Giving for Promises to Come

Former NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck had a decorated career spanning 18 seasons in the league. He was elected to three Pro Bowls, earned a spot in the Ring of Honor for the Seattle Seahawks, the team he played with for most of his career, and even led the team to a Super Bowl appearance in 2005. But perhaps one of his most memorable contributions as an athlete is one he wishes to forget.

In 2004 the Seattle Seahawks traveled to Green Bay to play the Packers in a playoff game. At the end of regulation, the two teams were tied, which meant a coin toss would determine who received the ball first in overtime. After Seattle won the coin toss, Hasselbeck confidently asserted into the referee’s microphone for all of Lambeau Field to hear, “We want the ball, and we’re going to score!” Ironically, on the subsequent drive, Hasselbeck threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown and lost the game for the Seahawks! This quickly became an iconic moment in NFL playoff history, but it’s certainly not the first time a person made a promise for something to come.

In fact, the Biblical practice of first fruit offerings is also rooted in a promise to come. We may have heard of this practice but perhaps don’t know much about it, so it may be helpful to provide an overview here.

In Biblical times, people lived in an agrarian society, which meant their livelihood was connected to the land, to farming. The climax for farmers is the harvest season when they can reap what they sowed. However, some plants produce multiple harvests. To the gardeners out there, consider tomatoes. You can pick tomatoes from the same plant several times throughout the season. A first fruit offering would be reserving a special percentage of that first harvest to God, which may not sound like a big deal, but for people whose livelihood is farming, it is a significant act of faith.

When someone gave a first fruit offering, they did so without knowing what the full harvest would be. Storms or droughts could devastate a crop and severely diminish later harvests, thus making the value of the first offering that much more significant. In fact, the original Hebrew word for first fruit is bikkurim, which literally means “promise to come.” By giving a first fruit offering back to God, the Israelites were acting in faith that God was their ultimate source of provision.

While we no longer live in an agrarian society today, we can still adapt this practice into our own lives. Perhaps it can come in the form of giving a special offering at the beginning of the year, such as now, before we know what our yearly income will be and trusting that God will provide for our needs as the year unfolds. We can even give the first fruit of our time, too. We oftentimes make time commitments to serve God after all other commitments have been accounted for. What if we commit time to the Lord first, without knowing how we will complete all that is needed in our busy schedules? In any of these ways and more, we are stepping out in faith through generosity while trusting that God will provide everything we need. We may not always know how God will provide, but we do know that God rewards those who act in faith.