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What will be harm to deny the biblical marriage definitions?

MichaelZ

MichaelZ

New Member
Male
I believe all truths are connected, and there's no unimportant truth in the Bible. For instance, it seems that it's just a theology talk about the Trinity. But I think the denial of the Trinity will lead to lots of harm to your salvation.

So what is the harm if we deny the correct understanding of the biblical marriage?
 
Rom 10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Rom 1:4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord

So I think it's important to understand whom you put faith on so that you will get saved.
We believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, who was risen from dead according to the Holy Spirit, which declared that He is the Son of God.
That is what the Trinity mean and it matter to our salvation I think.

By the way, I feel that the truth of biblical marriage is also very important, and it does not only related to our family, but many more.
 
The thing is that Biblical marriage is more than just polygyny. There are Biblical monogamous marriages and very un-Biblical ones.

Biblical marriage is about fulfilling your role in The Metaphor, for a husband to try your best to demonstrate God's character and nature and for a wife to model what submission to Christ looks like.

It's a powerful testament and is what is really lost when Biblical marriage is thrown away.
 
MichaelZ said:
I believe all truths are connected, and there's no unimportant truth in the Bible. For instance, it seems that it's just a theology talk about the Trinity. But I think the denial of the Trinity will lead to lots of harm to your salvation.
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There is only truth or error; only one way of salvation; by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Jesus told His disciples, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). To have faith in a "Jesus" other then the One presented in the Bible is to have a different way, which is a No one way (cf. Acts 4:12). The eternal consequences for faith in the wrong Jesus will be horrifically severe but the eternal consequences for a faulty understanding of marriage will be nothing like that. People can be sincere in what they believe about marriage and be sincerely wrong with no loss of salvation. But to be sincerely wrong about the way of salvation will lead to lots of harm indeed. :bible: :cross:
 
A correct understanding of marriage does help us to better understand the relationships between Christ and the many people who make up His Body, the Church. However, perfect understanding is not necessary for salvation, fortunately, since we're all wrong about all sorts of stuff we just haven't realised yet... So it is helpful, but unnecessary, in terms of salvation.

In terms of our everyday lives, the better we understand marriage the more likely we are to see God's intended response to situations that arise in the lives of ourselves or others. Here it becomes more critical: for instance in the case of a man who has had an affair, correct understanding can be the difference between divorce and/or abandonment of his wife and/or his girlfriend, and truly honoring his obligations to both. Which for his kids could be the difference between being raised by both parents or just by their mother. So in certain circumstances the consequences of misunderstanding can be very serious. While in the lives of other people the issue may be completely irrelevant and not matter at all.
 
FollowingHim said:
A correct understanding of marriage does help us to better understand the relationships between Christ and the many people who make up His Body, the Church. However, perfect understanding is not necessary for salvation, fortunately, since we're all wrong about all sorts of stuff we just haven't realised yet... So it is helpful, but unnecessary, in terms of salvation.

In terms of our everyday lives, the better we understand marriage the more likely we are to see God's intended response to situations that arise in the lives of ourselves or others. Here it becomes more critical: for instance in the case of a man who has had an affair, correct understanding can be the difference between divorce and/or abandonment of his wife and/or his girlfriend, and truly honoring his obligations to both. Which for his kids could be the difference between being raised by both parents or just by their mother. So in certain circumstances the consequences of misunderstanding can be very serious. While in the lives of other people the issue may be completely irrelevant and not matter at all.
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Thanks for the very balanced remark.
 
FollowingHim said:
So in certain circumstances the consequences of misunderstanding can be very serious. While in the lives of other people the issue may be completely irrelevant and not matter at all.
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I agree with everything Samuel said, and just want to add one point that I think he'll agree with also.

The foundation of our understanding of plural marriage is a proper understanding of what the bible teaches about marriage, period. For many of us, being provoked to build a plural family was a gateway to observing new ways that our surrounding culture has really twisted the scriptures, ultimately exchanging the pretty clear teaching of the bible for chirpy slogans such as "happy wife, happy life".

So I agree that for many other people, probably most people, figuring out plural marriage is not going to become an issue, but figuring out biblical marriage is an issue for everyone. It's just that for many monogamous couples, they're close enough to the bible teaching of male headship and responsibility within the context of monogamy, and they just can't overcome the cultural conditioning and logic their way to an understanding of how plural marriage is built on the foundation of biblical marriage. So in that sense, it just doesn't matter if they're content within a biblical single marriage and that's where God wants them to be.
 
I have read a lot of arguments against biblical polygamy (polygyny), and one biblical argument that comes up occasionally is the statement that no man can serve two masters. I never had the impression that anyone using this as an argument was overtly joking. I expect that a fuller understanding of biblical marriage should help them to avoid such errors.
 
eye4them said:
no man can serve two masters.
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I doubt he was the first to say it, but that "argument" against polygamy is often attributed to Mark Twain (who apparently had some opinions on Mormon polygamy).

andrew said:
Not all churchgoers will admit it to themselves, let alone say it out loud, but there it is....
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Minor anecdote here... Not long ago, I was at a church conference. During lunch, to avoid swarming the lunch line, we were told we would be dismissed by table, by a specific individual. But it was a different individual who told my table we could also be dismissed. We wanted to clarify, so we asked him if he had authority to dismiss us. He said he did, then added, "my wife says I have the authority." I groaned inside, and almost said something back. I can only imagine that if you were to question him about it, he'd claim it was a light-hearted joke, but then if you looked closer, you'd probably find it was kind of joke that's rooted in reality. :(
 
The thing is that "monogamy only" is a lie from Satan.

Like all lies it kills.

It leads to Christian missionaries preaching the gospel in Africa and breaking up perfectly good plural families and sending women and children adrift just to protect the lie.

It leads to men and women breaking up their family because they do not know that a second wife can be a holy and rightous alternative when a married man is faced with a relationship with another woman.

So, yes, there is definite harm in perpetuating the lie.
 
I attended a wedding where the maid of honor (unmarried of course) told the groom to get used to saying "yes, dear, you are right."

Of course, laughs and chuckles were heard all around, but I truly believe this unmarried woman believed this was the proper advise, as did most men and women there.
 
One of the tragedies I see in the failure to understand biblical marriage is the number of single women looking for a godly Christian husband with little or no prospect on the horizon (as far as they see it). There could be more happily married women, raising godly kids, and impacting the culture around them if they weren't caught up in this deception. And I totally agree with your comments @cnystrom.
 
Implicit in the "no man can serve two masters" argument is that the woman, not the man, is master in the home. Or at least that the man and woman's mastery is equal over those in their charge.

From the man's point of view, then, monogamy demands that he serve two masters — his god and his wife — if not his wife alone.
andrew said:
God help us all, but that's very much the zeitgeist. Not all churchgoers will admit it to themselves, let alone say it out loud, but there it is....
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Let's say it out loud then (and @andrew please correct me if I've misunderstood):

People believe that women are by their Maker's design the masters of their husbands.

Some further thoughts then:

Egalitarianism I suppose demands at the very least that a wife and husband are each master of the other (if such a thing can exist) or that there is no real master in the home.
  • If they're both master then the children serve two, again violating the dictum. This two-headed thing is not how power really works but if you lack real power then the fantasy of benignly shared power is a mollifying distraction.
  • If neither is master then the state is master — an arrangement the state has every reason to encourage by teaching monogamy and weakening clans (oops, "extended" families — as if the tribe is somehow not the family's natural shape).
In a Westernized state, then, monogamy is reality — the regime — and egalitarianism is the fantasy that makes it tolerable.

No wonder people are so committed to the arrangement and prickly about polygamy. Who wants to admit they lack fundamental power?
 
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mystic said:
Implicit in the "no man can serve two masters" argument is that the woman, not the man, is master in the home. Or at least that the man and woman's mastery is equal over those in their charge.

From the man's point of view, then, monogamy demands that he serve two masters — his god and his wife — if not his wife alone.


Let's say it out loud then (and @andrew please correct me if I've misunderstood):

People believe than women are by their Maker's design the masters of their husbands.

Some further thoughts then:

Egalitarianism I suppose demands at the very least that a wife and husband are each master of the other (if such a thing can exist) or that there is no real master in the home.
  • If they're both master then the children serve two, again violating the dictum. This two-headed thing is not how power really works but if you lack real power then the fantasy of benignly shared power is a mollifying distraction.
  • If neither is master then the state is master — an arrangement the state has every reason to encourage by teaching monogamy and weakening clans (oops, "extended" families — as if the tribe is somehow not the family's natural shape).
In a Westernized state, then, monogamy is reality — the regime — and egalitarianism is the fantasy that makes it tolerable.

No wonder people are so committed to the arrangement and prickly about polygamy. Who wants to admit they lack fundamental power?
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Oooooohhhhhh ... Mystic the Magnificent!!!! :rolleyes:

#Biblicalmanstatus:bible:
 
mystic said:
If they're both master then the children serve two, again violating the dictum. This two-headed thing is not how power really works but if you lack real power then the fantasy of benignly shared power is a mollifying distraction.
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Funny you use that term. I've recently started thinking of egalitarian marriage as a "two-headed monster". I'm creating a series of pictures meant to illustrate different marriage structures, and that's one of them.

Interestingly, while most authority structures in the Bible are based on a single head, I have to admit that, so far, "children" seem to be the sole exception where they are told to obey two authorities (e.g. hear the instruction of a father, and do not forsake the law of your mother; children obey your parents in the Lord...). But that's from the child's perspective, and does not imply there is no hierarchy between those parents.
 
Not correcting anything, @mystic, because I like everything you said. I might just say it a little differently, thusly:

Churchy people think that a Christian man's highest obligation is to keep his wife happy (many secular people agree that it's a husband's job to keep his wife happy). Secular people think women are more highly evolved than and morally superior to men (many churchy people agree or at least sympathize).

Your analysis of egalitarianism is genius. On that basis of that, I'd say further that egalitarianism is the state's subterfuge that creates a family structure that is designed to fail, creating the vacuum the state must rush to fill. (That may be basically what you were saying in your second bulleted point. If so, consider this an "I'll second that".)
 
There is no such thing as an egalitarian marriage.
A woman will only view it as egalitarian if most of the decisions are going her way.
 
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