Polygamy Question

All I can say to this is AMEN!
I agree with you...

BTW... I know there will be people in Heaven that will surprise me...
see. http://tinytim.wordpress.com/2006/07/14/will-you-be-shocked/

 

Tiny, not to rush to Pinoy's defense here, he is perfectly capable of speaking for himself, but obviously there are many people who love the Lord who are not eligible for church membership. Divorced people, for one, in many churches would not be able to join. That doesn't mean they are not a child of God, does it?

So, although I would disagree with not allowing people to join because of polygamy (and obviously we are talking about THEIR church here, not MY church ), if they were to be barred from the church I could still reassure them that this had nothing to do with their salvation. Couldn't you? Do you think only members of a church are going to be in heaven?

 

amity,

again you surprise me! I swear to you Im not following you around trying to argue with you........Im sure we agree on something, but divorced people not able to join churches??????? Since when???? I don't know of any Baptist church that does not allow divorced people to join! 'Course I don't know every Baptist church out there, but Im pretty sure this is not a widely practiced exclusion.

I pretty much thought that membership in a Baptist church was open to any saved and baptized person who wanted to join.

 

There are still Baptist churches out there who will not allow divorcess into the membership roll, although that is no longer the rule, but, rather the exception and has been since the early 60's when things started to change, if I remember my statistics correctly.

Before then, most, not all, the churches were pretty much conservative, from Roman Catholics to Protestants to Baptists and all over the spectrum.

 

Okay. Sorry about my reaction, too. Just having a bad day. We're moving and we're all in our sixties and don't know anyone in the area, so being the more physically fit in our household of three, I'm the one doing all the lifting.

Anyway.

Church membership, to my mind, and I don't expect everyone to agree, is in a way, sacrosanct, in the sense that not only are these professing believers, but people who have manifested a conversion, given a testimony of conversion.

In the situation at question, since everyone, including myself, are of the opinion that the status quo not be disturbed, then there can be no visible or obvious testimony of conversion, other than words. The proof of conversion is in the action.

I do not see their hearts, I can only listen to what they say. They say they love the Lord, fine. They say they expect to be in heaven and have a lively hope in that expectation, fine.

But the fact is that they are practicing polygamists. They are married to multiple wives, have obligations both moral, financial, and physical to these wives, and I see no actual proof of a polygamous New Testament church in the Bible, on the contrary, I see church members being told to not do what they used to do. Did they steal ? Steal no more. Were they sodomites ? Sodomize no more. Were they lazy ? Learn to work.

So, there may be a fellowship, but there cannot be a constituted church of baptized, professing believers, except perhaps where professions of faith and conversion are made by unmarried members of the community.

Of course, the reasons must be clearly explained to those who cannot formally join the church as well as to those who can lest the latter be puffed up.

 

So, does anyone have any scripture allowing polygamy under the Grace Covenant or are we just making it up as we go??

Please don't quote me what David did. It does not apply under the Grace Covenant. The Lord really tightened the reigns to Marriage under Grace. No, I guess He just took us back to the way man and woman were created in the first place, and did away with all those allowances under the Law concerning marriage and divorce.

If you go deep enough into the jungle you will find people eating people, what you gonna do there?

There is some things unknown to us and we just have to accept it instead of entering out into the world of the unknown and making our own laws.

Its one woman and one man and that the word. Take it or leave it.

 

Amen, Bro. Bob! Preach it! :jesus:

 

Double Amen!

:thumbs:

 

Were you responding to my quote, Bro. Bob ?

I hope not, because nowhere did I say polygamists had any place in the local church, and I am not making up my own laws here.

 

I am a little confused about this statement Pinoy, what do you mean about "fellowship".


But if I understand you right you say there is no place for poloygamy in the church or anywhere else as far as I am concerned.

 

YOu're kidding! I seriously thought you were in your 30s....

Thanks for explaining your thoughts.
Sorry I read more into them.

 

You understood me correctly, Brother Bob. To be fair, the OP did not say there was a church existing in a polygamous culture. However, as discussions are wont to go, it was assumed a church is extant.

I interposed that if it was a mission situation in a polygamous culture I would not constitute a church where the charter members or the founding members are practicing polygamists, however, since they are professing to have come to know and trust Christ as their Savior, and since they agree that polygamy is not the God approved system of a marital relationship, but are helpless about their situation in that their marriages, polygamous as they are, are valid and binding in their culture and laws, I would hold services of worship in a "fellowship" manner.

No local, visible church.
No Lord's table.
No washing of the saint's feet.
No baptisms.

Just coming together to pray, sing, preach.

Just professing, repentant believers incapable of escaping their current situation because of past human errors, much as a repentant murderer is incapable of bringing back to life his murdered victim, much as he wants to. Or a cannibal spewing out his lunches, dinners, and snacks, and breathing the breath of life into them again.

However, as the Lord continues to move among the society, and as His pure, unadulterated word is preached, then there will be those who are as yet unmarried who may profess the same profession and desire to come together as a constituted church, these may be children of polygamous marriages.

It may take years, but eventually, if it is the Lord's will that a church exists in that area, then He shall sanctify unto Himself those who will be free of the encumbrances of a polygamous marriage.

If He doesn't, then the preacher ought to be content to serve His Lord in whatever situation His Lord puts Him into.

 

I see no problem whatsoever in having a church service and they attend, but I feel it would be our duty to preach what God Commands and that is one man, one woman. There is such a thing as becoming a enunch for the Kingdom of Heavens sake and if they became convicted enough I am sure they could follow the enunch route. At least they should be told the truth, but you may have to run for your life after you tell them.

 

Sin is sin---whether adultery (which is polygamy), common-law marrages (fornication), homosexuality, etc. It is all sin. It is relevant in its various forms in every society, just under different names.
If we have a couple attending our church that live in a common law relationship, they are welcome to attend. If they are saved, and want to become members they are advised to separate. Until they separate, and then get some marriage counselling and legalize their marriage they cannot become members. People living in a state of sin, such as fornication or adultery cannot become members of the church. A person who is polygamous is no different than a person who is living common law, or the married man who is carrying on an affair outside of his marriage. Does not he also have a second wife (or as the OT would put it--a concubine).

 

Bro Bob.

You brought up the possibility of one becoming a "eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake."

While I don't wish to hijack this particular thread on polygamy, I'm still not exactly sure what a "eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake" means in this day and age (and culture [i.e., "north american evangelical Christian culture {if there is such a thing! :laugh: }).

Does being such a eunuch mean something different than merely remaining single (unmarried / never married)?

(NOTE TO MODERATOR -- If you think this post should be moved to a new/separate thread, please feel free to do so.)

 

Well, some are born enunichs and some become enunichs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.

I think the ones who were born that way can not function in a sexual manner, and those who become a enunich I believe don't have to be that dramatic about it but of course could. I think as you say, they have to remain unmarried the rest of their lives as Apostle Paul was. As you said though, I don't want to hijack this thread. It might make a good thread and see what the different minds are on that subject.

 

:thumbs: With you all the way there, Bro. Bob.

They're all welcome to seat in church, but if at anytime the Spirit leads us to preach on polygamy and marriage, homosexuality and lesbianism, cannibalism and gluttony, they can sharpen their knives all they want, the two-edged sword will always be sharper.

 

I will say that I went through and methodically checked every scriptural reference given for this, and what I see is:

• 
  A reflection of the fact that practically all marriages are monogamous, and were so in the culture in which the Bible was first written.
  
  Really teaching some other point, i.e. that divorce is wrong.

So, especially in light of the prevalence of polygamy in the OT with quite a bit of tolerance on God's part, I would say that it should be considered a moral option in countries that still practice it. I believe we should speak where the Bible and speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent, and I still see nothing condemning polygamy, just a few passages that assume monogamy, which has always been the practice of the vast majority in every culture. So where does the right to impose divorce, even if called by some other name, come from?

That is a rhetorical question, of course ...

 

Where to, brother?

You know, Houston is a nice place.:smilewinkgrin:

 

The mandate of missions (the Great Commission) is to preach the gospel to every creature in the world. In so doing we do not stoop to the sinful levels of others. A person ministering to drug addicts doesn't become a drug addict in order to win them to Christ. You don't have to stick your head in a garbage pail to find out that it is dirty. You don't have to go any farther than the Bible to know that polygamy in any society and in every society is wrong, and an abomination in God's sight. It is evil. It is adultery.
"From the beginning it was not so"
"What God has put together let no man put asunder."
Wherefore the TWO are made one flesh---not three, four, five or a hundred.

God made Adam and Eve; not Adam and Eve and____, ____, ____

You get the idea.
Christ is the bridegroom. The marriage supper of the lamb is coming. He has only one bride. That picture in itself teaches something.
Read Eph.5 for Paul's teaching on the relationship of the husband and the wife.