Here are the answers to my June 17 “Fascinating Matching Game.” I encourage you to go back to that post and try your hand at it before you look at the answers here.
| Main Section |
| A1. Amount spent on entertainment and recreation |
AG. $705 billion |
| A2. Amount spent on state lottery tickets |
AC. $58 Billion |
| A3. Amount spent on pets |
AE. $31 billion |
| A4. Amount spent on jewelry |
AD. $65 billion |
| A5. Amount given to all overseas ministries (denominational, interdenominational, independent) |
AH. $5 billion |
| A6. Amount required to lift the world’s poorest one billion people out of extreme poverty |
AD. $65 billion |
| A7. Additional amount required to supply primary education to every child in the world |
AB. $6 billion |
| A8. Amount required to bring clean water to most of the world’s poor |
AI. $9 billion |
| A9. Additional amount required to provide basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world |
AF. $13 billion |
| Bonus Section 1 |
| B1. Percent of American households who tithe |
BA. 5% |
| B2. Percent of American evangelicals who tithe |
BC. 24% |
| B3. Percent of church revenues sent to overseas missions |
BB. 2% |
| Bonus Section 2 |
| C1. Additional money that would be given if all American churchgoers tithed |
CB. $168 billion |
| C2. Total U.S. government foreign assistance budget |
CA. $39.5 billion |
| C3. Amount that would be left over if all American churchgoers tithed; and if that money were used to eliminate the most extreme poverty on the planet for a billion people, provide universal primary education, bring clean water to most of the world, and provide basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world |
CC. $75 billion |
Repeating what I said about this last time: wasn’t that fun? Well, maybe not. If American churchgoers all tithed, we could do everything listed in C3 completely independent of government, and have $75 billion left over to spend any way we wanted. Here’s one suggestion: find some additional way to give to the rest of the world, to match the amount of foreign aid our government sends to other countries. Twice.
Doesn’t that sound like it would be a good idea?
It’s not entirely clear from the source I used, by the way, whether the $65 billion figure for eliminating extreme poverty includes or is in addition to some of the other items listed here. I’ve listed it as in addition to; if it includes those items, then the American church, if we tithed, could accomplish this and have considerably more than $75 billion left over at the end.
Source: The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer That Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World by Richard Stearns, pp. 216-218
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“Engaging … exhilarating! … This might be the most surprising and refreshing book you’ll read this year.” — Lee Strobel 
Does only 24% of the Church really tithe? If true, that is depressing.