Marriage

[Eph. 3:20]

Matthew 19
4“Haven't you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ [b]? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Jesus refers to this text when dealing with marriage which is why I quoted it. As for being naked this ended when God clothed Adam and Eve and made coverings for them showing that he no longer wanted them to be naked, however monogamous marriage was never ended by god in this way as was nudity.

First we can't just pull a passage from it's context and apply it where ever we feel appropriate. What led Jeus to make this statement? The Pharisees asked Jesus a very pointed question that has nothing to do with the well known practice of polygamy. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”(Matt. 19:3). So the context of His statement is clearly divorce. To bend His words to meet some other objective is poor exegisis. Jesus was commenting on the abuse of the Mosiac allowance of divorce, nothing else. His answer reflect the correct interpretation of the Mosiac allowance for divorce.

This passage is akin to Malachi 2:14, "...because you have broken faith with her, though she is you partner, the wife of your marriage covenant." This applied to a monogomous man or a polygamist man..the principle is the same. You can't ditch one wife to marry another.

Genesis 3
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Note also that Jesus changes the text from they shall become one flesh to these TWO shall become one flesh so now it is clear that marriage must be between two people. No you cannot assume you should marry all available women, this is plain absurd and is not part of the example as there is only one woman available(not many) and so you cannot use Adam marrying one woman to justify someone else marrying all available women as the analogy is not present.

We have debated the nudity issue before and I do not intend to enter into that here. But from my perspective God gave Adam and Eve the skins as clothing as a reminder that death had followed their sin. As the animals were sacrificed by God for their clothes, their "sin covering" (foreshadow of Christ) would be upon them where ever they would go and would "cover them" from the harsh environment that lay outside of the protection of the garden. There's a myriad of word pictures and architypes within, I'm sorry you don't see them. He never stated that it was His intention that they wear clothes, for His original creation and design was no clothing.

If we cannot take all the factors as "law and practice" in the garden scene, then what gives us the right to chose certain elements from the garden scene and make the whole of humanity bound by these choices, given the fact that God never once has stated that He was angered or displeased when man started to diverge from this pattern? Do we know better than God? Are we trying to "fill in" what He left out?

Mark 10
5“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’[a] 7‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,[b] 8and the two will become one flesh.’

Again, the question is about divorce and His answer is about divorce.

Ephesians 5


22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.......This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

This context is about the unity between a husband and a wife and in the larger picture the unity of Christ and His church. Note that His church is made up of millions of believers of which every believer will be married to Christ. So to say that Christ is against multiple marriage is false.

When you study the bible it is clear that Adam and Eve are the examples of marriage that God wants us to follow as it is always referred to when dealing with marriage.

When I study the Bible I see that God allowed monogamy, polygamy and celebacy. God gives us the ability to chose. He allows us to chose. He has shown this repeatedly in the OT saints directly with polygamy and even gave David His wives. He also makes the incredible statement.."If you wanted more, I would have given them to you" (2Sam. 12:8). So you are unjustified to say that God is against a man taking more than one wife.

Eph.

 

[seebs]

A word being bold and large in no way changes its meaning, it helps to highlight the meaning.

No, emphasis changes meaning.

"I didn't expect to see you here."
"I didn't expect to see you here."
"I didn't expect to see you here."
"I didn't expect to see you here."

Jesus did emphasise the word two as he changes the words from genesis

I'd have to see citations to the original languages; that's the kind of detail that gets altered in translation all the time.

Is your assertion here that Jesus changed the rule?

Jesus clears up the confusion about polygamy by saying that marriage is between TWO and not more than two as some had falsely assumed it to be from looking at the word they in Genesis.

Among those confused were God, who actively blessed, endorsed, and promoted polygamy for at least a thousand years.

Or, possibly, Jesus wasn't "clearing up confusion", but just referring to a common or specific case.

There is no verse in the bible that says we are allowed to participate in more than one marriage.

Try reading Exodus. I get the impression you will probably learn more from reading the whole thing, so I won't give you a specific verse. But there's a verse that clearly talks about what you may and may not do when you take another wife. There's also verses commanding other wives. Oh, and there's verses where God talks about blessing people with more wives.

Any attempt to argue against polygamy from God's clear guidance on the issue is doomed. Your best bet is to really really stretch the analogy of Christ and the Church, or God and the Jews, to a marriage. But it's a stretch, and everyone knows it.

 

[SnowBear]

God didn't make Gay people he made two heterosexual monogamous people(Adam and eve) and it wasn't until after the fall and the entrance of sin that homosexuality existed, there is also no concrete evidence to prove that people are born gay and cannot change but that is another issue for another thread.

But such evidence does exists, in fact quite a lot of evidence exists showing that sexual orientation is an inborn and immutable trait exists.

A short list of examples:



Richard Schmiechen Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker. Simon & Schuster 1995

Hall, J. A. Y. and D. Kimura, “Dermatoglyphic Asymmetry and Sexual Orientation in Men,” Behavioral Neuroscience 108 (1994): 1203-1206

Swaab, . F. A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Homosexuality. NATURE, 378: 68-70 (1995)

Simon LeVay (1991). A Differnce in Hypothalmic Structure Between Hetersexual and Homosexual Men. Science, vol. 253, pp. 1034-1037.

Simon LeVay & Dean H. Hamer (May 1994). Evidnece for a Biological Influence in Male Homoseuxlaity. Scientific American, vol. 270, pp. 44-49

Bailey, J. M., & Pillard, R. C. (1991). A genetic study of male sexual orientation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 48, 1089-1096

Bailey, J. M., Pillard, R. C., Neale, M. C., & Agyei, Y. (1993). Heritable factors influence sexual orientation in women. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50, 217-223

Dean Hamer et al, "A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation" Science 261 (1993-JUL-16): pp 321-27.

Witelson, S. Functional cerebral asymmetry in homosexual men and women. Behavioral Neuroscience, 1994, 108, 525-531

Rahman, Q. "Sexual Orientation Related Differences in Prepulse Inhibition of the Human Startle Response" Behavioral Neuroscience magazine, 2003-OCT,

Drosophila.Lee G, Hall Abnormalities of male-specific FRU protein and serotonin expression in the CNS of fruitless mutants in JC. Journal of Neuroscience 2001 Jan 15;21(2):513-26

Bailey JM, Dunne MP, Martin NG. J Pers, Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Social Psycholgy 2000 Mar;78(3):524-36

Dawood K, Pillard RC, Horvath C, Revelle W, Bailey JM. Familial aspects of male homosexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior 2000 Apr;29(2):155-63

Miller EM. Homosexuality, birth order, and evolution: toward an equilibrium reproductive economics of homosexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior 2000 Feb;29(1):1-34








On the other hand there is no evidence that sexual orientation is a choice, or the result of how one was raised or what sort of relationship one had with one’s parents or the family structure one was raised in or any other social, familial, or psychological factor.

 

[Ledifni]

Who ever said anything about worshipping books. Don't make assumptions of me based on one sentence.



Please read my post as a whole instead of spliting it into sections. I do go on to state that is in the eyes of the law, people and church only.



I'm not combining anything which isn't already combined. I can imagine all I want that I'm in your country but fact of the matter is that I'm not. Here they are combined, here you get married in a church and that's it...it's both a marriage before God and legal. Here they are one and the same because of Christianity being our state religion. There is no separation. I can only write from my experiences and in mine they are one.



Not here they can't. There is no civil partnership and no real legal benefits of marriage (unless you divorce).



They do here. People love to point out when they see someone else apparently not practicing what they preach. Again, church marriage and being legally married here are combined.

Clearly, I'm seeing a view based strongly on experience in America where, from what I gather in your post church and state are completely separate. Here that is not so. We have a Queen as the head of the church and a state religion and hence marrying in the Church of England is a legally recognised marriage whether you want it to be or not...there is no requirement to file any extra paperwork for this legal status. I shall not be arguing my views any further because they are just that....my views. Just like your views are yours. It is clear to me that we are basing our views, quite rightly, on our experiences but these are completely different and so agreement on this shall never be made. It is therefore pointless doing anything more than I have done already which is state my views.

You're still talking about a legal marriage, though. If the law requires that you perform your civil marriage in a church, it's still a legal marriage, not a marriage before God (whatever your churchman may tell you). You might use that venue to declare your marriage before God, but that's not the point. The point is that a marriage before God (for those of us who are religious, that is) is something that happens in your hearts, between the two of you and God. It is not something that is done by a churchman or a government official.