Married - yet having a boy/girlfriend

[Classik]

Some are married and yet have a boy/girlfriend. (Even some who call themselves christians practise this.).

Isn't that the weirdest thing? Yet some are in open relationship with these boyfriends/girlfriends.

 

[Obadiah]

Kind of like a lot of the guys in the Old Testament, eh?

 

[Classik]

Kind of like a lot of the guys in the Old Testament, eh?

Really? I doubt if I can remember any...especially when the bf/gf thing is known to all

 

[Claudya]

Several of the old testament heros had two or more wives. Or had sex with their wives's female servants in order to have a baby with them. David had concubines in addition to 4 or more wives. All of that isn't very monogamous.

 

[Mike S]

My Christian heritage follows the doctrine "Faithfullness within marriage, celebacy outside marriage." It's a pretty common Christian understanding of marriage, but has never been universally accepted in other cultures, and certainly was never adhered to in Old Testament Bibilical culture.

 

[Classik]

Several of the old testament heros had two or more wives. Or had sex with their wives's female servants in order to have a baby with them. David had concubines in addition to 4 or more wives. All of that isn't very monogamous.

King David wouldnt be a good example, honestly. David was a very repentant man, a man after GOD's own heart.

The only sin he committed is: David vs the bathing woman - and besides he did it secretly.

;)

 

[Claudya]

David wasn't very repentant over being polygamous. The case of the bathing woman was special because she was already married and David dispatched her husband. But other than that David's polygamy didn't seem to be a problem neither for him, nor for God.

 

[evenifigoalone]

In David's case, kings often practiced polygamy because it had to do with relations and contracts to other countries. But yeah, lots of polygamy in the OT.

 

[farouk]

David wasn't very repentant over being polygamous. The case of the bathing woman was special because she was already married and David dispatched her husband. But other than that David's polygamy didn't seem to be a problem neither for him, nor for God.

Umm...it was a problem; see Psalm 51.

 

[farouk]

In David's case, kings often practiced polygamy because it had to do with relations and contracts to other countries. But yeah, lots of polygamy in the OT.

David should still have kept his pants on, though.

Blessings.

 

[Claudya]

Umm...it was a problem; see Psalm 51.

Huh? Psalm 51 is about Bathseba (the married woman who's husband he deliberately got killed by sending him to the front line of a war). But I said *other than that case* (which involves adultery and murder) the number of David's wives wasn't a problem.

The whole Psalm 51 shows how self absorbed David was. He's sobbing his eyes out about his own guilt and begs God for forgiveness as if him losing God's favor was the greatest and only relevant tragedy involved. He doesn't even mention her name, like he didn't care about the suffering he caused to her and her husband and their families and friends. He should be crying, but not because God is mad, but because he hurt and used people and caused irreversible damage to other people. His Psalm isn't true repentance, because because David doesn't seem to understand the gravity of his deeds. He only seems to see the gravity of the punishment.

 

[Mike S]

Huh? Psalm 51 is about Bathseba (the married woman who's husband he deliberately got killed by sending him to the front line of a war). But I said *other than that case* (which involves adultery and murder) the number of David's wives wasn't a problem.

The whole Psalm 51 shows how self absorbed David was. He's sobbing his eyes out about his own guilt and begs God for forgiveness as if him losing God's favor was the greatest and only relevant tragedy involved. He doesn't even mention her name, like he didn't care about the suffering he caused to her and her husband and their families and friends. He should be crying, but not because God is mad, but because he hurt and used people and caused irreversible damage to other people. His Psalm isn't true repentance, because because David doesn't seem to understand the gravity of his deeds. He only seems to see the gravity of the punishment.

This Psalm also provides an idea of punishment for sin that our modern sensibilities find a little hard to understand. King David sins, commits adultery, arranges for the death of his lover's husband, then in his quilt cries out for forgiveness and a clean heart, and punishmnet for his sin is that...his newborn son, the product of his adultery, dies. It's not the only time in the Hebrew writings that the death of innocents is used as a way of driving home a point about disobeying God's will. Another such instance is Job's family, annihilated to force suffering, and another family given birth as a reward for loyalty. Is a large part of humanity created and destroyed for the sole purpose of enforcing God's will? Are they merely disposable assets of no value in their own humanity?

 

[Claudya]

Is a large part of humanity created and destroyed for the sole purpose of enforcing God's will? Are they merely disposable assets of no value in their own humanity?

I'm guessing family, children in particular, were viewed to be more a possession or a property of the patriarch rather than humans with their own humanity (until they were old enough to become patriarchs themselves). Children and property were considered blessings from God that He would give to those that would follow His commands and live a godly live. So it was God's right to take away the blessings He gave.
Anway, it's really hard to understand. As for Job I've always felt the story is a metaphorical religious fiction instead of a real historical story; it was written as something like a treatise about how to deal with suffering.
But fiction or not, those stories about innocents being punished for someone else's misdeeds or killed to make a point shows a lot about the old Hebrews' view on people and on God. But for Bible literalists those stories must cause some moral pain.

 

[farouk]

Huh? Psalm 51 is about Bathseba (the married woman who's husband he deliberately got killed by sending him to the front line of a war). But I said *other than that case* (which involves adultery and murder) the number of David's wives wasn't a problem.

The whole Psalm 51 shows how self absorbed David was. He's sobbing his eyes out about his own guilt and begs God for forgiveness as if him losing God's favor was the greatest and only relevant tragedy involved. He doesn't even mention her name, like he didn't care about the suffering he caused to her and her husband and their families and friends. He should be crying, but not because God is mad, but because he hurt and used people and caused irreversible damage to other people. His Psalm isn't true repentance, because because David doesn't seem to understand the gravity of his deeds. He only seems to see the gravity of the punishment.

Polygamy and its variations are not porprayed positively in the Old Testament, to say the least. Lots of examples could be given.

 

[evenifigoalone]

I saw a video a while back about polygamy in the OT and the particular reasons why it was done/allowed in certain circumstances, but I can't pull it up while I'm at the library.

 

[farouk]

I saw a video a while back about polygamy in the OT and the particular reasons why it was done/allowed in certain circumstances, but I can't pull it up while I'm at the library.

It wasn't God's original intention.

 

[Mike S]

I'm guessing family, children in particular, were viewed to be more a possession or a property of the patriarch rather than humans with their own humanity (until they were old enough to become patriarchs themselves). Children and property were considered blessings from God that He would give to those that would follow His commands and live a godly live. So it was God's right to take away the blessings He gave.
Anway, it's really hard to understand. As for Job I've always felt the story is a metaphorical religious fiction instead of a real historical story that was written as something like a treatise about how to deal with suffering.
But fiction or not, those stories about innocents being punished for someone else's misdeeds or killed to make a point shows a lot about the old Hebrews' view on people and on God. But for Bible literalists those stories must cause some moral pain.

I'm sure it is, I don't see how it could be interpreted in any other way.

There's more to how I understand these stories, I understand them as showig that the consequences of sin are never suffered by the sinner alone. The consequences of sin are widspread effecting others around him, visiting the inquities of the father on his sons. I just think that judging by modern sensibilities it would be easier to understand if the lives of those innocents sacrificed were also told as being children of God in their own right. I can not, however, be critical of God's revealed word, I can only try to understand it.

 

[farouk]

I'm sure it is, I don't see how it could be interpreted in any other way.

There's more to how I understand these stories, I understand them as showig that the consequences of sin are never suffered by the sinner alone. The consequences of sin are widspread effecting others around him, visiting the inquities of the father on his sons. I just think that judging by modern sensibilities it would be easier to understand if the lives of those innocents sacrificed were also told as being children of God in their own right. I can not, however, be critical of God's revealed word, I can only try to understand it.

So when Job says, Though worms eat my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God - one of the glorious Old Testament passages indicating hope in a resurrection - he was just using metaphorical language?

I'm confused by what you say.

 

[Mike S]

So when Job says, Though worms eat my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God - one of the glorious Old Testament passages indicating hope in a resurrection - he was just using metaphorical language?

I'm confused by what you say.

Job himself is a metaphor, the entire story is metaphorical. That doesn't change the theological message of it.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I saw a video a while back about polygamy in the OT and the particular reasons why it was done/allowed in certain circumstances, but I can't pull it up while I'm at the library.

It's a picture of Christ and his bride(s).

But still, clearly forbidden in this New Covenant without a doubt.