By Reno Omokri
I read the Reverend’s response to my fulfilment of his challenge and I sympathise with him.
First of all he asked me to show him from Scripture where polygamy was mentioned as a doctrine. I provided him more than ten of such Scriptures. Now, he is shifting the goal posts and talking about “head knowledge”.
That is a very familiar defence. The Pharisees used it against Christ. When they sent soldiers to arrest Christ, the soldiers were in awe and could not arrest our Lord and Saviour. So they returned to the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin, who asked them why they had not arrested Him.
The response of the guards is telling. They said ““No man ever spoke like this Man!”-John 7:46. To which the Pharisees retorted “Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”-John 7:47-49.
You see, the ordinary people understood and believed Christ, but the establishment, represented by the Pharisees did not understand or believe him. Why? Because they were relying on some esoteric knowledge that only they had, but the crowd did not have.
The same ‘head knowledge and heart knowledge’ defence.
The fact is that I have buttresses everything I have said about polygamy with Scriptures. But I challenge you to go and read the Reverend Father’s first and second responses to me.
It is full of dogma of his church denomination and his own personal opinions. You will notice he keeps saying ‘if God wanted, then why…?”. Using human logic, and passing off his own opinions as God’s Judgment. Yet he is the one talking about head knowledge and heart knowledge.
For the sake of those who did not read my response to his challenge, I mentioned over ten verses where Scripture approved of polygamy, including one instance where God himself stated that He gave multiple wives to David:
“I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives”-2 Samuel 12:8.
I also gave another Scripture, where the leading priest in Israel, Jehoiada, married two wives for the young King Joash, who was put under him:
“Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the years of Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada chose two wives for him, and he had sons and daughters.”
Is this Reverend Father now greater than God Himself and His priest Jehoiada, who helped the king of Judah do “what was right in the eyes of the LORD”?
I also showed that Moses made several laws regulating polygamy, including in Exodus 21:10.
When they cannot defend their opinions which they have passed off as God’s judgment, they will then declare you are using ‘head knowledge’.
Now, you have read two instances where God Himself, and God’s leading priest gave multiple wives to people. Whose report would you believe? God’s or one Reverend Father’s?
In his piece, the Reverend Father did not argue with Scripture, but with rhetorical questions such as ‘Adam had many ribs, why did God not make many wives for him’?
The answer to his question is that we do not know and we are not meant to know. We are only meant to know what God has revealed to us. We are not meant to know what He has not revealed to us. And we are not meant to use our logic to figure out the answers to what He has not revealed to us. We see this in Deuteronomy 29:29:
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
The argument that the Law was abolished by Christ after His death is not Scriptural. Christ never said so. Christ rather said the complete opposite of that. We see this in Matthew 5:17:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to FULFIL them.”
Christ Himself kept the Law. Paul himself also kept the law-Philippians 3:6.
Today, we still promote and obey the 10 Commandments and have not jettisoned them because Christ died.
Many people who reason like this Reverend Father like to cite Romans 6:14, which says:
“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.”
Now, that is another manipulation of Scripture to suit personal bias.
In that chapter (Romans 6), Paul was not saying that believers in Christ do not have to be guided by the Old Testament.
That chapter (please read it for yourself) is not talking about abandoning the law or the Old Testament. It is talking about sin, and how because Christ died for our sins, we are not under the bondage of Old Testament laws that make us sinners and require us to offer animal sacrifices.
Paul is saying that because Christ died for our sins, we have grace and we are not obligated to perform any more sacrifices, as the ancients Israelites did (the High Priest had to kill a red heifer as a sacrifice for sin-Hebrews 9:13).
That verse does not make the Old Testament obsolete. It only makes the Temple sacrifices for sins obsolete.
The same Paul who wrote that, also wrote as follows in Romans 2:14:
“Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.”
My counsel to this Reverend Father is that he should be honest and let the public know when he is teaching dogmas of his church denomination, and separate that from Scriptural doctrines. God did not call us to follow dogma. He called us to follow Scripture:
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,”-2 Timothy 3:16.
Again, I do not encourage or discourage polygamy. That is left for you and your conscience. I am also not a polygamists, as some have falsely alleged. However, to say polygamy is a sin is a lie and I have proved that using only Scripture, without ever adding my own opinion.
These are Western constructs that were added by the Romans to pollute the pure faith that Yeshua Hamashiach (Nabi Isa, or Jesus) brought from God to the world.
So, forget me me, forget Reverend Father, forget pastor, forget Daddy and Mummy GO. Carry the Scripture and read it for yourself. Follow God’s Word, not a church denomination.
• Omokri is a public affairs analyst and gospeller.