So here is what she said:
And here is my response:
First I want to sayt that I agree wholeheartedly that we should not twist God's Word. Unfortunately that is a lot of what i see in the first part of your response. As far as Rom 16:17-20 is concerned, we could say this about the entire Reformation movement, and how it caused division to the point where now we have the Protestant churches and the supposedly "one true Catholic church", and I KNOW you don't want to go there and try to say that we should not have had that division! There are indeed times where we need to restore the church back to its original teachings, and as I mentioned to you last night, Martin Luther was clearly pro-polygyny. I can cite some of his writings for you if you don't believe me. I find it interesting that you included I Tim 4:1, but left out verses 2-3 which tell us some of these false teachings. Among them, is the "forbidding marriage". How many women in the church have been forbidden marriage? I told you last night about the 81 year old woman up in Seagoville who finally got married after her husband's first wife died. Is it the por-polygyny people that are forbidding her marriage, or the monogamy only crowd? Use the discernment that God has given you! Forbidding marriage is a doctrine of demons and it really needs to stop! If you want to see who the false teachers are spoken of in I Peter 2:1, read that book I recommended to you on the truthbearer.org website Here is the link:
Books -- The History and Philosophy of Marriage - TruthBearer.Org --- Bringing Christian Polygamy to the Churches!
You said,
Why? Where is this shown in Scripture?
You said:
This is not sufficient reason to argue either that God approved or disapproved of them, but it is sufficient reason to realize that God recognized that this is a possible definiton of marriage.
You said:
That is irrelevant. Whenever the Bible records deeds of wickedness, we typically find God sending a prophet or directly telling the individual that what he did was wicked. This NEVER occurs whenever there is an instance of polygamy except in the case of David, when he took another man's wife, and in the instance of Solomon, who clearly violated the warning against multiplying wives, as spoken in Deut 17:14-17.
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| Books -- The History and Philosophy of Marriage - TruthBearer.Org --- Br...Mark, the Founder
The History and Philosophy of Marriage or Polygamy and Monogamy Compared at TruthBearer.org |
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You said:
Even if we accept that this were true, and it is not, we can also see that at no time did God ever disapporove of having multiple wives. I find it interesting you chose to use the word "spouses", a word that is only found one time in all of Scripture. Most of the time it uses either the term "husband" or "wife". God gives distinct unamiguous disapproval of having multiple husbands, but somehow failed to also mention any disapproval for having multple wives. You ought to be intelligent enough to see that this is an Argument From Silence fallacy.
You said:
This is the Argument from example fallacy.
You siad:
This is dishonest and twisting Scripture. It says not to multply wives and horses andssilver or gold. Do you honestly believe that we should expel people who have more than one horse or who have a lot of silver or gold in their IRA? If not, you are being inconsistent in your application of that verse.
You said:
That is a reasonable prohibition. In the FLDS, we see that the prophet seems to be the one who gets all the wives. Not all of us are called to be deacons, bishops, or elders. Some of us have more of a calling to be singers or musicians or serve in other areas of the church. I wouldn't necessarily refer to that so much as being a prohibition from having multiple wives, but more, the deacons, bishops and elders whom Timothy and Titus were to choose from among the congregation would be men who have one wife. Single men were also prohibited from being chosen! Does this mean that we should expel men who have zero wives? If not, I find agani an inconsistent application of that passage.
You said:
Deut 17:15-17 says no such thing regarding kings being an example to follow. Many kings certainly left examples that the people should not have followed, but they did so anyway, to their own demise. Heb 13:7 says that we are to imitate the leader's faith, not marriages. I Pet 5:2-3 are instructions to the leaders, not the congregation.
You said:
That is a bunch of malarchy! You don't make a pattern out of one example. There is nowhere in Scripture that says that this is the pattern that everyone is supposed to follow.
You said:
Oh that marriage worked out so well that the woman ended up being deceived by the serpent, and her husband followed suit, bringing sin into the world upon all mankind. If you want a good lesson from that marriage, it is that the husband should lead his wife and not allow her to drag him into disobedience against God.
You siad:
OK, that is patently false. No one is ignoring the fact that God only made one wife for Adam. This is absurdly ludicrous! What does that have to do with the rest of us? The only thing we can legitimately draw from this, is the fact that having two or more wives is not required, but the only people who believe that having three wives is required, are the FLDS folks who think this is some sort of requirement to get into the Celestial kingdom!
You said:
No we don't!
You said:
If that were arequirement, then why do we not expel men and women who have ZERO wives/husbands? Those who argue against polygyny, and twist I Cor 7:2 in their efforts, deliberately ignore the context of I Cor 7:2. In fact, only a few verses down, we have Paul saying this:
Have you ever asked yourself why Paul is clearly saying that v 10-12 is a command from teh Lord, and not simply Paul's suggestions? Could it not be because v 1-9 are Paul's admonitions for how to avoid fornication, rather than an explicit command that everyone is to follow. Paul is saying that it is good to not marry, but in order to avoid fornication, go ahead and get married. That is all he is saying in verse 2.
I Timothy 3:2 is only for the selection of the leader, but again, those who use that verse ignore the fact that it is specifically regarding those offices that Paul was writing about.
You said:
That is patently false! We know that we have approval for having more than one wife (polygyny), because God's Word never condemns it, and because God's Word clearly says that it is not sin. I cited the passage in Psalms 18:20-24, but you seem to have totally disregarded that passage! I could also cite Gen 20:5-6 and Numbers 12 and II Samuel 12:8 and II Chron 24:1-3, 15-16 and Ezekiel 23:1-5 and Matt 25:1-13
I noticed that you cut and pasted the article from I Cor 7:2 from neverthirsty.org, but you did not cite your source. I was able to find it using google. If I Cor 7:2 were an explicit command, and if we were to apply it consistently, we would have to expel everyone who refuses to marry. Do you really believe that we ought to do that? That would mean you, since you don't have your own husband, and you do not wish to remarry!
