What is the saying about barking up the wrong tree. I still think that is what we are doing regarding polygamy.
I know someone recently who passed away from the mutation of mad cow disease. A documentary on it goes back to when ancient cultures thought honoring the dead was, after they passed they consumed the deceased so their ancestors could live on and their knowledge and wisdom passed down by bodily consumption. We call it canablism. They continued this supposedly sacred ritual (they truly believed as sacred) of honoring those having passed by setting them…until they learned it’s why people were getting sick with a form of mad cow disease. From eating their loved ones infected. It stayed for generations passing down in their children a protein that caused a malfunction in the brain.
My friend asked me last night “why would they think that was a good idea? Is there anything in the Bible that suggests this?”
John 6:53-58 KJV
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. [55] For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. [56] He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me, even he shall live by me. [58] This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall live for ever.
My friend had never heard of this passage. I asked her if she had never taken communion? She asked why would God write this that could be misinterpreted? We may say it’s not interpreted ever as canablism. Read it and deny what it sounds like on the surface.
Same with polygamy I think. What does it sound like on the surface? Does the Bible or ancient beliefs or practices support it as a problem? It would be like us discussing canablism as a practice.
A man who has two wives? Could it not be a double minded man who is tossed between two: as Paul showed there is the Free Woman and the adulterous woman. You can’t serve both law and Grace. There are endless passages on divided and either having two wives or having One. Christ had One wife. Even having your neighbors wife takes on a deeper meaning than sleeping with his wife.
Point is we can discuss polygamy for pages and how can we not see if we serve mammon and God…then we might practice polygamy.