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So... I told my pastor that I believe a man having more than one wife is not a sin

A

Asforme&myhouse

Seasoned Member
Real Person
Male
He was shocked. We are supposed to meet up this weekend to "talk about it some more". Any advice? Prayer appreciated
 
I had this talk with my pastor some time back, and I was shocked that he didn't put up too much of a fight.

My advice to you would be to go to the meeting prepared. I had the most common arguments documented along with the explanation why the argument didn't make sense. I also had key pro-polygyny verses documented and ready to present. Though he didn't interrupt me, I was prepared to ask him to not do so, as I felt a constant back and forth over points I might make later anyhow wouldn't contribute to building the case. I welcomed the discussion, but I didn't want to be distracted in making my points. I cannot recall exactly which verses I brought up to him now, but one thing I would probably say if I were to debate this with someone now is this:
  • Would you agree that God is not sinful? Of course, the answer will be that God is not sinful.
  • Can you imagine God describing himself as sinful? For example, can you imagine God describing himself engaging in homosexual activity? I would hope the answer to this would be a negative, that a person cannot imagine God describing himself as sinful.
  • I agree with you, and this is one of the strongest reasons I cannot believe polygyny is sin. If it were, God could not have described himself as a polygynist in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 23.
Your pastor will likely come back and point to New Testament verses, for which I would be prepared. The strongest point, I think, is the difference in the words used for "own" in 1 Corinthians 7:2. I would also respectfully remind him that if a person is going to contradict something God permitted, regulated, commanded, and endorsed in the Old Testament, then that person must be able to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Jesus doesn't contradict the Father. How can He? With that said, you need to know the typical New Testament verses that people say speaks against polygyny and be able to explain what is really being said. Don't let that overwhelm you - there aren't too many, and they aren't difficult to refute.
 
No particular order:
  • Have you studied the list of common stances (and why they fail)?
  • Remember you have nothing to prove: Your position is not that God allows polygyny, per se, but that He does not require monogamy.
  • Do not get stuck in the debate between God's Law and Man's Law. He will say at some point, "Well, it's not legal anyway, what's the point?" You can address that it you want, but it's a trick to divert the topic.
  • Keep him on topic: When I talked to my wife's pastor, I was still new to this and he turned it around that our marriage needed fixing, it was somehow my fault and that was the "real" problem. (he even did the "believe me, I've studied the Bible more than you have and there's no way you can convince me of anything.")
  • Don't forget that monogamy was a Roman/Greek law imposed upon the Jews. It was also completely fallacious in that although legally limited to only one wife, divorce/remarriage, prostitution and sex with one's slave were all also legal. In Biblical culture, men are required to treat women as wives, until death. In Greek and Roman culture, men treated women as disposable. Which culture does today's Church resemble?
  • It was Augustine who said "in my day, polygamy is made sin." So who gets to dictate sin, man or God?
  • Don't go on the defensive, that's his job: to defend his stance that it is prohibited.
  • If he side steps a question, remind him he didn't answer it.
  • Don't bring the wife unless she's already on-board. As a side note, never let your wife discuss anything with the pastor without you present. If he tries, warn him once. If he does it again, he is intentionally circumventing your authority.
  • Beware the pastor's wife! "Where you going, dear?" "Oh Mrs. Pastor-Bob wanted to meet for coffee." *Really?* "Tell you what, why don't I go with you, my treat." "You don't have to." "Nonsense. It'll be fun. I'll get my hat."
  • He may ask how your wife, parents, family, anyone else feels about it. Your response could be "how does anyone's feelings about anything change scripture? We're discussing doctrine/God's Law, not people's 'feelz'."
  • Keep your notes on small pieces paper in your Bible, you don't have to have it all memorized. Would even say it looks better if you're reading directly from your own notes and scriptures instead of from memory.
  • He may ask you why you are not happy with your wife, why you don't love your wife, why you want to replace her. Of course you're still happy with her, of course you still love her, of course you don't want to replace her. "but if you really loved her and happy with her, why are you hurting her by doing this"? See what he did? These are straw-man questions and the correct answer is "My feelings for my wife have nothing to do with better understanding God's view on marriage" or something like that. Turn it away from YOUR marriage and to marriage in GENERAL. Do not let him make it personal.
  • No marriage is perfect. If he's able to make it personal, you will reveal something (anything) that isn't perfect and THAT will be the reason you're a bad, sinful man and your wife should probably leave you unless you repent. (think that's extreme? not even close.)
  • Good luck and Keep. Your. Cool.

That's all I've got. We have a few others who have already done this. Hopefully they'll chime in here soon. IIRC, the best reported outcome was "Well, I guess I'd have to agree with you, but there's no way I can preach that or even agree publicly; please don't discuss this with others or we'll have to ask you to leave."
 
This rarely goes well. Many of us have been asked to leave a church at this point.

Do not expect logic or reason to work. Agreeing with you would threaten this man's status and living.

Netwatchr is right, the biggest threat is the estrogen mafia that is about to go after your wife. If you declare yourself the church ladies will ode to you as a threat to their security and they will make it their mission to destroy you and your family as a warning to their own husbands. They will attack you through your wife.

If your wife is not a 100% convinced then I wouldn't do this right now. Good luck. I am sure there are stories of this kind of thing going fine but I haven't heard them. The organized church can not accept this truth. It would destroy the last 1700 years of its existence.
 
Thank you for the advice! I do have most of the verses memorised, or at least grasp the biblical concept of marriage well enough to make my point without notes, but I might take notes anyway. The, I agree with you in secret, thing, isn't gonna fly. God's word is God's word, if he's afraid to teach it, then I'm afraid to sit under his teaching.
 
ZecAustin said:
This rarely goes well. Many of us have been asked to leave a church at this point.

Do not expect logic or reason to work. Agreeing with you would threaten this man's status and living.

Netwatchr is right, the biggest threat is the estrogen mafia that is about to go after your wife. If you declare yourself the church ladies will ode to you as a threat to their security and they will make it their mission to destroy you and your family as a warning to their own husbands. They will attack you through your wife.

If your wife is not a 100% convinced then I wouldn't do this right now. Good luck. I am sure there are stories of this kind of thing going fine but I haven't heard them. The organized church can not accept this truth. It would destroy the last 1700 years of its existence.
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My wife does understand this biblical truth and she is an incredibly strong and intelligent woman. She has no interest in discussing it with the pastor's wife at least at this point and she is under no compulsion to do so. I'm the husband and it is my job to lead in such matters, so I will face the onslaught, she doesn't have to discuss it at all if she doesn't want to.


I believe that there is a good chance I will be asked to leave. Pastor could never teach polygyny publicly or he would lose 99.99% of his congregation. However, are we called to teach God's word or tell people what they want to hear? Jesus didn't seem to concerned when many people stopped following Him, He turned and asked His disciples if they were going to leave too. God doesn't change His truth to keep crowds around and neither should we.

It does suck though it's never fun being the outcast
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
...It does suck though it's never fun being the outcast
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Turn it around. Be the outcast God wants you to be. Have T-shirts made. "Pariahs for Christ!"
Of course, you could be the success story everyone's waiting for, too. Wouldn't count on it, but could happen.

But i agree, it does suck.... :(
 
Had a surprisingly simple conversation with my pastor. He knows I am a Berean, so whatever I bring up must have been studied pretty thoroughly. I brought it up during a conversation about adultery and church discipline. I wanted to make sure we disciplined "inappropriate" relationships in a correct manner. I told him my studies on adultery led me to men like Dr. Luck. After I told him my studied definition of adultery and its logical conclusion to polygyny, he just wryly looked at me and agreed. His only quip was "? Why anyone would want more than one is a mystery. I have one and that's sometimes too much!" He wasn't just being flip. It was his way of agreeing, without endorsing.

Talked to a coworker who is also a pastor. He put up more of a fight (in a collegial manner). He couldn't really refute any scripture other than to say he disagreed with interpretational conclusions. I asked him if he would kick someone out of his church or deny attendance if they told him they were polygynous. He said no. If he found out ahead of time, he would counsel against it, though. If they went through with it, he would accept, but not condone. But, truth be told, he says he counsels all people to really consider not marrying. He knows how hard it is and how cheeply people treat it that he only tolerates it (half joking) and sometimes discourages having children too.
 
Lots of good suggestions so far. There's a good "open letter to pastors" on the main site, have a look and see if that is helpful at all. Also read through the "common objections" article to make sure you have a grasp of how to answer any you might not have considered.

When we went through this, I wasn't given any opportunity to even have a scriptural discussion, I was told to leave and there would be no discussion. So you're already ahead of where I got to! Regarding the women, note that several people in our church knew I was thinking this way for about two years, and then when we were forced out I wrote a letter to everyone in the congregation to ensure they were aware of the circumstances and that we hadn't just decided to abandon them, but were not attending because we had been told not to. In all of this, nobody ever spoke to Sarah once. Nobody asked her what her thoughts on it were at all. Which we found odd. Just goes to show this can go multiple ways.

I could suggest reading material you might like to take to give the pastor, but I actually think that would be counterproductive. You do not want him to think that you read some heretical book and are now following some weird teacher. You need to show that this is only from the Bible. Have your Bible with key verses bookmarked, that's all.

Don't worry too much about the words to say, YHWH will provide them. Certainly ensure you know the correct answers to different objections, but don't worry about having an actual scripted response, have the knowledge and the words will come.
 
If you're worried that the conversation could end up being used against you or misrepresented in any way, have a voice recorder running on your cellphone in your top pocket. I deeply regret not doing that when I was called into a disciplinary meeting and kicked out of church, as the way that went has been misrepresented to others since, but it's only a matter of biased memories. If it's a casual discussion, don't do this as it's a breach of trust. But if you can see it becoming a disciplinary session, record it.
 
I was fortunate, my personal pastor just sort of shrugged and agreed. This is not a topic of popularity in 99.9% of church sermons or conversations. So, even if he is on our "side", I don't think he needs to bring it up to prove his allegiance to it, it'll never come up.

My coworker/pastor and I had weeks of back and forth conversations, emails, texts, etc. it was fun. Here I was debating an ordained minister and essentially winning, or in his opinion coming to a draw.
 
Well, here is the update. We are at an impass, he can't see Gen. 2:24 allowing plural marriage and the use of the singular when referencing husbands and wives in the New Testament doesn't allow for plural marriage in his eyes. We can stay as long as I don't mention what I believe about marriage to anyone else, if I do we will be thrown out. This has been our church family for years now, so it hurts
 
Well, a small victory is still victory. Praise God your fellowship is still intact.

Just out of curiosity, what does he say of the patriarchs?

What about informal polygamy in the church...women with multiple partners, unlawfully separated or divorced in remarriage, etc. Are they to be asked to leave?
 
Patriarchs: God permitted it, but it wasn't his ideal... And it caused all kinds of problems...

Women with multiple partners: He holds to the American understanding of adultery, divorce and remarriage. He is not interested in looking at the law to see God's definition of adultery, because, "we are not under law, we are under grace".

He said he would like to continue the conversation in the future in order to change my opinion/understanding. I realise that this is something that is very difficult to wrap one's head around, for western christians. I guess my frustration is that he doesn't want to search the scriptures to see if these things be so.

He said i was reading the scriptures, that I referred to, with a presupposition that polygyny is ok.

I didn't go full tilt, i wanted to be respectful in the way I approached him on this matter. I believe that is biblical.
1 Timothy 5:1
Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers,
 
I commend you, not as a practicing polygynists myself, but as a fellow Berean, and servant. No matter how right you feel, respecting the office of the bishop and elders is always wise. If it comes to you eventually leaving, better to leave on respectful terms than in anger.

If you persist, not in arrogance, but in prepared scripture and "historical" perspective, and encourage him to be Berean with you, I wouldn't be surprised you find him relenting a bit and coming more to your side rather than vice versa.

Regarding the law, Christ said he didn't come to destroy it, and Paul said it was our schoolmaster. If we don't have a good understanding of the Law, how can we appreciate grace? We Western evangelicals ignore the law at our peril.
 
Yes I have read some of his work and watched up to #9 in the video series he did. I was wondering why did the series stop at #9? Are they in the process of making more or am I just not finding them for some reason? He didn't get into the New Testament.
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
Yes I have read some of his work and watched up to #9 in the video series he did. I was wondering why did the series stop at #9? Are they in the process of making more or am I just not finding them for some reason? He didn't get into the New Testament.
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Go to Bible.org and download his book on divorce and remarriage, which includes a chapter on polygyny from OT and NT perspectives. Or order a paperback of just that chapter. I've viewed this site since the old version, but only actively posted recently. Dr. Luck was the guest speaker at two? retreats and has some awesome videos from those appearances. I don't know if the site still has those links. In some of his works, he describes the harmony of OT and NT and explains how they really don't contradict each other, especially in polygyny.
 
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