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I do realize I am probably over thinking a simple thing, I just started thinking about what could be the difference in a gift and a calling after I had created the title to this thread and, well, I thought what better place to ask my question just to see what others here who have deep spiritual understandings think about the subject. Thanks to all who have replied to my musings.
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Calling, gift, or whatever I too agree that we who are a part of the rebirth of PM as a family structure established by God need to do our individual parts to stand against the flood of humanity that says otherwise.
Does one need a special gifting or calling to marry one wife? Is a second wife different than a first and requires a special calling? Scripture doesn’t seem to ever differentiate between a man with one and a man more than one, it just calls him a husband.
Scripture doesn't differentiate, but our culture sure does. It's not just a quantitative chance going from one to two wives—it's a helluva a qualitative change.
I'm not arguing that it requires a special gifting or calling; I'd argue instead that modern cultural Christianity in the West is vapid and boring, and that going strongly counter-cultural is where we should have been in the first place.
Yes, in this country it absolutely is.
I agree that the implementation of plurality is not a simple thing, especially in this culture. But, to me, the idea of gift or calling implies spiritual gifts (as listed by @Kevin above). Since marriage itself is not a gift listed, why would plural somehow be a special gift or calling? The gifts of leader or administrator would certainly help, but those are listed for the specific benefit of the church.
If anything, the gift of love would be paramount, but one doesn't need marriage to express that gift.
We are all called to service in the Kingdom, using the gifts given to us. If God calls you into an area of service that would require you to be married to more than one, then a calling is needed.
Other than that, wouldn't the rules of adding one apply to adding more than one?
If anything, the gift of love would be paramount, but one doesn't need marriage to express that gift.
We are all called to service in the Kingdom, using the gifts given to us. If God calls you into an area of service that would require you to be married to more than one, then a calling is needed.
Other than that, wouldn't the rules of adding one apply to adding more than one?
The only service I can think of that would require a man to have more than one woman to fulfill that service is that of man who is being called to be an example of a husband in a biblical plural marriage. That entails a lot more than just finding an additional wife/wives.
I'm a firm believer that a single man can never be an example of how to be a good husband to a married man because he lacks the knowledge and wisdom of experience of being married. He may have book knowledge and may have seen good examples but until he's walked the walk he's just preaching foxfire. I feel the same about us in monogamous marriages trying to be examples for men in plural marriges. If we are serious about biblical marriage whether it is monogamous or polgyamous, We need to look to other men who are being called to be examples of Biblical marriage and walking the walk.
IMHO, I dont believe that you have to have a calling to be a husband to multiple women. If your leading your family in accordance to HIS will in a righteous way I don't believe it matters if G-d told you to marry another woman or two or three or not. Not many men can say they had a calling to marry in the first place. I do believe you should have a calling to some kind of minstry and any ministry can benefit from extra sets of hands as long as its G-d's will we are focused on and not our flesh.
I am certainly not trying to say that having more than one wife is something easy in this culture or any culture, for that matter. I have already had some rejection for simply believing that it isn’t a sin. Merely thinking that can make one an outcast, let alone actually having two. My only point is that biblically speaking there is no REQUIRED special gifting or calling to take more than one, any more than there is in taking one. I certainly think that one can feel lead or called by The Lord to such a thing, but i just don’t see a special gift or calling ever mentioned in connection with taking another wife, anywhere in Scripture. I agree that we should be counter culture as long as we are acting according to scripture. I think in our culture most men would fail in attempting plural because they don’t have the wisdom or the stones to make it work.
Technically, church is ekklesia, meaning 'congregation or assembly.' The Hebrew qahal is the same meaning. Family, as a building block of the congregation or assembly indeed requires the gifts of leader and/or administrator. That is why Paul says elders need to be husbands and have a well ordered house!
I see what you are saying, but marriage is not a requirement to be a part of the church. It's debatable, but it seems Paul was not married (At least he doesn't mention a wife). I think he qualified as a leader.
A husband needs to be an administrator and leader, but must church leaders and administrators all be husbands?
The gifts of administrator and leader are not reserved for just husbands. They are spiritual gifts regardless of status.
A husband needs to be an administrator and leader, but must church leaders and administrators all be husbands?
The gifts of administrator and leader are not reserved for just husbands. They are spiritual gifts regardless of status.
Just wanted to reiterate that. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it appears that @Mojo and @Asforme&myhouse are responding to my post as if I said something different.
It seems that points are being missed all around, I apologize if I miss understood.
Well said.
We were minding our own business doing worship evangelism and developing a model for prophetic intercessory worship when we were led into this. (I prefer "led" to "called".) But as has been pointed out, we don't have to be "called" to our first marriage, and we don't have to be "called" to an additional marriage. We may be "led" to marry a particular woman (first, second, or whatever), but that's different.
In fact, I just realized something. God was building my relationships with Ginny and Ann already, and all three (add Cheryl) relationships were grounded in coming alongside me and co-laboring in ministry. I would not say we were 'led' to polygamy, and then God provided the right people. I would say we were 'led' into marriage relationships from the beginning (at least that's how long God knew what the plan was), and God 'led' us into an understanding of biblical marriage before he revealed that that was his plan for us as a specific case as a way of preparing us for the task. God had to open our eyes to the structure of biblical marriage so we could then see what his plan was, but the plan was always about the specific relationships; it wasn't about "being plural" just to be plural.
More to think about there; that's a little off the top of my head. But I think I'm on to something. MWBR....
@Asforme&myhouse, you and I are agreed on the main points here. My interest was in clarifying this one sentence:
It takes a certain kind of confidence to take on this project, and the difference between 'brave' and 'foolish' is usually debriefed after the fact with 20/20 hindsight. The wisdom we need was described by the prophet Kenny: "you gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and when to run". The stones we need are the ones that help us man up and admit when we're in over our heads, not the ones that drive us to stubbornly run something into the ground and damage a bunch of peoples' lives while self-righteously maintaining that we're on top of everything and the trouble is all someone else's fault.
"Fail early and fail often" is a catch-phrase for entrepreneurs and startups. Try things, try a lot of things, but be ready to admit when something's not working and move on. The strength and the wisdom—the manliness—will be expressed primarily through being quick to forgive, quick to learn, and quick to seek help or advice when necessary. That takes real courage.
I just wanted to be sure nobody came away from that sentence with the idea that because additional wives don't require a special calling, therefore they are no different from the first, or not different in any material way. It's completely different, it just doesn't require a dream or an angel or a burning bush to get there.
I agree 100%, but I'd like to sharpen the point on this a bit, because I'm right in the middle of something now that is echoing situations I've seen before. For the cases I have seen where men failed spectacularly, the most obvious thing they have in common is the "I got this" part.
It takes a certain kind of confidence to take on this project, and the difference between 'brave' and 'foolish' is usually debriefed after the fact with 20/20 hindsight. The wisdom we need was described by the prophet Kenny: "you gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and when to run". The stones we need are the ones that help us man up and admit when we're in over our heads, not the ones that drive us to stubbornly run something into the ground and damage a bunch of peoples' lives while self-righteously maintaining that we're on top of everything and the trouble is all someone else's fault.
"Fail early and fail often" is a catch-phrase for entrepreneurs and startups. Try things, try a lot of things, but be ready to admit when something's not working and move on. The strength and the wisdom—the manliness—will be expressed primarily through being quick to forgive, quick to learn, and quick to seek help or advice when necessary. That takes real courage.
In what ways is it completely different?
I get what you're saying. But to me the "stones to make it work" which most men lack is simply being masculine and in charge enough to handle the women. Most guys can't handle one much less two. They are as yet untested by that fire.
Now there are a number who think they can and may have a 'great marriage'. But too often that just means low conflict and is because they are pushovers who go along with what wifey wants all the time or are very nice or bland enough in tastes to have never rock the boat. This type will rarely contradict the wife, wouldn't dare do anything that makes her jealous, or would avoid making her do something that displeases her. For such if you throw a second wife in the mix, or even just voice that desire, look out. So they've never had a power struggle to sort out their hierarchy. She's likely never had to temper her jealousness, possessiveness, or control.
But if you have a wife dedicated to being your helper, who has conformed to your will, who wants to make you happy and who has worked through the hangups; its a whole different ballgame. I suspect in such cases you'll still have usual drama around jealousy issues; but how they get handled will be completely different because its no longer an existential crisis for her and you're not simultaneously having a power struggle. And that means the new wife gets slotted into an established hierarchy rather than triggering a three way power struggle.
That's my untested theory anyway. Would love to hear otherwise from those who've seen more of these marriages play out.
edit: I'm not saying the second set necessarily lack balls. Sometimes yes, but some people's personalities are more easy going and not very demanding of their wife and so the relationship has not gone through the same trials. It depends on the person.
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@Asforme&myhouse, you and I are agreed on the main points here. My interest was in clarifying this one sentence:
I just wanted to be sure nobody came away from that sentence with the idea that because additional wives don't require a special calling, therefore they are no different from the first, or not different in any material way. It's completely different, it just doesn't require a dream or an angel or a burning bush to get there.
I agree 100%, but I'd like to sharpen the point on this a bit, because I'm right in the middle of something now that is echoing situations I've seen before. For the cases I have seen where men failed spectacularly, the most obvious thing they have in common is the "I got this" part.
It takes a certain kind of confidence to take on this project, and the difference between 'brave' and 'foolish' is usually debriefed after the fact with 20/20 hindsight. The wisdom we need was described by the prophet Kenny: "you gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and when to run". The stones we need are the ones that help us man up and admit when we're in over our heads, not the ones that drive us to stubbornly run something into the ground and damage a bunch of peoples' lives while self-righteously maintaining that we're on top of everything and the trouble is all someone else's fault.
"Fail early and fail often" is a catch-phrase for entrepreneurs and startups. Try things, try a lot of things, but be ready to admit when something's not working and move on. The strength and the wisdom—the manliness—will be expressed primarily through being quick to forgive, quick to learn, and quick to seek help or advice when necessary. That takes real courage.
Thank you for sharpening my point. I agree 100%. I think the, know when to hold ‘em know when to fold ‘em, thing falls more under the wisdom category than the stones category, but we are in agreement
Oh, like the way that vacationing in Canada is different from vacationing in Syria or maybe Iran. Or the way playing first person shooter games compares to being a combat soldier in a fire fight. Or the way having a second child in the U.S. would have been different from having a second child in China not too long ago (or a third child in China today).
The primary difference is real and effective opposition, often armed with legal advantages that can ruin your life and livelihood.
Then, you've done a pretty nice job of lining out the internal battle. We are conditioned in this culture to think we are being 'manly men' when we're not, really. (That's for us older types. The youngers are being conditioned and drugged into accepting their roles as compliant pajama boys.) A guy's first marriage can look like it's going okay for the wrong reasons, and then a second wife comes along and the you-know-what hits the you-know-where.
I agree with what you wrote as establishing a sort of spectrum of experience, but not to the extent it presents as an either/or dichotomy (that may just be me...). I agree with your edit: It's very personal and individual. In my experience there are so many variables it's hard to generalize, at least until we have more data.
The problem is you just don't know what to expect, so it's hard to anticipate how you're going to handle it. There's a phrase you hear sometimes at the gym: "I'm sore in places I didn't even know I had muscles!" The same sort of thing happens here: "I'm experiencing pain in places I didn't even know I had feelings!" And there may be women out there that have not gone through at least a mid-sized existential crisis transitioning to plural living, but I don't know them personally, and will look forward to learning more about how that works when/if I ever do.
All of this stuff falls under the "walk by faith, not by sight" rule. If you believe God is with you "building the house", then trust Him and keep your eyes on Him and everything else should fall into place. Just be prepared to admit it if/when you begin to suspect that some of the stuff you thought you knew about God, Christian discipleship, marriage, men, women, and Western culture might be wrong....
Nope. Not implying you said that.
That's the problem I have with the initial premise, not you.It was the admixture of the difficulty of PM in our modern, Western society that I saw as unnecessary to a discussion of the biblical gifts. It is counter cultural and requiring of a stiff spine and stones, but not necessarily any special spiritual gifts not already included with monogamy.
Under a lot of stress right now (just standard life stuff) so maybe my wording is off.