Ok time for some clarity. God made one man and from him He made one woman and the two became as one flesh. This is the biblical model. Fast forward 2500 years to the Apostle Paul's letter to Timothy. The requirements for a Pastor, Bishop, Deacon, these are also the requirements to be a man. He must be the husband of but one wife. This doesn't mean he can only be married once and never again. God made a way for remarriage that is not sinful for this reason.
So what does it mean then. It means that the husband is to be a one woman man. He eyes are upon his wife and her alone. His heart belongs to his wife and her alone. His body belongs to her and her alone just as her body belongs to him and him alone.
Now some will point to Kings David and Solomon having multiple wives. Anyone care to point out where God ever said it was good in his sight for man to do this? I will tell you its not there. Look for example of all the trouble both Kings faced. David was a lousy father. Like Jacob he also had a favored wife. So did Solomon.
So lets flip this on its ear. What if your wife took multiple husbands. Anyone want to try that one out? I know i could not handle it.
Polygamy is against everything the scriptures teach. It is an abberation of the family.
In Christ,
Bishop SEH
...I disagree..., that is not biblical, but the conditioning of modern nominal Christian thinking. Adam and Eve only had one son too, by your logic, does that mean they could not have more by the biblical standards of the time?
...the greek word 'mia' is normally translated in the bible as meaning 'first'. In the verse you quoted, regarding elders, that is the 'only place' in the bible by all accounts where it was chosen 'by them' to be translated into meaning 'one'. Mia can mean 'first or one'...but in all other places in the bible, it has as far as I know been translated as meaning 'first'. So, the verse can and most likely means 'the husband of the first wife', meaning never to have divorced - and dealt 'treacherously' with the wife of ones youth, which makes a lot more sense...Translators have incorporated bias into many verses, as is painfully evident in a number of passages...
You need to relate David, Solomon and Jacob in the correct context. Davids sin was causing Uriah to be killed so he could marry Bathsheba, ... God told David, if he were just to ask, He would have given him many more wives and other things...
Solomon did not just add wives, he 'multiplied them'...., but that was not his actual 'sin' the bible indicates, but the fact that he took alien pagan wives, that took his heart from God...
Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah against his will ... Im sure that if anyone in a monogamous marriage was tricked they would not be happy in it either....
Moses, Gideon, and others were 'blessed by God' with wives and children...all happy and content...
...as you know, the biblical model is not one of polyamory, but of polygamy, the man being the patriarch was allowed to add a reasonable amount of wives and in fact concubines. There were actual laws for this in the Old Testament. It is just man hobbyhorsing with roman/greek and part gnostic thinking, regarding monogamy --- and polygamy being 'against Gods Will'....If it was, don't you think Moses would have been told by Him? and Abraham (Keturah was his real second wife, not Hagar, she was just a concubine he probably didn't want) and Gideon, and the father of the prophet Samuel who was a son of a second wife, etc etc...
...a woman is only to have one husband by biblical/Godly principles --- that was the Will and Way of God; as her nature is a receptive one --- while the male has a different nature...
...its best to just say things as they are...modern conditioned nominal Christian thinking does not make for 'fact' regardless of how religious and good sounding it may seem to the conditioned mindset...Polygamy was an accepted practise endorsed by God via Moses...., otherwise most of those in the OT would have been guilty of an unrepentant sin of 'alleged adultery', which was not and is not the case...
