30-3: Did God change His stance on polygamy in the New Testament?

A common argument many often use to denounce the Scriptural validity of polygamy is to claim that God somehow “changed” his viewpoint on this topic in the New Testament era.

Following on the heels of my last post, now is as good a time as ever to destroy this notion and bury it at the bottom of the sea.

It is vital that we deal with this issue now, otherwise it will negatively impact your whole viewpoint of Scripture moving forward.

PREMISE ONE:

The first nail I’m going to hammer into the coffin containing this false idea is the following affirmation:

Yeshua said He did not come to change the law, but rather to “fulfill” it.

A quick review here.

The Greek word used for “fulfill” is “pleroos” and it means to “fill up“.

In this sense, “fulfill” means “to obey to its utmost, fullest, and complete extent“.

So rest assured there is no place within the New Testament where Yeshua changed Old Testament Law regarding marriage or sexual conduct.

PREMISE TWO:

Building on the first premise, if we are to properly understand God’s Word on any topic and especially if we are going to understand the New Testament which is a Hebrew book, it is absolutely imperative that we understand what the Old Testament has to say on such topics.

This leads me to my second coffin nail:

If we are to understand the true definition of “sexual immorality”, we must go to God’s commands in the Old Testament, specifically Leviticus 18:7-23.

The single biggest mistake we can make when interpreting Scripture is to ONLY read it in English without researching the original definitions of the words.

Our modern understanding of words like “whore“, “harlot“, “fornication“, “adultery“, “prostitution” and even “sin” in most cases simply do not jive with the meanings as defined in Scripture. 

The truth be told, most repressive views of sexuality our society holds have their origin in the Gnostic philosophers of whom Augustine was one of the biggest advocates.

PREMISE THREE:

The final coffin nail is as follows (if anybody has any other coffin nails to keep this vampire of a teaching inside its coffin, please let me know):

While polygamy is not promoted in Scripture, there are many passages that justify it.

There is is NOT ONE example of God punishing people for polygamy.

CONCLUSION

Minus a legitimate reason, I believe it is fallacious to just assume God is against polygamy.

If God permits polygamy in the Old Testament and Yeshua never does away with it, I believe the only logical conclusion is that it is still allowed today (although not God’s ideal).

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?

At this point, some of you may be wondering, “why the heck is this so important?“

You may be thinking, “why are you raving like a mad man about an institution that is pretty much dead and gone?“

Let me share with you what I think is a perfect example of why I think this is so important.

Are you aware that there are people living in certain parts of Africa and Arabia who are polygamists AND Christian?

And do you know that Westernized Christians will tell these people that they need to divorce their wives.

Isn’t that being a bit too presumptuous?

I mean who are we to think that as an advanced capitalist society we hold the proper understanding on the topic of sex and marriage anyways?

Especially if such a notion isn’t even taught in Scripture.

Wouldn’t it be better to take the truth to such people as God has laid it out in Scripture minus our westernized biases?

I’m done.

Next time, we will complete Genesis Chapter 30.