Curious Christian

Every so often, I come across an article that grieves me. Not because it’s hostile to Christianity, but because it tries to sanctify what Christ came to redeem us from. Recently I read one such piece from a pastor named Rich Tidwell defending “biblical” polygamy. He argued that because the Old Testament records men like Abraham, Jacob, and David taking multiple wives, and because God didn’t explicitly forbid it, plural marriage must therefore be permissible, even divinely blessed. The author went so far as to reinterpret Paul’s words to Timothy, claiming that when Paul required church leaders to be “the husband of one wife,” he merely meant “husband of his first wife.”

I find this troubling, not only for its take on Christian marriage, but for what it reveals about how some approach Scripture. There’s a kind of literalism that pretends to honor the Bible while missing its trajectory, which fixates on what ancient people were permitted to do rather than what Christ now calls us to.

The Old Testament doesn’t hide the brokenness of its heroes. It shows the human heart laid bare — kings multiplying wives, fathers playing favorites, households torn by rivalry and grief. If anything, the narratives of polygamy in Scripture are not endorsements but warnings. They bear witness to how easily love turns into possession, covenant into competition.

By the time we reach the New Testament, the picture has changed. Paul writes to Timothy that an overseer must be “the husband of one wife,” and links this with being faithful, self-controlled, and gentle, a person who manages his household well. That’s not a technical rule but a relational one. A leader’s home is meant to be a living parable of God’s covenant faithfulness. The church, too, is a household, and it’s envisioned as one bride, not two.

To turn that into a loophole for plural marriage is to twist Paul’s intent beyond recognition. The phrase doesn’t mean “first wife”. Scholars widely recognise the Greek idiom means a man devoted to one woman. More importantly, the heart of Paul’s counsel is about fidelity, mutual respect, and the integrity of love within the community of faith.

And this is what troubles me most. When someone builds an argument for polygamy out of Old Testament allowances, while downplaying the new creation that Christ inaugurates, they trade the gospel’s transforming call for a technicality. They cling to the shadows when the light has already dawned.

Yes, the Bible records polygamy. It also records slavery, patriarchy, and war. But in Christ, God calls us beyond those arrangements into reconciled relationships, into a love that mirrors his own. Marriage, in this vision, is not about legal permission or masculine privilege; it’s about covenantal fidelity, mutual service, and the embodied witness of God’s oneness with his people.

So when pastors appeal to ancient loopholes to justify what Scripture’s story ultimately overcomes, I lament. I lament how easily we turn revelation into rationalization, and grace into license. The question is not: What did God once tolerate? It is: What kind of relationships now reveal his kingdom?

The gospel does not sanctify the old order. It creates a new humanity, one household, united in faithful love.