#48: 5 Reasons the Bible rejects polygamy

This week on Beyond the Pulpit we trace five clear reasons the Bible upholds monogamy and exposes polygamy’s harm, moving from Eden’s design to the church’s witness. Jacob’s family drama becomes a lens to see how Scripture warns, how leaders model faithfulness, and how the gospel changes cultures.

• God’s design for one flesh in Genesis 2
• Polygamy’s chaos in Old Testament stories
• Kingly limits in Deuteronomy 17 to guard hearts
• Elder qualifications as one‑woman men in 1 Timothy 3
• Pastoral wisdom where polygamy is cultural norm
• Marriage as a picture of Christ and the church
• How gospel transformation outlasts mere prohibitions

Transcript

Welcome And Episode Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Beyond the Pulpit, exploring the life and ministry of Walnut Creek Church downtown. Walnut Creek Church exists to glorify God by making authentic disciples of Jesus Christ who love and worship him in all they do. All right, welcome to Beyond the Pulpit. My name is Derek Wadley, and I'm joined here by Luke Hookie. Hey everybody. And Dan Rude. Good morning, y'all. And for the last few weeks at church, we've been looking at Genesis chapters 29 and 30. We see uh the life of Jacob, where he gets married uh to a couple of different women, and they start to have babies, and there's some concubines or slaves involved in that all of these things. And uh this is uh an interesting passage because people will look at it and be like, see, Jacob, the man who became Israel, uh a man of God, uh, he had multiple wives. Um, and therefore, polygamy is like part of God's intent, or he's okay with it. He that he's unbothered by a man having multiple wives. Um that only holds water until you look at the story and see how disastrous everything is. Yeah. Um it only works until you read the story. That's right. That's many other ones. You can't look at it. You can't look at the details. And so uh there's a lot of problems that that come with polygamy. And so we thought that what we would do is actually look at how the Bible from beginning to end has told the story of marriage being monogamous between one man and one woman for one lifetime. And so there are there are five ways that the Bible speaks against polygamy by telling the story of monogamy. So we thought we we'd look at those uh here this morning. So number one, what is it, Dan?

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Uh God's design in the garden is for one man and one woman. God's design in the garden is uh for marriage to be between one man and one woman. So we see in Genesis chapter two, and um, the the story is is pretty incredible that God creates creates Adam. Well, he creates paradise, he creates everything, creates paradise, he creates the man, and he says it's not good for the man to be alone. And so he's gonna make a helper uh who's just right for him. And so God has Adam go to sleep, take a little nap. And then uh he takes Adam's rib and uh brings Eve or creates Eve out of the rib and brings him to the man. And so the the the first words uh uh that we see uh that Adam speaks when it comes to uh, you know, since Eve is created, the first thing that Adam says when he sees Eve is that he sings a love song, and uh he's he's he loves her uh from the moment he met her. And verse twenty-three it says, And the man said, This one at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Uh this one will be called a woman, for she was taken from man. This is why a man leaves his father and mother in bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. So in the Garden of Eden, God's design uh was not to keep giving Adam wives or to keep giving Eve husbands. That's not that's not the design. The design is Adam, Eve uh united together in marriage, and then it says, This is why a man leaves his father. So now they're looking towards the future and saying, This is why a man leaves his father and mother in bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. So in the future, what does it look like? It looks like one man and one woman bonding together for one lifetime. For for one lifetime. So this is the picture that we get uh back in the Garden of Eden. And so I'd say that's the first the first uh picture we see of marriage is God's design. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, one man, one woman, one lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

It seems like if God clearly, if he meant for something different, you would see that established here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Totally. You can only leave your parents once. Yeah. I mean, if you circle back. Like I that seems like somewhere aside by the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Who is who is Adam's parents? It's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Old Testament Polygamy And Its Fallout

SPEAKER_02 4:15

So it sets out the template. Yeah, moving forward that humanity is is uh the human race is to be one man, one woman, one lifetime. So that's the first first way. Yeah. Uh second the second uh way the the Bible points to um monogamy in marriage is through the stories in the Old Testament of polygamy. Uh many people they read the the Old Testament and they say, Well, look at all the polygamy in the Old Testament. I mean, and these were genuine worshippers of God. Abraham. Um, Isaac, he well, Isaac only has one wife. He learns the lesson to have one wife. That's right.

unknown 4:49

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

And then Jacob, you think Jacob is going to learn the lesson from his dad, Isaac, but he doesn't. And he has uh multiple wives plus concubines, and that that really confuses the picture. And if and then you keep reading the Bible and you see so many people have multiple wives. So many people have multiple wives. Yeah, I mean King David. King David Solomon. Solomon set the record.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

He's like the record. Solomon's kind of like the he's like at the top. There's like a bump in the curve. Yeah, bringing the average hockey minds will only count.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he didn't he did not even know all the names of his wives, probably. Or his kids. Yeah, or his children. I mean, it's it is a crazy, crazy picture. I mean, he would be celebrating a birthday uh of one of his wives three times a day. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yep. What? That's a very strange picture.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Um good thing he was wealthy.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah. But but what you see in the Bible, you know, if if people read the Bible, the Old Testament, and they say, Well, look, uh, the people of God who are genuine worshipers of God had multiple wives, and God appears to be okay with it. Um, therefore, it's okay for people today to have multiple wives. Um, because God, you know, it's it's consistent with God's design or God's pattern, or at least it's consistent with the scriptures. Um, and there are people who make that argument. Um, Joseph Smith made that argument.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

The way that that came about with Joseph Smith, just so interesting. Because it's like the it seemed like the established understanding of the early Mormons was like monogamy. And they were like, hey, Joseph, we noticed something about you.

unknown 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

You've got a lot of wives. You've got a lot of what's up with that. I think it's 46 or something like that. Did I not tell you about the vision the Lord gave me? No. That only I can have. I know.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

But yeah, it's kind of crazy. And then Brigham Young and I mean the story gets crazy. But there are people today. There's a there there's a guy on uh TikTok. I'm not on TikTok, but I I heard about this guy on TikTok. He's a pastor in Missouri who has uh multiple wives, and he goes around preaching his message of multiple wives.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Well, actually, there's like, yeah, there's an uptick again of like justifying polygamy, you know, and that I think this happens every so often, but if with the even the culture of where we're at as far as marriage and love and all these things, it's the natural progression is just to justify polygamy.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Totally, totally. There's like even in there's been so many like documentaries come out about threples. Oh, the this whole idea. And it's almost it's almost never like uh it's always like one man just collecting women. Yeah, it's like almost the case.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Yeah, it's it's pretty messed up. And so what's the what's the how do you respond to the person who says polygamy's in the Bible? Yeah, don't you still do it? It's in the Bible and God used it. Okay, what's the what's the argument against that? Well, I think it's just you should read the stories.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Well, not only reads a lot of very terrible situations to work out good.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Aaron Powell Well, and that just because something's in the Bible doesn't mean God is condoning it or affirming it as good and true. It's like there's many things that God uses uh in the Bible that is that are not uh in a sense right. They're not good. There's they're like polygamy, for example, marriage here. It's like just because yeah, the nation of Israel is birthed out of it doesn't mean God is saying you should all have multiple wives. Right, so it's not affirming it.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah, it's a violation of God's design. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. And so the God is the Bible is full of stories and full of details of things uh that are wrong. Totally. Because it's a human experience. Well, and it's it's good because the the border god is not being sanitized. Certainly. And God has not sanitized life. And uh we just see openly, okay, here's here it here it is, and then you look at the effects of it, and it's devastating.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Totally devastating. Totally devastating. And in in many ways, if if if God just said, Okay, uh, you can't have multiple wives. You just can't have multiple wives. Yeah. Um, which he appears to say. I mean, that that's a violation of God's design. And then people would always say, Well, maybe it's gonna turn out okay. Maybe, maybe we can. And then but the Bible gives us a hi a history lesson of what happens when people take multiple wives. Yeah. And it it's just chaos upon chaos upon devastation. Yeah, I think it would be it would be tricky. I've thought about this before, and um, I've probably not thought about this enough, but I've thought about this before. Like, I think it would be way more difficult to understand if you know Jacob takes four wives, you know, he has his children with four women, four women living in his house, and it's just a story of like harmony and peace and love and unity and grace and blessing, and that's all it was. And if the if those were the stories of the Bible, I do think it would be harder to argue against polygamy. I do. But the fact that every time, like there's not one positive story in the Bible uh that lifts up polygamy. Every single time people have multiple wives, it is destruction. And it's not, I'm not trying to say that it's because you know, more women, more problems. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's a violation of God's design. Right. And and therefore it's going to lead to chaos. And it does every single time.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Every violation of God's design for the world, the way it should operate, will always lead to death and it will lead to chaos.

Modern Justifications And Cultural Trends

SPEAKER_02 10:16

It will lead to destruction. Now God is gracious, so he he will work through our chaos. But it would be it would be wrong. You know, the story of Joseph. Joseph uh makes his way to Egypt uh because of first, you know, they sell his brothers sell him into slavery, and then it's slavery that gets him to that point, and then people lie about him and forget him, and you know, and then he's falsely accused of rape. But then God uses that to actually elevate Joseph to the highest place in Egypt. And so it the wrong conclusion would be to say, well, if you know, look what how God worked through slavery and it turned out really good. Yeah, we should. And so therefore, slavery is like legitimate. It's good. It's like, no, no, no. That's the wrong lesson. It's it's the wrong lesson. Uh the lesson is that God is so gracious that He He works through human rebellion to bring about good. What you meant for evil, God meant for good.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

It's the difference between good exegesis, reading the meaning of the text versus eisegesis, reading your own meaning into the text.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

That's right. That's right. And so so how does the Bible speak against polygamy and affirm monogamy throughout the scriptures? One is it's seen in the garden by design. Second is through the stories of the Old Testament. The stories show uh the destructive nature of polygamy. Uh third is God's command to kings. This is kind of interesting. God's command to kings. Do you have Deuteronomy in front of you? Yep. There. Deuteronomy 17, 17.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, I'll start a little bit back here. He says, uh When you enter the land uh the Lord your God is giving you, take possession of it and live in it, and say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations around me. You are to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. Appoint a king from your brothers. You are not to set a foreigner over you, or one who is not of your people. However, he must not require many horses for himself, or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses. For the Lord has told you, you are never to go back that way again. He must not acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart will not heart won't go astray. He must not acquire very large amounts of silver for himself, or gold and gold for himself. And so he goes on and gives some other uh instructions to the king. But one of those is that he's very clear he must not acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart won't go astray. Totally. So Yeah, I mean you see that the the highest kind of person in the land of Israel, the king, is not to be doing this.

Read The Stories, Not The Assumptions

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Certainly. Which is which was totally different than what all the kings of the surrounding nations did. Totally different. Yep. So part of the way Israel was to be holy was that the kings were to have one wife. Yep. Not multiple one. And uh because of the rebellion of the human heart, uh the kings of Israel had many wives. Yep. And it destroyed them.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And you and you and you say, well, why doesn't God say that about, you know, every person shouldn't have every man should have many wives. Well, if it starts at the top with the king, it's gonna work its way down through the law of the land. Certainly. And so you say to the king, you shall not have many wives, and what happens is the rest of the land, men should not have many wives. They should have one wife. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

The king is to be the standard bearer of God's word and God's law.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

In fact, in verse 18, when he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priest, it's to remain with him, and he has to read it, read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of his instruction, and to do these statutes. Like he's he's to take this these instructions, write them down, and every day remind himself of what God has called him to do. And uh that was that was the way, in one sense, which God was going to keep his nation set apart and set uh and holy from the rest of the world.

Command To Kings In Deuteronomy 17

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Yep. I mean the kings didn't listen and it led to absolute chaos. It's that their hearts were led astray and it divided the whole kingdom. When you look at Solomon and his life. Certainly. Yep. That's exactly right. And so I I would say that's the third way. How does the Bible uh affirm monogamy and um speak against polygamy? Well, I think it's by the command that God gave to kings. Uh number number four is the the character qualifications for elders in the New Testament church. It's the character qualifications for elders in the New Testament uh church. And so one one of the striking uh character requirements of of pastors is that pastors are to be what's called a one-woman man. A one-woman man. So Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 3 lays out uh the character requirements for elders, and um I'll just read read them quickly in verse two. It says, An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach. And then it says, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy. He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity. And so as he's laying out these character qualifications, um you you see the requirements of what lead those who lead the church, uh they they are to be one woman men. That's what they are. And I remember years ago reading this in high school, and it didn't make any it didn't make any sense to me. Why would he need to say that? Why would why would he ever need to say that elders are to be you know to have one wife? And I'm like, um, I've been to church my whole life and I've never seen anyone in the church who has multiple wives. In fact, I've never met anyone who has multiple wives. Like I've maybe you have without knowing. Without knowing. At least as of high school. Like when I was in high school, I was like, what? Well, why would this ever be a thing? And I've never had much polygamy in J Town. I know that we're aware of it's not over it. It's not open anyway. Yeah, exactly. But okay, so then I've over the years I've done a little little reading about this, a little research. And some people say, well, what this means is like if if a if an elder has a wife and that wife dies, he can't remarry. I'm like, nope, that's not what it means. That's not that's not what he's talking about. Um and then they're like, well, why else would it be here? And I'm like, well, because this was written marrying multiple women. Yeah, this is written into the you know, in the first century in in in the non-Christian world, to Timothy, who was in Ephesus, yeah, which was which was a pagan god godless society. And I've th I've thought about this scenario, and um I I I think this is from what I've read, I th I I don't want to say it happened like every time, but oftentimes when the gospel would go into the the pagan world, uh people would become Christians and they have multiple wives. And could you I mean could you imagine that? Like you go out and you preach the gospel and there's there's Ted. There's and Ted becomes a Christian. Yep. And he says, I want to worship God, and I want my I want my children and my wives also to worship God. You're like, wait a second. Okay, how do we do how do we do this? So now Ted is coming, he joins the church in Ephesus, and he's coming with his three wives and his twelve children. What does the Bible say Ted is supposed to do if he's supposed to be a faithful Christian? What what does he do? Uh which wife does he divorce? Which does he get rid of two of them? Now but does he keep his children? I'm just I'm just thinking, I mean, just think about this. So now Ted he has three wives. Yep, he has twelve children. If he gets two of rid of two of his wives, now does he send his wives and his children out of the home?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I feel like this just became a math problem.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

I know a problem.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Sorry, I talked about it.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

I know, but we finished school, like I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Guys, this is this is kindergarten this is less than kindergarten math. I don't know. I don't know about that. Okay, but what is he supposed to do? What is faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ look like? And this was not a one-time problem. This was a massive problem. I'm not saying that every person was a polygamist. That's not what I'm saying. But polygamy existed in the in the ancient world. And um and and and so this is the biblical instruction. What is faith Ted? What does faithfulness to the Lord look like? I th I think that you love your wives and your children. Yeah. You love your wives and your children.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

You have to probably circle back to like if the unbelieving spouse then abandons or anything like that. But then it's just like Ted would then not be qualified to create an elder.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Yes, and so then what happens is because he has multiple wives, he cannot serve in the office of the elder. So he could be faithful to the Lord, take love his wives and his children, but he doesn't necessarily have to divorce his wives. And so that is such an interesting picture.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

To be clear here, because uh to make sure no one's uh misunderstanding what you're saying, this is when somebody is already they're not a Christian, correct married to multiple women and become a Christian verse any of you out there who think uh that somehow what we're saying is uh if you are a Christian, you can go marry multiple wives. Just not be a pacifist. That's not worth it. Now here I do think this is important is that the pattern of much of the world is polygamy. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Still today. Today even. So even like our missionaries in other countries today, or if you talk to missionaries, they have to deal with troubleshoot this real problem. Certainly. And so it's not I think we we live in a in a country that's been founded upon Christianity and monogamy primarily. And so we our experience is uh essentially it's just monogamy. The idea of polygamy seems like just a foreign thought to most people. Like it's something way, way, way back in ancient times, but it's actually not. It's all over the world today. Oh, yeah. And it's affirmed in many parts of the world. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it definitely was back then.

Elders As One-Woman Men

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yeah. And our our like you were talking about our missionaries. I was talking with one of them who was who was in town, and he said that um that uh where he's at in the world, um, he looks at you know these people that he's living among. They look at him, and he's he's a white American man, and he has one wife, and they cannot understand it because where he lives, the world view that they have is that the the the dream of their land, of their culture is to make enough money, and the moment you are you're able able to make enough money, you get another wife. And then so it's like a status, it's like a status thing. So, like how many wives can can you take care of? Yeah, yeah. The more you have, the more awesome you're gonna be. That's that's exactly right. And so that's like the dream. So like these young, these young boys are growing up in a culture where do people hate their lives? The dream, the dream is to have multiple wives, make enough money. And so they look at they look at our men and they're like, wait a second, you're you're a white American man, and you have enough money, but you only have one wife. And so they reach this conclusion. Though they they they're serious with them. They're like, Are you afraid of women? Are you afraid of what's wrong with you? And so I just think it is such a crazy thought. That's that's the norm that where they're at. And and so the assumption of monogamy in our country, it flows from this requirement that elders have to be one woman men. Because the wisdom of the Bible says that Ted, who has three wives, who came became a Christian after he had three wives and children. The logic of of this of this requirement is that um, Ted, you can come and worship God and be faithful, but your children shouldn't be polygamists. Your children, if you're gonna be raised in the church, the example to follow is the example of the elders, just like you're talking about with the king. Yeah, you know, the king um back in Israel. I'm not saying elders are kings, by the way, but I'm just saying that the example that is to be set. Scratch that from the New Testament. I did not Luke did not say that. He did not, it was misunderstood. Okay. Um the example that the the the faithful New Testament church was to set is that the church is to be led by elders who have one wife. One wife. And then that would be passed down uh from one generation to the next, to the next, to the next. And then the church who uh the people of God are to be the salt and light in the culture would then influ influence the culture, and then the culture would be would embrace polygamy. Or not polygamy, monogamy. Reject polygamy and reject polygamy and embrace monogamy. And the reason for this is that monogamy tells the story of the gospel.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Reason five.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

That's reason number five. That monogamy tells the story of the gospel because Christ, who is the head of the church, he is the bridegroom, and the church is the bride. That he's the husband, we're the wife. And he has one, one bride, one bride, one bride, one people. And so there's this relationship between the way the the elders are to elder and the example and testimony of the church. And that's why husbands, you're to love your wives as Christ loved the church. And so husbands are acting that out with their singular wife, one wife. Yep. And elders are to preserve that requirement in that example in the church that the church might tell the right story, the story of the gospel.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

And so what you find is in the New Testament, Jesus and Paul and others actually affirm the uh uh what was actually started in the Garden of Eden God's design, which is monogamy. That's exactly the moment for one life.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

That's right. And it's it's it's it not only goes back to the garden and affirms that that standard in the garden, it also uh points our eyes ahead to the marriage supper of the Lamb, all the way back in the or not all the way back, but in the book of Revel Revelation, the back of the book. The other end of the book. Yeah, yeah. And and so and and so the church today has sh wherever the gospel goes, uh polygamy is done away with. Yeah. But but there are, this is so fascinating, so fascinating. In the New Testament, there are no clear commands against polygamy.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Therefore.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

It's so interesting. So, how do you get rid of polygamy? You get rid of polygamy, not by telling people don't be a polygamous, but by preaching the good news of the gospel, and then churches being faithful to the word of God, and that over time gets rid of polygamy. It upholds monogamy, it upholds the standard uh of God's design all the way back in the garden. And it's because the New Testament, the New Testament gospel proclaiming church is designed to tell the story of the gospel. And uh, and so that that that's I think that those would be five ways. We could probably come up with another five or ten ways that the Bible rejects polygamy and upholds monogamy as the standard.