I agree with lasblast... remain married to the first wife, legally divorce the second, and accept the fact that this person can serve the Lord, but only in a limited capacity.

There is another option that I am surprised no one thought of.... he could simply convert to Mormonism! :-P

I love my dear wife with all my heart and soul, but I cant imagine living with two women... Further proof that Joseph Smith was a nut-job.

Krispy

But isn't divorcing against the Bible? I don't know, it just kinds of seems wrong to correct something against the Bible with another thing that's against the Bible.

But either way, if he was to legally divorce her or simply separate from her physically and not live with her without divorcing, I guess the result for the woman would still be the same. She would be unable to marry since the Bible forbids women who have been divorced to remarry, and if she remains married, well, then that's out of the question.

But yeah, I like the idea of him having to stay with the first wife that he married, although it's still so hard to find actual verses to prove that, because even the verse that says that a man should remain with the wife of his youth doesn't quite prove that since he could have married both women in his youth.

Anyways, I appreciate all your responses. God bless you all!

- Alin

I believe you misunderstood or either I was not clear enough in writing. The man divorced the first wife after 12 years of marriage, only after asking for reconcilation, after the divorce he remained single for 3 years. Married the second wife divorced her for adultery. Both for discerned adultery, not caught in the act. Remained single for 1 year and ask God for guidance in Godly marriage for the first time in his life. Married the 3rd wife and has been married 20 years. The couple pray together, study HIS WORD together, discuss the preacher sermon together, in all ways attempt to serve HIM in the church. He was never married to more than one at a time. It is bad enough with the facts don't make any worse.
And I might add this all occured after 18 months of Vietnam and much trouble afterwards adjusting to regular life again and was to hardheaded to let the Lord lead.

Iansmith,

Wow, that's quite something. I never heard of anything like that. It hardly seems that those missionaries were doing God's ministry when the women who were left to die along with their children would probably hate God for all their misery. It goes to show what happens when people are all about the letter.

And he did 18 years +

ZealForTruth,

Yeah, it was an example brought up in one of my missions class for us to understand the imporance of how we need balanced teaching in missions.

In the example, they over-emphasized the polygamy issue, and ended up neglecting the need to take care of these women. They had outwardly converted these men to Christ in their actions, but not converted their hearts.

Now the question would be, is it better to tell a man, 'get rid of your extra wives' or 'keep your wives, but make sure that your children only have one wife or husband.'

It's about interpretting our Western church culture as correct. If you read the verses about deacons and elders in the NT, the requirement says 'a husband of but one wife.' Now this makes a strange assumption, that there are those in the church with more than one wife!

It wouldn't be a requirement if it didn't in fact separate.

Now it doesn't say, 'having more than one wife is wrong.' In fact, it may have simply been an assumption that if you have more than one wife, you have more people to feed and take care of, so you shouldn't be serving as a deacon.

But since we read that verse through the lense of our Western church cultures, we automatically assume that all it really says is men shouldn't have more than one wife.

Now I don't support polygamy in modern American culture... but there was a time and place in history where it was acceptable practice.

Even now in some parts of the world, women outnumber men 4 to 1 (namely in the middle east). And if a woman want's security and provision for her needs, she has to become a second or third wife to a man who is already married.

If we look at human history, there were many times that men were killing eachother over resources or territory, and they left their women and children to fend for themselves.

We automatically look at a man with more than one wife as if it's a sexual issue. In some cultures taking another wife was a sign of charity and good will. Especially if that wife was the widow of a relative.

Now our world is experiencing something entirely new, in some parts of the world, for the first time in human history there are more men than women (india and china as examples) which is going to cause a lot of interesting events in the future.

_________________
Ian Smith

I believe we all should be about the letter or the word and HIS SPIRT gives us the want-to to do that. If it wasn't for the letter we wouldn't be able to see we need Jesus. When the Bible talks about the heart, it is talking about the want-to. Many people make many mistakes before they ask for HIS forgiveness and are indwelled with HIS SPIRIT to give them the want-to, at least I did. Because someone stands for truth does not mean they are saying they have always, are even now do not fail to do HIS WILL. Fail or not HE expects us to stive to keep HIS WORD. It doesn't matter how many times we have failed to keep HIS WORD in the past. IT is still truth. Sorry if I steeped on some toes that didn't exactly agree or have the want-to in some elements of some of my post.

Acts 13:50-52

50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.

51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium.

52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.
KJV