Polygamy And Concubines

Let me just add one comment here before we go on. I know that there are some of you here this morning whose lives have been greatly impacted by a divorce – either yours or someone else’s. Primarily in 1 Corinthians 7, the Bible does provide a few, strictly defined situations where divorce is permitted – primarily related to the unfaithfulness of ones’ spouse. But even if you have divorced for another reason, divorce is not the unpardonable sin. It certainly grieves God when that happens and it is sin, but it is a sin that can be forgiven, just like any other. God wants you to grieve over that sin, confess it, repent and then move on with your lives.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to take Jesus’ teaching here and apply it to polygamy. Although it was never part of his pattern for marriage, it seems that in Old Testament times, God had permitted men to take on multiple wives and concubines due to the hardening of their hearts. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t grieve God or that it wasn’t sin. In fact, God had made it quite clear that His people were not to take on multiple wives:

He [the king] must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray…

Deuteronomy 17:17 (NIV)

The primary problem with polygamy seems to be quite obvious. It’s just not possible for one man to become one flesh with more that one woman. There is no way a man can be fully committed to multiple wives.

A Mormon acquaintance once pushed Mark Twain into an argument on the issue of polygamy. After long and tedious expositions justifying the practice, the Mormon demanded that Twain cite any passage of scripture expressly forbidding polygamy.

"Nothing easier," Twain replied. "No man can serve two masters."

But here in this verse God also gives us another reason that marrying multiple lives is wrong – it will lead to a man’s heart being led astray.

The most well-known Biblical example of polygamy has to be Solomon. The Bible tells us that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. There must have been some interesting conversation around that dinner table!

Most of Solomon’s marriages were merely for political purposes. Unlike his father David, Solomon wasn’t really into fighting battles, so it was just easier to marry the daughters or sisters of his adversaries in order to make or keep the peace. But that practice brought its own problems:

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter-- Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

1 Kings 11:1-4 (NIV)

This week, I went back and looked at as many of the examples of polygamy I could find in the Old Testament. And I don’t think you’ll be surprised at what I found. There was not one example of where marriage to multiple wives resulted in God’s blessings. There were major problems in every one of those instances. Let me share with you just a couple: