If the Lord is against multiple-marriage, would He not have included men who have two or more wives and a woman married to a polygamist among those to be punished?

Sina Adedipe

Having last week treated the issue of God’s statement in Genesis 2:24 raised by Steve (080-6532-7244), I now shift attention to his anonymous anti-polygamy colleague (080- 6771-3110) who sent the text message that follows. “Good evening my brother. Bible is literal that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage. Creator made man and woman but your idea is man and women. Those Pastors who didn’t talk again are wise to avoid needless argument. Please rethink.”

Ho-ho! And what a load of rubbish! What the person who sent the message is saying is that the Heavenly Father created only Eve as wife for Adam because He wanted a man to be monogamous. It is one of the three questionable reasons people with the opinion offer in their puerile claim that the Ancient of Days is against polygamy.

READ ALSO: Reactions to my polygamy series (2)

Their second flimsy explanation is that if the Lord wanted a man to be polygamous, He would in Genesis 2:24 have said: Therefore shall a man leave his parents and cleave to his wives, instead of his wife. The third point they make is that the Most High told Abraham to send away Hagar, the Egyptian-born mother of Ishmael his first child and eldest son, thus making him return to having Sarah as his only spouse (Genesis 21:9-21).

The impression those who have these opinions give is that they are not right-thinking people and that they had not read the Holy Bible from Genesis through Revelation, including the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-17. And God’s other laws and rules in Exodus Chapters 21:1-36; 22:1-31 and 23:1-13 and Leviticus Chapters 13:1-59; 18:1-30; 19:1- 36 and 27:1-34.

As well as those in Numbers Chapters 6:1-21; 15:1-41; 30:1-16 and Deuteronomy Chapters 5, 6, 8, 10, 24, 25, 27 and 28. They also do not know or realize that during the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus only spoke against adultery and divorce and said nothing on polygamy let alone condemn it and did not preach that God wants a man to have one wife.

Any man or woman, clergy or non-cleric, who has read the 10 Commandments and God’s other laws and rules in the passages I have just cited in the Bible and is right-minded and sensible, would not claim that the Lord is against polygamy or that multiple-marriage is unbiblical.

The Ten Commandments in verse 14 of Exodus 20, the Heavenly Father said people should not commit adultery. If polygamy is a sin would He not have included it in that sentence or make it the Eleventh Commandment?

In Leviticus 20:1-27, God gave penalties for anyone who would disobey any of His laws and rules. Those ordered to be punished with either death or expulsion from the community, were the people who cursed their parents, committed adultery, incest, homosexuality or who married a mother and her daughter or who had sex with animals. If the Lord is against multiple-marriage, would He not have included men who have two or more wives and a woman married to a polygamist among those to be punished?

In Deuteronomy 27:11-26, the Ancient of Days placed curses on anyone who would not obey any of His laws and teachings. Those mentioned as sinners there included men who have sex with their dad’s wives, their sisters and mother-in-law. A man with two or more wives and a woman who marries a polygamous man are not among them.

So, one does not need to have the grace of speaking one-to-one with the Supreme Being of the universe, as I do, to know that He is not against polygamy.

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To be continued next Wednesday 

 

Phenomenal matriarch of the Adedipes, Falaes, Ade-Ojos & others (10)

After Chief N. K. Adamolekun as the Registrar of the University of Ibadan in 1962 and High Chief Bolanle Adedipe as the Chairman of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria in 1984, Chief Olu Falae, whose paternal grandmother was my dad’s elder sister, was the third descendant of our Ilara-Mokin-born matriarch, to be offered federal appointment. He served as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation from January 1986 – January 1990 and as the Minister of Finance for eight months from January – August 1990 in the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida.

Professor Sunday Oludare Agbi, whose

mother was another elder sister of my father, was the fourth descendant of our matriarch to have a federal appointment. He served as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Greece (2003-07) and as the High Commissioner to Australia and New Zealand (2008-11).

I do not know of any other family in Akure that has had more than one person offered federal political appointment. I can only remember Chief Victor Adegoroye and Mr. Adelu Adegbulu, both of them career civil servants and from different families serving as Nigeria’s Ambassador or High Commissioner in the 1960s and 70s.

More to come next week

 

Ebenezer Babatope, the Great (II)

Chief Babatope did something in his piece in the Nigerian Tribune of Friday, May 13, 2016 which I want to recommend to other columnists in the country. When Barrister Tunji Braithwaite died in 2015 he paid tribute to him and I phoned to ask if he knew that he was an Ijesa man like himself?

He was stunned because like most Nigerians, he had thought he was an aboriginal Lagos Island man. I then gave him the names of some other people erroneously regarded as indigenes of Lagos Island, whereas their ancestors came a century or more from other towns in Yoruba land such as Akure, Abeokuta, Ilesa, Ado-Ekiti, Iyin-Ekiti, Ijero-Ekiti, Igbara-Oke, Oyo and Ogbomoso.

In April, 2016 when Alhaji Musiliu Adeola Smith, a former Inspector-General of Police, was 70 years old, Ebino felicitated with him in his column and said his family originated from Ilesa and that I provided him with the information. I did not and immediately called him that Musiliu’s family was not one of those I mentioned to him as people whose ancestors migrated to Lagos Island. I also phoned Musiliu that I was not the one who supplied Ebino the information.

To be continued next week