Saturday, June 16, 2012

NOTES ON POLYGAMY

The misunderstanding about polygamy stems from a misunderstanding about the marriage relationship. Yashua said, in Matthew 19:4-6, that YHWH ordained marriage between man and wife (singular) “from the beginning.” God never intended men to marry more than one wife. The first man said to have more than one wife in the Bible was Lamech, a murderer and man of the most degenerate kind of evil. “YHWH made one wife for Adam—not a harem!” Take Abraham, for example. His wife could not bear a son, though Yah had promised Abraham he would have one. Instead of simply continuing on and trusting Him, Abraham and Sarah reasoned that Hagar should bear a child for Abraham. Hagar successfully conceived, yet this only brought more trouble into their lives. In addition to the intense jealousy the situation provoked in Sarah, YHWH did not accept Ishmael (Hagar’s son) as the heir to the promises of Abraham. Later, Yah ordered Abraham to send Hagar away. After the birth of Isaac, Abraham had no more concubines—it wasn’t until after Sarah’s death that Abraham took another wife. Mr. Armstrong wrote. “He started the human family out as He ordained they should go—a family of one man and one wife! If we examine the fruits, as Yashuah commanded, we can see that not one of these plural marriages worked out well. Check it out friends. These were great men, but they did make mistakes, mistakes that were recorded for “our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).