Marriage Series - Polygamy and It's Problems Part 2

Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters. 

A week or so ago, I shared a podcast episode that talked about the suffering and division that came to Abraham and his decedents because of their practice of polygamy. Both Abraham and Jacob violated God’s original design for marriage when they each married a second wife. And the consequences of their polygamy were not pretty: jealousy, mistrust, fighting, and even attempted murder.  The stories of the patriarchs in the book of Genesis should be enough to warn any young man to avoid polygamy at all costs. God had a beautiful idea in mind. He said that a man should leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife so the two would become one.  We need to always remember his good and gracious plan!

But it is very likely that you have known a family in which there was one husband and two or more wives. Perhaps you were born into such a family or perhaps you yourself entered into such a marriage before you know the will of God concerning marriage: one man marries one woman. If so, you understand very well what I am talking about when I mention the very common consequences of polygamy: jealousy, envy, selfishness, division, and even hatred.

I remember talking to a West African man who was the oldest son of the fourth wife of his father. His father was the village chief. His mother died and he was very sad. Then, his father, the chief, died.  The sons of his father’s first wife made sure that my friend and his sisters inherited nothing from their father.  My friend had to leave the technical school where he was studying to make his way as a laborer in the capital city. His aunts said they would take care of his younger sisters. But they did not. My friend’s little sisters, the chief’s daughters, suffered horribly at the hands of evil men.

Shortly after my friend told me this story, I shared the Good News of Jesus with him.  I used the Three Circles Gospel presentation.  It starts with these words. “The world in which we live is broken.”  We both wept as I said those words. My young friend had observed first hand that the world is broken.  He and his sisters suffered greatly because his father ignored God’s original design for marriage.  Our decisions have consequences and those consequences last a long time and travel a long way.  Even years after his father’s death, my friend and his sisters were suffering and grieving over the consequences of his father’s and his half-brothers actions. 

Stories like these are innumerable.  You yourself may be living through a story like this one. You may have friends who are experiencing this kind of grief right now.

But the Good News is that our God is a redeemer.  He takes what is broken and puts it back together again. He mends the brokenhearted.  He heals what has been injured because of our parents’ blindness.  You can be a part of God’s healing, redeeming work.  Warn everyone you can of the long-term, negative consequences of polygamy. Help the young people in your churches form healthy marriages based on God’s original design. Teach the children of polygamous fathers to do everything they can to live at peace with all of their father’s children. It won’t be easy. But God is with you. And so, your efforts will bear fruit for generations to come.

This has been “Multiply.” And I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this encouraging word with today?

#EncouragementForVillageChurchPlanters #Faithfulness