"Polygyny might be allowed in the Bible, but it is not God's [ best | first choice | original intent | {and other similar blurbs}]."
How often have we heard something like that? Usually, it is the "fallback" position (along with the "We are instructed to obey the laws of the government..." argument) that people use when they can't refute Biblical proof that polygyny is not only allowed and regulated, but in some cases, required.
Within the past three weeks, a very successful man (successful both in business and in ministry) was given a copy of my Doctoral Dissertation and asked to comment on it. When he returned it to me Sunday, his only comment was, "It [polygyny] is not God's best." He cited the three "one wife" verses (1 Timothy 3:2,12 and Titus 1:6) as if the supposed requirement for leaders that they have only one wife (more on this false exegesis in a future article) somehow "proves" that polygyny is less than God's "best" for all men.
There is plenty of information on this website that refutes both of the false arguments mentioned above. This article explores why people won't hear the truth.
Probably the worst thing to happen to the Church was when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official state religion. Almost immediately, compromise and blatant heresy found its way into Church practice and doctrine. In Deuteronomy 18:9, the Israelites were told, "When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations." That admonition should also apply to the Church – when we go into the world, we are not to adopt the world's ways.
But when the Church of Rome effectively took over the Roman Government, many pagan customs and laws were adopted and declared to be "Christian." Among the laws and customs adopted by the Church (which soon became known as the Roman Catholic Church) were laws related to marriage. The Grecian empire (after the Homeric period) was monogamous by law, and Rome adopted that when Grecian culture was assimilated into Roman custom and law.
Greece and Rome were the only two ancient major cultures to practice forced monogamy. Greece and Rome faced the same social problems that are now hitting America (and other monogamous Western nations) very hard.
By 1100 AD, celibacy for the clergy and monogamy for everyone else was required by Papal decree ("Papal Bull") and backed by the various Councils that met during that time frame. Prior to that, even Bishops had more than one wife, and many also had mistresses.
But since forced monogamy was the (false, pagan) doctrine of the Church, and the Church held near-absolute political power in most of Europe, forced monogamy became the law of the land. Even at the time of the Protestant Reformation, which historians say officially started when Martin Luther nailed his famous "95 Thesis" to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, the Roman Catholic Church still had so much political power that Luther was forced to back away from his pro-polygyny stance.
Fast forward to today. For over 900 years, it has been pounded into our heads by everyone from parents, to public school teachers, to Pastors and Sunday school teachers, even Congress and the Supreme Court, that "Monogamy is the only form of marriage allowed. All polygamy [including polygyny] is wrong."
Many Christians falsely interpret the Bible through the looking glass of our own culture rather than that of the culture in which it was written. Thus, we have the Pastor who fired me saying that the 7th commandment prohibits polygyny, because our culture calls any sexual activity by a married person, man or woman, when it is with anyone other than your one-and-only spouse, "adultery." But the culture in which the 7th commandment was written did not use the 21st-century English definition of "adultery" to define "nâ'aph," the Hebrew word which God Himself wrote on the stone tablets with His own finger. According to Brown-Driver-Briggs "Hebrew Definitions," "nâ'aph" is "...always with the wife of another."
In my opinion, examining Scripture through the looking glass of 21st-century American (or European or ???) culture is a sign of spiritual immaturity. At times, we all are guilty of that to some degree, and to whatever degree that may be, we are spiritually immature.
So false arguments like "Polygyny is not God's best" can be blamed on spiritual immaturity.
But maybe my opinion is wrong.
How often have we heard something like that? Usually, it is the "fallback" position (along with the "We are instructed to obey the laws of the government..." argument) that people use when they can't refute Biblical proof that polygyny is not only allowed and regulated, but in some cases, required.
Within the past three weeks, a very successful man (successful both in business and in ministry) was given a copy of my Doctoral Dissertation and asked to comment on it. When he returned it to me Sunday, his only comment was, "It [polygyny] is not God's best." He cited the three "one wife" verses (1 Timothy 3:2,12 and Titus 1:6) as if the supposed requirement for leaders that they have only one wife (more on this false exegesis in a future article) somehow "proves" that polygyny is less than God's "best" for all men.
There is plenty of information on this website that refutes both of the false arguments mentioned above. This article explores why people won't hear the truth.
Probably the worst thing to happen to the Church was when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official state religion. Almost immediately, compromise and blatant heresy found its way into Church practice and doctrine. In Deuteronomy 18:9, the Israelites were told, "When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations." That admonition should also apply to the Church – when we go into the world, we are not to adopt the world's ways.
But when the Church of Rome effectively took over the Roman Government, many pagan customs and laws were adopted and declared to be "Christian." Among the laws and customs adopted by the Church (which soon became known as the Roman Catholic Church) were laws related to marriage. The Grecian empire (after the Homeric period) was monogamous by law, and Rome adopted that when Grecian culture was assimilated into Roman custom and law.
Greece and Rome were the only two ancient major cultures to practice forced monogamy. Greece and Rome faced the same social problems that are now hitting America (and other monogamous Western nations) very hard.
By 1100 AD, celibacy for the clergy and monogamy for everyone else was required by Papal decree ("Papal Bull") and backed by the various Councils that met during that time frame. Prior to that, even Bishops had more than one wife, and many also had mistresses.
But since forced monogamy was the (false, pagan) doctrine of the Church, and the Church held near-absolute political power in most of Europe, forced monogamy became the law of the land. Even at the time of the Protestant Reformation, which historians say officially started when Martin Luther nailed his famous "95 Thesis" to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, the Roman Catholic Church still had so much political power that Luther was forced to back away from his pro-polygyny stance.
Fast forward to today. For over 900 years, it has been pounded into our heads by everyone from parents, to public school teachers, to Pastors and Sunday school teachers, even Congress and the Supreme Court, that "Monogamy is the only form of marriage allowed. All polygamy [including polygyny] is wrong."
Many Christians falsely interpret the Bible through the looking glass of our own culture rather than that of the culture in which it was written. Thus, we have the Pastor who fired me saying that the 7th commandment prohibits polygyny, because our culture calls any sexual activity by a married person, man or woman, when it is with anyone other than your one-and-only spouse, "adultery." But the culture in which the 7th commandment was written did not use the 21st-century English definition of "adultery" to define "nâ'aph," the Hebrew word which God Himself wrote on the stone tablets with His own finger. According to Brown-Driver-Briggs "Hebrew Definitions," "nâ'aph" is "...always with the wife of another."
In my opinion, examining Scripture through the looking glass of 21st-century American (or European or ???) culture is a sign of spiritual immaturity. At times, we all are guilty of that to some degree, and to whatever degree that may be, we are spiritually immature.
So false arguments like "Polygyny is not God's best" can be blamed on spiritual immaturity.
But maybe my opinion is wrong.
