What Does the Bible Say About Polygamy?

Gospel and polygamy. Some might wonder why this is even worth mentioning because it doesn’t seem like it’s that big a deal here, but this issue huge around, cultures around the world. Let me ask you a question, and I’m going to get you to answer back to me all at one time. Okay? Okay. Here’s the deal. Say you’re in… You could be in a tribal context in Africa or maybe a Muslim village in Asia, and you have the opportunity to lead someone to Christ who is a polygamist. He has five wives.

How do you counsel him when it comes to his wives now? Should he provide in every way for all five of those wives, financially, sexually, in every way for all of his wives? Yes or no? You ready? On the count of three, you got to yell it out. Okay? Should he provide for all five of his wives, even those who are in different places? All right. You ready? Don’t think, “Well, I’m not going to do it and see what others say.” No. This is it. We’re all in this together. All right. All in this together. Here we go. Should he provide for all of his wives? One, two, three. Yes.

What Does the Bible Say About Polygamy?

All right. All right. Let’s see. All right. Gospel, polygamy. Okay. Just to make sure we’re on the same place and plane here. Polygamy, having more than one wife at a time, and it’s all over scripture, particularly the Old Testament, over 30 different references to polygamy. Four chapters into the Bible, we got Lamech who takes two wives.

Then you have Abraham, Esau. You got poor Jacob, who gets married he thinks to Rachel, but then he wakes up in the morning and rolls over, and he sees Leah. That would be odd. That would be odd. Laban had deceived him. Jacob worked out a deal to take Rachel too in exchange for another seven years of service. You got polygamy in the Bible, even among the patriarchs. Does the Bible, does God endorse polygamy?

Well, let’s think about this. Polygamy and God from the very beginning, just as we’ve seen, there is unequivocally clear divine pattern for marriage, one man, one woman, one husband, one wife. Picture Genesis 2, Proverbs 5, 1 Corinthians 7. In addition to that divine pattern, you never see polygamy ever, one time, praised as a good thing in the Bible. In fact, you see the opposite, the divine prohibition of polygamy. Most clearly in the Leviticus 18:18, “You shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.”

There’s a lot of discussion about Leviticus 18 because Leviticus 18, before and around this, talks about incest. Some people have discarded this. It’s not really talking about polygamy, but the same word that’s used as arrival wife here in verse 18 is I bring it in Samuel 1—6 to talk about Hannah’s rival wife, Peninnah, not a biological sister, but sister in the sense they’re both Israelites, but a rival wife, a second wife. Then you go to Deuteronomy 17:17 where God strictly warned the future king or kings of Israel not to acquire many wives for themselves.

Biblical Prohibitions Of Polygamy

So you have these biblical prohibitions of polygamy. Why? Well, just like we were talking about a second ago, it all starts in the heart. Polygamy breeds idolatry. Solomon takes the cake with 700 wives, 300 concubines, many of whom were taken from other nations for political purposes. But he went directly against Deuteronomy 17:17. And indeed his heart turned away from the Lord and idolatry and polygamy brings disharmony.

Some of the major disharmony we see in scripture, particularly when the patriarchs deals with a husband and his wives. So we see a divine pattern for marriage in scripture, divine prohibition of polygamy, and then we see the divine provision for polygamists. So much like divorce, for example, was divorce part of God’s original design? No, it was a result of sin, a result of the fall in the world.

Consequently, God made provision for how to address divorce in the same way polygamy a result of sin. Consequently, God made provision for how polygamists should act. Now, Deuteronomy 21 helped protect against favoritism among wives. And some have taken that passage and said, “Well, there it is. God endorses polygamy.” But this is not an endorsement for polygamy any more than regulations about divorce or an endorsement of divorce. When this passage starts by saying, “If a man has two wives,” that’s just giving guidance, this is case law for a certain circumstance.

Just like when you see an Exodus 22, if a man steals an ox or sheep, that doesn’t mean God is advocating theft. No, He’s addressing what needs to be done when this sin happens. So this is not an endorsement for polygamy. This is simply compassion for people who find themselves in sinful polygamous situations. God’s doing what He does throughout scripture, using sinful people in sinful situations to show His grace and His mercy in providing for them.

So He provides, wants to make sure that wives, there’s not favoritism, they are provided for in the case where this has happened, not because he’s endorsing it, because He loves His people. So polygamy in the church, you go to the New Testament and the stance is pretty clear. A polygamist cannot be a church leader. Evident all over the New Testament. Overseer, elder must be a husband of one wife. Deacons each must be the husband of one wife. So that’s clear. But can a polygamist be a church member? And there’s nothing in the New Testament seems to warrant against that. So yes, based on scripture, a polygamist can be a church member. Polygamy doesn’t disqualify somebody from the kingdom of grace, which leads to polygamy in the gospel.

On the one hand, the gospel compels us to avoid polygamy, to follow the divine pattern. Polygamy dev defies that pattern and distorts the picture of the gospel. So in Christ, we’re compelled to avoid polygamy to honor Christ. But what about the person who’s already polygamous? Like we were talking about, the Bible encourages us to encourage polygamists first and foremost, be saved by Christ. Share the gospel with polygamists. Be saved by Christ. But what happens when they do? How do you encourage them concerning their wives? And based upon scripture, it seems that our encouragement would be for them to be faithful to their wives, all of them.

Compassion For His People

Nowhere the scripture call a husband to cast off his wife. Scripture calls us to love care for wives. So even though it’s not God’s design, there’s provision out of God’s compassion for His people just like we saw in the Old Testament for needs to be met of all wives in a way that shows them love and honor for the Lord who created marriage. At the same time, to encourage polygamists to be opposed to any and all future polygamy. Be faithful to your wife until the next generation or until death do you part, but never do this again, and preach one wife to everybody you know so that God may be glorified in monogamous marriage. The gospel and polygamy.