Posted on 07/12/2011 8:48:02 AM PDT by fishtank
But all were sinners. The Bible doesn't attempt to portray David as "good" (vs. "bad"). Instead, it presents David as a man who was whole-hearted (even if not whole-actioned) toward God -- and that especially included David's prayer-and-worship life; and was a man who meshed with God's purposes.
And yes, Jesus says it's not the outside of you that makes you unclean, but what comes out of our hearts.
Men are oft' abnormally overabsorbed with the externals. God looks at us from the inside-out. Are we, as Jesus accused the legalists of being, whitewashed tombstones? (Dead on the inside; bright & white on the outside) Or, are we lukewarm where our external deeds don't match the presence of the Holy Spirit on the inside?
Yes, but the point was that David’s sin was having sex with the wife of another man was the sin specifically, and not his other marriages, that he concurrently had.
Men are oft’ abnormally overabsorbed with the externals. God looks at us from the inside-out. Are we, as Jesus accused the legalists of being, whitewashed tombstones? (Dead on the inside; bright & white on the outside) Or, are we lukewarm where our external deeds don’t match the presence of the Holy Spirit on the inside?
If we read what Nathan said to David, it all started on the inside, in David’s heart, by lusting after Bathsheba, then exacerbating the circumstances until he became a murderer. I really don’t see where you try to argue on the faith and works part. Yes, in that sense, Jesus would emphasize the importance of what’s inside because it’s a matter here about cause and effect. The cause was the fact that a person allowed him or herself to be too preoccupied with the wrong thing up to the point of doing it.
Of course we need repentance, and therefore divine grace because we aren’t perfectly without sin, but it doesn’t mean that I have to wait till my deathbed to make the confessions. Hey making confessions to the clergy is a good thing, and they can talk and counsel with you about working to overcome some of the problems that might be facing you.
Jacob was deceived into practicing polygamy. I don’t think you’d elevate Jacob & his wives as the “all-star poster boy” foundation for polygamy, would you? Especially as the “foundation” for that was anything but God’s truth (’twas deception).
He didn’t divorce Leah, so it’s hard to say that he was deceived, based on how he took the situation over time. His children born from Leah were still heirs, and legitimate to his family. You have really lost me as to how what Jacob did was so bad of a thing. It’s also interesting to note how polygamy was such a curse to Jacob, when his child through Leah, called Judah, was pretty prominent throughout the remainder of the Bible, as he was the “ancestor” of Jesus Christ, Peter, James, John, Matthew, Paul, etc. and so forth. In the totality, Jacob’s polygamy wasn’t so bad of a thing. I doubt he also was all that begrudging of polygamy either, given that Leah remained his wife as well, and he certainly had relations + four children with her. There’s way too many positives that came out in his example. By the logic of him being tricked, was it a bad thing that the ancestor of Jesus, and modern-day Judaism was born of a plural wife?
I don’t know where you got your ideas about polygamy from, but you might need to reconsider the historical facts you are trying to present to me. As for today, it’s just not good for modern society when every little person who feels that they are such a pretty exception to the norm has to jump and holler for attention about it. It’s a little rediculous. I probably can’t find the legal muscle to take care of every last man with his harem like Hugh Hefner, but at the same time, polygamy should be at the position where people who try to practice it have to pay out of their own pockets, and we should be able to check up and profile a little to make sure some single mother, really is a single mother at the same time.
(a) There’s no mention anywhere that David slept with them; obviously, if you’re a king who has inherited concubines, that would have been the right of the king.
Sounds almost like apologists for polygamy there, in the idea that he didn’t have relations with the concubines. Absurd idea. It also doesn’t make sense with the rest of your context either. He did dismiss concubines, because they had been defiled by Absalom, a little confusion as to the timing.
I don’t know where you get your ideas from, but seriously, get used to talking to someone who is not a member of Mormonism for a change.
As far as I can tell, polygamy is neither workable by the state social policy or really what comes to most general individuals’ minds. getting a mistress is way cheaper.
(Thank you for clarifying your point)
...David’s sin was having sex with the wife of another man was the sin specifically...
No disagreement there...
and not his other marriages, that he concurrently had...
Q: Did not Nathan speak present-tense of David's current wives being given to another to sleep openly with before all Israel? (2 Sam. 12:11-12)
A: Yes -- and they BOTH turned out to be concubines in 2 Sam. 16:21-22. Had the prophesy been literal, then Absalom would have slept with more than two a few concubines in 2 Sam. 16.
So, that may imply that David was no longer married when we come to his encounter with Nathan, right?
We know that Saul took his daughter, Michal, David's wife, and gave her to another: But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Paltiel son of Laish... (1 Sam. 25:44) And by 2 Sam. 6:23, Michal is mentioned as dead -- and childless up until her death.
Post-Michal, David then took two more wives: Ahinoam would have been his first (post-separated from Michal) wife. A true wife. Perhaps initially out of caring for a widow, he took a second wife -- Abigail, widow of Nabal of Carmel (2 Sam. 2:2). This relationship either was -- or became -- sexual, as she gave birth to a son (2 Sam. 3:3).
And here we see where Solomon began "learning" from his dear-old dad the traits of polygamy.
David's third wife, Maakah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;
-- just like many of Solomon's wives were to be -- women who were exchanged between kingdoms. 'Twas an old custom back then that "peace covenants" could be better kept if one of your kingdom's daughters was the wife of a nearby kingdom. This was especially so when it was the King's daughter.
Well, by then, David noted there wasn't any difference 'tween six wives and three. Though we're not sure how many were simultaneous to each other. 2 Sam. 3:4 tells us David added wives Haggith, Abital, and Eglah.
So the Q then becomes: Did David disobey God's warning as provided in Deut. 17:17? Did David provide a bad example that was then taken to its extreme with his son, Solomon?
Sometimes, the folly of our own sin isn't even played out in our own lifetimes.
Sure he was deceived. Rachel was his first-betrothed, which in that culture was as good as marriage (notice Joseph almost "divorced" Mary to whom he wasn't even yet married). Yet Leah became his first wife. (It was Leah in the bridal chamber that night). At that point, he had one betrothed + one married. In his mind, that equaled two.
And knowing that he might be presenting Leah as a less-than-desirable (non-virgin) future wife in that culture, of course he didn't divorce Leah.
You have really lost me as to how what Jacob did was so bad of a thing.
It wasn't Jacob who deceived; his father-in-law deceived him.
My earlier point was that if somebody is implying that God sanctions polygamy (& I'm still not sure if that's a point you're making or not), that Jacob was nowhere near led of the Lord to go out and claim two wives. As it was, wife rivalry reigned in that household; 'twas hardly an endearing "model" household on which other families might follow as a "model" on which to build polygamy.
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