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Making Progress on the church acceptance front
- Thread starter Daniel DeLuca
- Start date
This is an ancient concept in English common law. Marriage predates the state. It arises from an authority separate from it. US Supreme court rulings are long consistent with this as well in the specific case of marriage.
The crazy thing about Christians pointing to modern legal marriage is that the state from ancient times in our system did not form marriage. It was seen as being from the authority of the family or the church. A church which forms marriages not of their own authority but the states is at best idiotic and at worst testifying they are not a church but an organ of the state. *cough* 501(c)3 *cough*
I still have the opportunity to influence people within the church, for now any ways, so even if I can't get the church leadership on board, my arguments are much more effective with the people who make up the church, if I am willing to pursue this. I just sent out emails to a few of the orchestra members today, advising them that they might possibly be told to not have any contact with me, because tonight is rehearsal, and I wanted to get out ahead of any such anouncement. Leadership has been claiming that this is all confidential, but I have nothing to hide, and I wanted to make that clear to my fellow players, who don't know what is going on. I already got a response back from one of them, who wants to call me. I gave her my number and she said that she and her husband want to talk with me. Having said this, I have sort of crossed the Rubricon now, and I may need one of those shirts, as I am sure if this gets back to leadership, they will no doubt ask me to leave. I also have been invited to our Sunday School class planning meeting, on Friday, and I don't usually come to these things, but I will this time, as I may just be asked not to go to class, even if they don't find out that I sent those emails.
I had dinner with one of the trombone players last night. He and I have had dinner quite a few times, and I know that he sides with me, even though he is concerned about the legal aspect. He in fact recommended I contact my state representatives to see if they might be willing to amend the statute. He had a persuasive argument for even trying to get my liberal rep to go along with it, but I don't know if I can bring myself to doing this, as I might feel indebted to him after securing his cooperation.
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There is another place in the Bible that uses the same phrasing but instead is talking about Christian women, specifically widows that would be supported by and thus serve the church:
“Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.” –
I Timothy 5:9
That is most definitely not my post SBC-plan, but then I don't see a one issue disagreement as shackles. It was a privilege to play in that orchestra, and I enjoyed it while it lasted. I would have liked to stick around for at least one more Christmas performance, because the stuff we will be doing, is completely awesome, but all good things have to come to an end sooner or later.
My wife doesn't like my post-SBC plan, because she still is fearful of meeting people who practice polygamy, and she knows that if I were to start a nondenominational church, pro-poly people would be there.
None that I would consider to be religious shackles.
I like where you are going with that, especially since that was uttered by Paul himself, and we know he was most likely not trying to say that a woman who has been widowed twice should not be taken care of.
OK, so I wanted to give further updates. I had dinner with my trombone playing friend, and we had a good discussion on how my conversation went with the worship pastor. I decided to reach out to some of the other orchestra members as well, for fear that the leadership might instruct them to ostracize me. I confirmed that this did not happen, but I wanted to get out ahead of it, just in case that were to have happened. I know that they are uneasy about people talking to me, but they haven't gone that far. Two of the members of the orchestra responded to me. One of them wanted to call me, so I gave her my number and we spoke on the phone. She said that she agrees with the church's position, and I told her that this did not surprise me. Her proof texts were I Tim 3:12 and I Cor 7:2. I wish I had thought of what @Julia Mykaele mentioned here, because that would have been an excellent rebuttal to her misuse of I Tim 3:12. I did mention the use of Heaoutu and idios in I Cor 7:2, but she ignored that, and I pointed out the fact that she quoted that verse completely out of context, where Paul is not talking about polygamy at all, but rather, celibacy. She said that I was trying to convince her, when in reality, I was challenging her to try to convince me. She said that she would pray for me. That's what a lot of Christians like to do when they don't have facts to back up their assertions. I don't ever do that myself, especially if I am talking with a skeptic. I had a coworker who embraced Buddhism. and his parents were Christians. I asked him if his mother always told him that she was going to pray for him, and he confirmed that she did. My response was that we should not tell the person who doesn't believe that we are going to pray for them, but just do so privately, because God doesn't need us to tell that person that we are going to pray for them in order to answer that prayer.
The first chair violinist also responded and we had an interesting email exchange. He tried to bring in some non-Biblical arguments into the debate, and I wasn't going to let him get away with that. He asserted that he was surprised that no one has "set me straight", and I called him out on that. He then proposed a series of theological mind reading questions for me. I initially responded that I am not into reading God's mind, and that His thoughts are not ours, and His ways are higher than ours. He said that I was misusing Isaiah and Paul, because that was specifically about the message of salvation. So he wanted me to speculate on why homosexuality is wrong, why adultery and divorce are wrong, why one man and one woman is good, and what is really going on in Ephesians 5. Well, I responded that Scripture tells us that homosexuality is an abomination; we don't have to speculate about that. I said that Malachi tells us that God wanted to raise godly offspring, and that was why He said that He hates divorce, and I said that one man and one woman is good for the same reason that one man and multiple women is good, and that Scripture tells us that marriage is honorable. I said that the Greek word used, is "Gamos", and that is where we get our words, "monogamy" and "polygamy" from. I said that I think I know the answer that he expected to give and that I don't subscribe to New Age philosophies that have infiltrated the church. I saw him on Sunday. He said in his email that he wants to get together with me, and I know that he saw me, but he didn't make any effort to reach out and talk to me so that we could get together, and I just let it go. In his initial response, he came across as if he was going to let me have it, and I told him to hold off until I was ready to stomach his verbal tirade, though not in those words, and he clarified that what he meant, was that he was not going to be soft on this particular issue. We will have to see how that turns out.
The first chair violinist also responded and we had an interesting email exchange. He tried to bring in some non-Biblical arguments into the debate, and I wasn't going to let him get away with that. He asserted that he was surprised that no one has "set me straight", and I called him out on that. He then proposed a series of theological mind reading questions for me. I initially responded that I am not into reading God's mind, and that His thoughts are not ours, and His ways are higher than ours. He said that I was misusing Isaiah and Paul, because that was specifically about the message of salvation. So he wanted me to speculate on why homosexuality is wrong, why adultery and divorce are wrong, why one man and one woman is good, and what is really going on in Ephesians 5. Well, I responded that Scripture tells us that homosexuality is an abomination; we don't have to speculate about that. I said that Malachi tells us that God wanted to raise godly offspring, and that was why He said that He hates divorce, and I said that one man and one woman is good for the same reason that one man and multiple women is good, and that Scripture tells us that marriage is honorable. I said that the Greek word used, is "Gamos", and that is where we get our words, "monogamy" and "polygamy" from. I said that I think I know the answer that he expected to give and that I don't subscribe to New Age philosophies that have infiltrated the church. I saw him on Sunday. He said in his email that he wants to get together with me, and I know that he saw me, but he didn't make any effort to reach out and talk to me so that we could get together, and I just let it go. In his initial response, he came across as if he was going to let me have it, and I told him to hold off until I was ready to stomach his verbal tirade, though not in those words, and he clarified that what he meant, was that he was not going to be soft on this particular issue. We will have to see how that turns out.
I believe the restriction that a Bishop and deacon must be the husband of one wife refers to the fact that they were not divorced.
And your use of I Tim 5:9 is excellent support for that argument. I spent two hours on the phone with Dr. William Luck last week, and that verse came up, and he said something that I have read elsewhere on a site that was definitely NOT pro-poly, but their argument made sense because of the culture and the time this was written, that Paul was actually talking about choosing men who do not frequent the temple prostitutes. When we look at divorce, I think one factor that should be taken into consideration is who initiated it, and why the divorce was initiated. If he initiated it because she was committing fornication, I don't think that we should hold that against him. Now, if his wife initiated it because he was abusive, he most certainly is not qualified to lead in the church.
Now if you really want things to get dicey, look at how many wives the leaders of these FLDS cults often end up with, leaving many of the men in those cults trying to find wives who are under age. So while I agree wholeheartedly, that this verse is not condemning polygamy per se, it still might be a good idea for leaders to restrict themselves in the number of wives they take. Having said that, we all acknowledge that the leaders of BF have more than one wife, and they exercise self-control, and don't attempt to gain large quantities of wives, and they have certainly proven themselves to be quite capable of leading a ministry organization that is faithful to God and His Word.
I am not against polygyny, but I find it wrong for men to have many wives. Paul said that spouses should not deny each other sex, if a man has many wives, he will not be able to fulfill his marital duties. And he won't be able to pay attention to so many children. David was a horrible father, maybe he never had much time for his children. The woman must care if the man will be a good father.
I wouldn't go so far as to call him a horrible father. He did poorly in his response to Amnon's raping of his half sister, and we can only speculate why, (after all what he had done was rather shameful to start with) but he did a great job with Solomon. Now Solomon clearly went overboard on the number of wives he had, but his children did not have any drama or acting out, or murder or whatever but then again, Nathan clearly told David the reason that he was about to experience the heartache and bloodshed that ensued. We can look at what Absalom did as poor parenting, or as backlash for the failure to respond to what Amnon did. Two other sons are mentioned, one of whom tried to usurp the throne and if he had not asked for Abishag to be his wife, Solomon would not have put him to death, but then again, blaming that on poor parenting, would be ignoring the judgment that Nathan pronounced, and the specific reason why that was announced, was that he (David) had taken Bathsheba to be his wife and had her husband killed by the Ammonites. One other son of David is mentioned, and he was Chileab, born to Abigail, and we never hear of anything good or bad about him, as he seems to have slipped off into relative obscurity.
I think we look at single mothers today, and see how many children raised in that environment, turn out to be poor adults in society, and extrapolate that to what we think would happen in a polygamous family where the man has too many wives. When we look at how large families actually turn out, Josh Duggat notwithstanding, and even he isn't as bad as a lot of those raised by single mothers, well, we can take a look at the Bountiful, and the guy has like 11 wives, and his children are quite industrious. We can look at Philip Sharp. These men do have flaws, but have managed to raise decent hard working children.
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You seem to have the same argument as @The truth. You liked his/her version of truth before you knew anything about them. Seems odd to me, but maybe I'm wrong.
Would you care to comment on the success of the parenting skills of the first monogamous couple and their sons Cain and Able, particularly in regard to these boys interpersonal relationships? Are monogamous parents really so exemplary? God had David and one of his sons write a considerable amount of the Old Testament scriptures. And Moses was another polygamist who God had write a word or two. Did God get it wrong? Perhaps you should take a moment and read the words of David's son written in God's book of wisdom; Proverbs 18:2(?) Cheers
Ooooooo I cringe when somebody talks crap about King David. Yikes!
@Julia Mykaele since you are new here, I would recommend you go back to this thread
The truth from southern Utah
and click on the "Unlike" link. We welcome trolls here, but it may be somewhat of an embarrassment for you to have that out there.
@Julia Mykaele is not arguing against polygamy here. She is arguing against excessive wives, and I think she is right, but not for the reason that she stated.