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Been following Biblical families but never posted...

ADHERE

Member
Hello everyone,
I have been following biblical families for the last three years. What bought me here was my own personal research on polygyny.
My Father lived this lifestyle for years without the family ever knowing he had at least five other families. My family being third in the family cycle. After his death, everything began to come out... I was contacted by other brothers who were at least fifteen years my senior. Long story short, after everything was said and done, an we all began to socialize with each other, I began to study the subject. To my amazement, I realized that I was wrong from a biblical perspective. I study the subject for two years through this website and a few others, I pulled out all of my bibles and commentaries and at the each of my research... I was angry, frustrated, dismayed and felt dysfunctional.. I felted deceived and lied to. I realized that I was taught in error...
You see, I am a PK, (preachers Kid) born and raised Pentecostal. My Father was a pastor, died as a bishop and I come from a long line of preachers. So now I had to go through a renewing of the mind and accept the truth of the Word where so many preachers have taught about polygamy (polygyny) in error...
Thank God I am healed now, and live my life according to the Word of God and not according to the traditions of man.

I am also a pastor.

I will post again soon, so please pray for me and my family.

Silas
 
wow

that is a very interesting story. 6 completely separate families would mean that your dad had to be telling some incredibly complicated stories to keep everyone happy. I am tuckered out just thinking about it!
I am wondering how your church and your denomination will react to your new understanding. we will be prayin for all-y-all

btw: welcome to the board! :D
 
Hello ADHERE, I think, You being a preacher Yourself, You shouldn't be too surprised about Your dad having multiple families, but 6 is more than I had heard of before. I only think it's bad He had to keep it secret because of His position.
It's not uncommon for preachers to have more than one family. In My home county, and back in the 60's, I knew of at least 5 preachers that had more than one woman at a time. Sooner or later it would all be known. I don't think it was wrong to have the multiple women, just wrong to lie about it. The joke about the Mailman, the Milkman, and the Preacher, being the father of the new baby, also has a lot of truth. People are very nieve to believe that there's not a lot more Polygyny practiced, than appears to be. I, for one, think it's great, as long as it's amoung consenting adults, and all persons involved, knows the whole story.
The Creator that made this whole universe, is not ignorant, He created men and women, there's always been more women than men, for one reason or another, throughout history. He didn't create men and women to live alone, but to go forth and multiply.

just My opinion, Me,
 
ADHERE said:
To my amazement, I realized that I was wrong from a biblical perspective... I was angry, frustrated, dismayed and felt dysfunctional.. I felted deceived and lied to.... so many preachers have taught about polygamy (polygyny) in error...

Ditto here. I felt so abandoned and violated and angry. I couldn't believe these leaders, who were supposed to be teaching me accurately, were not. They were teaching traditions. They were shallow. They also were misled. It's embarrassing for them and me. I'm ashamed I lived so much of my life in slavery to this narrow mindset.

So I guess this is a confession: I'm sorry that I was lazy and followed the other sheep, who were at least mislead as I was. The better choice would have been to devour the Bible myself, instead of just trotting along.
 
Welcome Silas! A pretty amazing story. I am glad you ventured out to introduce yourself to us. I suspect you have some good things to contribute. Are you married at this time? If so, how does your wife feel about this new truth?
 
julieb said:
Welcome Silas! A pretty amazing story. I am glad you ventured out to introduce yourself to us. I suspect you have some good things to contribute. Are you married at this time? If so, how does your wife feel about this new truth?


Hello Julieb,
Yes I am married. My wife and I just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. She encouraged me to seek out the truth that I was searching for concerning my Fathers lifestyle. And when I told her at the conclusion of my biblical studies that I believed that I wanted to live pm, at first she was very upset and disappointed in me. Her exact words were: ( I wanted you to uncover the truth, but if I knew that it would led to this..... I would not have been so quick to encourage you to study it).

Things got a little turbulent for a while, but.... the blessing for us is, that we have always communicated with each other very well, thank God.
But, since then she has come around to the idea of pm. She says that she knows that pm is biblical, and before I studied it, she said that she knew it was not against scripture. So I asked her, if you know it is of a truth according to scripture, why were you so upset with me when I said I would like to live pm? Her response was: We have been married so long, that I thought that it would just be you and I for the rest of our life. (That was also my mindset until I learned the truth about biblical polygyny).

My wife had spoken to her best friend who is single and the same age as my wife and I are, (48) her friend is very loving, never been married, is not able to bare children, because of medical issues. Her response to my wife was, she will share a lot of things, but.... As flattered as she was she can not and will not share a man. So my wife never mention it again, and we all have remained solid friends.

A little history about my wife and I. We were married very young, we have four children, all grown, married, and some finishing up college. And we have two adorable grand babies....


I will post more soon, just getting use to the idea of being so candid....
 
Yeah, for your wife to face her fears and expectations and then work on adjusting them. And good for you to talk with her and give her time. It sounds like you have a lovely family. I hope your wife will someday post an introduction herself. I know the ladies on this site would love to get to know her.

I have been married for 26 years and have lived in a plural family for 17 years of that. We have teenagers in our family! They are all a blessing.
 
Hi Silas. Welcome to Biblical Families, thank you so much for posting. What an amazing story, 6 families!!! Did your father travel a lot? For yourself, my suggestion would be to take things very s l o w l y. All the best, ylop
 
Hi Silas. Welcome to Biblical Families, thank you so much for posting. What an amazing story, 6 families!!! Did your father travel a lot? For yourself, my suggestion would be to take things very s l o w l y. All the best, ylop


Hello ylop,
Thank you for the welcome. Yes my Father traveled a lot. He told my mother that he was running revival services in other States. (Not knowing he was reviving other families... Lollllll). Sorry I couldn't resist that one.... Lolllll. He was usually gone three weeks out of the month. So of course when he got home we were overwhelmed when we saw him. He eventually left our family when I was about 8yrs old. And it was crushing for me. He came to see us when I was in middle school one time. And then once when I was in high school. After I got married I saw him a few times.
We really didn't have no type of relationship. I found out about his death only because after he was buried, another brother from one of the other families contacted me to let us know that he had passed away, and this was about a year after his passing. So, yes he traveled much.

As for me, I am taking pm very slow, so slow that turtles are passing me by. Lollllll. I have read the forum with it's many topics. I have viewed many other websites that dealt with pm. I also read many heartbreaking stories of how the subject of pm cause such heartbreak that their marriage ended in divorce. I love my wife and will not do anything to jeopardize my marriage or family. So... At this point I am not looking for pm, but I am so blessed to know the truth about pm.

If it is the will of God for me, it will happen, if not, I still have the most incredible, loving and caring wife, who is the wife of my youth.


Silas
 
Silas, I'm so sorry your Father left you like that. I like your current thoughts on PM, and that you're loving the wife of your youth!
 
Thanks JustAGuy,
I do appreciate your response. And I am so encouraged by the response of all those on the BF forum. For years I felt alone, and very frustrated because I couldn't openly share these thoughts of mine. (My wife is my listening ear). I'm happy that there is such a place as biblical families that I can open up to and share without the Dogma of tradition, but true biblical illumination.

Silas
 
Wow!!! ChrisM,
Your response is food for thought. For years I have prayed and asked our Heavenly Father to help me not to perpetuate the same sins as my Father and prior generations. (The lies, the secrets, the deception). I have learned through my family.. (My other brothers from different mothers) lollll
That my grandFather had 5 wives and 36 children, all of my Fathers brothers had multiple wives and countless children, all grown now. We never had the chance to meet any of them including my grand mother on my Fathers side. He kept that hidden from us.

As born again believers our responsibility is to allow the image of Jesus Christ to be displayed through us.
What my Father did was mar that image because of his deception. As a Father and Patriarch of his family, I believed that if he would have stood in the authority of who he was with his families, and been truthful with all involved, maybe the outcome for all families involved would have been different. (We will never know) But he left behind trauma, broken hearted families, confused sons and daughters and broken wives.

I thank God for recovery in my life. It took much prayer and forgiveness. I have been transformed by the Word of God, and my mind is renewed... (Romans 12:2)

Thank you to all on BF forum who have responded with your words of kindness, and your prayers. And yes my wife will be introducing herself soon.

Bless you all.
 
I am very impressed with your story, as most men in your situation would have reacted by very firmly holding that monogamy was the only correct form of marriage and anything else was abusive - and would hold their own experience up as proof of that. You have been willing to look into it deeper, past the pain and mistakes of your father, to see the truth of what is and is not acceptable. This is highly admirable.

What your father did was obviously completely wrong by anybody's measure, because of the deception. But I can't help being also impressed by his ability to actually do it, he must have been one very busy and extremely organised man... And how on earth did he find the money? I hope you have inherited his organisational skills!

So this was a family "tradition" then - did all of them keep their wives secret? This is all so weird you'd never even manage to make a TV series about it as anybody would just think it was completely ridiculous!
 
FollowingHim
I am very impressed with your story, as most men in your situation would have reacted by very firmly holding that monogamy was the only correct form of marriage and anything else was abusive - and would hold their own experience up as proof of that. You have been willing to look into it deeper, past the pain and mistakes of your father, to see the truth of what is and is not acceptable. This is highly admirable.

What your father did was obviously completely wrong by anybody's measure, because of the deception. But I can't help being also impressed by his ability to actually do it, he must have been one very busy and extremely organised man... And how on earth did he find the money? I hope you have inherited his organisational skills!

So this was a family "tradition" then - did all of them keep their wives secret? This is all so weird you'd never even manage to make a TV series about it as anybody would just think it was completely ridiculous!



FollowingHim,
You are right in your assessment. I was very bitter, angry and resentful, believing that what my Father did was abusive. I wanted no part of it. The beauty of our risen Savior is that if we allow him to break up our Stoney hearts, he will give us a heart of flesh that craves the truth of his Word.

So, it was a great lesson for me realizing that there are many things that my Father did that was wrong. But by the grace of God I believe that I personally learned from his mistakes. This is why I don't keep secrets from the wife of my youth! I always keep the lines of communication open, I give her time to process things and she extends to me the same courtesy.

And yes from what I remember about my Father he was very organized. But now the money thing was a different issue. He would only give my mother $20.00 a week to live on, and that was for a family of seven, and that was including him. (You know how that went).

As far as my GrandFather and uncles keeping all of their families secret, from what I'm told, many of them were aware of each other.

As for a tv series, a few people that I told my story to said the same thing. But, who wants to see a preacher expose his family line in that manner.... Ooopppssss.... Lolllll I forgot we live in a Reality TV world!! Lolllll
 
Belated welcome as well. It was very good to read your story and hear where you've come from.
Chris
 
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