HonestYouthPastor – Polygamy Response Part 1

HonestYouthPastor released a two-hour rebuttal to Rich Tidwell after the Protestia story about a pastor taking a second wife. This is Part 1 of a point-by-point answer that sets aside the poisoning-the-well framing and tests each claim against Scripture. The thesis is simple: absent a command limiting a man to one marriage, plural marriage is not a separate construct needing defense — it is simply marriage, and where there is no law there is no transgression.

The argument answered

• The “doctrine of demons” move: HYP grants 1 Timothy 4 condemns those who forbid marriage and food, then we ask whether forbidding a man a second wife is itself a forbidding of marriage worth examining.
• The three-marriages comparison: lumping polygyny with celibate priests and interracial marriage is guilt-by-association — agree with two, smuggle in the third as equal.
• Ruth 4:11 and Rachel and Leah: their names are invoked as a blessing on Ruth and Boaz, and Scripture says the two women “built up the house of Israel” — hardly an abomination held up in a wedding blessing.
• The “dysfunctional household” charge: reading Genesis 29–30 in isolation to condemn plural marriage is eisegesis; by that logic Cain murdering Abel argues against having children. Sin causes the strife, not the structure.
• The adultery definition: HYP concedes adultery is taking a woman already married or betrothed — which is exactly why Bathsheba was sin but Abigail and Ahinoam were not, and why no patriarch ever repented of a second wife.
• The 2 Samuel 12 “property transfer”: God says He gave David his master’s wives and would have given more; the plain reading blesses the wives David had and condemns only the taking of Uriah’s one wife.
• Matthew 19 “one flesh” and the “mias” / one-wife setup: the part closes as HYP tries to fuse Genesis 2:24 with the 1 Timothy 3 elder qualification to force “first wife.”

Scriptures examined

• 1 Timothy 4:1–6 — deceitful spirits, doctrines of demons, forbidding marriage and foods
• Ruth 4:11 — Rachel and Leah “built up the house of Israel”
• Genesis 29–30 — Leah, Rachel, and the building of Jacob’s house
• Genesis 4 — Cain and Abel (the “dysfunction” counterpoint)
• 2 Samuel 12:7–9 — Nathan’s rebuke, “I gave you your master’s wives”
• Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; 13 — the definition of adultery and the prohibition on adding to the law
• Matthew 19:3–12 — divorce, “one flesh,” and the eunuch saying
• Genesis 2:24; 1 Timothy 3:2 — “one flesh” and “husband of one wife”

Why it matters

If the church has forbidden a kind of marriage God never forbade, that is no small error. This is Part 1 of a two-part response; continue with Part 2, which takes up 1 Corinthians 7, the eunuch calling, and Isaiah 4:1.