for Morris Graham on Biblical polygamy,
Reader comment on item: Westerners Welcome Harems
in response to reader comment: Q for Mr Pipes and Mr Herz: Doesn't our Bible approve Polygamy?

Submitted by Peter Herz (United States), Dec 9, 2008 at 10:41

The Bible is a "warts and all" sort of book that readily shows us the sins of the saints.

Read Genesis and tell me if you'd like to have grown up in a polygamous household. As for Solomon, the former prophets tell us that all of his foreign wives turned him from the LORD. His son, Rehoboam, told the Israelites that if Solomon chastised them with whips, he, Rehoboam, would chastise them with scorpions--and the kingdgom of Israel divided into Israel and Judah.

Deuteronomy 17 tellingly informs the Israelites that when they choose a king over them, "he shall not multiply wives." Deuteronomy also exhorts Israel to choose God's covenant and life over sin and death; so Solomon's numerous wives and concubines and the unhappy fate of his kingdom after his death are there as an object lesson showing whaat happens when we ignore the word of God.

The Bible does not tell us that we live in the best of all possible worlds. It shows us how God's Word enters into our fallen, sinful world and meets us where we are rather than waiting for us to become holy and wonderful in ourselves. And even in the New Testament, far from giving us anyone perfect (apart from Jesus), we have Paul confessing "wretched man that I am [not was].." and Peter as the one who, no less than Judas Iscariot, betrayed Christ three times.

The last word on polygamy for the overwhelming majority of Christians has always been Jesus' expostion of the Creation, in which he clearly sees the pattern of one man and one woman in marriage. And, if we see nothing holy in this, there is nothing to stop us from instituting plural marriage (polygamy and polyandry), homosexual marriage, or even man-animal marriage.

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