The best kept secret in the Bible is that polygamy is biblical
The best kept secret in the Bible is that polygamy is biblical. I will probably lose friends and receive sharp criticism for this view, but so what? The truth is the truth, no matter how bad it makes you feel or how horrified you are by it.
If it's true that action speaks louder than words, then the God of the Bible not only approves of polygamy but is a veritable sponsor of that form of marriage. Below is wha t He said:
2 Samuel 12:8....."And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things."
In the above p ortion of scripture, God takes responsibility for giving a certain man, not one wife, but several wives - and it was all at once.
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[ MY OWN COMMENT: Polygamy was condoned and even GIVEN TO MEN by Yahweh, and HE NEVER CHANGES. There are a multitude of "Pastors" in buildings called "Churches" who t each FALSE DOCTRINE. One thing they teach is that polygamy was never condoned by Yahweh, when there are numerous scripture verses which teach the opposite. The CHOSEN FAMILY (of Jacob/"Israel") was a perfect example of Yahweh's family "design". Jacob ("Israel"....see Genesis 32:28) married and had children with FOUR women (a man was "married" to a woman just by having a sexual relationship with her....see Genesis 24:67), Leah, Bilah (Leah's handmaiden), Rachael and Zilpah (Rachael's handmaiden). THIS WAS A BLESSED (AND POLYGAMOUS) MARRIAGE. ]
Another FALSE DOCTRINE taught by most "Pastors" is that Yahweh allowed polygamy in the Old Testament, but they also say that His ruled CHANGED in the New Testament. YAHWEH NEVER CHANGES, and the same polygamous marriage in the OT is approved by Yahweh in the NT....see link below:
Scriptures telling us that Yahweh never changes:
< https://praywithconfidence.< wbr>com/god-never-changes/ >
Pieces of above linked article:
But over and over He commands us not to fear and assures us that He never changes.
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Numbers 23:19)
Because we can rest assured that God never changes we do not have to fear anything the future holds! We can trust that all of His promises are true so there is no need for fear or anxiety.
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False information is given to us by MIS-translations in the NT, such as in I Timothy 3:2,4 & 5......"A bishop [leader] then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; 4) One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (5) (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)"
Any leader of an "Assembly" of Yahweh's people should be the husband of AT LEAST one wife......etc. What if that man marries a woman who is barren? If he has "at least" one wife, he will probably be able to produce many children and prove that he is capable of managing his own household.
Contrary to popular opinion, "polygamy" is not about a man being able to have sex with many women daily. Men have a higher sex drive (for procreative Biblical reasons) and can produce many children, as ordered by Yahweh (Genesis 1:28). One wife can produce one child per year, with the exception of "twins" as a rarity. Women, as an average, are not as driven by a need for sexual release as a man is. Therefore, having as many "wives" as one can provide for is the BEST WAY for a man to be "fruitful and multiply".]
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MAIN LINK ARTICLE CONTINUED:
There are a few places in the New Testament that focus on the issue of polygamy. The shocking fact is that, rather than prove that the Bible disproves of polygamy, all of these portions of the Bible actually prove that polygamy is biblical.
In fact, there is an amazing prophecy that says that some deceived people will forbid marriage in the last days. The instinctive interpretation of this verse is to assume that the Bible is referring to monoga mous marriages and monogamous marriages only. But that is only an assumption.
What if the increase in iniquity prophesied by Christ as a sign of the last days (Matthew 24:12) is actually caused by the war against polygamy, which is also something prophesied for the last days in 1 Timothy 4:1-3?
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times (end times) some shall depart from the faith . . . Forbidding to marry . . ."
The Bible (including the New Testament) considers polygamy as normal and has no single word of condemnation against polygamy. Everything Jesus said about marriage had nothing to do with polygamy.
His response in Matthew 19:4-12 was to a question about divorce. Please read it for yourself below:
"The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?"
The fact that people are willing to apply an answer on the subject of divorce to the subject of polygamy is additional evidence that they really are desperate and cannot find any evidence anywhere in the Bible against polygamy and have to be innovative in trying to prove that polygamy is unbiblical.
Yahshua denounced sexual sins thoroughly, including sexual sins of the heart (even without the body) by teaching that we should not even look at women to lust after them. Did He simply forget to mention polygamy? He addressed divorce by forbidding casual divorce. And He was categorical. If polygamy was sinful, why not just say so? The fact is that Christ never condemned polygamy and it is a sin to lie against Him by claiming He did.
Go and read your Bible again. Even the New Testament recognizes the existence of polygamy without mentioning a word in condemnation of it.
Are you aware of that?
More of linked article:
For Paul the Apostle to restrict certain church positions to men with one wife only (in a New Testament church) proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were men with more than one wife in New Testament times. Assuming that polygamy (having more than one wife) was a sin, it would be the strangest thing for Paul to have failed to rebuke that practice in all of his writings, especially since he spoke extensively about marriage and sexual sins.
My point is that even the generally held notion is sufficient in and of itself to prove that polygamy is biblical because it existed in New Testament times without a single rebuke from all the New Testament authors, some of whom categorically rebuked other forms of sexual sins like adultery, fornication, homosexuality, and even the homosexuality of lesbianism.
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[ MY COMMENT: "ADULTERY" does not mean "cheating on your spouse". It means "Adulteration of your Race", or "Race-Mixing". From the first Book of the Bible we are told to NOT "Mix kinds"....see Genesis 1:25]
Since I am already saying something unpopular, let me increase your surprise by stating that, according to the Bible, there is no sin in premarital sex - except you fail to marry the damsel.
[MY COMMENT: There is no "marriage ceremony", as such, in the Bible. According to the marriage of Isaac and Rebekkah in Genesis 24:67 a man and a woman are "married" when they join together in a sexual union. A man is "married" to any and every woman with whom he has had sexual intercourse. And a woman is "married" to any man with whom she has h ad sexual intercourse. She is only free to marry again if she has a statement of "divorce" from any "husband" she has....or if he dies. ]
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God is the manufacturer of the bio-electro-mechanical machine called man. Therefore, He is the most qualified Person to tell you how that machine works. Knowing that men will be overpowered by lust and that they will have sex with women without bothering to wait for the protocol of marriage, God ensured that no woman will be cheated in this type of interaction by commanding any man that defiles a woman to marry her. Hear Him:
Exodus 22:16
"And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife."
In the above case, the sex came before the marriage and there is no condemnation. In other words, in God's plan, whether you are married or not, if you touch a woman, you must take her as wife. But note that this must be a single lady. If you touch a married woman, you're as good as dead and that is the real definition of fornication for men.
That is why God kept silent while David married one woman after another but became angry when David touched Uriah's wife. < /font>And guess who Uriah's wife is? Her name is Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon. I meant to say King Solomon, whom God gave the pet name Jedidiah shortly after he was born. 2 Samuel 12:25. Yet some churches will force a polygamous man to ditch his lawfully married second or third wife and more or less abandon his children because he had "accepted Christ.
What a pity!
What a perfect manifestation of the reason for the divine lamentation in Hosea 4:6:
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
Do you understand what it means for a whole people to be destroyed? God is making it clear that lack of knowledge (and not even an invading army) is sufficient to cause such a calamity.
How can God accept Bathsheba, bless her with children, and make her son king (even as wife Number 7) and then a pastor or church will literally destroy a family because he and his church have been made to believe that strict monogamy is the only biblical form of marriage and that polygamy is a sin?
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Many Pastors know that polygamy is not a sin. I meant to say many pastors who read their Bible with an independent mind.
Even Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo of KICC has publicly come out and said polygamy is not a sin. But, whether or not Pastor Ashimolowo says that, it remains a fact. It's just that, like the celebration of Christmas which many now know to be based on a purely pagan holiday, the issue of permissible polygamy is more or less a taboo topic. Even for those who know it to be biblical, expressing their opinion is socially dangerous due to the possibility of ostracism.
People are under the mistaken notion that polygamy is tantamount to giving men "license to kill."
Wrong.
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Because they follow tradition rather than the Bible, most Christians do not understand what biblical polygamy looks like. So they must mentally assume it is exactly like what their Moslem neighbours practice - or what misguided Christians practice.
The polygamy of Islam is vastly different from that of Christianity for several reasons. I will highlight just a few of these reasons:
1. Whether in polygamy or monogamy, the Bible forbids casual divorce. Casual divorce is divorcing your spouse for any reason other than sexual unfaithfulness. No matter how stubborn she is (or troublesome, or lazy, or insolent, or whatever) God expects a man to retain marriage to a woman forever and simply endure the situation if unpalatable. The same goes for a woman. I'm aware that, in Islam, a man may divorce his wife for reasons other than sexual unfaithfulness. This means that a Moslem man can engineer a civil war in his home just to kick one of his wives out and replace her with another. You may find it interesting to know that this was exactly what some of the Jews were doing and this was what Christ spoke against. Do you remember the sly question of the Pharisees?
Matthew 19:3
"The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?"
And Christ's answer was that, except for sexual unfaithfulness, no man should put asunder what God had joined together because, in the beginning, God made them male and female and commanded the man to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife through marriage.
Christ was only emphasizing and re-emphasizing the sacredness of the marriage bond. He was not talking about the case of a man marrying more than one wife because that was not the question. People should stop being creative and patently crafty, all in an attempt to sustain a doctrine that cannot be found anywhere in the Bible - Old or New Testament.
The fact that the God of the Bible forbids divorce except in cases of sex outside of marriage is peripheral evidence that, in His eyes, sex is equivalent to marriage. You can read that statement again. In God's eyes, you cannot have sex with a woman (whether you are married or not) and just move on. You must marry her. The only way out of this situation is where a circumstance beyond your control comes up. Such as when the father of the lady utterly refuses to give her away. The Bible says so:
Exodus 22:17
"If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins."
There are also special cases where a direct command from God (like in the case of Abraham and Haggai) results in divorce. There are always special cases in the Bible.
When I explained this situation to one of my friends (who, with all due respect, can accurately be described as a womanizer), he saw the catch-22 and realized that permitting biblical polygamy will restrict men rather than give them the so-called license to kill. According to this friend of mine, men will be running away from women. This guy knows what he is talking about. As a bona fide Casanova, he knows that long term commitment is poison to someone who wants to have casual sex. But the deal in the Bible is this: any woman you touch, you have to take. The fact is that the incentive for fornication or any form of casual sex is the lack of commitment in it. When a man realizes that he has to marry any woman he has sex with, believe me, he will have bones in that boneless part of his body.
Talk about divine wisdom. God, Who created men, know how powerful the sex drive in them is. To curtail it, He only permits sex in marriage. To manag e cases of accidental discharge, He gives the man the chance to do the right thing after an accidental discharge. Marry the woman. Simple truth.
Many men had this accidental discharge when they were still too young to take responsibility for a woman. But because they did not know the Bible and their pastors were either equally ignorant or just afraid of telling them the truth, these young men abandoned the ladies they had defiled - in some cases even forcing them to abort babies. How many babies would have been saved if young men were taught that accidental discharge does not take God by surprise. But, in order not to allow it degenerate into sin, you must marry the lady. You must surely marry her. Notice the "surely" in the command.
Exodus 22:16
"And if a man entices a maid that is not betrothed and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife."
2. Apart from protecting women from abuse by forbidding casual divorce, the Bible puts another condition on polygamy. This is another thing that differentiates biblical polygamy from the Islamic version. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria) publicly expressed his dismay a few years ago ab out very poor Moslem men marrying up to four wives, even though they are so poor they cannot comfortably feed themselves. This type of situation is virtually impossible in the case of biblical polygamy. For you to "take another" wife in biblical polygamy, you must have the capacity to not only take care of her but of the other wife also. The Bible codifies the things you must be able to take care of as including her food, her clothes, and you also have to grant her her conjugal right (duty of marriage). Conjugal right is the right of a spouse to have sex with their partner.
Exodus 21:10
"And if he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish."
People must realize that God takes sexual sin seriously. How do I know that? From my reading of the Bible, I have not seen a list of sins more wide-ranging and extensive than the list of sexual sins. The Bible forbids fornication; the Bible forbids adultery [mixing races]; the Bible forbids homosexuality; the Bible forbids incest; the Bible forbids bestiality; the Bible forbids sex with your maternal auntie, your paternal auntie, your cousin, your daughter in-law, and the list goes on.
If polygamy is sinful, it will be the strangest thing for God not to have mentioned it because polygamy was not strange in those days. Consider the statements below and ponder upon them with your God-given intelligence:
A. God forbids casual divorce, forbids prostitution, restricts sex to marriage; commands marriage in case of sex with an unmarried lady, permits the marrying of more than one wife, and forbids homosexuality and the other acts of sexual deviancy like homosexuality already mentioned above. Leviticus 18; Leviticus 19:29.
B. Society permits and promotes casual divorce, permits and promotes prostitution and validates prostitutes - to the extent of giving them the fancy name of commercial sex workers. Society forbids the marrying of more than one wife, permits casual sex, and, of course, permits homosexuality and other types of sexual deviancy like bestiality.
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Note the hinge:
Disallow polygamy = allow casual divorce, allow prostitution, and allow all the other deviations from the natural order (bestiality, homosexuality, etc.) that are now common.
Allow polygamy = forbid casual divorce, forbid prostitution, and forbid all the other deviations from the natural order (bestiality, homosexuality, etc.) that are now common.
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Which of the two systems respects women, upholds their dignity, protects them from abuse, and forces men to zip up?
Do women have any real value in today's society? Have you seen how they are debased in hip hop videos? God is wise; the "Adversary" is crafty and terribly wicked. To destroy you, he first deceives you. Much of the world is absolutely deceived about this issue. I'm sorry to say that women are the prime victims of this false ideology of marriage. Unfortunately, the greatest resistance to the truth of the matter is most likely to come from them.
In God's economy, a woman is of so great a value that she cannot be used and dumped by any man - no matter his rank and power. The divine logic seems to be this: if she is good enough for you to have sex with, then she is good enough to be your wife. If, on the other hand, she is not good enough to be your wife, leave her alone. There is a man out there who will love her enough to marry her. If you want her for sex but don't want her as a wife, then all you want is her body. You want to use her the way you use tissue paper - dump it in the trash can after use. Who do you think you are to treat a being made in God's image that way?
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Leviticus 19:29
"Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness."
By forbidding prostitution, God also made it impossible for men to have casual sex, which debases the soul and is referred to as whoremongering in the Bible. Prostitution is one of the best gifts society has given to men. And women are the prime victims. For a little amount, a man will have the legal right to take away from a woman her womanhood and that which is most precious to her. The way women are wired, they will not willingly have sex with a man they do not love. But prostitution takes away this natural inhibition and turns a woman into a veritable daughter of Satan. Concerning her, these are the words of the Bible, through the pen of Wise King Solomon:
Proverbs 7:26
"For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her."
Men love sex because that is the way they were wired. A man can happily have sex with a woman he does not care about or respects or desires to be seen with in public. For him, it is like visiting the john to relieve himself. God knows this and gave laws to curtail this natural desire. If prostitution is made a capital offense punishable by death, believe you me, the other option will have to be polygamy.
Thus, it is not a coincidence that so-called Christian nations (which forbid polygamy) allow brothels and prostitution and rampant casual sex, where a man will keep one wife and have a variable number of mistresses. God knows this but the "Adversary" has deceived men into thinking polygamy is such a bad thing. His strategy is to make sexual purity impossible for as many men as possible by denying good candidates for polygamy the knowledge that polygamy is biblical.
One of my clients (name withheld) is the son of a man who had 3 wives. As far as this man is concerned, his father is one of the most godly men he has ever known. This man is a fornicator (men have no problems confessing their fornication to one another) and so I advised him to marry the woman in question we were talking about. He casually laughed off the idea and remarked that, if he did that, his wife would kill him. So he continues to be the husband of one wife while being a sex partner of several other women. Society does not care. But it is not society that will judge you on the last day. God will. So think carefully.
Sex is not the only issue in polygamy
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There are at least 6 reasons in the Bible for polygamy:
1. Delay in child bearing (as in the case of the father of prophet Samuel)
2. Love (as in the case of Jacob and Rachel)
3. Levirate Law (when a brother dies without having a child)
4. Accidental discharge (when, for any reason or group of reasons, a man touches a woman that he is not lawfully supposed to touch).
5. Libido (when a man's sexual prowess demands more than one woman, especially in view of the fact that women have many sexually inactive days but a man is always ready to roll).
6. Adoption of a widow (as in when, to both protect and provide for a widow, the best thing may be to marry her, as in the case of David and Abigail).
Of all the above, note that only number 5 is purely about sex. If a man has the means and the libido, God is perfectly ok with that man marrying more than one wife so as to unleash his virility within the marriage circle rather than indulge in what we refer to in Nigeria as "away matches". Marrying more than one wife instead of being a player is righteousness in God's sight.
What he will consider evil is for a man to use a woman as a tool for gratifying sexual pleasure with no intention of marrying her. Another thing He will consider evil is for a man to have another man's wife. In fact, God is so dead set against touching another man's wife that, even if she is only engaged, the punishment due for touching her is as severe as that reserved for touching a married woman.
James 4:17
"Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
Acts 17:30
"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent."
We are all sinners and whatever is past is past. God is ready for a new deal with you if you are serious about sexual purity. If you are wealthy enough and want to marry more than one wife, don't allow society force you to live in sin by constantly lying to your wife, living a double life, searing your conscience, and locking yourself ou tside heaven's gate. Be bold. No matter what people may say, do the honorable thing. Marry.
This arrangement does appear unfair to women (that much I must admit) but, as the Americans would say, it is what it is. I did not create man and did not write the Bible. However, I believe in God and believe the Bible. Moreover, I have the courage to believe the Bible even if I'm the only one that holds my opinion. It's not pride; it's exercising my God-given freewill. It is better to marry and incur the wrath of society than to live in sin and lose salvation. The other option is to stop gallivanting and remain faithful to your spouse. And all t hings are possible to him that believes. But the way out for some men must have to be polygamy. Mark my words: casual sex will lead to JUDGMENT and many will find this out at the wrong time.
Some men (even with this knowledge) will never marry another wife because they married the woman they love, they have the self-control to prevent accidental discharge, and they do not qualify for polygamy based on any of the other six biblical reasons already stated above. T his is the ideal marriage - between one man and one woman, until death separates them. But to teach that men who marry more than one wife have obtained a one-way ticket to hell is a lie. That teaching is not from the Bible.
Some children of God are rich enough to acquire private jets. But they choose not to. They consider that, although they can afford that luxury, they would rather utilize that humongous amount of cash in helping others. So they buy a hundred cars and give to others, denying themselves a luxury they can afford. Just because polygamy is permissible does not mean it is expedient.
1 Corinthians 6:12
"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient:"
The history of some marriages makes the idea of polygamy very horrible and absolutely ill-advised. So every man will have to decide what is best. A godly man will mind the things of God and not indulge even in permissible things. But, like the Bible says, it is better to marry than to burn.
With the assault on men's sensibilities through the outlandish dressing of women these days, men must take seriously the words of Christ: if your right eye causes you to offend, cut it off. If you are lustful, you must tackle lust by cutting off your eyes.
Do not assume that polygamy is a cure for lust. From all indications, King Solomon was activated by lust in his extreme polygamy. And you will be amazed to realize that, although God permits polygamy (adding of wives), He forbids the multiplication of wives, which seems to be what S olomon did.
Deuteronomy 17:16, 17
"But he shall not multiply horses to himself . . . Neither shall he multiply wives to himself."
The above law was given to kings perhaps because kings represented the wealthy class - who, based on the Bible, can afford to practice polygamy. In the view of the Bible, polygamy is not for poor men. If you cannot afford to take care of another woman, do not even think about it. This is why virtually all the cases of polygamy highlighted in the Bible involves kings. They are good examples of people for whom the capacity to provide for additional wives will not be an issue. The same is the case with any man in today's world with enough resources.
When polygamy is based on pure lust without the fear of God, it will lead to the thousand-wife scenario of King Solomon, especially in a case where stupendous wealth is available to the man.
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Indeed, the world is coming to an end. The Bible says those that are married are to act like they were not married.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
"But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none . . . And they that use this world as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away."
So mind the way you utilize this message. But, although it is subject to abuse, it is still the truth. There are men who may comp letely misunderstand this message and reap damnation from it, not discerning the will of God in the matter. But it is worth it because there are also men out there who will be encouraged on their heavenward journey because of this message. They may not even practice polygamy; but the knowledge of God's just system in dealing with male sexuality will cause a paradigm shift in them about God and give them the momentum to love and serve Him in a way they have never done before.
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In a subsequent post, I will prove that even pastors and elders and deacons are p ermitted to marry more than one wife. Those who understand Greek (the language in which the New Testament was originally written) know what I'm talking about and know I'm correct.
May God have mercy on all of us.
NB: There are two ladies I personally know who are now in a difficult marriage. Both of these ladies could have been married to moderately wealthy Christian men who wanted them as second wives. But, because of the wrong teaching about marriage, these ladies were content to live in the sin of fornication (which often goes along with multiple abortions) instead of doing the godly thing of marrying these men as second wives. It hurts me anytime I think about these two ladies.
I wish I knew them and knew this biblical truth before they got married to men who are now unable to take good care of them in all ramifications, and not just economically. Lack of knowledge is really a bad thing. Unfortunately, there are many Christian ladies today dating married men. They will be horrified by a marriage proposal from these men but this is because they have been programmed by misguided religious leaders to consider being a second wife as a terrible social stigma. Once again, what a pity.
Dear sister, if you f ear God and not men, hear this: marrying a married man will not take you to JUDGMENT; but dating a married man - with no marriage in the horizon - will damn your soul.
If churches taught this truth, there will be less abortions and less accidental discharges today. But as long as Christian men believe that they can touch a woman and then go down on their knees and say "Father forgive me," they will continue to not only have these accidental discharges but will actually be arranging for th ese accidents to happen on a fairly regular basis. However, if men are taught the biblical truth about sex and marriage, they will deploy their selfishness positively and selfishly control their lust: they will not touch a woman casually knowing that, if they do so, they must marry her. So don't let the "devil" twist the matter to you: biblical polygamy will unleash an army of sexually smart Christian men who know the divine deal and make sexual decisions wisely, while enjoying a robust relationship with both God and their wife - or wives, as the case may be.
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No doubt, God's ideal is for men to wait until after marriage before having sex. But how do you handle a case where a young man touches a woman based on sexual attraction? Do you understand why the Bible refers to having sex with a woman as defiling that woman? Apparently, sex is a more serious issue than we think. So what do you do if sex happens before marriage? The Bible says the man must surely endow the woman to be his wife. This simple rule is packed full with divine wisdom. On the one hand, it protects the dignity of the woman by ensuring that she is not treated like an object of pleasure to be used and dumped. Any man that touches her must marry her. On the other hand, it is the most powerful way to force a man to get bones in that boneless part of his body when you tell him that touching a woman will not be the end of the story. He must carry the matter to its logical conclusion by marrying the woman - with all the consequences that marriage enta ils. When men think of the financial responsibility of taking care of a woman all her life or just being a husband to a woman all her life - including the automatic relationship with in-laws and the rest of the crew - he will contain his lust in an amazing way. But as long as he believes that he can "hit and run," he will continue to do so and be pretending to God and to himself that he is sorry (if he is a Christian) or just blending with society, if he is not a serious Christian.
Can you see how the "Adversary" uses ignorance to cause men to do with a guilty conscience something that the God of heaven permits in His word? Some men decide to become complete rebels: they do their worst - even bringing strange women to the marital bed - and dare their wives to react. Some do t hings in secret . Some don't bother to marry in secret: they remain faithful husbands and also keep as many mistresses as they can find, ensuring (through prompt abortion or protection) that they are never discovered.
Western society (the bastion of strict monogamy) is also a cesspool of marital infidelity, rampant divorce, brothels, massage parlors (brothels for rich gentlemen), strip clubs, and every form of sexual deviance, including pedophilia, which will soon be legalized. On th e other hand, societies that allow polygamy - even the version of polygamy which we find in Islam - experience less sexually transmitted diseases and have less sexual promiscuity and sexual deviance.
For those who think biblical polygamy is grossly unfair to women, my response is this: I honestly feel that way too. But the manufacturer knows his product. God knows how He made women and men. While we were courting, my wife (whose first degree is in sociology) told me that her lecturer once told them that men were polygamous by nature. She said it like she believed it but I was just dismissive of the whole theory. Now I know better. As for fairness, how fair is it that a man climaxes virtually every time during copulation but a woman does not? How fair is it that a woman experiences painful menstruati on every month through most of her adult life but a man has no such worries? How fair is it that a woman carries a pregnancy for 9 months while a man has no such worries, even though he is the one that does the planting? And yet, for all these, women typically live longer than men in virtually all countries of the world.
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The summary is that we have learnt to live with different types of "unfairness" in the divine arrangement. As far as polygamy is concerned, the issue is not any sort of "unfairness" really: it is programming. Another word for programming is orientation. A Muslim woman, no matter how educated and rich she is, carries in her psyche the realization that she may not be the only wife of her husband. If she does not like this fact, she, at least, accepts it and is willing to live with it. When the inevitable happens, she suffers no psychological breakdown or thinks the world is about to end.
But this is not the case with Christian ladies. Because of orientation, a Christian wife will consider it a death sentence for her husband to marry a second wife. Please note that this is absolutely not her fault. She is not evil for reacting with extreme horror at the prospect of sharing her husband with another woman. For this reason, Christian men contemplating marriage to a second wife must mo ve with utmost caution, maturity, and a keen understanding that their wives are not evil for opposing their attempts.
It is their orientation right from childhood to be the only wives of their respective husbands for their entire lives. What is required is utmost patience and more patience and unconditional love. In some cases, it is better to just shelve the idea.
For example, how can your wife be the breadwinner of the family and you still want to marry a second wife? Even from the teaching of the Bible, you are not qualifi ed to take this step and most women will just kick you out in such a case. But the truth remains the truth.
People should not try to help God or just go along with the majority. Sticking to tradition is the reason behind several unbiblical practices such as the celebration of Christmas on the 25th of December; Sunday-keeping rather than Sabbath-keeping; ever-burning hell fire, the Trinity, and a host of others. They are quiet popular; but not a single one of them is based on the Bible.