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NASB | 1 Kings 11:3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Kings 11:3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away [from God]. |
Subject: Does God endorse polygamy? |
Bible Note: Greetings again. The financial issue appears to be quite a problem in your thinking. Realistically speaking, finances do not have to be a problem. Each family can work this issue out to their own satisfaction. I know of one family with three wives. The husband and two of the wives work outside the home. The third stays home with the children. When the others come home, they take the load off the third so that she can have some private time, and they all work together to get the meals taken care of and the house in order. They are living debt free in a very large brand new home, which cannot be said for the vast majority of monogamous families. Three incomes in this family has afforded for them far greater financial freedom than most monogamous families will ever know in their entire lives. I know a number of other polygamous families (all non-Mormon) who are living in the same financial freedom, and those who have a house payment are making it without any problem. It is pretty much a given that there are some polygamous families who are struggling for whatever reason. I can only speak of those that I am acquainted with personally. They all enjoy plenty of "leisure" in their family lives. As to the idea of many women not happy with a polygamous arrangement is beside the point of my own experience. I can show FAR more women within monogamy who are just as dissatisfied with their marriage. So? As for the "legacy" issue again, this is something that even James Dobson considers to be a problem with monogamous families. He even went so far to suggest the other day on the radio that most of the family inheritance should be given to ministries and churches since most of what children these days inherit is squandered anyway. I also recently heard D. James Kennedy echo this same sentiment in his weekly program. I suspect that much of what you are coming up with is simply conjured up in your own thinking rather than being realistic. The families I am acquainted with have well balanced children who have no problem with their family structure and the family legacy they will carry with them as they enter the adult world. Solomon was a bad example since he clearly violated God's mandate against multiplying so many wives to himself. Besides, he did not HAVE to have a plurality of wives for just one woman to draw him away into idolatry. He had pagan wives, which remains a mystery that leaves most scholars having to speculate that his marrying so many was simply a political maneuver with the nations around him. As to my personal family life, well, that is something that I prefer to keep to myself. What I have "in the wings" is what I prefer to keep "in the wings". Righteousness is a matter of one's life in relation to Christ, not in how many wives a man has. I would never suggest that all men consider marrying more than one wife because I KNOW that MOST men cannot handle such a family structure. Not all men are a large enough revervoir of love to be able to hold enough love for more than one woman. God enables us all according to His own will, so it is a groundless argument for men without that capacity to declare that NO man has that much love and ability. I know this is not the case. If a man marries more than one woman for the sake of sexual variety, then he has a BIG problem on his hands because those woman are not going to stand for that kind of foolishness. Most women are not so shallow, but I know many men who ARE that shallow. Friend, polygamy is clearly "wrong" for you, and I repsect that, but for anyone to say that it is wrong for everyone else is clearly an exercise in hypocrisy and gross ignorance. I say this because we could point a finger that is JUST as critical at monogamy and its MANY problems and talk about how "wrong" it is for those people. What is astounding to me is that monogamists who are vehemently opposed to a plurality of wives will always overlook the enormous heaps of devastation left behind by multitudes of broken, monogamous families, and all the while smirk at how superior monogamy is to polygamy. The institution of marriage in America has suffered tremendous devastation at the hands of arrogant men and women who think they know better how things work, and yet they cannot come up with any workable solution to the problem. I recently heard that Canada passed a law that disallows women to take their husband's last name because of all the paperwork being generated by the divorces. So you see, I can point to a REAL problem within monogamy while you can only point at hypothetical problems with which you have not indicated that you have any personal association and/or experience. You still have not told me what law is being violated for a man to have several wives in accordance with God's definition of marriage. You seem to still be pointing to "legal" marriage, which I have agreed with you on. In Christ Jesus Don |