And folks will talk down to you if they think you're interpretation is wrong. Be careful of the questions you ask.

Questions are good
Does everyone agree on the best way to catch a coyote?
When peaple answer a question with disagreement of your interpretation. Then why ask the question if they have a different interpretation.

In response to the mass confusion.


None of us were proficient trappers from the start. You can never stop learning.
Gods word is this on steroids, hypothetically.

Swamp, I have been thinking about this a lot lately

We see conversations here almost daily where believers argue over interpretations of certain scripture/scenarios. Each one will defend their opinion to the last comment.

When did it become unacceptable to say "I don't know the answer, but what I do know is that my salvation does not depend on having an opinion on this issue."

The world wants you to have an opinion about something. And if others have a different opinion the world wants you to argue with that person. It happens very frequently here.

Why are there so many believers here that follow the ways of the world? Maybe we should stop pretending we know everything and admit God is far beyond our own understanding?

Just some thoughts I've been having lately

I think you might be over-complicating it. Adultery is any type of sexual relatio ship with another persons spouse.

Coondagger2, you hit the nail on the head for me. I like to hear the different theories on different biblical subjects. My faith hinges on none of them. Even the theories I lean towards or believe to be true I am more than happy to hear what anyone elses theories about the subject are. Im also unafraid to change my mind to a better theory if its scripturally accurate and fits into more places in the text. Humility is one of the greatest recurring themes in the bible and I believe that it is lost on a lot of this world. Believers and unbelievers alike. All that to say, I agree with your thoughts.

What constitutes that?

I was always taught that was refusal and denial of the Holy Spirit's call to salvation. A specific call as in last chance before hardening of the heart.

But that implies a free will that conflicts with what I have come to accept as election in the Calvinist sense irresistible grace or what God sets out to do will be done. The implication is that salvation could require an act of the believer to be complete and is not solely the grace of God.

But that splits hairs that I've decided to leave to God above.

Good point

That's pretty much my take on it.

Ok where I was going with that is if a woman is put away she is still married to her husband in a dead end marriage possibly with no up keep and can't remarry because she is married. In the next scenario the law says if a divorced person remarries they are committing adultery along with the person they are married to. So to repent means stop doing what you are doing, so that marriage would have to go. Now if there was kids involved what would happen to them? So if the woman stays married to keep support for kids she is living in sin and no way to break out. Looks to me close to an unpardonable sin unless she quits the marriage which could still be a death sentence for her and kids.
It was easier for a guy to get out of a marriage, just have the woman stoned to death and he would be free to marry again, all tidy and no strings attached. Judah mistook his daughter-in -law Tamar as a harlot and when he found out she was pregnant he was going to have her burned, but she had his seal and staff as proof he was the father. Seems the law was a bit lax when it came to men, not always but a lot. Not much slack for the women.
So legalisms are hard to turn loose of until the subject is taken to the tanners house. Peter was the instrument used for Cornelius who was a devout Gentile and one of the first converted of the Gentiles.

I have seen churches that are very strict to not do any work on Sunday, yet they storm out as a crowd to get to the restaurant to eat thus causing others to work. Top notch legalism and Pharisees at heart.

Will try to get to plural marriage and cults.

Thanks for the explanation.

You have to stop thinking like a democrat. Pretty funny that Jesus dropped what he was doing to resurrect the brother of two pieces of property. Or that he chastised one piece of property for working too hard instead of spending time with him.

Being loving and obedient to one's spouse does not make a person "property".

Women today are also bought and sold all the time. But the one's doing the buying and selling aren't exactly Godly.

Polygamy makes great sense in societies where men often die violent deaths from war. Women needed men to take care of them and in a warring society, there are many more women then men. Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and other men in the bible had multiple wives partly for that reason, but mainly for status.

If you are married to the women you have sex with, you are not an adulterer.

Keith

The way people think of marriage has changed over time. Adam was a whole person after God created him. Adam was male and female, after God took the female out of him ( by form of a rib which is the only bone that regenerates) then he nor Eve were whole people still. So he joined them back together as man and wife to make them whole again. As a result their off spring has had traits of each parent (male and female) ever since. God determines the dominate sex at birth at His discretion( that is a new thread of its own). So all people are born as whole people but not a complete person. You can get married as many times you want but it will never make you a complete person. We are not a complete person until God is invited in to make us whole, it is then we are a complete body. The church for the sake of symbolism of Jesus and the church has been uniting people to make them whole. usually that 3rd part is the state. Good luck being made whole by inviting the state in. As a result marriage is no longer a symbol of Jesus and His church but has become an idol much like the brazen serpent on a pole that was a cure for snake bites later became an idol (which is idolatry and if mixed in your marriage with God is adultery as Ezekiel 23). Marriage has become an idol to the point its been instilled into our kids that they are not complete until they are many times rushed to find a lifetime mate. There are many whole, complete single people when they have God in the mix.
Paul had problems with an Hymenaeus (god of marriage) and Alexander who had made shipwreck of their faith and were instructing others to follow suit and that the resurrection was in the past and not the future. Paul turned them over to their good friend Satan in hopes of reinstating them.

The problems with plural marriage can quickly overcome any advantages. Besides child abuse and jealousy (James 3:16) and all that that curtails, one that seems to eat at the core is individualism. The group may find themselves working for a common good only to be upset when the group finds themselves working for the common good of the head of the house hold and not the common good of the community. Exactly along the same principles communism rears its ugly head. In which you will have the very rich and the very poor with not much in the middle.

New Harmony, Indiana was founded on socialist principles and failed. It is by the way a very nice little riverside town now.