12 of 17 Reasons why People Read their Bible and Miss Polygyny
Reason # 12: Failure to Recognize the Human Drama in the Bible
Though the Bible is inspired by God the words still come through the actual heart and mind of the person doing the writing. Thus sometimes people misinterpret the Bible because they do not understand the emotions and spirit of the writer in the given context. For example, when reading some of David’s writings we see his pain and hurt because of the enemies against him. When we see human emotion in the life of Christ before he was to be crucified. The Bible tells us that Jesus said that his “soul was overwhelmed with sorrow” and he prayed “if possible, may this cup be taken from” him. Some who do not recognize the human element in this could miss the humanity of Christ and foolishly claim that the Lord was a weak or fearful and thus not truly God in the flesh. Such ideas as this take place in a reader who does not understand the human drama that God used in delivering his message through humans. In regard to man to woman relations many fail to grasp the natural biological desires that God designed with each gender. When reading the Bible while denying one's own heterosexual desires a person can trap themselves in a position where they begin to reject God given desires. Furthermore, people can sometimes read in their Bibles some of the stories where families who practiced polygyny had problems. And if they read those stories without understanding the human element that can easily classify those relationships as sinful because of the problems they see. That method fails to see that all humans no matter what type of relationship they are in (love unions be it monogamy or polygyny, or any other type of social organization) will have problems because humans all have issues and struggles and the more humans who are together the more probability for problems. It would be kind of like seeing Job in his condition and claiming he must be in some type of sin for God to be orchestrating those trials in his life. When we read the Bible in a disconnected way where we fail to feel, see, and grasp the real drama that can occur in any human's life we can easily miss why many of the men in the Bible took more than one lady into their family.
Solution? To properly understand the Bible we must do our best to place ourselves into the shoes of the human author. We have to do our best to ask ourselves what did it feel like to see a woman in need and to be a godly man who truly loved people and saw that need? We have to place ourselves in the shoes of an Abraham who in faith wanted to fulfill the plan of God but struggled to see how it could be done and thus how that combination of faith coupled with his surrounding options led him to do what he did in taking Hagar into his family. It is very easy with a heart full of pride to fail to place oneself in that predicament and to experience the tug of the heart that must have existed in Abraham. If we want to grasp the content of the Bible we must understand the humanity behind the ones in the Bible. The people in the Bible were men and women just like us. They struggled with sin, they sought to love one another, they wrestled with common every day problems like we do today. Polygyny was a means and avenue for families to help provide for one another. A larger family produced more wealth, more stability, more children, and was a means unto the end for socialization. The men and women in the Bible were social creatures who longed to have social bonds, connections, and love unions. Women then as do women today longed to be loved by a godly man and thus when they found one and he was already in a union they were still naturally drawn to that man for the strength they saw in him and in his character. That natural draw they experienced then is still happening today in our culture but it often develops in contexts where if that love is allowed to occur people mistakenly brand it as adultery or lewdness or sexual immorality. But if we want to understand the Bible correctly, and one reason why so many do not today, we will read the narrative portions of Scripture with humility recognizing that the men and women in the Bible experienced real feelings, natural attractions, and we will do our best to place ourselves in their time and circumstances so that we can feel and see the drama of their lives even in our own lives.
Reason # 12: Failure to Recognize the Human Drama in the Bible
Though the Bible is inspired by God the words still come through the actual heart and mind of the person doing the writing. Thus sometimes people misinterpret the Bible because they do not understand the emotions and spirit of the writer in the given context. For example, when reading some of David’s writings we see his pain and hurt because of the enemies against him. When we see human emotion in the life of Christ before he was to be crucified. The Bible tells us that Jesus said that his “soul was overwhelmed with sorrow” and he prayed “if possible, may this cup be taken from” him. Some who do not recognize the human element in this could miss the humanity of Christ and foolishly claim that the Lord was a weak or fearful and thus not truly God in the flesh. Such ideas as this take place in a reader who does not understand the human drama that God used in delivering his message through humans. In regard to man to woman relations many fail to grasp the natural biological desires that God designed with each gender. When reading the Bible while denying one's own heterosexual desires a person can trap themselves in a position where they begin to reject God given desires. Furthermore, people can sometimes read in their Bibles some of the stories where families who practiced polygyny had problems. And if they read those stories without understanding the human element that can easily classify those relationships as sinful because of the problems they see. That method fails to see that all humans no matter what type of relationship they are in (love unions be it monogamy or polygyny, or any other type of social organization) will have problems because humans all have issues and struggles and the more humans who are together the more probability for problems. It would be kind of like seeing Job in his condition and claiming he must be in some type of sin for God to be orchestrating those trials in his life. When we read the Bible in a disconnected way where we fail to feel, see, and grasp the real drama that can occur in any human's life we can easily miss why many of the men in the Bible took more than one lady into their family.
Solution? To properly understand the Bible we must do our best to place ourselves into the shoes of the human author. We have to do our best to ask ourselves what did it feel like to see a woman in need and to be a godly man who truly loved people and saw that need? We have to place ourselves in the shoes of an Abraham who in faith wanted to fulfill the plan of God but struggled to see how it could be done and thus how that combination of faith coupled with his surrounding options led him to do what he did in taking Hagar into his family. It is very easy with a heart full of pride to fail to place oneself in that predicament and to experience the tug of the heart that must have existed in Abraham. If we want to grasp the content of the Bible we must understand the humanity behind the ones in the Bible. The people in the Bible were men and women just like us. They struggled with sin, they sought to love one another, they wrestled with common every day problems like we do today. Polygyny was a means and avenue for families to help provide for one another. A larger family produced more wealth, more stability, more children, and was a means unto the end for socialization. The men and women in the Bible were social creatures who longed to have social bonds, connections, and love unions. Women then as do women today longed to be loved by a godly man and thus when they found one and he was already in a union they were still naturally drawn to that man for the strength they saw in him and in his character. That natural draw they experienced then is still happening today in our culture but it often develops in contexts where if that love is allowed to occur people mistakenly brand it as adultery or lewdness or sexual immorality. But if we want to understand the Bible correctly, and one reason why so many do not today, we will read the narrative portions of Scripture with humility recognizing that the men and women in the Bible experienced real feelings, natural attractions, and we will do our best to place ourselves in their time and circumstances so that we can feel and see the drama of their lives even in our own lives.