VIEWPOINT: Chukwuma replies Reno Omokri on Polygamy

 

Let me quickly draw a bold line between two concepts: head knowledge and heart knowledge. The former has to do with human intelligence; it is taught by man and meant for man. The latter, however, is imparted knowledge, by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is why Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes, He would lead you [believers] into all truth (John 16: 13). Imparted knowledge becomes a part and parcel of the possessor, and is never lost, even if the possessor does not know how to defend it by way of arguments.

Again, there is a secondary school subject called Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK), or, in recent times, Christian Religious Studies (CRS). Without slighting the teachers of this beautiful subject, one is not automatically a preacher by the mere virtue of teaching CRK/CRS. To teach CRK, you need the head knowledge, which only prepares a student for an examination. But to preach the word of God, which prepares a soul for heaven, the heart knowledge is necessary.

YUL EDOCHIE: Polygamy better than adultery; monogamy’s western culture — Reno Omokri

That a man could correctly quote the scriptures does not in essence confer a spiritual authority in the interpretation of the word of God on him—after all, Satan aptly referenced the scripture in his temptation of Jesus. And so, the head knowledge only spans temporal wealth, short of lasting meaning, and its flame is blown off by the breath of imparted knowledge. Head knowledge only focuses on the letters of the scripture. But the letter killeth, whereas the Spirit giveth life (2 Corinth 3: 6). 

It is the Holy Spirit that reveals the true meanings of portions of the scripture. Human intelligence does a drab work of it. Our main problem is that we have two major groups of Christians: those who do not read the bible at all, and those who read only the letters. The third group is the minority, those who grasp the rhema. The first group ends up as gullible Christians who swallow every hook, line, and sinker in the name of faith.

The second group merely becomes argumentation with a distorted understanding of the too many letters jumbled up in their heads. But they do not know what the scanty third group knows.

Now to the chase. What do we actually mean when we say that something is scriptural? Does the bible necessarily entrench customs, behaviours or cravings just because their instances are mentioned in the scripture? If God used polygamists, does it then imply that the Almighty sanctions that practice?

What, then, do we say about the prophet that God expressly told to marry a prostitute (Hosea 1: 2)? Should every man now comb the dark streets of every known city for a seductress as a wife, while every woman’s aspirations blaze into an inferno fueled by the gains of selling their bodies?

What then, again, do we say about Paul giving slaves guidelines on how to live peacefully with their masters (Eph 6: 5)? Are we then to conclude that the holy book is in support of slavery?

Of course, no! But look here where Mr Reno Omokri has brought us, that polygamy is scriptural! It startles the Spirit-led mind that Mr. Omokri would want the Christian world to believe that Matthew 19:4-8 is exclusively about divorce and have no connection with polygamy.

Even though it was a question about divorce that was asked, Jesus had to point the tempting Pharisees back to Eden where the man-woman relationship all began. He answered them, saying, “For this reason, a man shall…be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.” Notice that the word says a man… That means that marriage must involve only one man. The word then says …joined to his wife, and not, his wives. Hence polygamy is out of the question. Jesus then concludes by saying that the two shall become one.

This is the template that God gave for marriage. When a man is joined to his wife, the whole of him and the whole of her undergo a spiritual fusion into one. What other part of him would he then use to fuse with a second woman? It is only two that can become one. Three or four or any other number cannot. Marriage is more spiritual than we take it to be, and that is why it has been perpetually desecrated on account of ignorance. People go about marrying and divorcing and marrying again and again while their former spouses are still alive, and they think that all is well. Divorce was not in God’s original plan (Matt 19: 8 ), and neither was polygamy. Moses allowed for divorce because of the hard-heartedness of the human. Similarly, polygamy speaks all the evil of the insatiable nature of man.

The belief that polygamy is scriptural is one of the selfish ideologies used to dehumanize women in this part of the world. A married man may cheat on his wife and society would automatically absolve him, for man is perceived to be polygamous in nature. But when a married woman does the same, her head is demanded on a tray, for a married woman’s nature is distorted by the sensual taste of another man’s juice apart from her husband’s. Let the adherents of such a slanted philosophy go to India and see that the sun does not fall from the sky, nor is there a mutation in the human gene when a woman, in their customary polyandry, is officially married to more than one man. Time and the world just go on the same.

But all these are misrepresentations of marriage. Monogamy is what God instituted. That Father Abraham made the mistake is not reasoned enough for Yul, or any other person, at any rate, to re-enact it.

In conclusion, a reference was made where Paul exhorts priests and deacons to be men of one wife. Mr. Reno Omokri said the recommendation was not for the laity. That is not a very healthy meaning to glean from here. Has he never read that we (believers) are a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2: 9)? Hence the recommendation applies to every Christian. Whoever takes more than one woman as wives is merely manifesting greed, the insatiable part of humanity. It does not matter that Abraham, Moses, and others were polygamous. Christ is the fulfillment of the law. Hence, with Christ, a Christian should understand the requirements of the law even more than Moses! This is the part that forever eludes head knowledge.

Tony Chukwuma Writes from Enugu