Re: Christian motivation 4 marrying widows
Sometimes I find myself staring down the muzzle of my own gun. It's happening again.
I am a strong believer in the marital ministry (James 1:27; 1 Cor 7:8,9; 1 Tim 5:14 and Deut 25:5ff) of believers marrying believing widows to minister to them in their "distress/affliction" (from Strong's 2347:
affliction, anguish, burden, tribulation, trouble), in their need to marry when they come under the command to marry (1 Cor 7:8,9; 1 Tim 5:14).
This ministry is how three ladies became mine. The two younger ones have since opted out of our polygyny. A 70 year old man is not a hot item in the marital market. Well I have come under conviction as to how serious I really am about this "ministry."
I was very intimate with a classmate @53 years ago and I have made the commitment to be her friend as long as possible. Her mother died when she was a small child and her father became mentally ill and abandoned her when she was in high school. She has been alone and supporting herself since the 11th grade. Then she married a rabid atheist who harassed and troubled her mercilessly for her faith, until he died of cancer about 15 years ago.
He children are abusive and exploit her shamelessly. She feels totally unloved by what family she has except for her one young granddaughter who is good to her.
She is struggling with being very controlling, co-dependent and manipulative. I tried to include her in my family's Christmas and Thanksgiving events but my first lady and my kids can't handle her. So I don't invite her anymore. Instead I try to have lunch with her once a month and around the holidays. She indicates that she is very lonely and starved for affection.
I have refrained from asking her if she wants to become one of my ladies because I'm not sure she is genuinely saved (she attends church regularly put apparently has no daily communion with Father), I am not physically attracted to her at all, I'm not sure how she feels about Biblical polygyny, and I'm afraid she might want to do polygyny with me just to get more of me. Of the two of my ladies who came on board my polygyny because they wanted more of me, one has opted out and the other is as unsubmissive as my first lady. I am not eager to get another rebel aboard, especially when I have no sexual desire for her (marriage is a sexual relationship), and she is not physically or emotionally attractive to me.
So am I being a hypocrite by dodging and delaying the possibility of polygyny with this lady? My polygyny is working so well that all my ladies are away from me and with their children and grandchildren this Christmas, leaving me to go and be with my children and grandchildren.
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Marrying needy women, especially widows.
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is
this: to look after [bereaved, parentless, orphaned] children
and widows [lacking husbands](5503) in their distress and to keep
oneself unstained by the world.
(5503) ch>ra, — khay’-rah; the idea of deficiency;
a widow (as lacking a husband), literal or figurative: — widow.
Deficiency: An abandoned, forsaken, rejected, deserted, divorced
woman, especially a mother, has the deficiency of lacking a much needed husband. With this
understanding, it is possible to see them under the umbrella of James
1:27.
Godly widows, abandoned mothers and wives, especially those who are not seniors, are under God's command to marry and if they are godly and sensitive to the Spirit, they will be the most likely to respond to the opportunity to marry a godly polygynist who has a servant's heart to maritally serve such women.
***Deut 25:5If brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, his wife shall not be married to a stranger outside the family. Her husband's [single or married] brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. [If he refuses to marry her and have children by her] 9then his brother's wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall declare, 'Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.'
***1 Tim 514 Therefore, I want younger widows(5503=women bereft of a husband) to marry, have children, manage their households, and give the adversary no opportunity to accuse us.
(5503) ch>ra, — khay’-rah; feminine of a presumed derivative apparently
from the base of (5490) (ca>sma) through the idea of deficiency;
a widow (as lacking a husband), literal or figurative: — widow.
Thayer's Lexicon: 1) a widow, 2) metaph. a city stripped of its inhabitants and riches is represented under the figure of a widow
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lex ... 5503&t=KJV
Hebrew OT equivalent: (H488) 'almanah, a widow, of a state bereft of its king, desolate; (H491) 'almanuwth, widowhood, Israel bereft of its land
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lex ... rongs=H490
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lex ... rongs=H491
Thayer and Arndt-Gingrich Greek Lexicons: "bereft woman", i.e. deprived of or robbed of a husband, and so lacking a needed husband
***1 Cor 7: 1* ¶ But concerning the things of which you have written to me: It is good for a male not to continue -keep on - touching a woman; 2 but because of and to avoid sexual immorality each man should be [sexually] having his own woman, and each woman should be [sexually] having her own man. . . .4. The woman doesn't have [sexual] authority over her own body, but the husband [does]; in like manner also the man doesn't have [sexual] authority over his own body, but the woman [does]. 5 Do not be denying each other [sexually], unless, it may be, by consent for a time, that you may devote yourselves to fasting and prayer, and again be conjugally cohabiting [sexually reuniting], that Satan tempt you not because of your incontinency. . . . 8To the unmarried and the widows (5503=women bereft of a husband) I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. 9 But if they are not [Strong's 3756] continuing to restrain themselves [are not abstaining from sex sin], they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.
9 But if they are not [Strong's 3756] continuing to restrain{1467} themselves [are not abstaining{1467} from sex sin], they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.
9 But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire. HCSB
and if they have not continence -- they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn; YLT
The Word for the godly husband, and his godly wife if he has one, about seeing a widow, or a woman who has lost her husband or the father of her children, under command to marry and in need of a godly husband:
***1 Jn 3:16 This is how we have come to know love: He, [Jesus Christ,] laid down His Life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren. 17 If anyone has this world's material possessions and sees his fellow believer in need but has no pity on him, closing his heart against him, how can the Love of God be abiding in him? 18 Dear children, we should not Love with words or speech but with actions and in Truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the Truth, and how we assure and set our hearts at rest in His presence . . .
The application in the case of widows , or women who have lost their husbands or the fathers of their children, or is this:
If anyone has this world's material possessions and sees his fellow believer in need but has no pity on her, closing his heart against her, how can the Love of God be abiding in him? 18 Dear children, we should not Love with words or speech but with actions and in Truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the Truth, and how we assure and set our hearts at rest in His presence . . .
Widows and husband deficient women often have been socially, physically and emotionally abused, beaten and perhaps even "robbed"Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" 37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
"So any person who knows what is right to do but does not do it, to him it is sin." James 4:16-17
