Jesus never said marriage was between a man and only one woman.
Quote:Missouri Pastor Defends Polygamy After Taking Second Wife
Rich Tidwell, a Missouri pastor, is arguing that the Bible allows for polygamy after announcing his marriage to a second wife, who is expecting his eighth child.
Tidwell, the pastor of Ormond Church in Canton, argues extensively in a sermon titled “David’s Two Wife” and a long-form article titled “On Plural Marriage” that the Scriptures nowhere prohibit men from marrying multiple wives. In fact, he argues, polygamous marriages are “divinely ordained.”
Ormond Church describes itself as a place “to hear God’s Word, to grow strong in faith, and to serve Jesus together in love…as we draw closer to the Resurrection!”
In his argument for the moral virtue of polygamy, Tidwell points out that numerous biblical figures in the Old Testament were married to more than one woman, including the patriarchs of the nation of Israel, as well as several of Israel’s kings.
When it comes to the New Testament, Tidwell acknowledges that scholars and Bible teachers have argued that while God accommodated for polygamy in the context of the ancient culture of the Old Testament, it was not part of his original design for marriage. However, Tidwell questions whether the New Testament condemns the practice.
“When we study the Scriptures diligently as the Bereans did (Acts 17:11), we’ll soon discover the New Testament does approve of plural marriage and welcomed Jewish converts in plural families into the Church,” argues Tidwell.
Tidwell argues against the traditional understanding that church elders must be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2), relying on a revised understanding of the Greek word that is rendered as “one” in essentially all modern translations. Tidwell argues that the verse is better rendered as “the husband of his first wife.”
“A man who divorces his first wife to marry another, as Jesus prohibits in Matthew 19:9 (also Mal 2:15-16), is not fit for Eldership in the Church. Paul is not addressing polygyny,” argues Tidwell.
In a July social media post, Tidwell said that his eighth child, the first with his second wife, is the fulfillment of prophetic promise.
“When Kristan and I met and began courting, she received a prophecy from the Lord that our first child together would be a daughter and her name was to be ‘Grace.’ She wrote it down and gave it to me for safe keeping,” wrote Tidwell.
https://churchleaders.com/news/2208451-m...-wife.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
