually have to be mint, dill, and cumin. No one was expected to go out and find cumin if they didn't have any," Gronkowski explained to members. "Also, we're not actually under this Law. This is something the Jews did that God does not ask of us."
At publishing time, the Bible study had reached hour four of arguing what it meant when Jesus said that no letter of the law would disappear and if the congregation needed to begin tithing any fruit that fell from trees.
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