"Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming. For after today cometh the burning—this is speaking after the manner of the Lord—for verily I say, tomorrow all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up, for I am the Lord of Hosts; and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon. Wherefore, if ye believe me, ye will labor while it is called today."
The common half-joke is not wrong: those who pay a full tithe have this scripture's promise as a claim to hold "fire insurance". However, tithing isn't defined here except in the implication of the word itself. Much of the rest of the Christian world is looser about its meaning, and therefore thinks of tithing as whatever optional amount one wishes to donate, but the word itself suggests that amount isn't so optional. Tithe literally means tenth. And that proportion is both mercifully in reach of the poorest saint and large enough to constitute a serious material sacrifice for all.
And while this passage explicitly connects tithing as a key behavior distinguishing Christians from the World--or more symbolically, Zion from Babylon, or more literally, those covered by the Savior's atonement from those not covered--tithing is not the complete set of criteria for escaping a harsh judgment even within these verses.
Notice that tithing, and the fire insurance it offers, comes as the consequence of a duty, invoked as a act of consecration whose implied result is the development of a characteristic, and that it is couched in a time frame. Reminding saints of the Lord's second coming, with all of its attendant calamities and promises, brings a sense of urgency and calls for minds and hearts to steel themselves in faithful courage. Reminding them of fires to avoid through actions in the now frames the saints as agents able to control, through their actions, the cause-and-effect logical categories they will fall into later, and further implies that a radical, polar grace will be theirs--they belong to His side of the extreme dichotomy. And reminding them of tithing's main underlying purpose and feature evokes His own main underlying purpose and feature: sacrifice, which literally means to make holy. He sacrificed Himself for us so that we could be made holy. Our material offering of a tenth of our increase requires us to think, with a heart of gratitude, of every labor and every increase as a grace for which we are required to return only a tenth. That tenth, submitted to the Church for its operational needs, wisely consumed and distributed in a way that has ensured material prosperity and with remarkably few scandals for an organization of its size, is the leaven that leavens the whole lump. Once you intend to set aside a tenth to support the missions of the Church, you have tacitly reframed all of your efforts to earn an honest magnification of your means, as faith-based. And it makes all the difference.
The key to escaping the fires of judgment isn't and never was the mere mechanical act of donation. The Lord sees both, but judges the heart, not the ledger. You can't buy your way out of Babylon, even if you pay the requisite ten percent. Because it never was about the money. It's about the holiness you put yourself on a path to developing. It's about the sacrifice, in the now, to change how you see the world and what you set your heart on. It's about putting forth your labor toward consecrated purposes--building up His kingdom, not yours--putting Him first even in all your temporal actions. It's about believing Him enough to show it.
Because showing your belief is faith, and exercising faith in Him allows Him to change you into something more like Himself.
Tithing is fire insurance only because tithing is an act of faith in Christ, and faith in Christ is the first principle of His Gospel. Tithing is one of the few watershed commandments that can, by itself, divide temple-worthy from stubble-worthy souls. But it's because the underlying hearts are set either on repentance and holiness in conformity to celestial law, or on prideful absorption in the cares of the world and selfish, material indulgences. One can be oriented in degrees, but only toward one or the other of these poles.
Tithing prevents wickedness because it tends to require humility before God, an attitude of gratitude, an eternal perspective, and a willingness to exhaust oneself for worthy goals that aim well beyond this world and this life. It's one key by which we lose our lives in order to find life more abundant. It's one principle by which we internalize He whose model of self-sacrifice we follow--He whose ministry of three years began formally at age 30, a neat 10% of His mortal time. It's one way we take upon us His name, always remember Him, keep his commandments, and live in His Spirit. It is fire insurance because we are humble fellow-laborers in a field that belongs entirely to Him when we undertake the act of donating ten percent of our growth in order to allow Him to make ourselves and the Church we are building holy like Him.
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