ARE WE UNFAITHFUL TO OUR WIFE IF WE TAKE ADDITIONAL WIVES?

 

 

 

One husband and one wife had always been the Biblical ideal:

·       Malachi 2:15–16 (NLT) Didn’t the LORD make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. “For I hate divorce!” says the LORD, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”

·       1 Corinthians 7:2–4 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.  The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.  For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

·       1 Timothy 3:2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

·       Deuteronomy 17:17 And he [the king] shall not acquire many [or multiple?] wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

If the king was not allowed to take multiple wives, neither are we. However, God allowed polygamy:

·       Exodus 21:10–11 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

However, Jesus upheld the sanctity of husband/wife oneness by quoting from Genesis 1 and 2:

·       Matthew 19:4–6 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

OT laws regulated polygamy without outlawing it, ensuring that the multiple wives were treated with justice and compassion. This demonstrates that not everything that God allows represents His ideal. The ideal had been faithfulness with our one wife, yet God also allowed divorce because of the hardness of our hearts, as Jesus explained:

·       Matthew 19:8–9 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Therefore, also allowing polygamy should be understood as a concession to the hardness of our hearts. Should we allow divorce and polygamy today?