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Old 07-27-2009, 01:27 PM
CKG CKG is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Warner Robins, Georgia
Posts: 197
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Amanda S. View Post
Sis. Pam...

I do think that you've hit on something here...You stated it so simply without out of context verses that it really did hit me upside the head LOL

Consider this:

RECOMMENDATIONS

How, then, should the African Christian Church promote monogamy while allowing the polygamy of converts to remain? The following recommendations are offered toward the implementation of this alternative.

1. The church should undertake biblical sex education and marriage counseling for teachers, church-workers, youth, engaged couples, people in early years of marriage, elderly couples, and converted polygamists. The teachings should affirm monogamy as God’s ideal. Celibacy, for example, must be taught as an option for singles. Christian parents should assist with the education.
2. Childlessness is a critical pastoral problem in African society because the idea of procreation in marriage still dominates and overshadows the solid principle of authentic married love. Marriages rarely last without children. The church should encourage “adoption” within the clan as an alternative to childless couples.
3. The church should combat chronic diseases like tuberculosis and typhoid fever which kill infants at a high rate.
4. The church should set up vocational training centers for unmarried women. Here, women are to be assisted to define their place in the church and society, recognizing new emerging roles for African women.
5. The church should set up a fund to support widows.
6. The church should shape and contribute toward social transformation of the African culture in all fields with respect to the full recognition of the equal dignity of men and women. The free-will and basic worth and dignity of individuals, especially of women and young people, needs to be deeply respected in a developing African society.
7. The church should take an active interest in drafting just legislation concerning marriage, divorce, remarriage, and inheritance.
8. The church should teach good methods of family planning.
9. Converted polygamists should affirm at baptism that they will teach monogamy and not advance polygamy.

The proposed alternative has missiological, pastoral, and theological implications. First, it is a witness to the gracious God who meets humans where they are and accepts them as they are, and then by His Spirit transforms their lives. It grants all of us the opportunity to manifest our gratitude for God’s enduring patience for us by learning to be more patient with the different ways of other peoples and by allowing them also the time required for the leaven of the Gospel to become gradually more active in their different cultures. Second, the African Christian Church will experience growth as many polygamists and their families, including the chiefs, will be encouraged to join the church. They will be a powerful and influential witness to their community. Third, the Africans will fully embrace and feel at home with Christ as their truly incarnated Savior on the basis of faith alone. It will grant them the basic tools for assessing their own cultural heritage, for making their own contribution to Christian life and thought, and also for testing the genuineness and Christian character of that contribution.

Fourth, this alternative will guide foreign missionaries working among Africans. It will be a rebuke to missionaries who promote Western tradition rather than the Word of God. It will reflect the importance of taking the cultural context of the recipients of the Gospel seriously. Fifth, it will aid Bible colleges and seminaries in Ghana in the training of pastors and the development of a balanced biblical theology of mission. And finally, it will aid the Western church in dealing with marriage and polygamy in their context, where simultaneous polygamy is on a steady rise.

Here is the full article. http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1486
That is good guidance, but my question is (and I'm not trying to be a smart-aleck) which "the church" are you talking about? Sometimes you can't even get two KJV churches to work together or agree on matters. I think it is good guidance for individual missionaries and churches to consider, but I always get a little uneasy when people start talking about what "the church" ought to be doing.

Concerning the original topic of polygamy I think the guidance is good. If a man who has multiple wives gets saved and he lives in country in which that is permitted then you just about have to let him continue in that condition, yet at the same time if he really wants to follow the Lord then he will listen to the teachings of God's Word and be taught about God's will for marriage so that he can pass down to his children God's will of one man for one woman.