So what have we learned?

[NeoPatriarch]

Now that we understand polygyny is biblical what's the point? Is it to grab up many wives? Is it to organize you're family a certain way?

Or perhaps there's a bigger problem.

We are quick to notice that modern theologians defend traditional marriages not biblical ones but have we done better? Perhaps its time to explore other traditions in the same light.

It seems to me that we stick this truth into traditional Christianity when perhaps we need to dig deeper.

Just a thought. . .

 

[DiscussingTheTopic]

We have the same evidence as anti-polygynists but a different interpretation of the evidence.

Unfortunately some polygynists use the same incorrect interpretation of the evidence as anti-polygynists......

If one consistently applies the typical anti-polygynists' choice of method of interpretation of the evidence (as I have typically seen it) for everything one can make anything mean anything.

I suggest learning the proper interpretation of evidence.

Interpretation of evidence is partly a matter of heart do we try to find out what God really means, or do we not care about God and interpret scripture to mean what we want it to mean?

 

[Anonymous]

Greetings NeoPatriarch,
You seem to have a glimmer in your eye as you posted this. Do you mind sharing what you have in mind?

 

[NeoPatriarch]

Perhaps you sense is the glitter of hope. When I first discovered that other shared this belief I thought we would share so much more.
Unfortunately, Most of them had return to the same churches that had previously mislead them. Teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.

It's simply a matter new wine in old wineskins.
And every tradition is suspect.

So what have we learned? Can we apply the same principles to other traditions? Will such a critical analysis move us into one accord, as they were in the early church?

Greetings NeoPatriarch,
You seem to have a glimmer in your eye as you posted this. Do you mind sharing what you have in mind?

 

[Hugh McBryde]

This is the whole point of my attempt to produce a new "Reformed" denomination. It's sputtering, but still going. The suspect areas are baptismal practices, tithing vs just giving, Sunday "Sabbath" and so on. I thought I'd just list a few, not all, for starters. Marriage becomes, or should become a non issue among fellowshipping Bible Believing Christians who accept polygyny. You're left (as you seem to be saying) with a big "now what?"

One of the most important areas is Church Governance. How are you called? What constitutes a call? Where do local Churches come from?

Unless you are Pentecostal (I offer no criticism at this point of the belief system), then if you say you are called, but you cannot show who sent you (and consequently who sent them), you haven't been sent and thus not called to anything. A Pentecostal can always say "God Sent Me, I Heard His Voice" and at bare minimum, they have not stepped outside their core beliefs.

I am a cessationist, a term for someone who doesn't believe prophetic visions are occurring at this time, much less gifts of healing performed obviously and directly by the agency given to me personally. That would be like me saying "Arise (insert name) and WALK!" and those to whom I speak such a command and blessing, cease to be lame and walk. I can't do that and I don't know anyone who can. If someone said they were speaking to God for their "call" to be "sent" to preach at a Church, I would expect that some of them would also prophesy, write new books of the Bible and heal. I don't see those things.

Since I do not, I expect that callings come from other human beings who have an official standing with some Church. I expect that they were called in a similar way. I expect to be able to trace this back to someone somewhere who was an Apostle directly called by Christ. We all of course know by what authority Christ did those things.

You should know that I would term the casting out of Luther by the Roman Catholic Church as an effective "call." I also understand that Churches are to be subject to local governance, meaning they are organized along national boundaries.

 

[NeoPatriarch]

Discussing the topic
I think you hit it on the head. We must be consistent in interpreting scripture. Certainly we learned that scripture trumps tradition. How about the law first appearance? Do we recognize this is a tradition and not teaching scripture.

Hugh

You brought up the matter of church. The current tradition of church is a building or an organization. The church we see in scripture is very different.

So what is church?
Traditional marriage verses biblical marriage
traditional church versus biblical church

Is there a difference? Does biblical marriage fit in traditional church?

 

[Hugh McBryde]

It really depends on how you talk about it. Sometimes the word "church" is used to refer to a place in scripture, which then means, it's a building. I think that is the least important of the meanings in one sense, and the most, in another. You need a place to gather. There are about four other verses like this one: Philemon 1:2:

And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house."

I contend then that there is a sense in which the church is a building or place, though Paul repeatedly emphasizes the church being the believers and the location more or less incidental. Still. There has to be a place.

After that as long as no one freezes to death or gets sick there, the building itself isn't that big a deal. I'm not for building programs and mistaking the building for the more important sense of the word church, which is the people, and the organization.

So no, I don't see it as very different, unless you're characterizing me as a "building program" church type.

In my understanding, progressing from the least important (though you have to have a place to meet) sense of "church," it is:

Place.

Local group of believers that meet in the above place that are organized along the lines of being planted and established by a preacher (in scripture, almost always Paul, who was sent).

The Church Universal. The "Bride of Christ" as it were that Monogamy Only Advocates beat us constantly with, as "instructive." In this last sense the word "Church" is all true believers, the (cough) ELECT.

BTW I am making note of predestination passages as I go through the New Testament again, here's the first glaring one I noticed, in Acts 4:28:

For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done."

The ESV, NASB, and RSV say "Predestined" for "Determined." The "Hebrew Names Version says "Foreordained," various others say things like "decided beforehand" and the Greek word is "προορίζω (proorizō)" which means "predestinate, determine beforehand, foreordain, etc. (cough).

 

[porkchop]

I am a cessationist, a term for someone who doesn't believe prophetic visions are occurring at this time, much less gifts of healing performed obviously and directly by the agency given to me personally.

Wow, I"m a cessationist and a preterist. The things you learn about yourself!

 

[Hugh McBryde]

I"m a cessationist and a preterist. The things you learn about yourself!"

I think the proper term for me on "Preterism" is that I am an "Orthodox Preterist." Being what is known as a "Full Preterist" has problems associated with it. Prominent Orthodox Preterists are RC Sproul and Gary DeMar.

 

[DiscussingTheTopic]

RC Sproul......

If RC Sproul is right and I understand him correctly then there is no point in sharing the gospel (for the sake of helping the person who is going to go to the lake of fire no matter what) because the same number of people are going to burn in a lake of fire anyway and the same number of people are going to go to "heaven," anyway.

 

[MarvelousMarvin]

DTT said:

RC Sproul......

If RC Sproul is right and I understand him correctly then there is no point in sharing the gospel (for the sake of helping the person who is going to go to the lake of fire no matter what) because the same number of people are going to burn in a lake of fire anyway and the same number of people are going to go to "heaven," anyway.

As it was explained to me (and I don't "buy" this explanation), since we don't know who the "elect" are, we should share the gospel with everybody in the hope that some of those we share it with are not pre-ordained for damnation.

My understanding of election is this:

1 Peter 1:2 NKJV elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.

In other words, election is not because of God arbitrarily deciding, from before the foundation of the world, that this person will be saved, but that person will be damned. Rather, election is about what God knows about the choices each of us will make. That puts evangelism in a different light.

Why would God not just "point" us to those who are elected for eternal life and not have us waste the resources we are stewards of in trying to evangelize those elected for damnation?

Of course, the same argument might be applied to election based on foreknowledge, except for one thing: in order for a person to choose between eternal life and eternal damnation, that person must have some knowledge of what the choices are.

 

[steve]

neo;
sadly, you are correct :roll:

 

[NeoPatriarch]

Don't be sad steve. Please explain yourself. I could use the affirmation.

neo;
sadly, you are correct :roll:

 

[DiscussingTheTopic]

Polydoc

I was not talking about the correct Biblical understanding of predestination

I was talking about my understanding of RC Sproul's teaching on predestination.

There is the possibility that I misunderstand RC Sproul but it seems to me he teaches another predestination which some people call "double predestination."

Double predestination

Calvinistic predestination is sometimes referred to as "double predestination."[2] This is the view that God chose who would go to heaven, and who to hell, and that his decision will infallibly come to pass. The difference between elect and reprobate is not in themselves, all being equally unworthy, but in God's sovereign decision to show mercy to some, to save some and not others. However, an important note is made that human free will is still in effect, therefore the reprobate is still rightly responsible for any sins committed. It is called double predestination because it holds that God chose both whom to save and whom to damn, as opposed to single predestination which contends that though he chose whom to save, he did not choose whom to damn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestina ... lvinism%29

Double predestination (as defined here) is double thinking because they hold that people are "equally unworthy" but at the same time "human free will is still in effect."

If they really have free will they will make different decisions and thus not be "equally unworthy" unless people all were foreseen to have always made the worst decisions even though they could have made other decisions, in which case saved people are nothing but saved sinners, who sin no less than unsaved sinners. In which case heaven would be hell because sinners would be there torturing each other.

Humans do not have free will to decide if they are saved or not saved. But they are being punished because they used their free will to decide to be not saved.

 

[steve]

it is just sad that so many add poly to their current doctrinal rut and camp at that point.

 

[Hugh McBryde]

I'd agree that most just add Poly to their current doctrinal stance and don't move. Speaking for myself, that's hardly the case. My staunch Reformation/Presbyterian/Predestination flavor of "Poly" is in fact largely a result of accepting polygyny. It has to do with accepting the Sovereignty of God. For me at least, understanding that greater Sovereignty flowed directly from understanding roles in marriage and the fact that the man is in charge, modeling our LORD. I had wandered around mostly reformed venues of worship and generally preferred them, but I hardly knew why and I was a very weak "Calvinist."

Knowing that the organized churches would probably never accept polygyny, I had also wondered what would constitute the correct way go go about forming a new church. That became eventually, a "new denomination" but I still didn't have a handle on it.

As mentioned before, I am a "cessationist," which says I don't believe people heal one another (though it would have to be with God's power), speak in an "intelligible" tongue or write scripture. Similarly I don't think people hear God speak like he spoke to his prophets, or to Moses. No one hears God call them like Samuel did in this day and time.

Combining God's sovereignty with Romans 10 which states a preacher must preach for the Gospel to heard, and that preacher must be sent (it's interesting that Romans 9 is a nail down chapter for "Calvinists"), I began to see that there must be some endorsement from God, either second hand or first hand for there to be a sending and that sending wasn't going to be me waking up like Samuel, and answering God's voice.

Thus we need some sending to be a preacher, and we need a preacher to have a church.

In order, I became a believer in polygyny as a fully acceptable form of family relationship and marriage practice.

Then I became a cessationist. That's sorta unrelated to believing as I do on marriage, except for the fact that having become the way I am on marriage, I was reading the scriptures constantly to verify my belief and that's how I arrived at cessationism.

I encountered the "Mean and Harsh" Brandon Kraft over at "Theology Web" ("Dee Dee Warren's" site) in the course of my many frustrating and unprofitable debates with Dee Dee and her posse. Brandon sorta rubbed my nose in Isaiah 45 and I (being somewhat more disposed to accept authority structure) realized that God did author absolutely everything and I became a "Hyper Calvinist," which I find utterly acceptable as a polygynist. I am in fact very surprised that more polygynists don't see this, since they do accept (as male practitioners) their dominant and "unequal" role in the home. I guess they just want to stop there.

Roll it all together in a wad, and I take the position that Yes, we do need a New Denomination and/or church but we can't just strike out on our own any more than a woman ought to be without what some call a "covering."

I firmly believe that I have in fact been "sent" in much the same way that Luther was during the reformation, and more recently that Gresham Machen was sent to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Being the "Jonah" that I am, I'd much rather hop a ship going in the opposite direction. You can turn my "sending" into "sitting" in the pew if you find for me someone else who has been sent and believes in Poly. They just have to be sent.

So far no one can explain to me without the extant gifts of the Holy Spirit being evidenced through believers (gifts like healing and prophecy), how someone is "sent." They just go silent and claim various reasons like "I don't want to argue." Here's the problematic text:

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:13-17)

When someone can explain to me how it is that someone is sent, and show me someone who was sent, if I am convinced that their explanation of sending is correct, I will sit in at that man's feet or in his pews.

Polygyny has caused me to rethink what I have been told in every area of my faith. Some answers I have been given all along turn out to be good ones in my estimation, but I largely adopted them in the wake of accepting polygyny. I did not adopt polygyny in doctrine, and pin that tail on my other beliefs. It was in fact the other way around. As purposed by the LORD of course.

What I do see in a lot of poly people is precisely what you speak of, namely, they just add poly to their flavor and go on. I regret to say that most of what I see as a "flavor" is that they, the poly adopter, are on top of the pyramid in all things.

 

[NeoPatriarch]

Churches are not buildings..

Can anyone cite a scripture that identifies a specific building as a church?

Church is an event where believers gather.

Consider the a greek : ekklesia

One of the definitions is the word "assembly", the student of the torah will recognize that term. The earliest christians were messianic jews. The buildings they met in were called synagoges. Even without such a building there could be an assembly, or church.

The point: all that is necessary for "church" to happen is that believers gather.

How they come to that belief is another question entirely.

 

[Hugh McBryde]

I completely agree that you don't need a building, and I think I have been doing that in the sense that I say you don't need a specific building. The Israelites had a tent. In one place in Acts the are mentioned to meet in an entryway (Solomon's portico) and in another, down by the river (minus the van and the steady diet of Government Cheese).

Ultimately you meet somewhere and you mentioned that Jesus and his Apostles did NOT eschew the meeting places of the Jews, the Synagogues, and in fact went to those places. In that sense, and that sense alone is a building a "church," but only because the "church" is meeting there.

Let me put it this way. If you have a hundred churches, some of them are going to meet in buildings specifically designated for that purpose, or hired for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with it. Those places are "churches" in that small sense of it's usage. It is the least important aspect of "church" in one way as I said, but in a way the most important since you gotta meet somewhere.

In other words, the Grinch could burn down the church, and the "Whos" in "Whoville" would still have a church and would meet and would worship and HE would be there among them.

In emphasizing the fact that I place a small part of the definition of "church" in it's occasional reference to a specific building or place, you're avoiding what I believe to be the second most important aspect of a church, the very thing that makes it a church after you gather together believers.

Formal organization.

This organization flows from having another organization endorsing yours. That organization must in turn look back and be able to eventually find and point to a sending by our LORD.

This is why I am a Presbyterian, but I could also be Greek Orthodox or coming out of that organization, or that of the Coptics. My heritage I believe is valid. There is the Jerusalem Church run by James. It plants many churches throughout the Roman Empire and one stands unique in that it comes together on it's own being comprised of believers who migrated it seems to Rome and may have converted others to Christ. This body correctly appeals to Jerusalem to be endorsed, and Paul longs to come to them, and eventually does and blesses their work.

Rome becomes the Roman Catholic denomination. It quickly begins to descend into error, but it has one feature that is important. It can trace itself back to a real sending. Later it becomes so awful that it kills reformers (Hus), causes them to recant (at least partially and for a time, Wycliffe), and eventually tosses one out (Luther).

Luther in my view is "sent" or we should all still be Catholic. I can discuss that in depth with anyone who wishes to do so, but be mindful of the fact that the early church was tossed out of the temple, having met there originally and Christ is the cornerstone that the builders rejected. There is such a thing as a negative endorsement by a negative group that amounts to a Godly sending.

Calvin among others recognizes in the Reformation, the wrongness of having a church that transcends national boundaries when it comes to governance. It's impossible to submit to two different governments. They could be at war or want different things from you. Hence, the short form of why it's OK to be a Presbyterian as opposed to all of us being Lutherans or Catholics.

From there, I am sure you have heard me say, there is the Presbyterian departure from England and Scotland to the New World to avoid persecution, some of the Dutch likewise left and came to the New World for the same reason. There is Revolution here. Presbyterians split correctly from England after that and form their national body in the United States. Presbyterians go wildly liberal and J. Gresham Machen objects, is tossed out, and forms the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Gresham Machen was sent just as Luther was.

The OPC in the form of the Covenant Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Barre VT tosses ME out over the marriage issue.

I am thus sent.

Please, find someone else. I'd rather be pew sitter than the one that argues over whether or not there should be a pew or not. Until then, I'm here, I've been sent, I'm sure there is someone else who has been too, but please find that group and be in submission to them and fellowship with them. Whether there is a building or not.

 

[steve]

but please find that group and be in submission to them and fellowship with them.

ohhh, but i liked your other plan so much better

There is such a thing as a negative endorsement by a negative group that amounts to a Godly sending.

 

[Hugh McBryde]

It's still a plan until someone joins in with the one man band that I am right now.