Michael, I was going to comment here and ask you what group specifically you were talking about, as its clear you had people in mind. I am unfamiliar with this phenomenon in "christendom" and have not heard anyone making arguments FOR polygamy... But now that I am in the comments section I am sure I will have this question answered shortly.
Every time a member of the clergy wants to preach against polygamy they always look at it as if it is just a male sin, however those of us who have studied intersexual dynamics understand that both men and women are tempted by polygamy. As rollo says a woman would rather share a high value man that be saddled with a faithful loser. If you're going to preach against polygamy you also have to tell women that it is a sin to desire to share a man.
Dozens of men, major and minor, righteous and wicked, are shown to be polygynous through the Bible. Why is there not a word of condemnation for even one of them on this matter?
Why did God actively open and close wombs to orchestrate Jacob's plural marriages in Genesis 29-30? Why did God bless Leah for giving Jacob another wife?
Why did Jehoiada, an explicitly godly influence, give Joash two wives in II Chronicles 24:2-3?
Why did God give David his master's wives and say He would have given him more in II Samuel 12:7-8? You noted that Solomon violated Deuteronomy 17:17. But according to I Kings 15:5, David didn't violate this commandment against multiplying wives. I'm sure you understand that's because having eighteen wives as David did, didn't violate God's Law in any way. The real problem was when Solomon married pagan wives for political alliances, as you surely understand.
Adam and Eve are not the standard. In fact, nothing good is ever said about them, they wrecked the world, and the fruits of their presumably monogamous union included the first murder. God uses human marriage to picture His relationship with us, and He shows Himself as polygynous in Ezekiel 23, Jeremiah 3, Jeremiah 31, and Matthew 25.
Now, are you going to answer, or block me and pretend the Bible doesn't say what it says?
I think you are woefully misunderstanding and misapplying scripture. God's blessings are often to people in spite of their wayward choices. His rain falls upon the just and the unjust. To say that God was offering David more wives when he said what he did in 2 Sam is a misunderstanding. God is asking the question to get at the heart of David's sin against God, namely that he is finding WRONG ways to find fulfillment and has stepped out of trusting in God for his providence.
Now as to the other patriarchs, Michael makes a great point when he touches on the clear ruin and grief that polygamy brought them. What would you say to that? Is that not an illustration for us to learn from? My reading of scripture makes it pretty clear Abraham was wrong to take Hagar as his wife.
Also to say that Adam and Eve are not the standard is a misunderstanding. Adam and Eve, in my opinion, are given to us in scripture as a picture of what every Man and Woman looks like, the good and the bad. Do you think you would have not eaten the forbidden fruit?
"And I gave thee ... thy master's wives into thy bosom ... and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things." This is pretty straightforward, my friend. God directly tells David that He blessed him with plural wives and other things, and would have given him even more if he wanted. And this is in the context of stealing a man's wife. A man who is portrayed in the parable as poor. Why? Because he only has one wife.
The first monogamous marriage wrecked the world and resulted in fraternal murder. Did any polygynous marriages do worse than that? No man in Scripture, patriarch or otherwise, was condemned for taking plural wives.
However, the tribe of Issachar was known for three things, and I bet your pastor has never told you about them. (Read the Bible for yourself.) I'll start with the third, in 1 Chronicles 12:32, they were known for their wisdom. "The children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do." A few chapters earlier, in 1 Chronicles 7:4, we find the other two things they were known for: military might and polygyny: "bands of soldiers for war, six and thirty thousand men: for they had many wives and sons."
And that gets to one reason it is so important to teach the truth on this matter. Polygyny makes us stronger, and we certainly need that in the world of today and tomorrow.
God makes clear that His relationship with us is the standard example for marriage. This is pretty basic Christian doctrine. And again, He repeatedly shows Himself as polygynous throughout the Old and New Testaments. Monogamy has never been God's standard or ideal.
Many people cling to Adam and Eve as an example, saying that God gave Adam only one wife. Maybe He did. But He gave Jacob four wives, and David eighteen, and Joash two, and He Himself has at least five, depending on how you break it down.
To this I would say only that if even what you say is true, (and I believe many of the things you are claiming are not true) it would still be insufficient to see polygamy as anything other than a morally gray, highly dubious practice which would require a very careful examination of our hearts were we to go anywhere near it. Again, that would be a best case scenario for your argument assuming everything you said was right. It seems like your argument at its best could only hope to take polygamy out of the area of outright evil and put it into a category of confused, unclear, hazy grey morality. Your argument could never hope to present polygamy as virtuous or explicitly preferred by God, and you have stretched yourself rather thin to say even it is acceptable to him.
Thankfully the church doesnt leave us in this morally gray confusion. The new testament is clear that the mystery of marriage is profound, but that it speaks of Christ and the Church (singular) and that elders and deacons who would take up the call of leading his church under the headship of Christ would be upright and blameless men, the husbands of ONE wife.
here's the text: 1 Tim 3:2 context is the requirements of elders/leaders in the church.
"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach"
next text: Ephesians 5: 22-32 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
This is the reason marriage exists: to be a picture of Christ's sacrifical love for the church. Keywords for the sake of monogamy would be "own husband (meaning each wife has her own husband) and also the singularity of church, meaning Christ's bride is not plural. The New Testament is very clear that Christ has ONE bride, the church, not multiple.
So to your argument -- like I was saying, even if all the scripture and application of the old testament stories you referenced was correctly applied (which I say it wasnt but that could be another convo) then you could still not refute an argument which said something like: "As Christ said that the Commandment to murder, understood for centuries by God's people to be an external action, was actually deeper and cut to the heart of a man's internal anger, so too does the New Testament show that polygamy, tolerated in certain times in the OT is now completely impermissible, and that monogamy is the only Christian way as now the true meaning of marriage has been revealed as a picture of Christ and the Church. To engage in Polygamy is to play with the heresy that "all roads lead to heaven"
You may have noticed this has become a national conversation lately, and I was engaging another Christian man on Substack last night, just as politely as we are doing here. Next thing I knew, he had blocked me.
You're absolutely right that marriage is intended to image God's relationship with us. Suppose I can show you that the Bible explicitly says that the relationship is polygynous. Will you accept it, or at least listen and seek to understand the Word of God as it is written without preconceptions?
“They *said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” He *said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.””
Matthew 19:7-9
Hardness of heart
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers...will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
Are we quoting irrelevant passages now, or can we get back to the topic at hand? Polygyny has nothing to do with divorce.
I appreciate your concern, and I can assure you I've been washed in the Blood, born again, and I'm certain of my home in Heaven. Since you're asking, I trust the same is true of you.
Why did God say that Abimelech acted in integrity when he mistakenly took Sarah as his wife, if taking an additional wife was inherently adulterous? Why did it matter that she was Abraham's wife?
If polygyny is adultery as you posit, why does God treat them as completely separate (and actually opposite) acts in His Law?
Are you suggesting that God portrays Himself committing adultery repeatedly throughout the Old and New Testaments? Careful, my friend. Blasphemy is a serious business.
If "husband of one wife" means pastors and deacons must be monogamous, why is the exact same language used regarding widows, when polyandry did not exist in that culture?
I know the Scriptures and I know the arguments. Literally no one has anything new. I skimmed your first article. I was surprised when I saw that you were getting into I Corinthians 6, but of course you quoted it selectively, ignoring the parts that contradict your conclusion. The only way you can come to monogamy-only in the Bible is the same way you can come to pacifism in the Bible: you start with your conclusion and eisegete until you're convinced God agrees with you.
Do you think I owe you something, Dillun? If you were exegeting, you'd be on the other side of the debate. You correctly noted that Paul said the one-flesh union is present in any sexual relationship. Bravo for reading what the text actually says. I could ask you why the only part of this passage that you quoted was the repeat from Genesis, but I know why. It's because the text doesn't support your second claim, that the one flesh union is exclusive. You mentioned the prostitute, but somehow failed to notice that prostitutes are not monogamous. The text says that even sexual intercourse with a prostitute (who, if you don't know, has sexual intercourse with many men) is a one-flesh relationship, a very serious thing that separates you from God when done incorrectly. It does not say, despite your claim, anything about damaging the marriage bond, from which claim you extrapolate your condemnation of polygyny. Is sexual intercourse with a prostitute sinful? Yes. Does this passage say so? Yes. Does it say anything about the man with the prostitute already having a wife? No, but Dillun's eisegesis does. I could ask further why you omitted the next verse that compares the one-flesh relationship to the one-spirit relationship the Lord has with each of us, but I know why you excluded it. Because the Scripture shows that God's relationship with us, the higher form which our one-flesh relationships are to emulate, is explicitly polygynous. I'm not even interpreting anything. This is the plain language of God's Word. I could go on, but you're not serious. You're publishing articles disingenuously, making them look good to those who don't know the Word of God, while those who have studied this topic know that you are manipulating the text to match your prior conclusion. You've given me no compelling reason to read your articles, but here's a suggestion. Give me your best single argument against polygyny. You can copy and paste it from an existing article, but stick to one point. You single best argument from your understanding of Scripture, showing that God says polygyny is sinful. I'll read it and respond appropriately.
Michael, I was going to comment here and ask you what group specifically you were talking about, as its clear you had people in mind. I am unfamiliar with this phenomenon in "christendom" and have not heard anyone making arguments FOR polygamy... But now that I am in the comments section I am sure I will have this question answered shortly.
Great work, keep it up!
Every time a member of the clergy wants to preach against polygamy they always look at it as if it is just a male sin, however those of us who have studied intersexual dynamics understand that both men and women are tempted by polygamy. As rollo says a woman would rather share a high value man that be saddled with a faithful loser. If you're going to preach against polygamy you also have to tell women that it is a sin to desire to share a man.
Dozens of men, major and minor, righteous and wicked, are shown to be polygynous through the Bible. Why is there not a word of condemnation for even one of them on this matter?
Why did God actively open and close wombs to orchestrate Jacob's plural marriages in Genesis 29-30? Why did God bless Leah for giving Jacob another wife?
Why did Jehoiada, an explicitly godly influence, give Joash two wives in II Chronicles 24:2-3?
Why did God give David his master's wives and say He would have given him more in II Samuel 12:7-8? You noted that Solomon violated Deuteronomy 17:17. But according to I Kings 15:5, David didn't violate this commandment against multiplying wives. I'm sure you understand that's because having eighteen wives as David did, didn't violate God's Law in any way. The real problem was when Solomon married pagan wives for political alliances, as you surely understand.
Adam and Eve are not the standard. In fact, nothing good is ever said about them, they wrecked the world, and the fruits of their presumably monogamous union included the first murder. God uses human marriage to picture His relationship with us, and He shows Himself as polygynous in Ezekiel 23, Jeremiah 3, Jeremiah 31, and Matthew 25.
Now, are you going to answer, or block me and pretend the Bible doesn't say what it says?
I think you are woefully misunderstanding and misapplying scripture. God's blessings are often to people in spite of their wayward choices. His rain falls upon the just and the unjust. To say that God was offering David more wives when he said what he did in 2 Sam is a misunderstanding. God is asking the question to get at the heart of David's sin against God, namely that he is finding WRONG ways to find fulfillment and has stepped out of trusting in God for his providence.
Now as to the other patriarchs, Michael makes a great point when he touches on the clear ruin and grief that polygamy brought them. What would you say to that? Is that not an illustration for us to learn from? My reading of scripture makes it pretty clear Abraham was wrong to take Hagar as his wife.
Also to say that Adam and Eve are not the standard is a misunderstanding. Adam and Eve, in my opinion, are given to us in scripture as a picture of what every Man and Woman looks like, the good and the bad. Do you think you would have not eaten the forbidden fruit?
"And I gave thee ... thy master's wives into thy bosom ... and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things." This is pretty straightforward, my friend. God directly tells David that He blessed him with plural wives and other things, and would have given him even more if he wanted. And this is in the context of stealing a man's wife. A man who is portrayed in the parable as poor. Why? Because he only has one wife.
The first monogamous marriage wrecked the world and resulted in fraternal murder. Did any polygynous marriages do worse than that? No man in Scripture, patriarch or otherwise, was condemned for taking plural wives.
However, the tribe of Issachar was known for three things, and I bet your pastor has never told you about them. (Read the Bible for yourself.) I'll start with the third, in 1 Chronicles 12:32, they were known for their wisdom. "The children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do." A few chapters earlier, in 1 Chronicles 7:4, we find the other two things they were known for: military might and polygyny: "bands of soldiers for war, six and thirty thousand men: for they had many wives and sons."
And that gets to one reason it is so important to teach the truth on this matter. Polygyny makes us stronger, and we certainly need that in the world of today and tomorrow.
God makes clear that His relationship with us is the standard example for marriage. This is pretty basic Christian doctrine. And again, He repeatedly shows Himself as polygynous throughout the Old and New Testaments. Monogamy has never been God's standard or ideal.
Many people cling to Adam and Eve as an example, saying that God gave Adam only one wife. Maybe He did. But He gave Jacob four wives, and David eighteen, and Joash two, and He Himself has at least five, depending on how you break it down.
To this I would say only that if even what you say is true, (and I believe many of the things you are claiming are not true) it would still be insufficient to see polygamy as anything other than a morally gray, highly dubious practice which would require a very careful examination of our hearts were we to go anywhere near it. Again, that would be a best case scenario for your argument assuming everything you said was right. It seems like your argument at its best could only hope to take polygamy out of the area of outright evil and put it into a category of confused, unclear, hazy grey morality. Your argument could never hope to present polygamy as virtuous or explicitly preferred by God, and you have stretched yourself rather thin to say even it is acceptable to him.
Thankfully the church doesnt leave us in this morally gray confusion. The new testament is clear that the mystery of marriage is profound, but that it speaks of Christ and the Church (singular) and that elders and deacons who would take up the call of leading his church under the headship of Christ would be upright and blameless men, the husbands of ONE wife.
It doesnt get much clearer really than that.
I'd like to hear you directly refute anything I've said with the text of Scripture.
Will you block me or delete our discussion if I answer you with the Word of God and without malice or vitriol?
why would I block you or delete you?
here's the text: 1 Tim 3:2 context is the requirements of elders/leaders in the church.
"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach"
next text: Ephesians 5: 22-32 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
This is the reason marriage exists: to be a picture of Christ's sacrifical love for the church. Keywords for the sake of monogamy would be "own husband (meaning each wife has her own husband) and also the singularity of church, meaning Christ's bride is not plural. The New Testament is very clear that Christ has ONE bride, the church, not multiple.
So to your argument -- like I was saying, even if all the scripture and application of the old testament stories you referenced was correctly applied (which I say it wasnt but that could be another convo) then you could still not refute an argument which said something like: "As Christ said that the Commandment to murder, understood for centuries by God's people to be an external action, was actually deeper and cut to the heart of a man's internal anger, so too does the New Testament show that polygamy, tolerated in certain times in the OT is now completely impermissible, and that monogamy is the only Christian way as now the true meaning of marriage has been revealed as a picture of Christ and the Church. To engage in Polygamy is to play with the heresy that "all roads lead to heaven"
Hope that makes sense
You may have noticed this has become a national conversation lately, and I was engaging another Christian man on Substack last night, just as politely as we are doing here. Next thing I knew, he had blocked me.
You're absolutely right that marriage is intended to image God's relationship with us. Suppose I can show you that the Bible explicitly says that the relationship is polygynous. Will you accept it, or at least listen and seek to understand the Word of God as it is written without preconceptions?
“They *said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” He *said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.””
Matthew 19:7-9
Hardness of heart
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers...will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Have you been washed?
Are we quoting irrelevant passages now, or can we get back to the topic at hand? Polygyny has nothing to do with divorce.
I appreciate your concern, and I can assure you I've been washed in the Blood, born again, and I'm certain of my home in Heaven. Since you're asking, I trust the same is true of you.
Care to answer my points now?
“It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,”
1 Timothy 3:1-2
Whoever marries another commits adultery... the list never ends.
With love, you need to return to the Lord Jesus Christ, you argue as a character from the Pilgrims Progress.
Why did God say that Abimelech acted in integrity when he mistakenly took Sarah as his wife, if taking an additional wife was inherently adulterous? Why did it matter that she was Abraham's wife?
If polygyny is adultery as you posit, why does God treat them as completely separate (and actually opposite) acts in His Law?
Are you suggesting that God portrays Himself committing adultery repeatedly throughout the Old and New Testaments? Careful, my friend. Blasphemy is a serious business.
If "husband of one wife" means pastors and deacons must be monogamous, why is the exact same language used regarding widows, when polyandry did not exist in that culture?
The same old debunked arguments relying on Scripture selectively presented with your conclusion determined before you opened your Bible.
I know the Scriptures and I know the arguments. Literally no one has anything new. I skimmed your first article. I was surprised when I saw that you were getting into I Corinthians 6, but of course you quoted it selectively, ignoring the parts that contradict your conclusion. The only way you can come to monogamy-only in the Bible is the same way you can come to pacifism in the Bible: you start with your conclusion and eisegete until you're convinced God agrees with you.
Do you think I owe you something, Dillun? If you were exegeting, you'd be on the other side of the debate. You correctly noted that Paul said the one-flesh union is present in any sexual relationship. Bravo for reading what the text actually says. I could ask you why the only part of this passage that you quoted was the repeat from Genesis, but I know why. It's because the text doesn't support your second claim, that the one flesh union is exclusive. You mentioned the prostitute, but somehow failed to notice that prostitutes are not monogamous. The text says that even sexual intercourse with a prostitute (who, if you don't know, has sexual intercourse with many men) is a one-flesh relationship, a very serious thing that separates you from God when done incorrectly. It does not say, despite your claim, anything about damaging the marriage bond, from which claim you extrapolate your condemnation of polygyny. Is sexual intercourse with a prostitute sinful? Yes. Does this passage say so? Yes. Does it say anything about the man with the prostitute already having a wife? No, but Dillun's eisegesis does. I could ask further why you omitted the next verse that compares the one-flesh relationship to the one-spirit relationship the Lord has with each of us, but I know why you excluded it. Because the Scripture shows that God's relationship with us, the higher form which our one-flesh relationships are to emulate, is explicitly polygynous. I'm not even interpreting anything. This is the plain language of God's Word. I could go on, but you're not serious. You're publishing articles disingenuously, making them look good to those who don't know the Word of God, while those who have studied this topic know that you are manipulating the text to match your prior conclusion. You've given me no compelling reason to read your articles, but here's a suggestion. Give me your best single argument against polygyny. You can copy and paste it from an existing article, but stick to one point. You single best argument from your understanding of Scripture, showing that God says polygyny is sinful. I'll read it and respond appropriately.