Can a $500 tip undo the popular (though questionable) perception that Christians are bad tippers? How about a $3,000 tip? Or a $10,000 tip?
Recently, an anonymous person (or persons) has been masquerading behind the pseudonym "Tips For Jesus," and leaving massive tips at bars and restaurants across America. An Instagram account documents the largess with the tag line, "Doing the Lord's work, one tip at a time."
The estimated total: more than $54,000, according to Gawker. And the tips keep coming.
Eater, a food website, has tracked some of the lucky locations:
"Tips include several in Ann Arbor, Michigan ($3,000 at Tio's Mexican Cafe, $2,000 at the Alley Bar), a few in Chicago ($3,000 at the Boundary, $5,000 at Paris Club), and a whole bunch in Los Angles ($1,000 at Fig & Olive, $10,000 at the Hungry Cat, $500 at Jumbo's Clown Room). TipsForJesus is also taking credit for a spree of big tips left at Ogden, Utah area restaurants back in August, although those receipts were not labeled TipsForJesus."
Jack Selby, a former Paypal VP, may be the man behind the money, according to Gawker's Silicon Valley-focused Valley Wag:
"Since leaving PayPal, Selby has dabbled in both film production and venture capital—where he famously got in a screaming match with Peter Thiel. Now, his secret Instagram account has "gone viral," as the teens say, since followers started to spread the word of his mammoth gratuities. And people absolutely love him."
CT previously noted a study suggesting that the vast majority of Christians actually tip the normative 15 percent or more. However, the study also found that, on average, Jews and non-religious people tip more and more often than Christians.
LifeWay Research's Ed Stetzer explains why Christians need to change this perception, while Gleanings's sister blog Hermeneutics explores how Gnosticism has influenced why Christians tip badly.
