Sorry for the late replies, I wanted a break. I am fully aware that if a person has made their mind up already about something, it's impossible to reason with them otherwise no matter what. I just want people to look at the scriptures alone with this, forgetting about what churches have told us, what our culture thinks, what the laws of men say.
Ok
I think you are basically ignoring simple logic
And why do you think that Jesus says: one man will join one women and they will be one flesh
Sorry for the horrible translation
Paul defines what being one flesh means very clearly:
1 Corinthians 6:16
Or do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written "The two shall become one flesh."
That does not exclude a man from being one flesh with more than one woman. Fornication has always been a sin, which is the context of what Paul was talking about in that verse I quoted. Whereas polygyny is a far more complicated subject, fornication has always been a sin from the very beginning to now. Becoming one flesh is only about sexual intercourse, it's nothing more than that. Marriage is a holy union where becoming "one flesh" is lawful. Fornication is when becoming one flesh is unlawful. A man who marries multiple wives is clearly joined to each one of them, he's not joined to them corporately, the wives do not marry each other which is why the husband (like Jacob with Rachel and Leah) would sleep with them separately.
Well knowing everything that David had to go through and all of the suffering that it meant for him and his wives, I would tell him not to do it.
If a muslim reads the OT and gets the idea that polygamy is God's will, that muslim is sadly confused like you are hahaha
And that Muslim should probably study the whole bible deeply and he would probably get to the same conclusion I did
I'm not being selective, I'm pointing out evidence I think is enough to believe polygamy is not God's will.
But God who is greater than all of us had no problems giving him all of the wives he had. Anyone can have problems in any kind of marriage, including my own parents, which I personally paid a price for. Didn't God command Hosea to marry a prostitute also? Hosea already had a wife too, if I recall correctly.
I'm honestly very uncomfortable with how many people in this topic put down David. He's the greatest psalmist there is, he became the standard of all the kings of Judah by which God compared them to. Our Christ is called the son of David also.. and whose throne will God establish forever? David's! God blessed David immensely. It's such an injustice to him to equate him with his son Solomon.
To interpret and study the scriptures all of the verses must harmonise with each other. When we adopt the belief of polygyny being sinful, we run into troubling implications, that is my main concern when anyone believes it is sinful.
My position is that polygyny is not inherently sinful, I never said specifically that it was God's will at all for every man to have more than one wife. I certainly do not in anyway believe that in the church age any Christian man should strive to have more than one wife, and especially if it's taboo or against the law, which it is in ours. It's a sin to go against the law of the land you live in provided it doesn't contradict with Jesus' commands for us.
What are you calling Levirate marriage? Servanthood? Do you likewise take surrounding verses, such as, Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death, as a command to strike fatal blows? That is how much sense what you say makes.
I'm saying that it's not adultery.
In my opinion David was a slime ball for having more that one wife, let alone hundreds of them and concubines too. Same goes for his promiscuous son as well.
What you said actually makes me quite angry. God is perfectly able to condemn a king of Israel for sin Himself, he doesn't need our opinions. David did not have hundreds of wives either. David could very well have a higher position in the Kingdom of Heaven than all of us seeing how much God blessed him.
I am not sure what the numbers were, more men? More women? Equal?
I think in the beginnin a lot of things were fuzzy, including how we interperate how the earth was populated. I cannot recall hearing any sermon that addressed that matter. How did the entire human race spring from Adam and Eve without there being sexual relations between close family members? Excluding the Angels that were having relations with human women, the pool of partners was very limited. I would be interested in hearing what others believe or were taught about this.
You bring up a very good point! It's obvious that Adam and Eve's sons and daughters engaged in incestuous marriages, what other way was there? It was lawful then, but it's obviously not lawful now according to the scriptures. If incest between brothers and sisters was inherently sinful then I feel sorry for Adam and Eve's children, they either would sin or die without anyone to love. As much as incest disgusts me, logically it was normal and lawful back then. One could have a less hard time arguing that polygyny is a sin now, but wasn't a sin in Old Testament times, just like incest before the Law of Moses was given.
I think when it comes down to it we have problems because we think that God is not fair, and I guess by Western standards He really isn't. He does what He wants, He is perfectly sovereign and we have no choice but to accept it, or else we become prideful towards Him.