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Being Shunned, AND LIKING IT.

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Revelation 18:4
Then I heard another voice from heaven say: "'Come out of her, my people,' so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues;

Babylon is considered to the world government system, Mystery Babylon is what woud describe the church system that encompasses the world systems and eventually leads people away from the One True God. Coming out of this system seems to be highly important when the time comes just before the fall of Babylon spoken of in Revelations.

This morning at church we saw three separate women in the middle of worship, raising their hands in praise and honor, singing, closing their eyes in prayer, and checking their cell phones for text messages. All at the same time. Once the text messages were sent, back to praise and worship, with hands held high. Repeatedly.

At the retreat a large portion of the discussion was about how we as christians who believe in plural marriage are being removed from this system. Based on Rev 18, that appears to be a blessing in disguise.

I myself, and I'm thinking a lot of others, have held the idea that if I could bring the biblical idea of family to them they would see the light and that would help in bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth. But that's not what Revelations says is going to happen.

Why are we trying to be a part of this system? Have I missed something?
 
Who said I was trying? I detest this system!
I admit though to missing what true fellowship and community is supposed to be.....enough to think for a fraction of an instant on a few rare occasions that going to church might be nice. I mostly like singing with other folks.

I was raised by Mormon parents, but went to other churches and fellowships too before I married. Since then on the rare times I have attended meetings anywhere the dominant impression on me has been how much I'm NOT missing.

That makes me think in a vain moment we might have something to offer others that go to churches....but I doubt many of them would appreciate talking doctrine with us....I've tried enough to be pretty sure we would not be liked for long!
Boat rockers are only appreciated by strong confident swimmers....and churches teach everyone to rely on someone else. (let the pastor or other leaders be your lifesaver donut/safety net)
No practice swimming coupled with fear mongering is the general rule. I'm sure most who study their bibles have well meaning family telling them to be careful, and worried they will be deceived.....the sheep think there's safety in numbers even if the flock is heading for the slaughter house!
But I'm just rambling here. This site is more like a real fellowship and functioning body of believers then most churches I am aware of.
 
Joleneakamama said:
Who said I was trying? I detest this system!
I admit though to missing what true fellowship and community is supposed to be.....enough to think for a fraction of an instant on a few rare occasions that going to church might be nice. I mostly like singing with other folks.

I was raised by Mormon parents, but went to other churches and fellowships too before I married. Since then on the rare times I have attended meetings anywhere the dominant impression on me has been how much I'm NOT missing.

That makes me think in a vain moment we might have something to offer others that go to churches....but I doubt many of them would appreciate talking doctrine with us....I've tried enough to be pretty sure we would not be liked for long!
Boat rockers are only appreciated by strong confident swimmers....and churches teach everyone to rely on someone else. (let the pastor or other leaders be your lifesaver donut/safety net)
No practice swimming coupled with fear mongering is the general rule. I'm sure most who study their bibles have well meaning family telling them to be careful, and worried they will be deceived.....the sheep think there's safety in numbers even if the flock is heading for the slaughter house!
But I'm just rambling here. This site is more like a real fellowship and functioning body of believers then most churches I am aware of.
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Amen. And I know what you are saying. And I also know your situation makes it difficult to attend retreats, BUT they do provide the fellowship we, those who value PM, where rest can be found among like minded believers.
 
As time goes on we are finding it harder and harder to fellowship at the church we have been a part of for years. It doesn’t help that they recently purchased a large building and almost every week we see another “seeker friendly” thing or program added to the mix. It’s becoming more like a corporation month by month... I guess technically that’s what it is. It’s sad. We haven’t been going very much lately, and when we do, it’s only to fellowship with other believers, not for the teaching. I became a believer at the age of 5 and grew up in Sunday school and church. As a kid, I lived for Sunday school, I just loved it. I’m sad that my kids may not have that.
 
Jolene and Cap, you've both mentioned several key thoughts and made some important observations. The "mob" mentality one observes in the world's free speech, activisim riots, rock/drug festivals, etc. is totally preached again by the brick and mortar pulpits and leadership; yet, they don't see the mob mentality that has developed within their 4 walls. You're encouraged to circle up, stay in the group, don't jump ship, there's safety in numbers, etc. I've seen the thirst for truth and the hunger to learn and study out "what saith the Lord" automatically puts you on the fringe edges of the flocks in any brick and mortar. Having lived on both the East and West coasts, in the North and the South, traveled extensively throughout the USA, I can tell you that with the truths my Yeshua has shown me over the past 2 years, I don't know a single brick and mortar that would gladly accept me into their flock if the truth I have was presented and made available to them first.

I am thankful for vv76 sharing the forum with me. I'm even more thankful that after lurking for approx 3-4 months I became a member and got to interact for another 3 months prior to the retreat. Prior to retreat I had no face or name to put with anyone's handle which can give a psuedo appearance of community. Attending retreat added a new dimension to my BF community. I met husband/wife, children/parent, and interested singles who are daring to stand on the Biblical truth of PM. I really anticipated being one of only a few seniors at retreat. I was surpised to see how many of my generation are embracing this concept. It helped me greatly to realize I'm not the only one at my age grasping onto this truth and being willing to publically talk about it--granted at the retreat I wasn't stepping out to talk about it--everyone there had some level of commitment to the truth of PM.

I don't know of anyone who likes "being shunned". Because of my back story I had to learn at a very young age how to deal with "being shunned" and still function. I never learned to like it--there's quite a price tag that comes with it. I had to learn to accept it rather than fight it because there was nothing I could do as a child that would or could change the circumstances surrounding the reason triggering "the shunning". Because I learned to accept it in my home and in my school settings, I could then focus on being the best I could be and becoming the best I could become. I chose to fight on my own turf instead of theirs. There's something that happens inside of one when the struggle is embraced and you begin in your own way to make lemonade with the lemons. It's really the only way to avoid seeing oneself as a victim. It doesn't put you in a state of denial as to what the facts are, but you are also able to skirt to some extent the victim mentality which cripples you. Embracing and trusting the Lord empowers you to praise in the midst of seemingly insurmountable situations. Embracing doesn't mean there won't be damage which will eventually require healing and repair. I do believe it provides a form of damage control at ground zero within the human psyche.

If you're shunned by the anti-God crowd, then liking it isn't a problem. Some would even wear the shunning as a badge or consider it a status symbol. The real problem arises when those who name the name of Christ, the ones with whom you identify and from whom you receive to some extent your identity begin to shun you. Now where do you go? To whom do you turn? Isolation can begin to erode your foundation of how you see yourself. IMO the ONLY way to "be shunned and like it" is to run very quickly to our Papa--daddy God--implicitly trust His heart when you can't see His hand, and know there is comfort, unconditional love, and real help to be found in Them.
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
As time goes on we are finding it harder and harder to fellowship at the church we have been a part of for years. It doesn’t help that they recently purchased a large building and almost every week we see another “seeker friendly” thing or program added to the mix. It’s becoming more like a corporation month by month... I guess technically that’s what it is. It’s sad. We haven’t been going very much lately, and when we do, it’s only to fellowship with other believers, not for the teaching. I became a believer at the age of 5 and grew up in Sunday school and church. As a kid, I lived for Sunday school, I just loved it. I’m sad that my kids may not have that.
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We are living in difficult days and changing times. You have to begin to create for your children or provide new opportunities for them so they have a foundation. It might not look like what you had as a child, but God will help you. They need good healthy community just like we as adults need it. You have the priviledge to search out that form of community that affirms what you and your wife are desiring to teach in your home. Then plan well so those opportunities of like-minded community do not slip through your fingers.
 
While the churches don't offer much value, that is primarily because they are mostly an empty counterfeit. There is nothing like the loving fellowship of true Christian community. It's near impossible to find, but you can start now by loving someone.

Asforme&myhouse said:
As time goes on we are finding it harder and harder to fellowship at the church we have been a part of for years. It doesn’t help that they recently purchased a large building and almost every week we see another “seeker friendly” thing or program added to the mix. It’s becoming more like a corporation month by month... I guess technically that’s what it is. It’s sad. We haven’t been going very much lately, and when we do, it’s only to fellowship with other believers, not for the teaching. I became a believer at the age of 5 and grew up in Sunday school and church. As a kid, I lived for Sunday school, I just loved it. I’m sad that my kids may not have that.
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I have seen it time and again; church leaders will cancel Biblical commands and throw out practicing Christians if they fear it might offend or keep away new seekers. Any church that tries to go big, rather than split and multiply, is going to have problems. When you care about numbers over the level of piety among their believers you've got it all backwards. Jesus changed the world with just 12 men.

You have a body of believers about you. Build close fellowship with like minded Christians within your current church; focusing on love and rightousness. The rest will take care of itself later.

Cap said:
I myself, and I'm thinking a lot of others, have held the idea that if I could bring the biblical idea of family to them they would see the light and that would help in bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth.
Click to expand...

You have the strike the root. PM will be rejected out of hand because they do not have a biblical mindset and are enthralled by the worldly views on marriage and gender issues. Root out women worshiping idolatries first and they'll be better able to accept counter-cultural ideas.
 
Genesis 12:1&2. Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

There comes a point and time where to follow God and truth may mean separation from everything and everyone that you have known. I was honored to share our story at the retreat and hopefully provide a challenge and additional perspective to this journey we all call a Biblical Family. For those of you unable to make it there, here’s a thumbnail sketch of where we were and how God brought our family out.

We attended an atypical small assembly that was atypical because God was doing great things and growing people and showing himself to be mighty there.
I was on record multiple times at BF retreats where I believed that if any church would accept Biblical Poly, this one was it.
When I approached my pastor, just to let him know that I had been studying this and had come to a different conclusion than what was traditionally accepted, it was like he lost his mind. Someone that I had known for close to 20 years turned into someone I’d never have imagined.
The result that I would have never predicted happened. First we were requested to stay away from work parties, then Resurrection Sunday, then indefinitely. When I insisted on a meeting with the deacons per Matt. 18, I was then browbeat to “just leave quietly”.
After I was adamant that the meeting happen, it did. However, only one man out of 4 even attempted to open his Bible and discuss verses (not a deacon or the pastor) and he was quickly ignored by the others as they proceeded to force us out.
One of the best things that happened in the meeting, was that I made sure that there were other witnesses, (my son and another young man in the church) and that the meeting was recorded. This did 3 things. 1) there were other witnesses than just theirs. 2) My son and this other young man got to see the true political machinations behind the scenes of this thing we call normal church. And 3) I’m certain it tempered their responses and attitudes.
Though we did not want to leave and really saw no Biblical basis for being forced to leave, in hindsight, it has become a defining moment in my Christian walk. I definitely see God’s hand in all of it and in so many ways, it was the final test for me to “graduate” into the full measure of a man of faith.
Looking back, so many things are much clearer and I have begun to see things through a different perspective. God used the medium of Biblical polygyny as a fulcrum to test my faith and dedication to truth in an arena that was totally unexpected - the Assembly! The topic and timing was such that I felt I must take a stand when it became an issue, though that was NOT my intent initially. Finally, once having made a stand, and on this topic, it became obvious to me that I and my family would be unwelcome in any brick and mortar “church” that I was aware of and most home churches as well. After having taken a stand in my own assembly that I loved and was invested in, why would I ever try to be a chameleon in another church that I wasn’t invested in?

God used all of these things to bring me to a point where I finally had to accept that He was moving me to my own wilderness and that I would have to step up and truly be the spiritual head of my own household. Though it has been a very trying time, it has been so worth it. The sense of liberty in Christ has been amazing. Multiple members of our household have remarked about it. The spiritual growth of our entire family has been amazing. I have stood in awe as I watched God maturing and growing my children and my beautiful wife in ways that I would have never dreamed possible.

In hindsight, I do not believe that Biblical Polygyny and corporate christianity as we know it today is compatible. This does not necessarily mean that God intends for your family to exist in isolation! On the contrary, IF you are exercising your God given influence and taking a stand where He leads, the fellowship that you will find will be with other extraordinary believers who have taken their own leap of faith into nothing and found everything!
 
Like my dad used to tell me, “Don’t beat on a dead horse. It don’t do the horse no good and wears you out.” I guess we need to check the pulse of some. They may be walk-in n talkin, but they may not have life. The pulse test is always the Word. I found this out 30 years ago after being asked not to come back to four fellowships. Yeah, I’m a slow learner. “God’s Word Calls For a Total Separation From Unbelief.” Not us. The Word does it. We just Believe, Obey, Submit, and Serve (B.O.S.S.). When one truly believes they will act on It. Make believers only pretend. They can even believe it just as good as Satan, but they refuse to cross the Jordan or go into the “land” of promise. Tables are full of vomit, yet we try to stay among them. Death is a requirement, but “we”can’t be content to be a walking dead when every truth God reveals Calls us to Life. Even if it’s that truth . . . the “P” word.
Revelation 18:4 KJV
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” What are her sins? I am aware that this may take this another direction or the proverbial “opening a can of worms”, but sin is defined as missing the mark. Y’all do the study. When scripture speaks of sin there is unbelief with it. Interesting. Also, drunkenness, stealing, fraud, smoking, etc, etc are not the sin, they are the attributes of sin. Sin is Unbelief. Just like passion, folks try to take words and mistakenly apply some object to it. I am not passionate about music, medicine, books, business, etc, etc. Sin is a spiritual condition, just like passion is a spiritual condition. Gotta study the etymological of passion first. Finally, great posts everyone for learning.
 
I have chosen to walk away from corporate fellowship where I am unwelcome, but not all corporate fellowship. Certainly the mainstream church has many flaws. Nevertheless, mainstream churches can be full of many genuine loving Christians. If they choose to reject me, I'll go away peacefully - but I won't presume they will reject me and avoid fellowship in the first place.

We had to leave a local church over this issue. We spent some time completely "unchurched" after that.

Now we are living a life that is separate from the organised church, yet at the same time fully interacting with them. Since my grandmother passed away last year, my older children often accompany my grandfather as he attends the church we left (more for his sake than anything else, but they do get something out of it also and it prompts theological questions they bring back to me). I regularly attend another local church with the children, and have even become involved in a ministry activity with that church. The majority of our Christian brothers and sisters are within the churches, and it is good to interact with them for as long as they don't reject us. It also gives the children an opportunity to make Christian friends. I make an effort not to be the one to cause disunity.

But as @Verifyveritas76 has said, this has strongly emphasised that I am the head of my home, and responsible for leading my family in God. We study scripture together, and my children's primary Christian instruction is from me.

We then interact with two separate church fellowships, but not weekly (neither more than twice a month), and are not under either fellowship in any way. We are our own, separate family, under God. But we welcome fellowship with all who will accept us.
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
When I approached my pastor, just to let him know that I had been studying this and had come to a different conclusion than what was traditionally accepted, it was like he lost his mind. Someone that I had known for close to 20 years turned into someone I’d never have imagined.
The result that I would have never predicted happened. First we were requested to stay away from work parties, then Resurrection Sunday, then indefinitely. When I insisted on a meeting with the deacons per Matt. 18, I was then browbeat to “just leave quietly”.
Click to expand...

There is something important going on here. While this is just one experience, everyone else's I've read here is pretty similar.

I've experienced a lot of hate and rejection from the church over my rejection of feminism but it is usually much slower to build. The ferocity here is remarkable.

If you said, "I'm having doubts that God really exists." Would you get the same response? Or would they try and study with you and help you like a struggling believer.

I'm really curious what is going on here. I struggle to come up with a parallel.

Maybe if you sacrificed a goat to Satan during the Lord's supper you'd get the same reaction.
 
rockfox said:
There is something important going on here. While this is just one experience, everyone else's I've read here is pretty similar.

I've experienced a lot of hate and rejection from the church over my rejection of feminism but it is usually much slower to build. The ferocity here is remarkable.

If you said, "I'm having doubts that God really exists." Would you get the same response? Or would they try and study with you and help you like a struggling believer.

I'm really curious what is going on here. I struggle to come up with a parallel.

Maybe if you sacrificed a goat to Satan during the Lord's supper you'd get the same reaction.
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Lol! Yeah the sacrifice thing might do it

I think they fear women more than they fear God.
 
I just wish the folks here at BF would pick a church and descend upon that church. The influx of new members might make the administrators of that church think twice before expelling all those new prospects. Change sometimes has to come from within. I was reading yesterday about a church in Circleville, Utah called Be Free Patriarchial Christian Church. Might be a good place to visit, if I am ever in that part of the country. BF ought to think about hosting a conference there. These churches need all the support we can give them.
 
Daniel DeLuca said:
I just wish the folks here at BF would pick a church and descend upon that church. The influx of new members might make the administrators of that church think twice before expelling all those new prospects. Change sometimes has to come from within. I was reading yesterday about a church in Circleville, Utah called Be Free Patriarchial Christian Church. Might be a good place to visit, if I am ever in that part of the country. BF ought to think about hosting a conference there. These churches need all the support we can give them.
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This approach would create more problems than it would fix. At some point you’ve gotta let the dead bury the dead. A lack of Truth or the rejection thereof has turned more church buildings into whited sepulchers full of dead men’s bones than any other reason. IMO it’s better to let them stand as a testimony and warning to their own demise than to keep applying whitewash.
 
Daniel DeLuca said:
I was reading yesterday about a church in Circleville, Utah called Be Free Patriarchial Christian Church. Might be a good place to visit, if I am ever in that part of the country. BF ought to think about hosting a conference there.
Click to expand...
The BeFree community died years ago, and the founder/leader has recanted his polygamy teaching and tries to avoid association with it (he's way off into end times + hebrew roots stuff now). (No offense to my HR brothers; it's his particular cocktail of HR and end times alarmism that is interesting to me.) (And I don't mean he's "way off" as in heretical or "off his rocker", I just mean he's way down a particular road. That has nothing to do with plural marriage. In the context of which his previous association with PM is an embarrassment to him.)

Meanwhile Daniel, I would disagree with everything else you said in that post. The government churches don't "need our support". We need to recognize the evil they represent and come out of them.
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
This approach would create more problems than it would fix. At some point you’ve gotta let the dead bury the dead. A lack of Truth or the rejection thereof has turned more church buildings into whited sepulchers full of dead men’s bones than any other reason. IMO it’s better to let them stand as a testimony and warning to their own demise than to keep applying whitewash.
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I disagree. There are churches that we should reject because they have rejected the Word of God. This is more of a doctrinal difference issue. In the SBC, we encounter these disagreements all the time. We don't all agree on predestination, or pre-trib/post-trib/mid-trib, drinking in moderation, etc. but we agree on the Scriptures being the divinely inspired Word of God. I would think that polygamy/monogamy could be something that we could also agree to disagree on, but obviously each church is different. Just because a church doesn't agree with us on every point of doctrine, does not mean that particular church is dead or irredeemable. Look at all the problems that the seven churches in Revelations had! Our Lord offered correction, instead of outright condemnation. How are we ever going to have the live debate that we need to see happen in some of our churches, if we just abandon them? It is not like God was saying to come out from among His own people. Paul quoted that passages to say that we should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers; not fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
 
Daniel, you "be free" to be you, but you might want to look again at @Verifyveritas76's testimony. You're not the first guy to come along and think we can get this doctrine into the state church, and you won't be the last. You do what you have to do, but I don't think you're going to be able to rally much support for that here.
 
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