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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: I have followed with some interest the thread that you have picked up. I wanted to just throw in a couple of verses and see how you fit them into your pro-polygamy position. First of all, you are correct that the bride of Christ, the church, is made up of many individuals. However, the clear teaching of the Bible is not that we are each, as individuals, brides of Christ, but the entire communion of saints itself is a SINGLE bride. Paul makes this clear in Ephesians 5, when the analogy is between a single husband and a single wife, and Christ and the church. The church is THE bride of Christ; Christians are not "brides of Christ." And the husband is called to love his wife with the same unique, single-minded love that Christ exhibited when He died for the church, His bride. Christ is not a polygamist, and husbands are called to model His marital pattern. In that same passage, we see Paul taking the creation order and applying it to present-day Ephesus: "FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH." --Ephesians 5:31 He also uses the term "wife" (singular) when describing how husbands should conduct themselves. A one-to-one relationship is implied: "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own WIFE even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband." --Ephesians 5:33 We see this one-to-one relationship emphasized in other passages dealing with marriage: "But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does." --1 Corinthians 7:2-4 We see mutual authority over each other's bodies, and that each one should have his or her own spouse (singular). You do make some very valid points in light of the Old Testament pattern. The first and most important one is that polygamy is not adultery. While we do not see polygamy in the creation order (God pronounced his creation of humanity "very good" after creating the first couple, not the first harem) nor in the redemptive model (Christ and his singular bride), taking more than one wife was indeed permitted with regulation under the Mosaic Covenant. We see that it was not practiced, however, by most of God's covenant community (kings being the most notable exception), and there are no signs of it at all among the Jews we encounter in the New Testament. And finally, we do not see a single instance in which the taking of multiple wives turns out to be an exercise in wisdom. Just because it was permitted in the Torah does not mean that it was a practice favored by God. Remember that divorce is also permitted, but Jesus claims that Moses allowed men to divorce their wives because of their hardness of heart. But just as "from the beginning it was not so" regarding divorce (Matthew 21:8), so with polygamy it was not so from the beginning. And if polygamy were perfectly acceptable to God, why does Jesus continue by saying that if a man divorces his wife and marries another, that such an act becomes adultery? How does multiple wives at the same time merit God's approval, but single wives in series would not? --Joe! |