This excerpt is from The Prince of Sumba, Husband to Many Wives.
Copyright 1998 Don Milton All Rights Reserved.
All Copyright Laws Apply - Thou Shalt Not Steal

Chapters: [Prologue] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]  [19]  [20]  [21]  [22]  [23]  [24]  [25]  [26]

   Asina and the other girls were quietly sobbing now. I felt like a heel. I felt like all married Christians were heels. We took our marriages for granted. These ladies would gladly have traded their careers, their independence, everything but their love for the Lord, to be the wife of a Christian man and give birth to the next generation of Christians.
   We now faced for the first time what we'd only suspected before; that Western Christianity had forsaken its single women. The single women in the churches would get along well enough until years of youth activities began to remind them that their own youth had vanished. After that, they'd suffer lives of loneliness, or for those who couldn't contain themselves, marriage with members of the Roman church or one of the many other churches that didn't preach salvation by grace. I'd seen such marriages in my own church and it disgusted me. The pastor would accept a fake profession of faith from an unbelieving man, counsel the couple two or three times, and then preside over their marriage. They'd attend church for a few weeks, sometimes a few months, then fall away. The majority of the old maids remained virgins but some surrendered themselves to whoredom as their God given desires found no suitable outlet.1 As I considered the mistreatment of these ladies, my emotions welled up within me.
   "Not one of you will be left without a Christian husband!" I blurted. "The Lord will provide."
   I must have sounded silly, declaring that we would find the solution to a problem that hadn't been properly dealt with in the thousands of years since Rome first corrupted the Christian church. Suni responded to my outburst in a soft but confident tone as she wiped away the last of her tears.
   "I know you're a good man, Ish. The girls and I know that you would do anything for us, but we're going to have to fix this problem ourselves, and we can do it, with God's help. None of us want to become old maids. We understand there's no gift of singleness. The 'gift of singleness teaching' is heresy.2 If anything, singleness is a curse. Being childless is certainly a reproach. We learned this from the books you've written, Ish. You pointed out that the first verse in the Bible where the word reproach is used concerns the birth of Joseph to Rachael. It says, 'And she conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach:' You also pointed out that the first usage of the word reproach in the New Testament concerns the birth of John the Baptist where his mother, Elisabeth says, 'Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.'3 I don't take the Bible lightly, Ish. 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to bear children' and so forth.4 We certainly can't wait much longer. 'The time is now and the harvest is ready.' Hinug na kami. (We're ripe.) But don't worry about us, Ish, we'll find a harvester."5
   "Amen, Suni! So you've got those verses memorized too." Asina had regained her composure and independence now and was enthusiastically expressing herself. "We are going to fix this! This isn't simply wishful thinking on our part. I can't believe that it's the Lord's will that we should have such a thirst for the bone of our bones, flesh of our flesh, a husband, and that the Lord wouldn't provide one.6 We've seen generation after generation of unhappy old maids in our churches and the others who've fallen away due to unbearable temptation and loneliness. That's not God's will and we're not about to find some lost tribe of single Christian men. They're just not going to arrive. It's time for action. The Lord is on our side concerning this.7 This isn't just about us, it's about future generations of Christians. I can only imagine how many millions if not billions more Christians there would be today if the last two thousand years had witnessed Christian men taking many wives."
   "So Asina, where do we start?" Suni asked.
   "We need to be prepared for our husband when he arrives and we need to be able to say to anyone who asks, 'Sure, if the right Christian man proposes, I'll marry him whether he already has a wife or not.'"
   I knew Asina was feisty but hadn't expected that she'd be emboldened to take on all Christendom on the issue of polygamy. Yes, I'd preached that every Christian woman should be married but not by becoming a wife to a polygamist.
   Now Modelisa added her support for Asina's idea,
   "And we need to be able to answer with confidence and back it up with Scripture. People are going to attack us in all sorts of ways. Don't think for a moment that they won't call us sluts, whores, you name it, anything to scare us away from doing what's right. Remember Paul's words, 'All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.'"8
   I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. The girls were advocating polygamous marriage as the answer to their plight!9
   Sam sensed a need for prayer.
   "Ladies, men, let's pray. This is a serious matter and we need the Lord's guidance."
   John asked me,
   "Could you please pray, Ish?"
   "Sure, John.
   Lord, the time that we spend on earth is so short when compared with eternity but we do have needs. As Your word says, 'Better is open rebuke than hidden love.'10 Let us never hide our love. We pray that the married women in our churches will stop shunning the single ladies and that instead they'll raise them up in prayer and treat them as their own daughters. Help the men also to act in all holiness regarding the single ladies. Lord, we pray that each one of these ladies will find a husband. Quench their thirst; the thirst that you have in your infinite knowledge placed within them to be married and to have children. Lord, may everything we discuss today have as its ultimate goal to fulfill Your purpose and Your will. Amen."
   The girls wasted no time in getting back to the subject. I figured my best course of action was to keep quiet. After a few minutes of discussion they were sure to realize the impracticality of their idea. Ruth went first.
   "Let's think up every objection that anyone could have to a man's taking more than one wife, beginning with the easiest. After we've gotten warmed up, we can move on to the more difficult objections."
   "Great idea," Suni agreed, "How about you start first, Ruth?"
   "Ok, Suni, here's the easiest objection I've heard."

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Footnotes: 1-3   4-7   8-17   18-22   22+
22+   22-26   27-31   32-38   39-48   49-52