"Husband of one wife"

[CharismaticLady]

Man always seems to twist Gods law to his avail.

The problem is - what law? The only law applied to women; they couldn't have more than her first husband as long as he lived; whereas men could do as they pleased.

 

[CharismaticLady]

I covered this in post #10. No doubt that monogamy is the Christian way. But during the time of the Apostles men had multiple wives and there is not in indication that they had to divorce their wives to be Christian. Polygamy did not turn off like a switch, it took time, quit awhile. So there were stipulations for church offices concerning monogamy.

I don't see it in Christ's time even, let alone the apostles. It seems to have already stopped.

 

[Grailhunter]

Even up to Noah and his sons, it wasn't an issue, but it was okay for Abraham all the way up to Solomon? I don't understand why it wasn't part of the Law. Women were treated abominably. Can you imagine being raped, and then the rapist has to marry her??? Great husband material!

Can you imagine being murdered because you were raped. WOH says that man seems to twist God's Law. That is not the answer. If the Mosaic Law is God's law it has a whole set of laws for this, never a prohibition. And like I said God spoke of it.

 

[CharismaticLady]

And like I said God spoke of it.

You keep saying that, but where?

 

[Grailhunter]

I don't see it in Christ's time even, let alone the apostles. It seems to have already stopped.

I know what you are saying. It just does not seem right. But there was no reason for the Jews to stop having wives. Christianity is certainly going to promote monogamy for sure, but it does not stop over night.

 

[Grailhunter]

You keep saying that, but where?

Like I said, we get into the scriptures then what do you think of the Mosaic Law. If I prove this to you what benefit is it. I would rather that everyone in the Old Testament were monogamous and women were equal....but it is nowhere near that.

 

[CharismaticLady]

But there was no reason for the Jews to stop having wives.

Huh? No one said anything about not getting married. Read Matthew 19. Polygamy and concubines had already stopped. The issue was divorcing your present wife for any reason, so they could get a new one.

 

[Grailhunter]

Huh? No one said anything about not getting married. Read Matthew 19. Polygamy and concubines had already stopped. The issue was divorcing your present wife for any reason, so they could get a new one.

no..wives as in plural. This is something that is historical for the Jews and you can look that up. Polygamy does not stop for the Jew, for a long time.

 

[CharismaticLady]

Like I said, we get into the scriptures then what do you think of the Mosaic Law. If I prove this to you what benefit is it. I would rather that everyone in the Old Testament were monogamous and women were equal....but it is nowhere near that.

All I want to know is why God allowed polygamy, when He didn't create man and women to be that way. Jesus said it was because of the hardness of the heart, but why Abraham when God was speaking to him directly.

 

[CharismaticLady]

Good night all.

 

[CharismaticLady]

no..wives as in plural. This is something that is historical for the Jews and you can look that up. Polygamy does not stop for the Jew, for a long time.

I've never heard that.

 

[Grailhunter]

Huh? No one said anything about not getting married. Read Matthew 19. Polygamy and concubines had already stopped. The issue was divorcing your present wife for any reason, so they could get a new one.

Ahh you are not going to like any of this. We do not know if he was talking to a Jew that had one wife or five. It was a practice of the Jews to divorce their older wife to take on a younger wife. That was nearly a death sentence for the wife. What Christ said could apply to either case, one wife or five wives, if you divorce your wife you cannot marry another. If you read the verse you will notice the Apostle's reaction.

 

[CharismaticLady]

Ahh you are not going to like any of this. We do not know if he was talking to a Jew that had one wife or five. It was a practice of the Jews to divorce their older wife to take on a younger wife. That was nearly a death sentence for the wife. What Christ said could apply to either case, one wife or five wives, if you divorce your wife you cannot marry another. If you read the verse you will notice the Apostle's reaction.

Malachi 2:
And this is the second thing you do:
You cover the altar of the Lord with tears,
With weeping and crying;
So He does not regard the offering anymore,
Nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.
14 Yet you say, “For what reason?”
Because the Lord has been witness
Between you and the wife of your youth,
With whom you have dealt treacherously;
Yet she is your companion
And your wife by covenant.
15 But did He not make them one,
Having a remnant of the Spirit?
And why one?
He seeks godly offspring.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.


16 “For the Lord God of Israel says
That He hates divorce,
For it covers one’s garment with violence,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“Therefore take heed to your spirit,
That you do not deal treacherously.”

 

[Grailhunter]

Malachi 2:
And this is the second thing you do:
You cover the altar of the Lord with tears,
With weeping and crying;
So He does not regard the offering anymore,
Nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.
14 Yet you say, “For what reason?”
Because the Lord has been witness
Between you and the wife of your youth,
With whom you have dealt treacherously;
Yet she is your companion
And your wife by covenant.
15 But did He not make them one,
Having a remnant of the Spirit?
And why one?
He seeks godly offspring.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.


16 “For the Lord God of Israel says
That He hates divorce,
For it covers one’s garment with violence,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“Therefore take heed to your spirit,
That you do not deal treacherously.”

Very true,
Amos 5:21-23

“I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
“Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your failings.
“Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.

 

[amadeus]

Jesus makes it pretty clear in Matthew 19. One wife; one husband.

What I don't understand is why God didn't put is foot down on concubines!

Can we grow in spite all of the mess that surrounds us? Can we straighten things out for God? Can we improve upon His plan? Can we even fully understand His plan? Why did allow sin at all? Why has He allowed polygamy?

Look at David, who as the scripture makes plain, stumbled badly with the murder of Uriah and adultery with Uriah's wife [Bathsheba]. Something people don't often mention is the wives of David? He did have several.

Did God or Jesus ever say in scripture it was OK to have more than one spouse, especially at the same time? No, on the contrary, but David was growing all the time that he lived as a man. Man had moved very far away from what Adam and Eve had in Eden prior to their disobedience. God did not take two or three or four or a dozen ribs from Adam to form Eve. He only took one:

"And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?" Matt 19:5

David was never confronted with the error of having several wives, at least not in written scripture. In his son, Solomon, we see this error brought to light and exposed for the sin which came from it: His many wives turned his heart away from God.

Solomon it appears lost out with God in the end. David did not. Was David perfect? Yes, in what he had and what he knew he was because even though he stumbled and sinned, when confronted with his errors, he repented.

God's judgment is always fair. We are judged by what we do with what we have. David, apparently never had a conviction against polygamy, even though it misses what was in the beginning with our first parents in the flesh. What we have for our judgment is our present understanding and conviction. If we blatantly go against what God has shown us without even trying to fix, we are in trouble. But... if we have strived or are striving to fix it, is God not fair?

"And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." Luke 12:47-48

David grew from where he began toward God always, even though he stumbled badly along the way. He can be a good example to us... but we know that the best example is to be seen in Jesus. Because David was a polygamist and never got past that should God hold that always against him? Should He hold against us, you and me and everyone else all of our mistakes since we first believed?

God has always been looking at the hearts of the men even when they have erred. God's plan goes far beyond the ways of this flesh, with its wars, murders, abortions, same sex marriages, racial hatred, and a multitude of other wrong things including polygamy resulting from the ways men have chosen to follow. God has always had a plan. Do we understand it all? Certainly not, but what do we need to understand? What we need to do is grow closer to Him, in spite of our continued short comings. For those who really love Him and surrender all that they are able, will not His will, in the end of the matter, be done?

 

[101G]

I think it means not only against polygamy, but no divorced elders or deacons. It may have to do with Ezekiel 44:21 No priest shall drink wine when he enters the inner court. 22 They shall not take as wife a widow or a divorced woman, but take virgins of the descendants of the house of Israel, or widows of priests.

Not saying that any are right or wrong, but consider this. you say you're a christian ... Christ like, meaning following him, correct. well ask yourself, "how many "BRIDES" do the Lord Jesus have? that should satify your question.

also we notice you hinted at divorce. I can only speak in scriptures, there is marriage, (which is a two fold step), and there is Divorce, (which is a two fold step also). if one is not fully divorce then one cannot remarry. but if fully divorce, yes one can remarry.

Hope this helped.
PICJAG.

 

[Willie T]

Jesus makes it pretty clear in Matthew 19. One wife; one husband.

What I don't understand is why God didn't put is foot down on concubines!

It seems logical observation would indicate that there is something we are not understanding correctly. I think that happens in a large portion of the Scriptures we interpret.

 

[epostle]

In the Old Testament, God tolerated polygamy for a certain time, as it appears from the examples of men such as Abraham, Jacob, and David. But with the proclamation of the New Law, this concession, almost wrested from by God by reason of the moral obtuseness of man, was revoked. Marriage was restored to its original unity. The language of Christ is very explicit (Matthew 19:3-9; Mark 10:1-12; Luke 16:18).

I Peter 2:25 says:

For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls (NAB).

The word translated guardian here in the NAB is actually not just a bishop; rather, the bishop (Greek, ton episkopon) of your souls. Jesus is the bishop of the Church. And he was and is celibate.” What does THAT imply?

1. Even the Evangelical scripture scholar Dr. Ralph Earle, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, says that St. Paul in 1 Timothy 3 is not requiring bishops to be married. In stating his reasons, he first offers the most ancient position—which we know as Catholics to be apostolic in origin and found in written form in the late second century—that would say this text is placing a limitation on the number of marriages a bishop could have in his lifetime. He could only have been married once. If a man has been married more than once, even if licitly, he cannot be admitted to the episcopacy.

2. Earle writes, “[M]ost commentators agree that [the text] means monogamy—only one wife at one time.” This interpretation is unlikely for reasons we’ll mention below, but we should first take note that both Catholic and Protestant scholars generally agree St. Paul is not making marriage a requirement for the bishopric.

3. In that same Bible commentary, this time commenting on Titus 1:6, which makes to both elders and bishops the same prohibition against multiple marriages, another Evangelical scholar, Dr. D. Edmond Hiebert, adds, “If Paul had meant that the elder must be married, the reading would have been ‘a’ wife, not ‘one’ wife.” I would go further and say it would most likely simply say, “The bishop must be married.” The term one indicates that he is limiting the number, not mandating marriage.

 

[Grailhunter]

@Willie T @epostle

Willie T, I think you understand but you're just are not telling. But there is no mystery.
It is natural to look back on history and criticize. Polygamy was part of the Israelite culture. Mosaic Law governed it. God took credit for David's wives. The number of sons that a man had was seen as the favor and promise of God. Your descendants will be like the sands of the shore, the stars in the heaven, the dust of the earth. How do you think that was proposed to happen? We now believe that Polygamy is not right...fine...but to condemn it in the Old Testament is condemning God. It is a matter of history that for a thousand years after the biblical era, the Jews continued to practice polygamy. During the biblical era there were Jews converting to Christianity. There is no indication that the Christians refused the Jews from converting if they had more than one wife. Nor do we have any indications that the Christians required the Jews to divorce some of their wives to be convert. So the stipulation that a deacon could have only one wife was both valid and can be understood. Some in the congregation could have had more than one wife. And we are not even discussing the marriage arrangements of the Pagan converts.

 

[Giuliano]

3. In that same Bible commentary, this time commenting on Titus 1:6, which makes to both elders and bishops the same prohibition against multiple marriages, another Evangelical scholar, Dr. D. Edmond Hiebert, adds, “If Paul had meant that the elder must be married, the reading would have been ‘a’ wife, not ‘one’ wife.” I would go further and say it would most likely simply say, “The bishop must be married.” The term one indicates that he is limiting the number, not mandating marriage.

It says "one" not "zero" or "two" or "three." Not "one wife" and maybe some concubines.

Paul is clearer writing to Timothy and says why they should be married.

1 Timothy 3:2 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
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? )