New Covenant Patriarchy

Man and Woman in Biblical Law

The Institute for Christian Patriarchy is happy to announce the availability of:

Preface
Introduction

Article 1:  How Feminism Denies the Gospel
Article 2:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 1
Article 3:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 2
Article 4:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 3
Article 5:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 4
Article 6:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 5
Article 7:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 6
Article 8:  In Defense of Patriarchy and Polygamy

Article  9:  "Contradictions" Between Genesis and the Law of Moses, Part 1
Article 10:  "Contradictions" Between Genesis and the Law of Moses, Part 2

Article 11:  The Laws of God, Part 1
Article 12:  The Laws of God, Part 2
Article 13:  The Laws of God, Part 3
Article 14:  The Laws of God, Part 4

Article 15:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #1:  Lamech
Article 16:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #2:  Abraham
Article 17:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #3:  Jacob
Article 18:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #4:  Esau
Article 19:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #5:  Moses
Article 20:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #6:  Gideon
Article 21:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #7:  Jair
Article 22:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #8:  Ibzan
Article 23:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #9:  Abdon
Article 24:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #10:  Elkanah
Article 25:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #11:  Saul
Article 26:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #12:  David, Part 1
Article 27:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #12:  David, Part 2
Article 28:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #12:  David, Part 3
Article 29:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #13:  Solomon
Article 30:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #14:  Caleb
Article 31:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #15:  Caleb #2
Article 32:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #16:  Rehoboam
Article 33:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #17:  Joash
Article 34:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #18:  Xerxes
Article 35:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #17:  Belshazzar
Article 36:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #20-21:  Abijah and Jerahmeel
Article 37:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #22  YAHWEH
Article 38:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #23-40

Article 39:  Polygamy: Miscellaneous Passages and Comments
Article 40:  Patriarchy and Polygamy in the New Covenant
Article 41:  The New Covenant and Polygamy,
Article 42:  Martin Luther and Polygamy:  The "Strange" Case of Philip of Hesse

Article 43:  The Commentators, #1:  Rushdoony
Article 44:  The Commentators, #2:  Archer
Article 45:  The Commentators, #3:  Hodge
Article 46:  The Commentators, #4:  Murray
Article 47:  The Commentators, #5:  Kaiser
Article 48:  The Commentators, #6:  Wenham
Article 49:  The Commentators, #7:  Jordan
Article 50:  The Commentators, #8:  North
Article 51:  The Commentators, #9:  Smith
Article 52:  The Commentators, #10:  Adams
Article 53:  The Commentators, #11:  Lockyer
Article 54:  The Commentators, #12:  Tucker
Article 55:  The Commentators, #13:  Foh

Article 56:  God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ
Article 57:  Patriarchy in the Church: I Corinthians 11:2-15; 14:34-37
Article 58:  Feminist Hermeneutics:  Making the Straight Places Crooked

Epilogue: The Biblical Reformation of Marriage
Victims of Monogamania
Scripture Index
Topical Index

From the Back Cover

From the back cover:

“For by a secret law of nature, things that stand chief love to be singular; but things that are subject are set under, not only one under one, but, if the system of nature or society allow, even several under one, not without becoming beauty. For neither hath one slave so several masters, in the way that several slaves have one master. Thus we read not that any of the holy women served two or more living husbands; but we read that many females served one husband, when the social state of the nation allowed it, and the purpose of the time persuaded it: for neither is it contrary to the nature of marriage. For several females can conceive from one man: but one female cannot from several men (such is the power of things principal) as many souls are rightly made subject to one God.”   —St. Augustine 
 
“We should not assume that our ways are normal and that God’s ways are an abnormality which needs vindication.”  —Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics 
 
“The continued obligation of the Levitical law on this subject is also recognized in the New Testament. This recognition is involved in the constant reference to the law of Moses as the law of God. If in any of its parts or specifications it is no longer obligatory, that is to be proved...If God gives a law to men, those who deny its perpetual obligation are bound to prove it. The presumption is that it continues in force until the contrary is proved. It must be hard to prove that the laws founded on the permanent social relations of men were intended to be temporary.”  —Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology

Now with a Bible Index and a Topical Index.

How Strict Monogamy Forces Miscegenation

Whether it is ethnic, cultural, or religious, strict monogamy is responsible for miscegenation.  Biblical polygyny would wipe out this sad phenomenon virtually over night. Amazingly, those who complain loudest about miscegenation complain just as loudly about polygamy.

Here is how it works. Lower class males are always anxious to marry higher class women. They get a smarter, future oriented wife, who is less likely to cheat on them. She is more likely to bear and raise superior children and make him look good. If the male is a Mohammedan, once he has sired several children, he can easily forsake his wife and bring the children to his home country to make sure they are raised in an Mohammedan culture. Historically, offspring of captive Christian women have been the only life this moribund religion has been able to muster.

Why would any woman want to marry a lower class male? Because of the lack of "available" men from her own class, religion, culture, and ethnicity. This is an artificial problem of course. Strict monogamy is neither supported by Scripture nor by experience. None of the good men in any culture are "taken"; they are all available according to Biblical Law, as Tom Shipley's book show. Only when a culture dabbles with suicide does it force its women into the arms of foreigners.

But what about the historical record? Haven't we done just fine for most of church history without Biblical polygyny?

Not really. In fact, Western culture has made very little progress in sanctification. We still discount huge portions of Biblical Law. With VanTil and Rushdoony we are just beginning to recover what the church had before becoming encrusted with heresies. For instance, we have a near zero concept of the Biblical calendar, it's feast days, the 7th year sabbath, the jubilee year, and the Sabbath. God's order for time has huge implications for every area of life. But this, like many other areas of Biblical Law, has been completely lost since the earliest days of church history. No, we have a long, long way to go.

True, as long as nations did not invite invasion we kept spare women in spinster/nunnery conditions - conditions foreign to Scripture which is completely family oriented.

As godly men recover Biblical Law we will also recover Biblical marriage and be rid of feminism and injustice to women. Until then we force miscegenation by having women compelled into the arms of Uncle Sam, foreigners, effeminate, Mohammedans, and lower class men.

"Choose life that you and your children may live."

The Success of Feminism, the Rape of Women

Political Correctness = Self-Abasement

By teaching women to hate their men, culture, and Biblical patriarchy, Feminism has cleared the way for foreign men to rape and conquer them. This is not only true in Europe but in America as statistics make clear.

Economic and Political Implications of Polygyny

Politics is religion applied to economics.  No wonder then that the doctrine of monogamania has economic and political implications that, when understood, make our problems and their solutions clear. 

Men are in fact competitive and innovative while women are cooperative and contributing. This is why men vote in terms of free enterprise while women favor socialism. Free enterprise works best in the world outside the home where there is a minimal common covenant. Cooperation and contributing to a common good is what works best inside the home where a strong well defined covenant is the rule.

This is why Biblical law is the key to restoring marriage, politics, and economics to health and prosperity.

Men today are always confounded as to why people vote for socialism against all common sense. But it is their failure as Biblical law covenant keepers that has forced women to rely on the state and it's law thus producing socialism. But it is a false support and eventually gives way to failure and breakdown (see the end of Isaiah 3).

Biblical law is the key to restoring men to their manhood in the home and to prosperity in the marketplace.

They Shall Become One Flesh

Overview

In this overview we will set out to understand what the term one flesh means. After spending many hours researching and writing I realized the constitution of a marriage must be addressed as well. However, that will be addressed in another article to come. What I can assure and this article’s assumption is, if you are male and female, have prioritized one another and expressed that commitment through the sexual act you are married. What this article will focus on is the result ‘one flesh’. We hear many lessons about this in fact we have all heard several theories as to this expressions meaning. After hearing so many sermons about the ‘one flesh’ concept that was so out of touch with scripture I decided to take it to task. The one flesh union is not the marriage by itself but it definitely is the binding nature if it. Once you understand what ‘one flesh’ means you will understand why Jesus used it to correct the easy divorce mentality (Matt 19:3-6) and the apostle Paul to correct immorality (1Cor 6:12-20). 

Cutting off the branch you are sitting on.

Amazingly some of our fellows believe they can defend the doctrine of Biblical marriage while at the same time being free from the Law of Moses. This is done on some kind of evolutionary basis as applied to the character of YHVH.  However, to have some other source than Torah for our ideas of right and wrong is to have a some other God than YHVH.  Also, to be partial in the law is to undercut your own authority and destroy your power to be productive.

Please understand, the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ are the same. Christ said that if they believed in Moses they would also believe in Me since he spoke of Me. More importantly, once this evolutionary thinking is brought into the discussion on the what the Scriptures teach about marriage then any thought of the ongoing validity of plural marriage is made moot since the definition of marriage would also be subject to change and "improvement."

Being free in Christ means being free from sin, not free from law. Christ saved us from the condemnation of the law so we could be reconciled to it, not to be free from it. The proper relationship between Moses and Christ is spelled out by Christ himself in Matthew 5:17-20. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill (meaning to fill full of meaning and enforce) them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

The Pharisees thought it was a good idea to add to and take away from the law with their "traditions of the elders." They defined righteousness apart from the Law of Moses. We will have to do better than that to make it into the kingdom of heaven.

New Covenant Patriarchy Pledge

This pledge is for those who wish to take their patriarchal characters to a whole other level. Those who take the pledge may refer to themselves as New Covenant Patriarchs. 

1. I do hereby pledge myself to make a covenant with my eyes, like Job in Job 30:1, to not look upon a maid.

2. I do hereby pledge to never pursue or ask more than one woman to marry me and to only consider additional wives if they beg me to marry them as per Isaiah 4:1.

Where are the women with a positive take on Biblical Patriarchy?

Here is a letter Tom received and his answer.

I read your book, Man and Woman in Biblical Law, and enjoyed it. The biblical case for polygamy seems to be unassailable and I cannot argue with it. However, I do wonder about one thing. The mainstream views polygamy as extremely dehumanizing and barbaric, and the most perfect logical reasoning in the world will not get this notion out of people's heads, especially women's. You can find many books written by women who have lived in polygamy, hated it, and are now telling the world about how awful it is. I know that when you examine these cases closely (almost all Mormon), their misery is actually due to factors other than polygamy itself. But polygamy gets the blame. If polygamy is so great, why can I never find any books or articles, written by women, which speak favorably of it. With a lot of people, especially women, this sort of "emotional" reasoning would go a lot farther than rational biblical arguments to remove anti-polygamy prejudice. Maybe this ought not be the case with Christians who hold the Bible as the word of God, but it is in fact the case.

So if you can point me to any books or articles written by women who speak favorably of polygamy, please do this. I would love to here from you. Until I see this, I will continue to view polygamy as, if not sinful, at least inferior to monogamy.

Thanks,

Mike

Is Tom Promoting Polyandry?

Objection: The following verse speaks metaphorically of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is rejoiced over by God as His bride and His bride is married to men. According to Tom’s logic, this supports a wife getting husbands! In other words, it overturns the law against adultery. In addition, those husbands are the woman’s own sons! In other words it overturns the law that is also found in Leviticus 18 of a man marrying his mother. Tom’s logic supports incestuous polyandrous marriage by a man’s own wife!

Isaiah 62:5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.  - Critic

The problem here with Critic's criticism is that he mangles the metaphor/allegory from Isaiah 62:5. He confuses and mixes the metaphor/allegory with the literal reality it represents. His logic here is quite flawed. This is very much unsound exposition. My logic in no way supports a wife getting husbands nor incestuous polyandry in that passage. Critic is clearly wrong in this accusation. This is unbridled emotion at work and not sound exposition of God's holy Word.

Moreover, Critic has given no rejoinder to the actual and specific exposition I made in my book, M&WIBL. To wit, why does the text of Leviticus 18:18 say to not take the second sister to vex "her" instead of "them?" Or, to ask the question from the other direction, why does not the text of Leviticus 18:18 ban taking the second sister so as not to vex them instead of to vex "her"? I ask, as I asked in the book, why does the situation addressed vex only the one sister and not both? If we take every word of God seriously, then must demonstrate a conclusive answer to this question, or he has not established his point. I contend that the situation addressed only vexes the one sister, as the text clearly states, because 1) the second sister is, indeed, not "vexed" by the marriage and 2) the REASON the second sister is not vexed by the marriage is because she is not contemplated as barren and childless. If, in fact, there were an inherent vexing of this sisterly relationship based upon the act of marrying two sisters constituting sin, then BOTH sisters would be vexed by the situation.

Again, I assert, the situation remedied by the ban is the potential spoiling of the sisterly relationship by taking a second sister to bear children in the presence of a barren and childless sister. In other words, this is a qualified prohibition. As I pointed out in my book, it is the only ban in Leviticus 18 which is qualified in any way. All of the other prohibitions are stated without qualification of any kind. Why? Critic, apparently, has no answer to this question. I believe I have a very sound answer to the question.

One strength of this proposition is that it has precedent by way of examples given to us by the Holy Spirit in the Word of God regarding 1) Hagar's vexing of Sara regarding her childlessness in Genesis 16, 2) the vexing of Rachel by her sister Leah because of Rachel's childlessness in Genesis 30 and 3) the vexing of Hannah by Penninah because of Hannah's childlessness in I Samuel 1. This is a very strong and repeated theme in Scripture, that is, of a childless wife being vexed by the presence of a second wife who has children. Providing an heir to a husband was a central concern of the Israelite family. It is, in fact, the overarching raison d'etre for the Hebrew family in Scripture.

Secondly, attempts to empty the metaphors/allegories of Ezekiel and Jeremiah of their significance. Is God confused or inconsistent with Himself? should re-read both my and Jay E. Adams' arguments in regard to this issue. On 's premise, the Biblical metaphors picture God as committing iniquity. Is this really rational? Is this biblical?

Accusations are one thing. Backing them up with valid exposition of the Word of God is quite another. I would submit to you that Critic has been weighed in the balances in this regard and found wanting.

God bless you.
Tom

"Polygamy is not a sin but monogamy is the ideal"

New Book: They Shall Be One Flesh

Dear readers:

Just a note to let everyone understand that “They Sall Be One Flesh” is a book IN PROGRESS and is not the finished version. This book is being written essentially in public before your eyes. Feedback of any kind is welcome, including proofreading observations.
Thanks.
Tom Shipley

The simple fact of the matter is, the Church to this day has NEVER developed a systematic and biblically faithful doctrine of sex and marriage. Readers may find it incredulous that a subject of such import should have suffered such neglect.

Yes, I know, the bookshelves of modern Christian bookstores are replete with "practical" treatments of husband/wife relations and "how-to" manuals from a Christian perspective. Marriage seminars abound. Christian radio and television and internet websites go on for 24 hours a day on the subject. Josh McDowell fills stadiums full of men who come home with a zeal to do it God's way. Yet, for all this, there is, and always has been, a curious dearth of solid doctrinal treatments of the subject. To my way of thinking, this is a positive scandal.

... Have we allowed unbiblical, non-biblical and anti-biblical systems of thought to corrupt our doctrines of sex and marriage?

As I have pointed out in Volume 1 of this series, the modern Church is way off base in all its major branches concerning the doctrines of patriarchy and polygyny. As a consequence, the Church is compromised in its approach to and handling of modern feminism, as well as its understanding of the biblical definition of adultery. The legacy of ancient pagan Rome is still very much with us today. We in the West are their direct lineal descendants in more than one way. We ARE their children.

This Volume and the one that preceded it is offered to the Church as a belated treatment of the subjects at hand—I say belated because Athanasius or Augustine or Luther, good Biblicists of the past, should have provided such a work to the Church long ago. It is long past time to cast off the yoke of Rome.

They_Shall_Be_One_Flesh.pdf Free to download.

Now expanded to 112 pages (1/23/2010).

Biblical Families Radio Interviews Tom Shipley Dec 20, 9 PM

Demographic Problem Requires a New Covenant Answer

The War on Godly Procreation

It is time to fight back.

God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth."

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

God also said to him (Jacob):
I am God Almighty.
Be fruitful and multiply.
A nation, indeed an assembly of nations,
will come from you,
and kings will descend from you.

Not only is the command to be fruitful and multiply the Prime Directive, the Dominion Mandate, given to unfallen man, the first command given to man, it is also repeated again and again to the covenant people of God. If there is anything that would hinder the obedience to this command by covenant keeping Christians it ought to be looked at with the utmost skepticism and suspicion. If there is a price to be paid for obedience to this command we ought to find a way to pay that price. 

It is time to identify our enemies and remove their propaganda from our thinking. Remember, Satan is just as happy about marriages of godly women to unbelievers, and godly women remaining single and never bearing (pre-aborting?) their children, as he is about the babies aborted and sacrificed to idols. Disobedience to the Dominion Mandate begins in a corrupted/barren womb. To please God we must abort the little feminist within us before it gives birth to death and judgment. We must do this despite the corrupt doctrines we have inherited from our fathers.

We must obey for "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed." Romans 8:19

A baptized feminist is anyone who thinks Biblical polygamy is a sin despite the evidence of Scripture. The real sin is to have Christian women take their wombs out of action until their idea of Mr. (Single) Right comes along. Do we really have to go through the devastation of Isaiah 3 before believing women forsake feminism and embrace the polygyny of Isaiah 4 and it's attendant blessings? The payoff for Satan in convincing Christians that polygyny is a sin is in squelching godly procreation.

It is true:  Feminism, monogamy, and witchcraft form an unholy trinity working the destruction of Christian civilization.

The real slippery slope: anti-polygyny laws and mores, contraception, abortion, easy divorce, sodomy, judgement.

Lambs and Lions vs. Wolves and Dogs

I was all set to write on this topic and found the good fellows at: http://www.righteouswarriors.com/controversial/article8.html has already done a fine job of it.  So I am referring to their article here.

Clash of Cultures

     The polygynous pattern is found throughout Scripture, whether talking about the husband (head of the household) and the wives, or Messiah (the head of the assembly) and the body of Messiah (also referred to in Scripture as the bride of Messiah). Symbolically, when Messiah comes for His bride, does it mirror a monogynous (one to one) or a polygynous (one to many) relationship?

     Messiah is also referred to in Scripture as the Lion of Judah. He is also known as the Passover Lamb. But whatever term is used, you'll find a parallel to polygynous creatures. A pride of lions is formed by one male lion, several female lions and their cubs. The males will fight one another for possession of the pride, but only one of them gets the females. Lions are highly polygynous and sociable, with the females harmoniously grooming one another as part of their social activities and suckling one another's cubs. A male lamb, when mature, becomes a ram. Rams also compete for the flock. The winner gets the ewes.

     In Matthew chapter 10, Yahushua said, "See, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves". Wolves are always referred to in Scripture as depicting evil, and wolves are fiercely monogynous and highly exclusive. The dominant male and female will not allow the other wolves to mate.

     The reason that we in the West have such a hard time accepting what the Scriptures clearly say on this matter has to do with the nature of Roman and Greek thinking in relation to marriage. The culture of Western Civilization teaches us to live in a state of "serial monogamy", where a person, male or female, can marry, divorce and then remarry as many times as desired. The offshoot of this type of thinking is, of course, anti-marriage. Having more than one wife is simply not acceptable in Western Civilization, but fornication, divorce, adultery, promiscuity, sodomy, pre-marital sex, orgies, mistresses, cohabitation or living together - these things are acceptable, expected, and in many ways, encouraged in our culture.

     A major cause of our marital and social decadence is inherent in the pagan Roman and Greek philosophy that there must be only one wife at a time and that she must be exclusive. It's that simple. There can be no other, for she has exclusive possession of her husband, and this exclusive possession of him inherently and subtly gives her the right into almost every aspect of his life.

     In the Scriptures, you are either married or unmarried. ... The reason polygyny is so vehemently opposed by so many believers is not, I suspect, because they reject it as Biblical, but because it represents a "clash of cultures". Whatever the West is, it is NOT Hebraic, it is Greek. By gaining a better understanding of Elohim's Word, we find ourselves returning back to our Messianic or Hebraic roots. Once we accept what the Tanak and the Messianic Scriptures say on this subject, instead of what people may think about the subject, we are invariably forced to accept polygyny as a valid form of marriage.

New Covenant Patriarchy and the Two Dougs

How Reconstruction got squelched and how it will be revived again.

Building on the work of Cornelius VanTil, the world's greatest modern philosopher, RJ Rushdoony developed Christian Reconstruction, a family oriented understanding of Biblical Law and authority.  While it took him a life time to publish and explain it, it took only a few years for some of his early followers to repudiate his central thesis regarding the family and start to counter Rushdoony's growing influence. After all, how could the family be the foundation for a revived Christendom when it was so small and weak in every way. Instead, they reasoned, we must build on the church as the only institution capable of standing up to the state.

So the Reconstructionist camp split in two as epitomized by Doug Philips (www.visionforum.com; www.visionforum.com/hottopics/blogs/dwp/) continuing with Rushdoony's family orientation and Doug Wilson (www.christkirk.com; www.dougwils.com) spearheading the idea of a renewed church as our best hope.  Doug Wilson requirements for membership include a statement that the member will do whatever the elders tell him to do.  It is missing the clause "within the bounds of Biblical Law".  So he gives the "King's X" to the elders of the church.

Despite the family orientation of the Doug Philips camp, it is compromised by a lack of courage, conviction, and strength in the face of the demonic doctrine of monogamania and thus gives succor to a septic form self-righteous personal piety and the essence of feminism, the demand for exclusivity. Submission to husbands and fathers is predicated on the man's obedience to the first commandment of feminism, "Thou shalt have no other wives before me for I am a jealous wife, visiting wrath upon anyone who dares suggest otherwise unto the third and fourth circle of his associates."

With the claim of exclusivity, a wife thereby declares her independence from her husband's authority.

The Christian Patriarchy movement (not to be mistaken with the New Covenant Patriarchy movement) has real problems with the doctrine of authority as taught by RJ Rushdoony. What they do not understand is that all authority is derived authority or it loses legitimacy.  Jesus is the supreme authority (All authority in heaven and on earth is given unto me) and he delgates authority to whom he will.  Governments (civil, church, familial, school, business, and most importantly, self) wield legitimate authority only insofar as they are within the bounds of Biblical Law.  A husband's authority stops where injustice starts. A wife has every right to appeal to Biblical Law against all who perpetrate an injustice in her marriage.  Furthermore, divorce is a gift from God that enables a spouse to separate her self from an evil marriage partner.  Furthermore, men are always soley responsible for their thoughts, words, and actions in regard to women's appearance and cannot legitimately impute their guilt onto women.  "Thou art the man!" as Nathan said in 2 Samuel 12:7.

When a man claims independence from YHWH's authority he declares himself to be the exclusive authority, deciding for himself what is right and wrong. Judgment is then inevitable. The Holy Spirit refuses His presence and power and the rebellious man is left to the authority of Satan and dominion is kept from him.

So the Doug's better get it straight: submit to God's definition of marriage and justice or prepare to suffer the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15ff.

Tom Shipley and New Covenant Patriarchy point the way forward with a renewed doctrine of marriage, of man and woman in Biblical law. Without this doctrine, authority in the family is turned upside down and distorted. Since the family is the foundational institution of society getting this doctrine right is essential to the reconstruction of society in terms of Biblical Law.

How to Spot a New Covenant Wife

For you New Covenant Patriarchs out there looking for a New Covenant Wife to help you in fulfilling the Dominion Mandate, there is a special test you can apply that will, in most cases, ensure you are not getting fooled into being yoked to a feminist.

When Eve, the original feminist, sinned, the temptation was to be as god:

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing (determining) good and evil.

And what is a god's first priority? The first commandment of God is: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The feminist version of this is: Thou shalt have no other wives before me.

A feminist cannot tolerate her husband having any other wives besides herself. She must, as a god, lay claim to exclusivity in as jealous a way as God does in Scripture: "for I the LORD thy wife am a jealous wife."

Beyond this, if you can find a young woman who not only adheres to the original Ten Commandments but also these Ten Resolutions, then you have found a wife that is truly a precious and a good thing.

Find a godly woman who happily relinquishes the claim on exclusivity as a wife and you will be in line to be that man of whom our Lord in speaks of:

"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in."

The Unintentionally Single Girl and Biblical Law

Bad doctrine and the culture war have combined to frustrate many godly Christian women in their desire for a husband. The bad doctrine is not just an inherited thing that is ignorantly perpetuated by well meaning leaders and theologians, it is intellectually protected by these men even when they have been shown the truth, such is the lack of character in our civilization - this a major cause of the crisis we find ourselves in. The culture war is between the culture of Scripture and the culture of baptized feminist humanism. 

WORLD magazine's article Single and stuck? highlights the problem of those women who were raised as god-fearing Christians wanting marriage but stuck in singleness.  They want to fulfill the normal desire of every young girl to have a husband and a family.  But where are the faithful righteous men that are supposed to come calling asking father for their hand, competing to rescue them from a life of barren singleness? Sadly, they cannot look to Scripture because, seemingly, the question is not addressed there.

Where in Scripture is the role model of the single woman who finds herself without a husband?  You would think there would be at least one godly woman somewhere in Scripture who finds herself in an age of apostasy (of which there were plenty in the Israel of Bible times) with few prospects of ever finding a faithful, godly, single man?  Even WORLD asks, "But what if there are more Christian women desiring to be married than there are men wanting to be married?"

It seems God has missed something here.  Either that or we have.

Let's look at this logically for a moment: God commands us to be fruitful and multiply.  God makes you a woman in today's world. You want to obey God and reap the blessings of that obedience - a husband to obey, serve, and have as a covering protection, and children to raise for God's kingdom. But there are no godly single men to be had.  We then must ask, "Is God providing, as a Provident God, a way to obey Him?" 

Of course.  God is a loving God who has provided a way, demonstrated in His Word, shown in creation, practiced by His saints, and provided for in every place and every time in history.  What is unusual about our particular view of Scripture is that we have, theologically and culturally, decided that we know better than God how marriage should be defined, what constitutes right and wrong, and who our source of law should be, and what parts of His Word we will and will not take seriously.  This all makes it hard for us to look to His Word when looking for answers because we have, a priori, discounted His providential order for marriage as irrelevant to us.

God is, in fact, very pro-marriage and has provided a godly husband for every godly woman who wants one.  Only the one He has provided for you might just not be single.  The very best ones are not.  They have proved themselves to be godly men by the fruit of their lives.  They obey and teach others to obey God's law.  They are faithful to their wives and give them loving leadership, expecting their wives to submit to them as they submit to God's LawWord.  They are Christ like in their faithfulness to God and in their kindness to the needy and strangers, orphans and widows.  If they know God's law and obey it they will also be willing to take more than one woman under their wing.

Yes, under God's law, any woman can have any man for a husband, so long as they are equally yoked.  All men are available. All women under 60 years of age are expected to be married and serve God by serving a husband.  All women who can have children are expected to be married and obey the command to be fruitful and multiply. 

To the unintentionally single girls: Thus for you to find a good husband you must be able to discern which ones are obeying God's LawWord and which ones just talk a good line, telling you what you want to hear. To discern which is which you must become a student of God's LawWord. When you have spent a year or two reading and studying Biblical Law let your father know and tell him to contact the man you can then recognize as a godly man.

To the fathers of unintentionally single girls: You have a part to play in helping your daughters fulfill the command of God to be fruitful and multiply. A godly daughter will remain under your authority until you transfer that authority to a godly man. She should not have to do this alone. You are better equipped to tell a rotter from a godly man. Look around: has God provided a good man for your daughter? And do not rule out a man just because he is already married. And do not waste too much more time. And provide her with a dowry and ask for a bride price (negotiable). A good man will not balk at this.

To the would be suitors of unintentionally single girls: Its time to exercise your sanctification and get in good spiritual shape for the challenge of being a true believer of YHVH in a apostate age. There is no culture of belief around you to teach you the ongoing validity of God's LawWord. But you have the Scriptures and there are able teachers available if you search for them.

This article makes some powerful assertions as to the nature and doctrine of marriage. Are they backed up by Scripture? Dark spiritual forces in our culture have cowed just about every Biblical scholar and teacher for some time on this issue, but not Tom Shipley. That is why I consider him to the most important man alive today. With his book, "Man and Woman in Biblical Law," Tom has pierced the heart of humanism (feminism) with the Torah of YHVH. Hallelujah!

Torahnomics

How to apply God’s LawWord to the economic crisis we face.

1. Deut. 28:1-14 If we obey YHWH's directives, regulations, ordinances, rules, laws, statutes, and judgments, being thoroughly bridled to His way in every thought, word, and deed, then we will be blessed and prospered in every way imaginable. But we know we fall short, even as saved people, so what can we do? Look to Galatians 6:2. If we will bear one another's burdens, within the bounds of His LawWord, then we will have fulfilled the Law of Christ and thus become eligible for those promises. This is the law of substitution. See Charles Williams (of the Inklings) for more on this long unappreciated truth.

2. Malachi 3:10 We must tithe according to His LawWord. This includes the disposition of our tithe:

a) to the Levites (that is those who teach and labor in correct understanding of YHWH's LawWord),
b) to the poor, widows, orphans, sick, and strangers in our land and
c) for the celebration of YHWH's feast days which would require us to reform our calendar (you will know you are on the right track when you have a new moon sabbath).

When we do this we are assured, as a matter of actually testing YHWH Himself (the only time we are allowed to so test him) that he will bless us, regardless of the current economic climate, to the point of heaped up, pressed down, and overflowing riches.

3. Matthew 6:33 If we will seek His Kingdom and the rule of His Law as our first priority, He will make it His concern to add to us all the good things that ungodly people normally seek as a priority.

Greater clarification on all these does entail a study of Biblical Law. The best teacher available to us for this purpose is R.J. Rushdoony. His books and audio lessons are widely available and easily accessible.

Thanks to AJ for this article.

The Religion of Humanism

The impotence of Christianity is due to its being infected with the rival religion of humanism.  The pure Humanists, best represented by the ACLU in the United States, chase around Christians and whip them in every battle even though they are outnumbered by 10,000 to 1 (Deut. 32:30).

How can you fight a thing when it is part of who you are?

It is difficult to preach repentance to people who think they have arrived and are in full obedience to God. 

Listen, how could you be whipped 10,000 at a time by two of your enemy "unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up"?  And why has God given you up?  Because you have forsaken His law; you have reduced His law to a small corrupt thing and exalted your own self-righteousness.

Deut. 32:46

And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.

This is the key to defeating the enemy without: get rid of the enemy within through obedience - enthusiastic, wholehearted, immediate obedience.  Men want it from their wives, parents want it from their children, and God wants it from all of us - especially fathers.

How to Spot a New Covenant Patriarch

When the father of a girl or a woman herself is looking for a godly man, a new covenant patriarch, how can they be sure they have found one?  Now nothing is more desirable than a godly virgin woman.  Men will do almost anything to win or seduce such a prize.  So how does a godly woman tell the counterfeit godly man from the real thing?

David and the Girls

David, son of Jesse, was a godly woman’s dream. 

Why?  How was it that so many women wanted to marry this guy, even when he was a hunted man living in exile, even though he already had a wife and then even when he had multiple wives, they wanted him?

Some how they had decided that a piece of David was worth more than all of a lesser man, and certainly better than an ungodly man.  In the case of Abigail, her ungodly husband became so distraught over his wife’s service of hospitality to David and her thinking so highly of him that he became stupified until God killed him.  Then she jumped at the opportunity to be David’s wife. 

Why?

Consider what should a godly woman want in a man if she could have the very best.  Now if she wants what an ungodly woman would want, like riches and good looks and so on, that is nothing noteworthy.  But what should she want in a man that would be different from what an ungodly woman would want?

A godly woman should want a godly man, a man after Yahweh's own heart, a man who says to Yahweh, "Thy will be done" and does it.  A man who empties himself of his own will and submits himself in enthusiastic conformity to Yahweh's character as revealed in His Word.  A man who loves Yahweh's LawWord and thinks, says, and does it and teaches others to do the same.

Why submit yourself to a man who is not himself submitted to Yahweh?  Do you hope to change him?  Only the Holy Spirit can change someone.  We cannot force this.  Scripture states very plainly that we are not to be unequally yoked.  You must not lower your standards and hope for the best.  Rather you are to be as true to Scripture as possible and throw yourself at a godly man, even if he is already married, and ask him if he will allow you to take his name for yourself and let you be his woman and the mother of your children (Isaiah 4:1) even if it means providing for yourself without the benefit of a dowry.  

Be like the godly women of old (1st Peter 3:5,6) who called their husband lord.  If you cannot imagine calling a certain man 'lord' or 'master' then don't marry him.  Don't initiate a marriage in disobedience!  What good can come of that?

Imagine contremplating moving to another country.  If the laws of that country are so onerous and the government so tyrannical or there is just plain lawlessness and chaos or some hellish mixture of the two why would you want to move there?  If you could move to a country where Yahweh's LawWord reigned supreme and the leader was a servant of God ruling in terms of Scripture would that not be the way to go?  Read Deuteronomy 28:1-14.  Good things come to those who obey Yahweh and no sorrow is added with it.  Trust Yahweh and obey Him; do not trust those who forbid marriage (a doctrine of demons) in the Lord.  Monogamania is, at its root, demonic.  Do not trust those who try to get you to lower your standards and destroy your hope for a godly husband.

New Covenant Patriarchy and 'Be Fruitful and Multiply'

Where are we in the storyline of history from the vantage point of Jehovah?  While we cannot know the timing of things future, Scripture does give us the big picture.

When man sinned in the garden he did not escape what he was put on earth to do. He just has to do it with the burden of the curse on his back. So what are we, Abraham's seed by faith, here to do? We have to have dominion over the earth, and be fruitful and multiply. Not just anybody is so commanded, but the faithful, from Adam (Gen. 1:28) to Noah (Gen. 9:1) to Abraham (Gen. 17:5) to Jacob:

And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. 11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; Genesis 35:10

Now is the time of generation for the regenerated.  We must be obedient to this mandate.  This is why we are here.

And a word for the leaders of Russia, Italy, Japan, and other countries: If your country is under the curse of demographic disaster, repent, be washed by the blood of Christ, and conform your laws to Scripture and encourage godly patriarchy. This will cause health and growth to return to your country.

Wayne's Handy Dandy Heresy Hermeneutics

Now some of you are old hands at this but print this article out anyway and keep it handy in case you run into a new Christian or one that is getting all excited about the Bible.  After all, we all know just how bothersome and tiresome God’s Law can be.  I mean, hey, there are huge sections of Scripture that just don’t fit with our modern times and good solid evangelical culture. 

So what we are going to do is find a New Testament verse and a way of interpreting it that will justify throwing out whole, huge sections of God’s Law, so as to really put the Old in “Old Testament” (and parts of the New).  That way we can get on with our lives feeling quite good about doing what we want, with fitting in, and getting along, and not sticking out of the crowd.

Now the rules are that: a) you are not to question the interpretation of these handy-dandy verses, and b) don't take "Old Testament" verses too seriously - always remember that they are old and thus by definition irrelevant to us.

1. Now take anything the Bible has to say about food anywhere and just wrap it all in a bundle and tie it up with that vision Peter had with the blanket full of animals and throw the whole thing overboard.  (Don't keep reading on to the part where Peter gives the intepretation himself and it has nothing to do with food.)
   
   Now do you see how this works?  Lets try another.

2. There is a constant theme of patriarchy running through all of Scripture about how the man is the head of the woman, yada, yada, yada.  Take that whole idea and then find that verse about how in Christ there is neither male nor female and flush that puppy down the tubes.
   
   How handy is that huh!?

3. What about all the examples of patriarchs and godly men in Scripture as well as verses like Ex 21:10 that assume it is perfectly okay to have more than one wife?  Just take the word 'mia' in the verses in Timothy about the qualifications for elders and deacons and translate it 'one' instead of 'first' and you can completely overturn God's definition of family and adultery and restructure society along completely Greek lines of thinking and really put the nail in the patriarchy coffin.

4. To get rid of any consideration of God's Law at all there is always Matthew 19:8 where, if you squeeze your eyes together so everything gets blurry, you can imagine that Jesus is tossing out Moses on his ear and subsistuting a new and improved way of relating to our fellow man.
   
   Dandy, dandy, dandy. 
   
   Some things don't need a verse, but just a plausible sounding idea. Fool youself and pretend others buy it, all at the same time!

5. Want to turn your kids over to God's enemies to indoctrinate them into humanism and the worship of the state, while saving yourself the bother of homeschooling?  How about this line: "My kids are missionaries to the lost kids in the public schools."

This kind of thing is rampant throughout the church.  In fact it would be shocking for the people in the pew to actually hear the straight forward word of God preached without any handy-dandy "now here is why this is irrelevant" papering over of whatever was just read.  It is hard not to come to the conclusion that the institutional church has become so corrupted that its main purpose is to make sure no one actually knows what God says or does it.

But, like all problems, no matter how vexing, all of this is a nit.  Because we all have one problem and it is quite a manageable one.  It is God's requirement that we obey His commandments, that we put them into action just like Jesus did and enabled us to do.  All the other things that compete for our attention are God's problems (Deut. 28: 1-14).

Of course, if you do not like making obedience to God's LawWord your problem, He promises to give you other problems to worry about (Deut. 28:15-68).

******************

You put into words in a few paragraphs what I’ve been fumbling around for years to say.  Brilliant and thank you.

In Christ,
Perry Pierce

New Covenant Patriarchy Discussion Group

I would like to add to the declaration that biblical polygyny is biblical and holy in the sight of the Lord.

In reference to David, a man after God’s own heart was declared righteous before the Lord. If we believe that the Holy Scriptures are of God and pure (Psalms 12:6-7) then we must submit our thoughts to what the Lord declared concerning David when stating: 1 Kings 15:4-5

Nevertheless for David’s sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem.

Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from ANY thing that he commanded him ALL the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

Now we must ask ourselves is God ignorant of David’s sin of “polygamy” or was God fully aware of David’s 18+ wives even to the point HE gave them to David for a blessing? If God declared David followed ALL His commandments except with Bathsheba and Uriah then how could David be against God’s will in having multiple wives?

Brother Eric

Monogamania: Never has so much depended on so little

Some bad theology and a lot of rebellion are all that hold up the charade of secular humanism.

In the Bible the patriarchs - God fearing men - ruling responsibly over their families according to God's LawWord are the model that God holds up as our example of righteousness. The denial of Biblical patriarchy by the church has made secular humanism the power it is today.

There are five aspects to Biblical Patriarchy:

1. arranged marriages (the father is responsible for the disposition of his sons and daughters in marriage with the consent of all),

2. the Biblical dowry (three years living wages paid by the man for a virgin),

3. patriarchal authority ( the rule and responsibility of the father of the household under God's LawWord),

4. the one-flesh nature of marriage (the disestablishment of church and state from marriage), and

5. potential polygyny (one man husbanding one or more wives).

The denial of each of these aspects of Biblical patriarchy has given secular humanism the crucial cooperation from baptized humanism it needs in order to exercise the power it wields. To see this clearly we must imagine what things might be like if Biblical patriarchy was once again understood to be righteous by Christians.

Secular humanism is simply the larger mirror of the reality of our family lives. Secular humanism does not take God's LawWord into account and neither do humanist Christians.

I spoke to a mother of a 17 year old girl yesterday and mentioned the importance of her father being involved in making sure she married the right guy and the 3 years wages a potential husband needs to bring to the table.

"That sounds very Old Testament," she said. 

"There is no such thing as the 'Old Testament'; that is just an evolutionary category imposed on Scripture," I informed her, "There are the Law and the Prophets, the Gospels and Epistles: the dowry is part of God's Law order for the family." 

"But we have done away with the sacrifices," she responded, shaking her head. 

"Right, but the dowry has nothing to do with the sacrificial system or the priesthood.  It is simply God's Law which Jesus came to reconcile us to.  Like He said, 'If you love me obey my commandments'."

Frankly, the situation we find ourselves in is this: rather than look to God's LawWord for our definition of right and wrong we look to our own reasoning.  This is what secular humanism does as well.  The laws of our country are made up without any deference to God's Law.  As we have denigrated the Law and the Prophets as being passé so has secular humanism denigrated the Constitution and our country's Christian heritage.

Christianity in the west is bound to be impotent as long as we view God's Law as impotent.

New Covenant Patriarchy War on Terror

There were once two cities that were terrorized by God.  Not only did their two biggest buildings fall down but every building came down in a rain of fire and lava and ash.  Everybody was wiped out.  It did not have to happen.  Just ten men could have stopped it - not just any men but a particular kind of men.

Here is the whole story:

Genesis 18:20-33
And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.  And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.  And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?  Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 

And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 
And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes:  Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?

And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.  And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there.

And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake.  And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there.

And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there.  And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there.

And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake.  And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there.

And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.  And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place. 

Genesis 19:24-25 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;  And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

So there you have it: for the lack of 10 good men we have the complete destruction of two cities. 

The moral of the story: Make sure you have at least 10 righteous (full of rightness) men in your city or county.  It can make all the difference in the world.

But what kind of "rightness" are we talking about here?  God defines that himself in His Law summarized by the Ten Commandments.  And to make sure we understood what those meant he gave us hundreds of minimum case law applications of those 10 commands.  Minimum case law applications means that if the law holds for this minimal case it certainly holds for even greater cases.

Here is an example: You shall not steal.  A minimum case law would be: Do not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.  We can safely say this applies to greater cases such as: do not neglect to pay the pastor of your church who ministers to you. 

It takes a lot of understanding of God's word to know what rightness consists of and then you have to apply it in practice to actually be righteous.  And if you can't do it you had better hope there are ten men in your area that do.  Because those 10 men may be all that stand between you and divine judgment, a truly terrible thing.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Relationships

Relationships with other people make us richer. Well, I should qualify that. Those relationships based on God’s Law make us richer. Those that are not make us poorer. All the relationships where all the parties to the relationship are in accord with God’s LawWord are win-win relationships. It is in this respect that I will use the terms lawful and lawless.

People become hermits and loners when they have been hurt too many times by lawless relationships.  Healing is needed and is available through Christ who bore the consequences of our lawlessness on Himself so we could be restored into a meaningful relationship with God.

People who are lawless find themselves quite lonely when they engage in lawlessness and thus destroy any meaningful relationships they have. The items in a garbage can are likewise meaningless in their relationship to anything else.  They no longer have a place or function in service to others.  This is hell.

The way of life and health and peace is one of meaningful service to others as ordered and regulated by the Guide to Relationships we know as the Bible.  This Guide will tell you how you are to relate to those who don't live by it as will as those who do.  It will tell you how to handle any type of relationship by giving you core principles (the Ten Commandments) as well as examples of how to implement those core principles (the case laws).

To bring home to your life just how this works you need to continually review the Guide in the light of those relationships you are involved in with your family, fellow church members, friends, and co-workers.  All of these reflect the most important relationship in your life, the one you have with God.  You have to get your relationship with God straight before anything else is going to get straightened out.

There are a huge number of aspects to our relationship with God but some are so fundamental that they deserve special consideration here:

1. Authority/Subject - I am the Lord your God Exodus 20:2a - Being under lawful authority (as opposed to being under a lawless tyrant) means being under God's authority.  You may safely discount the authority of anyone whose authority is not based on submission to God's authority.  A rapist may coerce his victim to do his bidding but that does not make him her husband.  The state may make laws and regulations that fill many new volumes each year but that does not make it God.  God is the author of creation and history.  We are his subjects.
   
   
2. Rescuer/Hostage - which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Exodus 20:2b - Our God is the one who rescues us from the criminal gangs who tyrannize us (coerce us lawlessly).
   
   
3. One/Many - Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 - God insists that He is God alone, the ultimate and singular source of authority.  Thus we live in a universe, not a multiverse.  We are many but God is one.
   
   
4. Jealous/Unconditionally Trusting - I the LORD thy God am a jealous God Exodus 20:5 - God names Himself Jealous, not that He is insecure, but that He will not share us with another.  Will a husband share his wife with another?  Neither will God tolerate any allegiance to competing authorities or competing loyalties.
   
   
5. Judge/LawBreaker - visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; Exodus 20:5 - This means households where 3 and 4 generations are affected by the evil of the fathers who hate God.
   
   
6. LawGiver Redeemer/Covenant Keeper - And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:6 - The order of God makes for a blessed realm where His citizens love and obey Him and thus enjoy peace with each other.

As our relationship with YHWH, our loving father, is healed and whole we spread healing to every relationship in our lives. 

The Nature of Authority and Manhood

Authority has a one-to-many structure as part of its nature.

If this natural structure is denied it, the authority withers and becomes impotent and twisted and will no longer provide its function or lend vitality to those in it.

Can you think of any authority anywhere in history that was not based on a one-to-many relationship? A sergeant has many corporals; a corporal has many privates; a captain has many officers; etc.  There may be many circumstances where an actual one-to-one relationship exists with only the potential for a one-to-many. However if this potentiality were ever denied then the authority aspect of the relationship would be made impotent.

This in fact is what we do see in monogamy only cultures.  The authority of the man in marriage is made impotent as he is denied this potential of being chief of many.

Augustine said it most eloquently: "For by a secret law of nature, things that stand chief love to be singular; but things that are subject are set under, not only one under one, but, if the system of nature or society allow, even several under one, not without becoming beauty. For neither hath one slave so several masters, in the way that several slaves have one master. Thus we read not that any of the holy women served two or more living husbands; but we read that many females served one husband, when the social state of the nation allowed it, and the purpose of the time persuaded it: for neither is it contrary to the nature of marriage. For several females can conceive from one man: but one female cannot from several men (such is the power of things principal) as many souls are rightly made subject to one God."

When authority is being stolen from the realm of the family by church and state, then we see the motive for the virulent opposition to the natural authority of the husband in his marriage.  This results in the weakening and destruction of many families causing untold societal ills, but this cost is gladly born by the usurpers in exchange for the ill-gotten authority gained.  Do not expect to see the restoration of that authority sanctioned by those who stole it.  When you understand this dynamic then you will also understand the attacks on polygynists of any kind where humanism is the reigning religion.

When those who say they believe in God's LawWord act on it, then God will restore Biblical marriage and husbands and wives will escape those who are destroying their marriages and families.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Children

Children are the forgotten victims of the abandonment of YHWH's Law regarding marriage.  Being made in the image of God we long for a Father.  God our Father created us this way and thus gave children an earthly father to be a picture of their heavenly Father.  A father who does not abandon them, who models self-government, honor, honesty, truthfulness, giving of himself for his family, moral and religious leadership, courage and strength.  In other words, a man who cares for his family according to YHWH's LawWord, a fixed and unwavering, predictable standard of right and wrong, external to himself and to which he is accountable.  (A man our humanist culture is incapable of portraying.  At war with YHWH they are also at war with His image in man.)

Women who find themselves widowed or abandoned must not deny a father to their children just because the only good ones are already married.  Neither should they let the state or church convince them of the doctrine of demons (1 Timothy 4:1-3) that forbids marriage.

Men Ahead of Their Time

All of history has been predetermined by God and is working out his design, like a plant that is growing from a seed into its full flower and fruit.

Thus when we read Scripture we are seeing God's vision for that design, a world ordered according to his law as proclaimed, prophesied, and exemplified by the great patriarchs and prophets and apostles of Scripture, and fully embodied in the Messiah.

We are seeing, in them, the future, where men will deal with each other according to God's Law, reflecting His character toward one another and toward others and the world around them.  We must study these men and what they wrote in order to become like them, to respond like they did in similar circumstances.

Since all history is the unfolding of such a society, where all relationships are intermediated by God's LawWord, the men of God in Scripture were in fact living out the future, our future, in their time.  We must do the same in our time.  In fact, only that part of ourselves that has been conformed to God's character, as written in Scripture and exemplified by Christ, will survive into the new heavens and new earth.

So do not cheat yourself of future glory by letting yourself be misled as to the importance of making God's Law your study all the day.  Do not give credence to the idea that faith is somehow opposed to obedience.  Moses, the Law Giver, was, as Hebrews 11 says, a man of faith.  In fact it says this over and over again.

So we, by faith, must reflect God's character through obedience to His LawWord in its every detail, and beg God's forgiveness when we fall short, always upholding the holiness of His Law regardless of how lowly we hold ourselves in comparison.

Marcion's Heirs Tell It Like It Is

Yes, just before secular humanism takes the big swan dive into the dust bin of history it lays its epistemology bare and takes down those who are its strange bedfellows - modernist churches.

Marcion, you may recall, is the heretic who posited an evolving God. His original writings were all destroyed but his followers have the same mindset and are quit able to reproduce what he thought and taught.  Here is a quote from the modern Marcionites:

It seems to me that God is evolving right along with humanity. In the OT times he was brutal, he was a dictator. In NT times, he was forgiving and understanding to a point, but not yet ready to give up the LAW. Now, from what I am reading, christians (the spokesmen for God), are saying there is no hell, or that it is just a separation from God, rather than literal torment in a fire. Some christians also accept gays, most accept drinking, smoking, premarital sex, children out of wedlock, divorce, working on the sabbath, etc etc...
Is a kinder world leading us to a kinder God? God has mellowed with age? No longer need to stone or burn sinners?
...

The fact is God as portrayed in the bible does change. In the OT we have God announcing he is going to kill Moses for not getting his son circumcised. Yes, that's in your holy bible. Then in the NT we have all that stuff about turning the other cheek, gentle Jesus etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong but according to Christian dogma, Jesus is God. Well how come he wasn't a hard person in the NT as he (God) was in the OT? Was Jesus only pretending to be nice?

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Right! that was my point in making this thread. After giving it some thought, it seemed obvious to me that our concept of God has evolved right along with mankind. Especially in light of recent discussions on this thread pertaining to hell, which now seems to be interpreted more as a separation from god than a literal burning in hell forever.(even by christians) Then when you consider that stoning people to death went out of vogue, as did punishing people for working on the sabbath etc etc - christianity has indeed changed over and over throughout the ages. And I predict it will continue too. I think those stuck in the dogma, in the letter of the law will be left behind while the more spiritually minded will continue to progress. At least I hope so!

from: WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com

These modern scoffers at the God of the Scriptures get all their ammunition from those Christians who refuse to take God at his Word.

So take your pick, do you want to side with the God of Scriptures and the ongoing validity of his LawWord or would you rather put your hope in the "Singularity"?  It just makes sense that those who believe in a sequence of millions of miracles, starting with nothing, that produced us and our universe would just take one more step and believe the equally ridiculous idea that we will soon be transformed into gods embedded in machines.

Yes, it is a hard choice to make but it will be forced upon you as an opportunistic Islam bears down on an anti-family Western Civilization compromised by secular humanism, the parasite religion that only has teeth for compromised humanist Christians.

Judgment Day Scenarios

What will you get called up on the carpet for?

Okay, project yourself into the future when you are face to face with God on Judgment Day, where we have to give an account for every idle word, and thought, and action.

God is looking at you and your life is flashing before your eyes and he says either ...

a) "What were you thinking, taking my LawWord so seriously!  I did not mean that you should obey all my commandments as written.  After all, they were for the Old Testament times (thank you Marcion for making that distinction), the Hebrews, not for saved New Testament Christians!  Look how embarrassing you made my Scriptures to be in the eyes of decent folk with your talk of Biblical polygyny, reforming the calendar with Biblical holidays and Sabbaths and getting rid of perfectly functional weekday and month names.  Not to mention wearing tassels, not trimming your beard, abstaining from unclean food, condemning sodomites and so forth. Don't you know that only moral laws, as defined by a consensus of church leaders, are still valid? You are an intolerant person who has misrepresented Myself.  Go to hell!"

or

b) "What were you thinking, taking my LawWord so lightly? I gave you My commandments as written and Christ to reconcile you to them so you would obey them and reflect My Character thereby. Where the signs and seals of the covenant changed with the coming of my Son into the world, I made this manifestly clear. What made you think you could pick and choose those commands that met with your approval and disregard the rest while adding some of your own? I made you quite aware of some areas of your life and culture that needed to be changed to bring them into line with My LawWord and you weighed the cost of acting on that knowledge with the cost imposed by My enemies and chose to ignore Me.  You then refused to support those did take a stand.  You even taught others to disregard many of my laws. You will be the least in my Kingdom."

Which of these two do you suppose is more likely?  Should you take all of God's Laws very seriously and risk a) or should you blow off God's more embarrassing Laws and risk b)?

I cannot imagine a) ever coming to pass, although this is apparently what a lot of my fellow Christians think will happen to me, while something like b) is quite likely what most church leaders will face. 

What will you do as a teacher of your children?  Will you teach the ongoing validity of all of God's Law or will you take the easy way, the way of the prevailing culture you happen to be a part of?

This is what I want God to say to me:

c) "Well done, good and faithful servant.  You fell short of my Law but you were not at war with it.  You were imperfect in your understanding of many of My Laws but you loved them and did not teach others to disobey it.  When I made you aware of areas of your life that needed to change to be brought into conformity to My Law you counted the cost and chose to fear Me above man. When you started to worry about how you would make it you remembered to pray to Me and trusted Me to provide for you. You laughed at the scorn fools heaped upon you and counted yourself blessed to be counted worthy to suffer reproach for my Name's sake. You were never ashamed of me or My Law and neither am I ashamed of you.  Take your place of honor in My kingdom."

God's Saints vs. God's Law - NOT!

Did Abraham, the Hebrew midwives, Rahab, Jael, David, and God Himself sin by deceiving those who were at odds with God’s will?

This is the implication of those who set the saints of of God against God's Law.  Always looking for a way to escape God's Law they hope to find refuge for their lawlessness in the example of the saints of Scripture.  Others maintain their own "purity of conscience" by calling these deceptions sins, which they themselves would never commit, despite the witness of Scripture that these very acts are held up in Scripture as acts of faith and examples to us of righteousness.

Abraham hid his marriage relationship with Sarah from those who would murder him to get her.

The Hebrew midwives deceived Pharaoh and saved the lives of the Hebrew male new-born babies.

Rahab told the officers of the state of Jericho that the spies had gone away while hiding them and assisting in their escape.

Jael lured Sisera inside for refreshment and a nap and then drove a tent peg through his temple while he slept.

David feigned madness in order to save his life from the hand of the Philistines.

God lured Pharaoh into wilderness near the Red Sea as he chased the Israelites so He could destroy him and his army.

R.J. Rushdoony has said that the source of a society's law is its God.  This is also true of individuals.  You operate by a certain law. You judge according to this law in the jurisdiction that you have been given.  Your mind, money, property, and time are all under your control and what you do with them is directed by the law you operate by.  The source of that law is your god.

All law is war against lawlessness.  Different systems of law thus represent different gods who are at war with one another. The God of Biblical Law is at war against all other gods and their law systems.  He is also a very jealous God.  When another god touches His Bride He gets especially incensed.  When you invite another god into your bosom He becomes livid (as in "a face white with rage").  Be careful whose law you make your own!

Now, we can have many different kinds of enemies.  We may have personal enemies. Others may hate us because we belong to a certain family.  I once was ill treated because I represented a company whose previous representatives were hated.  Being of a certain race, or wearing certain colors, speaking or not speaking with a particular accent may all make us enemies of complete strangers.  There are many real and imagined injustices that people feel need to be paid for and they may see you as having to bear that cost.  Some people play power politics and believe that it is to their advantage to foil or hurt you in some way.  Sin abounds and death follows after.  We are to treat such lawfully (Deut. 22) even when they treat us lawlessly, to seek their good even when they seek our harm. This pleases God and makes for peace.

Then there are those who take it upon themselves to be God's enemies.  They are at war with God, His Law order, and anything else that manifests His sovereignty. They don't just cheat and break the law, they justify and promote the legalization of lawlessness itself. They self-consciously work to undermine the very foundations of God's kingdom. They are professional rapists of the Bride of Christ.  Against all such God is always at war and so should we. 

We do not owe the truth to those who are at war with the truth. 

We do not owe forthrightness to those who have instituted lawlessness.  Yet some suggest that Abraham should have become an accessory to his own murder by revealing his marriage.  They impute sin to Abraham without any foundation in Scripture whatsoever.

We do not owe obedience or honesty to authorities who order evil, seeking to enlist us in Satan's service. Yet pietists suggest the midwives should have just not said anything. That God would have protected them and those baby boys somehow.  Thank God the midwives left us with such a wonderful example of Godly character, and not the weak-kneed, spineless, self-righteous morality of so many of their critics.

We do not owe loyalty to a regime or nation whose cup of iniquity overflows into judgment.  Yet some impute guilt to Rahab; they say she sinned by lying but that God overlooked it. But Scripture gives witness that God lifted her up from whoredom to the very genealogy of Christ. To be loyal to God you must be treasonous to His enemies. Choose whom you will serve.

We may pay death to those who are at war with life.  As did Jael.  What a great saint of God!  Worthy to be celebrated in song. She knew God's law and was easily able to distinguish between hospitality and accommodation of a weary fugitive, and righteous enticement and execution of an enemy of God's Kingdom. Yet some condemn her, thus showing their pretentiousness and ignorance.

Nobody shows modern day peitism for what it is like David does.  He offends modern pietists like no other saint of God, yet no one in Scripture is held in such high regard by God. It leaves His enemies seething inwardly as they look for ways to disparage David's reputation and standing before Christians. A great way to measure the caliber of a Bible teacher or pastor is to listen to what he has to say about David, and Abraham too.

Therefore, study God's Law at the feet of someone who can teach it properly, namely RJ Rushdoony.  There are some 1600 audio lessons to choose from and scores of books and articles. Then you will learn to discern, obey, and love God through both His Inscripturated Word and His Incarnate Word.

Greater vs. Lesser Laws - NOT!

There is, apparently, no end to the ways rebellious man finds to justify breaking God’s Law while claiming to keep it.

The Summary of the Law vs. the Specifics of the Law - NOT!

The battle of the definition of Christ is underway again.  Is Christ the incarnation of the Mosaic Law or is He a statist humanist (Whom we define as we go along)?

There are those who, in a vain attempt to justify studied ignorance of God's Law, pit the summary of God's Law against the nitty gritty details and specifics of God's Law. This goes along with a general rejection of the, so called, "Old Testament" as irrelevant and with a general feeling that the specifics of the law are what the Pharisees and hypocrites believed in and were condemned for. They, on the other hand, are more concerned with the weightier matters of the law (caring for widows and orphans, and loving your neighbor as yourself) and not the trivial details (like, say, exactly who should be doing this and how).

This of course, leaves them free to fill in the details with man-made rules and regulations while still feeling quite Christian.  In fact it was not long ago that a socialist / humanist from the far left made the point on C-SPAN that the state (in this case Washington DC) was fulfilling the Christian mandate to love your neighbor as yourself and justified more social spending and higher taxes to that end.  Without the details of the law of God, his evangelical opponent had nothing authoritative to offer in rebuttal.

Over time, Christians will find themselves squeezed between an acceptance of humanism and an acceptance of the ongoing validity of the details and specifics of Biblical Law.  They have internalized a great deal of humanist presuppositions which control the way they vote, how they educate their children, who they look to for health care, and economic blessings, how they arrange marriages, etc.. Yet they profess Christ, the walking incarnation of whole-hearted obedience to every regulation and specific requirement of the Mosaic law, who came to reconcile us to the Mosaic law and bore for us the condemnation of the law that put us at enmity with God.  The question is, which side of their split personalities will win out.  They must either change their values or redefine Christ in the image of a statist humanist.  It is the definition of Christ in the specifics of the Law of God that stands in the way of the humanist redefinition of Christ.

To make the case clearly now:

1. The Mosaic Law is the perfect written reflection of the character of God.
2. The Messiah is the perfect incarnate reflection of the character of God.
3. Love is putting the Mosaic Law into force as the Messiah did.

God revealed his character in the written Mosaic Law in all its details and specific requirements.  He defined love as putting that Law into action. He put the Law into living form in Christ Who was therefore the incarnation of the Law and therefore became love.  We are also to incarnate that Law, putting it into action and thus demonstrating love to our neighbor and thus reflecting God's character in our relationship with others.

For more on the specifics of God's Law and how it differs from humanism see the books by R.J. Rushdoony at: www.chalcedon.edu and www.chacedonstore.com

For deprogramming from humanism and learning to see Scriptures as a whole unity, see: www.pocketcollege.com

Moses vs. Jesus vs. Paul - NOT!

The ongoing validity of all of Gods Law is here defended. This is also a call for the end of Christian doublemindedness with regard to the Law of God. 

Tom Shipley has taught me the importance of the unity and harmony of Scripture. God cannot contradict himself. If He appears to do so, then it is we who are hazy and lazy of mind and full of contradictions and maledictions, not God.  God goes to great lengths to establish the goodness and blessedness of His Law with the command for us to study it, to make it the context in which we live our lives, to make it our mental environment.  Why?  Because it is a true reflection of the character of God.  In fact Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the LawWord of God, which God says is even greater than His name.

First: who is this article addressed to? It is addressed to Christian leaders and teachers everywhere. Beware! You are held to a higher standard by God and your standing in heaven is at risk; to wit:

Therefore, whoever relaxes one of these commandments, the least, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of Heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven. (Mat 5:19)

Now, to our present evangelical, antinomian (anti-Mosaic law) mindset, some of what Paul or the other Apostles wrote appears to contradict or do away with God's Law.  This just proves how ignorant we are of the Scriptures, the context of the verses, who they were written to, and the errors they addressed.  Now, if you, as a teacher and preacher find yourself confused by these passages, do yourself a favor and just read them without adding any kind of commentary that would teach your hearers to break even the least of God's Laws.

Let us look at an example of false teaching that has caused many a preacher and teacher to be relegated by God to the lowest position in the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is based on a misreading of Colossians 2:16ff:

Col 2:16ff  Then do not let anyone judge you in eating, or in drinking, or in part of a feast, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths, which are a shadow of coming things (LITV)

This is commonly used to teach that Paul is here throwing out all the dietary laws, the Biblical calendar, and sometimes the whole of the Mosaic law till all that is left is "Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself."  Often a handy trash can is created, labeled "Ceremonial Laws", "Jewish Culture", or "Laws of Separation", into which you are encouraged to throw all the laws you don't like, or that are in conflict with our current and local man-made laws and traditions.

Now, God is not doubleminded as we are, that He would inspire the Apostle Paul to contradict Christ or Moses, and make himself least in the Kingdom of heaven himself by teaching the disregard of whole categories of God's Holy Law.  To suppose such a thing is to impune the character of God, and to teach it is to perpetrate great harm upon the saints in your charge and to retard your work in the Kingdom of God.  Better you should play a tape by a true teacher of God's LawWord than to reveal your presumptuous ignorance.  Always assume the ongoing validity of all of God's Laws.

Reading it in context, understanding that he is addressing the Gnostic heresey, that 'matter is evil and unimportant while spirit is good and important,'  Paul is saying, in effect:

"As you enjoy the food and drink that God blesses you with, do not let anyone guilt manipulate you because you are enjoying the eating and drinking of it, or because you are taking part in the feasts and holidays and Sabbaths appointed in the Biblical calendar, which are shadow picture previews of the reality to come."

So it is with all such passages.  Rather than contradict the Law they establish it as the written revelation of the character of Christ.  Do we always interpret and translate correctly?  No, but we should make sure we do no violence to the integrity and harmony of Scripture, and never teach the relaxation of the least of God's laws, much less dismiss whole categories of them.

New Covenant Patriarchal Creed

1. I believe that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Law of God, the walking Torah of YHWH, and the source of all definition, purpose, and meaning and that the Law of God is the Character of God writ large in the Scriptures for our benefit.

2. I believe that the Law of God as contained in the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels and the Epistles, that is the Holy Bible, is eternal and unchanging and always fully in force, witnessed to us by the Holy Spirit, and is the ultimate source of all authority.

3. I believe that Jesus Christ came to save us from the condemnation of the Law and to reconcile us to the Law as our way of sanctification and as the mediator between man and man, man and creation, and man and all aspects of life.

4. I believe that the Law of God in every particular reflects and defines the character of Jesus Christ and that we cannot know who He is outside of the Law.

5. I believe that Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the Love of God and that Love is the Law of God put into action, transforming it from a dead letter to a living force that reflects God's Will.

6. I believe that Jesus Christ will come again when the entire world is brought into obedience to His Law.

7. I believe that no institution can have any legitimacy except that it is  founded on the authority of God's Law and maintains itself in conformity to it.

8. I believe that the LawWord of God is whole and self-consistent and that any statements within it that appear to conflict are human errors in translation or hermeneutics.

9. I believe that, like Jesus Christ, I too am to be the walking embodiment of God's Law and so will endeavor to learn it, love it, and live it and teach it to others.

10. I believe that the Law of God is a gift from God to those who are reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ and that it is the key to the promises and blessings of Scripture, a sign of His grace to us, and that obedience to it is a privilege.

Socialism and Bad Theology vs Women and Children

It is becoming clear that much of the world’s misery and poverty are directly associated with the misguided war on the family.  This takes place first of all within modern Christian society doing the exact opposite of what God requires of those who would practice pure religion.

It goes like this: a man with a legal wife and children finds another woman and builds a relationship with her. Nothing new here, it is simply nature taking its course. But society, in the form of churches, governments, and other institutions, refuses to recognize or condone this relationship. The man is ostracized if he is open about his 2nd wife and the children he has by her. He is not allowed in church and civil law is against him. He wants to maintain the relationship but he is forced to do so furtively and, under enough pressure, may reduce time spent with the 2nd wife and their children, or abandon them altogether.

The 2nd wife and her children become objects of pity for well meaning do-gooders, who have the same attitudes that hurt or destroyed her relationship to the man in her life. She is now dependent on handouts and welfare. She may be able to hang on to her children but in many cases she is too destitute to do so. She is left bereaved and childless.  She is a victim of the war on the family by the forces of socialism and its misguided Christian allies.

You can see her and her children in late night commercials where a do-gooder will ask you to help feed and house them.

Why not just let her have her husband and the children have their father and stop the war on the family?!

The same goes for the woman who finds herself widowed and her children fatherless.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  James 1:27

For a church to support a widow she must be 60 years old.  Yet we are still required to look after her and her fatherless children.  This is best done by letting a man, even if he is already married, give himself to her as a husband and to her children as a father.  We believers must keep ourselves from being polluted by the world's perversion of marriage and practice pure and faultless religion.

"If a man has two wives..." Deut. 21:15

What is God talking about here? Is polygamy Biblical?

If God's Law is a reflection of His holy, perfect character then why do most churches still teach that having more than one wife is wrong?  Is it a sin?  "Well, no," they admit, it is not, but they nevertheless insist that it is wrong to have more than one wife.  So is there another standard of right and wrong from some other god? 

These and other tough questions are addressed in this exciting new book by Tom Shipley and the Institute for Christian Patriarchy.

This book, Man and Woman in Biblical Law, lays the foundation for the long-awaited reconstruction of the family in terms of what the Bible teaches.

For the first time in history the doctrine of the family is systematically explained.

Find out the surprising truth of what the Biblie says about marriage.

How could Christianity have swept this issue under the rug for so long?

New Covenant Patriarchy and Successful Relationships

Within God’s Law, relationships are easy.  Initiating them is easy and keeping them healthy is easy.  Why?  When everyone knows and obeys God’s Law there is harmony and peace.  Seeming conflicts are easily resolved and just become avenues for greater understanding.  When someone falls outside of God’s Law he or she is easily restored and is better off for it.

This is all not only possible, unlike the impossible promises of peace and prosperity from the world, and true, unlike the lies of the modern day Pharisees, but inevitable if we are bound by the LawWord of God through faith in the power of the resurrection of Christ, faith given to us by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Out in the world we may be as sanctified as ever but we can still have failed relationships with people in business or in some public venue, even in church, although hopefully somewhat less there.  But when it comes to marriage we must be sure not to marry those who live by some other law or principle or center than God's LawWord, with Christ as our center.

Thus, given the context of God's Law, of heartfelt theonomy, there is no possibility of broken relationships, but only ever greater maturity and understanding.

Working the Delta

The Delta is that difference between the standard God has set for us in His LawWord and where we actually are in our current state of sanctification.

The standard God has set for our sanctification is not to be confused with our salvation which is already perfectly achieved and guaranteed to believers by the resurrection of Christ.  The standard is God's character: holiness, righteousness, knowledge, and dominion - in other words the communicable attributes of God - as set forth in His Law.  We are to grow in each of these areas as long as we are alive.

Getting there from where we are is what I call Working the Delta.

New Covenant Patriarchy in Context

The list of problems of life under Satan in our time is getting stinkier and longer and deeper into the realm of "I just can't take it anymore."  Having, almost universally, in the church and out of it, decided that God's Law is the last thing we could want in our lives, God is granting our wish and letting our will be done.  As eagerly as preachers dish-out pap against "the Old Testament's rules and regulations," so have congregants lapped up the idea that Jesus came to save us from God's Law - except, you know, the moral laws, that is those parts of the Old Testament we all agree are moral, as long as we can place limits on them ("so don't label me an anti-nomian!").

What awaits these escapees from the God's Law are the curses outlined in the last two thirds's of Deuteronomy 28.

For those of us who love God's Law and see it as a manifestation of His character, it is a wonderful gift and the key to all the blessings of God that we were made to enjoy.  With Christ having fulfilled the Law we are never condemned by it because He has put us on the right side of the Law and it is now our friend, our delight, and the object of our study all day long.

Certainly, we have not "arrived" at full mature obedience, but we are always working on learning, and understanding God's Law more and more and changing our thoughts, words, and actions to conform to it.  As we become more mature, however many generations that takes, we will at last reap fully the promises written about in Zechariah and Isaiah, and the abundant blessings of first third Deuteronomy 28.

So, while those who despise God's Law, in part or in whole, are focusing their energies trying to escape the inevitable curses of God as they overtake them and pursue them, continually bursting their bubble-fantasy world of rebellion against the God who made reality, we will be pursuing His will, His definition of right and wrong, and His values, all the while being more and more pursued and overtaken by His blessings, health, peace, and salvation.  Biblical patriarchal polygyny is just a part of it.

Tom Shipley Responds ... Part 3

Mr. Yeager: God did not evolve his standards over time, but He did initially reduce them, because there was no way for people to meet them. In Matthew 19:8 it says, “Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.’”

Once Jesus came to earth, it became possible for people (through the Holy Spirit’s reforming work in their lives) to meet God’s true standards of morality.

Evidence for this change in the standard for marriage is found in passages like 1 Timothy 3:12 and Titus 1:6. Also, in Mark 10:11 it says, “He answered, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.’” If He said that, why would it be OK to marry another woman *without* divorcing your first wife?

14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been a witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet is she thy companion and the wife of thy covenant.

15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

 If he take him another wife, her...duty of marriage shall he not diminish. If he do not (this) unto her, then she shall go out free without money.

In Matthew 19:9, Jesus states, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.” This statement is commonly cited as refutation of polygamy. But is it? Is it not rather a refutation of divorce on demand? What if a man does not put away his wife and marries another? If the one flesh relationship, that is the “duty of marriage” (Exo.21:10), with the first wife remains intact, then the marital bond has not been divided asunder. Is this not, in fact, precisely what Exodus 21:10 informs us? The adultery in the example given us by Christ consists of the dissolution of the marital bond with the first wife and the substitution of her with a second wife.

 

Exodus 21:10-11 commands: "If he take him another wife…her duty of marriage shall he not diminish.”

It is the failure of the husband to continue providing sexual relations with the first wife, not taking a second wife, which releases the first wife from her marriage. In short, taking a second wife does not constitute adultery, but doing so to replace the first wife does. 

Since the concubine is permitted to divorce her master on grounds of failure to provide sexual relations, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the master has violated the marital union. What word best describes the violation of the marital bond? Is it not adultery? We see, then, that this law both permits polygamy and at the same time does not permit the putting away of the first wife. If, however, the master should put her away via desertion of the marriage bed, the concubine is then given the right of divorce. How else are we to categorize the offense of the master other than as adultery? I see no plausible escape from this conclusion. This is directly relevant to whether or not Christ’s words in Matthew 19 invalidate polygamy because Exodus 21 addresses the exact same scenario as does Christ, that is, the putting away of a first wife, substituting her with a second wife, but it explicitly permits polygamy in the same context. There is, therefore, no valid way to conclude that Christ’s words in Matthew 19 invalidate polygamy.

Tom Shipley Responds ... Part 2

Mr. Yeager: So, what about all the men who would not be able to find wives if polygamy was allowed? The ratio of male children to female children is about 50/50. If a man has four wives, that means that there are three other men who cannot marry. In the Old Testament, the men who did not marry were the ones who could not afford to marry. In today’s society, that distinction does not exist.

Also, one-to-one marriages are not a limitation on the number of children that can be born. My parents had eight kids, and I have several friends whose parents had 10 or even 16 kids.

It seems to me that polygamy is actually damaging to children. Many studies have found that the lack of a good father figure causes significant to children. Now, my father is a great man, and was easily able to be a good father to his eight kids. But, if one man has 50 children, how can he spend time with all of them?

Excess Single Women in Western Churches

Polygamy as the New Testament’s ideal standard for marriage has occasionally been defended by anti-establishment religious groups as a supposed means of strengthening the family – always the “patriarchal family.” This is a strange argument. Polygamy did not strengthen any family in the Old Testament. It surely does not strengthen families that it keeps from being formed by reducing the pool of eligible women for marriage. But what about the disparity between the number of male and female members in the Western Church? Would polygamy solve this problem?

It is not widely recognized that Western Christianity for many centuries has been afflicted by an imbalance of men and women church members. This may not be the case with Greek Orthodoxy, where equality seems to prevail,36 but it has been the case with all other major denominations.37 Women outnumber men, sometimes by wide margins. In African-American congregations in the United States, in Latin American and Italian Roman Catholic churches, and in white Pentecostal churches, women outnumber men by two-to-one or more. If Paul’s rule against marriages between Christians and non-Christians were honored by unmarried women in these groups, the formation of families would decrease.

Assume that unmarried women in the churches turned down all offers of marriage by non-Christians. Non-Christian males could not marry Christian women, who would refuse their offers. Meanwhile, many single Christian women would find no husbands. Unless the churches could find a solution to the problem of gender disparity, the widespread presence of churches in any society would produce increased crime, other things being equal. There would be too many unmarried young men.

The practical solution to this Western social problem has been simple: most Christian women marry covenant-breakers when asked, if no one else has asked or is likely to ask. This practice has continued for centuries. Adult sons of these religiously mixed marriages more often refuse to join the church than adult daughters. They imitate their fathers. Daughters imitate their mothers. They join the church and then marry non-members, just as their mothers did. In a book on this continuing disparity of membership, the author does not mention this imitation phenomenon as the reason why this disparity continues, generation after generation. He offers no explanation for the disparity, which appears in all branches of the Western church, nor does he explain why the problem does not afflict Eastern Orthodoxy. He recognizes that sons reject their mothers as role models, imitating Chapter 3 . . . I Timothy 3:1–2 their fathers,38 but he does not discuss the obvious: their mothers have broken God’s law by marrying non-Christian men, and their daughtersfollow their example. Establishing a family covenant becomes more important to unmarried Christian women than maintaining the church covenant. Romance defeats confession.

Would polygamy in the churches reduce this problem? I have twice been asked this question by a prominent African-American pastor, whose congregation is filled with unmarried women who cannot find husbands. Polygamy might solve the problem for some of these woman, but it would raise all of the other problems by setting a legal precedent which, if authorized by civil law and imitated by the general culture, would produce increased social disorder. Polygamy would not solve the underlying problem, namely, an excess of women in the churches. Because this problem is rarely discussed in public, churches have done nothing to solve it for several hundred years.

The negative aspects of not being married seem very great to eligible unmarried women. When asked by covenant-breakers to marry, they do not look into the future and acknowledge that their sons will go to hell if they imitate their fathers, which most of them will. Meanwhile, their parents and their churches offer no serious negative sanctions for this act of covenant-breaking. The lure of the benefits of marriage is not offset in their minds by the threat of immediate negative ecclesiastical and family sanctions or by longterm negative sanctions: the eternal fate of their sons and the temporal miseries of sharing a life with covenant-breakers. So, they marry these men. The disparity of church membership continues. To put it somewhat graphically, theology and sanctionless ecclesiology are no match for sexual passion during women’s child-bearing years. As a result, Satan harvests the souls of many sons of Christian mothers, century after century.

Monogamy and Social Order
39. Gary North, Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy, 2nd electronic edition (Harrisonburg, Virginia: Dominion Educational Ministries, Inc., [1999] 2003), Appendix D: “The Demographics of American Judaism.” Page. 111

Tom Shipley Responds ... Part 1

The following letter from Tom to a Mr. Yeager answers typical evangelical objections concerning Biblical polygyny.

That verse implies that men divorced their wives for reasons other than adultery.

When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some nakedness of a thing {fornication} in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

“Some commentators have mistakenly viewed this word as indicating deprecated toleration of a positive evil (i.e., reluctantly forbearing something against which you have strong scruples or detest). Such a connotation must be read into the word. It is used quite simply for the giving of candid permission (without overtones of disapprobation). When ‘epitrepo’ is used elsewhere in the NT there is no reason to think that the person using it intends to approve of something that he considers definitely improper. It is primarily used for the gaining of authorization from a superior...Jn. 19:43...Acts 21:39-40...Acts 26:1...Acts 27:3...Acts 28:16...Mat. 8:21...I Cor. 16:7...Heb. 6:3...Gen 39:6 (LXX)...Est. 9:14...Job 32:14...

Therefore, it is unwarranted to maintain that, in Matt. 19:8, Jesus represents the Mosaic law as ‘tolerating with disapproval’ an immoral activity, viz. divorce. The verse simply reports that Moses authorized the use of divorce. One should note, in passing, that the commentators who read the connotation of disapproval-of-an-immoral-activity into the word ‘epitrepo’ fail to justify their view that an all holy God could enact an immoral law. How, one must ask in astonishment, could the God who is ‘of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity’ (Hab. 1:13), the just Lord who ‘will do no iniquity’ (Zeph. 3:5), tolerate the legislation of immorality in His law, which is itself perfect, right, pure, and righteous altogether (Ps. 19:7-9)? Even leaving linguistic considerations aside this theological difficulty with the view is insurmountable.” — (“Theonomy in Christian Ethics,” n. pg. 102) 

Tom Shipley - Doctor of Patriarchy

Never before has the world needed Biblical patriarchy as it does now.  Thank God for Tom Shipley to teach us this doctrine.

A "Doctor" is one who knows his doctrine so well that he is able to teach it qualitatively.  Usually a man is only able to be a true doctor in one area since the field of knowledge is so great that one can only be truly knowledgable in one area.  So Tom is quite specific in the doctrine that he teaches.  It is not the practice of Biblical patriarchy (from now on I will simply says patriarchy since any non-Biblical patriarchy is adulterated patriarchy) that Tom teaches but rather its Biblical legitimacy and exposition.

Now, there are many so called doctors of divinity and theology in the world who ought to teach the same thing as Tom does on the subject of patriarchy.  After all, the truth can not be at odds with itself.  But they do not and are in fact at odds with Tom on this.  So who is doctoring the the truth here?

What does "doctoring the truth" mean?  It mean perverting the purity of the truth about something does it not?  This is what false teachers do - they doctor the doctrines of God rather than keeping them, and teaching them, and defending them inviolate.  They profess falsehood when they do so do they not?  They are thus witnessing falsely before men.  Will Christ profess them to the father and advocate their case before Him? No he will not.

Do you bear proudly the title of Doctor and bask in the glow of respect from men given this title?  Did you proudly wear the robes that confer dignity and honor on a person deemed worthy of the position of keeper, teacher, and defender of the truth? Do ministers of the Word of God look to you for guidance on how they should minister to the flock of God's people? Beware of the judgment that awaits you if you judge wrongly in this matter.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Maturity

Could there be anything sadder than the infantile, pathetic, and schizophrenic hostility to God’s Law demonstrated by Christian churches today?

The Nature of the Battle for New Covenant Patriarchy

It is surprising how real the demons were in Jesus’ ministry.  He was always casting them out and they were always fleeing before him.  They are just as real today.

You cannot understand the nature of the battle for New Covenant Patriarchy until you understand that the forbidding of marriage, whether of the Roman Catholic kind (celibacy for priests on up) or the Protestant kind (one wife at a time only for everybody), is a doctrine of demons.

1 Timothy 4:1-3 But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron; forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

Polygyny will often elicit demonic responses from those who are under the influence of these demons. I refer to these people as monogamaniacs - 'Raving with madness; raging with disordered intellect; an insane person.'

Eph. 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Nothing less than the full armor of God will protect you as you foray into the battle.

6:13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 6:15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 6:16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: 6:18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

This is what Christ did when he faced the demon possessed in his day.

Why New Covenant Patriarchy and Why Now?

Is New Covenant Patriarchy some kind of burning issue with people so that we need a book about it?  Why care about it?  And isn’t this the wrong time for it?  It just upsets some people to even bring it up.

The problem of course it that it does not really matter if its a burning issue with people or not.  What matters is whether this is an issue with God.  If He thinks it is important then it is and we had better pay attention.

Now, with about half the children in the U.S.A. being raised without a father in the home we have a problem.  These children need a father figure who will model the Fatherhood of God to them.  The single mothers (mainly abandoned wives) need a husband who will model Christ, the Bridegroom of the Church to them.  Mess this up and God will make you contemptible before all the peoples.

We have messed this up and are contemptible before the peoples.  Christians are the door-mat of the anti-Christian culture around us.  There is no difference between secular and church going people when it comes to statistics like divorce and abortion.  Something is seriously wrong and broken.  We have an Achan in the camp (Joshua 7:10-11) and as a consequence we are pathetically weak and vulnerable to our enemies.

God's people hear his voice and respond.  So it has been with me on this issue.  If God opens the Scriptures and shows you something based on a sound exegesis and hermeneutic how can you not respond?  The things revealed belong to us and our children.

Our current Christian culture is one that gelds men.  When a highly competitive and top performing man becomes a Christian he soon falls to a lower state as he is gelded.  Where are today's equivalents of David's mighty men who could single handedly fight and kill 300 Philistines in one day?  We have a girlie-man church.  Men as well as boys need a damsel to win, a beast to slay, and an adventure to fulfill.  They need to be fruitful and multiply, and have dominion. These come as commands as well as gifts to covenant keepers.

But there is a larger issue. God's commands, plus the world he made, plus we His people (people who have ears to hear and submit to His commands) represent a system that models His character and glory.  That is why we are to think God's thoughts after Him, say His words after Him, and do His actions after Him.  This system is like a engine that produces glory to God.  An engine is a system designed by a genius (in this case God) to be run by idiots (in this case us, His people). 

If you were to open the hood on your car and see a part that you could not really understand what it did, and it bothered you somehow, you could just pull it out with a few simple tools.  Then, when the engine did not work and lost its power you should not wonder why should you?  You have messed with a part of the engine.  You might complain that you left the rest of the engine intact and just got rid of this one onerous part that you did not like.  Well that is not how it works.  Taking off half the parts of an engine would not leave you with half the power but none at all.  In fact you cannot take out any part without messing with the system and compromising it.

Thus is the system of God, His kingdom.  The pieces of the engine must all be put into place according to the manual before it will run properly as promised.  God's definition of marriage and living it according to his commandments is not a trivial matter.  The time to get it right and back in its place is now.

So you want to be a New Covenant Wife

You can be one no matter what your circumstances are.  God’s Law is the key.

Being married is a lot like being a citizen of a country.  You are under the laws of the civil government.  But since this is God's world and we are all breathing the air He made, whether you believe that or not, we all under His Law.  It is His, He made it, and He gets to make the rules.  So the civil government can make lots of laws but we are to obey them, "In the Lord."  The same applies to wives; they are to obey their husbands in the Lord.

What does this mean?  First of all, obedience does not mean, "work to rule," which is to drag your feet and only conform to the letter of the law and do it all with a bad attitude.  Rather, obedience means to enthusiastically conform yourself to the character of God and to His ministers (people He has placed in authority over you) wherever they are in line with His LawWord.

That brings us to the other crucial thing which is that we must know God's LawWord so we can discern whether the laws, rules, demands, and regulations given to us are "In the Lord."  To a husband, this will have the effect of having a wife who is an enthusiastically, obedient, dream wife when he asks a godly thing of her and one who is disobedient and impossible to move when he asks of her an ungodly thing. 

He will then have two choices pressing in on him to choose one or the other. 

a) He can bring his character into line with God's character (as expressed in His LawWord) or  

b) He can depart from her and reject God's character (1 Cor 7:15)

This is the same with every authority relationship we have in life whether in marriage, the church, the state, or otherwise.

In marriage, the husband who chooses a) will be more of a patriarch and blessings will be sure to follow.  The husband who chooses b) will soon excommunicate himself out of the godly wife's life and she will be free to marry again, "In the Lord."  He will have proved himself to be no husband, cultivating and protecting all that he was entrusted dominion over, but a tyrant who lives for his own sake and by his own laws rather than for God's sake and by His Laws.

So the study of God's LawWord (theonomy) brings progress in sanctification and joy in our Christian lives and in the Kingdom of God.  This is why God says over and over again in Scripture that we are to learn, obey, and teach our children God's laws, statutes, judgments, ordinances, regulations, and rules when we get up, and go to bed, and go in the car, and write little reminders of His law on Post-It Notes on the fridge door, the door-posts, on our wrists and wherever they will be in front of our eyes.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Love

Confusion reigns in the hearts of Christians when it comes to understanding what the Bible means when it talks about love.  The good news is that its a misunderstanding that is easily corrected.

Law and love are often put at odds with each other in the preaching we hear.  "Doctrine is important but love is more important." God is not at odds with Himself.  He is in total harmony in all He does and says.

Let us put some passages next to each other here:

1 Corinthians 13:2 I may have the gift of prophecy. I may understand all the secret things of God and have all knowledge, and I may have faith so great I can move mountains. But even with all these things, if I do not have love, then I am nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:13 So these three things continue forever: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.

John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

2 John 1:6 And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

The definition of love is simply putting God's Laws into action.  If you order something from a catalog, then the order if fulfilled when the item is actually delivered to you.  When a command of God is actually kept then it is fulfilled.  When you think it and say it that is not good enough.  When you actually do it then it is fulfilled, then it is turned from a dead letter into living love.

If you know what it means then, yes, love is the answer.  If you want to know how to love someone you must be a student of God's commandments and you must apply them to your relationship with that person.

Now what commands is God talking about?  The only commands the New Testament writers had were the 10 Commandments and their case law applications in the Law and the Prophets of the Scriptures.

Christ has reconciled us to Himself and the commandments of God by lawfully giving himself to be executed in our place. Thus he treated us lawfully even while we treated Him lawlessly. Having thus fulfilled the meaning of the sacrificial system, we obey the law connected to the sacrificial system when we believe in Him. The rest of the commandments stand waiting to be put into action by us.  There is no other way to abide in God's love than to believe in Jesus and obey His commandments as found in all of Scripture.

New Covenant Patriarchal Husband

Easton’s Bible Dictionary defines husband thus:

Husband
i.e., the “house-band,” connecting and keeping together the whole family. 
A man when betrothed was esteemed from that time a husband (Matt. 1:16, 20; Luke 2:5).
A recently married man was exempt from going to war for “one year” (Deut. 20:7; 24:5).

From the KJV Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon:

to marry, rule over, possess, own

1. (Qal)
   
   
   
   1. to marry, be lord (husband) over
      
   2. to rule over
   
   
2. (Niphal) to be married

owner, husband, lord

1. owner
   
2. a husband
   
3. citizens, inhabitants
   
4. rulers, lords
   
5. (noun of relationship used to characterise - ie, master of dreams)
   
6. lord (used of foreign gods)

A man is a proper husband who binds his household to the covenant LawWord of God in the same way that God husband's us by keeping us, His brides, in His covenant, His economy (law of the house).

This concept is so fundamental and reflective of God's economy that no society can exist without it.  The husband led household economy is the engine upon which all other instutions and economies rest and gain their life.  When the last grandfather raised in terms of this concept had finally died, the Soviet Union collapsed.  The husbands raised to be fairly close to our definition of new covenant patriarch created a dynamic nation that rose to lead the world, these United States.  Now that we are fast becoming a nation of godless gelded men (metrosexuals) we are also fast losing our preeminance.

So you want to be a New Covenant Patriarch

Christ is the mediator between God and man. But what is the mediator between man and man? Is it a philosophy of some kind, a set of rules we discover over time? Is it the state as the "collective expression of the common good" (how about those bamboozle words to befuddle the despised masses)? Is it whatever you decide, or convention, or church canon law, or what? What governs how we are to deal with one another? What are the terms by which we are to interact and cooperate and judge one another in matters of right and wrong?

What does the Bible say?

It says that God's LawWord, the enscripturated Christ, the Torah, is to be the mediator between man and man.

So why have we not had (practically any) Christian polygyny for the last 1600 years or so?  Because we have not had a strong enough awareness of God's LawWord as our mediator between man and man.  Think about it.  Where do you find the most intense relationship in your life?  With your spouse.  You deal with him or her on a daily basis, and know each other intimately. The more personal and intense and intimate a relationship is, the more it needs to be regulated by Torah written on the heart.

Many marriages fail because of the lack of submission to God's Law on the part of one or both parties.  Imagine that you had a man husbanding several wives.  The number and variety of intense relationships goes up dramatically.  Without a strong foundation of knowledge in, and submission to, God's LawWord the potential for conflict goes up exponentially with each new wife.  This is why many patriarch's wives would bring their maids into the marriage.  An authority structure was already in place and the potential for conflict thus was mitigated.

Therefore, if you as a man want to be a successful patriarch: you must become a student of Scripture and a believer in the validity and ongoing relevance of all of Scripture.  You must become a theonomist. 

You must stop dispensing with parts of God's LawWord and forsake Dispensationalism.  You must become a presuppositionalist.

You must quit trying to guess God's timing on things and start studying the things revealed.  You must stop worrying about the future and trust in YHVH's providence. You must become one who seeks His rule in every area of life.  It starts with you and your family. 

You, as the Patriarch, are to be the teacher of God's Law to your wives and children.  Students learn first by example and then by principle (doctrine).  Model proper respect for your authority by respecting the authority of God's LawWord. Teach submission to your will by demonstrating your submission to God's will.

The Holy Spirit is moving to bring God's people into an understanding of the realities of God's Kingdom and what it will take to get us there.  Praise God!

New Covenant Patriarchy and God's Program

So what have we got here. God makes this absolutely fantastic creation, hugely complex and wonderful, with order and beauty unimaginable. He makes man, of all the creatures, to be lord over the whole of the rest of creation. Its a big job and a high honor but he gives us everything we need to do it. The main thing we have is Himself to save us from the death sentence under and enmity towards His LawWord, which is His character writ large. With Christ we are reconciled to God and are now free to be the lords of creation under Him, that is, in enthusiastic conformity to His will and character.

This is what men want from women; men want their wives to be in enthusiastic conformity to their will and character.  If the man is not himself in enthusiastic conformity to God, then his rule is no longer benevolent but tyrannical.  Likewise if the woman decides she will not be in subjection to her husband then being under a righteous husband will seem tyrannical and intolerable.  If both despise Christ and remain in rebellion against God as the ultimate source of authority then God places them both under Satan who destroys them thoroughly thus clearing the way for God's Kingdom to be worked out in history.

That is the program.  Now we just have to get with it or get out of the way.

New Covenant Patriarchy vs. Monogamania

The outcome of this battle is sure but not the timing.  It may take generations, even centuries to defeat the power of the monogamaniacs.  Their power is built upon 1600 years of false teaching and the twisting of the clear meaning of Scripture.

Why is it so important to the enemy that a man does not provide for and faithfully serve (as Christ served us) more than one wife at a time?

Strict monogamy serves to compromise the authority of men and to effectively geld them in their own marriages and homes.  Like a Border-Collie is born to herd sheep so are godly men born to have dominion, be fruitful, and to multiply.  It is the same compromise to say to a general that he may only have one colonel, or to a rooster that he may have only one hen, or a stallion one mare.  It stifles all their god-given instincts.  These instincts are compromised in man by his sinful nature and further by this sin-born man-made restriction on the number of wives a man may have.  When a man is redeemed and his nature reshaped by the Holy Spirit through the preaching and teaching of all of God's LawWord he still finds he cannot be fully what he is meant to be.  In our monogamaniac culture he is then put under the severest temptation to immorality.  This is all highly desireable for powers and principalities who at war with God's order.

What of women?  They are made by God to be the wife of one man and to help him in his calling.  As it is many woman cannot find a man to faithfully husband them.  They go through multiple men or do without.  When they do have a man he is often only half a man, a girlie-man.  They just hope he does not get more pedicures than she does or spends more time on his hair.  Girlie-men (aka. metrosexuals) do not have dominion given to them by God.  They cannot protect you from Osama or Obama and they will not go into a burning building to save anyone. The monogamaniacs create this situation and then lament the lack of real men. Or worse they may settle for a male-lesbian, a misandric baptised feminist, a man who thinks a compliment by a man to a maid is the equivalent of verbal rape. 

Monogamaniacs have been taught that there is a single pre-ordained principle that all else must conform to: polygyny is the prime moral evil.  They approach Scripture with this principle firmly programmed into their genes. Naturally, their reaction to even the broaching of the subject of polygyny is one of horror and revulsion with a very strong instinct to pick up the nearest movable object, or even a gun if it is handy, and to dispatch it in the direction of the offending party.  The shrillness of their mania knows no bounds as they pronounce damnation on all who will or ever have dared practice such evil, including all the patriarchs of Scripture.  If such a strong response could be triggered by say, abortion, that vile practice would be expunged from our society in a matter of days.

Thus the exponent of new covenant patriarchy must go into the fray fully aware of the likely response, which may be life-long and bitter regardless of the exemplary quality of the man's character.  He must be fully armed with Scripture and know his apologetics (defenses) on this issue by rote as the attacks, when they come, will be fast and furious.  It would not hurt to have a thick skin and a means of escape nearby as well.  I would suggest a helmet but that might be awkward.

We must persevere, however, due to the command of Scripture to take dominion, be fruitful, and to multiply (Gen 1:28) and to give every covenant woman a covenant husband (I Cor 7:2).  Anything else is a doctrine of demons (1 Timothy 4:1-3).

Scripture Index for Man & Woman in Biblical Law

Scripture_Index_for_Man_&_Woman_in_Biblical_Law.pdf

New Covenant Patriarchy and Authority

Authorities must respect each other and pressure each other to reform when necessary.

Patriarchs are the authorities in their households. When their authority is undermined by the church or state or other institutions then all authority is hurt since the home is the training ground for the rest of life. To say that a man may not have more than one wife is like saying an employer may not have more than one employee, or a general may not have more than one colonel, or a rooster may not have more than one hen.  It is undermines authority and God's created order.

Likewise, when those under the authority of a patriarch are never given an example of proper submission to that patriarch, especially by his wife (wives), then the household is in a state of upheaval, rebellion, and disorder since her authority over the children is thereby undermined; it is hellish to that extent.

To restore patriarchal authority it is first necesary that those in authority place themselves in proper submission to authorities that are over them.  The ultimate source of authority is God's LawWord.  Thus an authority is righteous when it is in harmony with God's LawWord.

Satan has authority granted to him by Christ (to whom was given all authority and power) to rule over those who are in rebellion against Christ and His LawWord.  This includes Christians to the extent that they continue to live double lives of real confession and some righteous acts but continual adherence to Lawless practices and values as well.

To escape the domain of Satan and his tyranny you must not only believe and practice God's LawWord but you must take a public stand for the rule of Christ in every area of life thus putting pressure on the other authorities to reform themselves to their proper Biblical role of service to those under them.  In doing so you and your family and your other realms of authority will be held blameless by God for the iniquity of the rebels around you.  You will then be transferred to the domain of Christ and His blessings will overtake you.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Idolatry

Most of the so called “polygyny movement” is in fact idolatry.  One correct doctrine does not a friend of God make.  Mohammedans believe in polygyny as do sects of Mormons and others.  What good does it do them?  Nothing more than believing in strict monogamy does anyone.

This is why Jesus has given Satan the authority he has in the state, the church, and the other institutions of our society as well as over individuals and families. His curses inevitably follow where stubborn men (and women) refuse to kiss His feet and lay face down before Him with His foot on their neck and surrender completely to His LawWord.  If you rebel against the King of Kings expect to suffer as you are cast out of His court and His garden and into the hands of even greater rebels.  There you will find out how much God hates the sinner and his sin.

So do not blame this doctrine for your woes when the fruit of your sin overwhelms you and brings death and destruction.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Feminism

Choice Tidbits from the Book: Page 252

For those who may be prone to excuse feminists because they think that feminist scholars are simply ignorant of the Bible and the issues involved, rather than consciously attempting to subvert the message of the Bible, consider these comments of Russell:

“Feminists of the Jewish and Christian faiths are faced with a basic dilemma. Are they to be faithful to the teachings of the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, or are they to be faithful to their own integrity as whole human beings?”— pg. 137 (emph. supp.)

Note well that Russell clearly sees that there is a choice to be made, indeed a “basic dilemma,” and a distinction to be observed, either fidelity to Scripture or fidelity to feminist “integrity as whole human beings,” whatever that means. Russell is expressly cognizant of the fact that “authority” is a theme that surfaces constantly in this book...

“Whether or not feminists choose to discuss this issue, it is pressed upon them every time they propose an interpretation or perspective that challenges a dominant view of scriptural authority and interpretation.”—pg. 137

It should come as no surprise at this point where Russell’s loyalties lie and that fidelity to Scripture is made (at best) subordinate to her fidelity to the feminist cause. Amazingly, and without any indication of intended humor, Russell titles her next section, “The Biblical Basis of My Theology”! But, of course, from the hermeneutical strategies already endorsed by Russell, and the explicit admission that feminism involves a choice to be made between fidelity to Scripture or fidelity to feminist “integrity as a whole human being,” it is manifest that the Bible is no “basis” at all of her theology. It is, from the feminist perspective, simply a negative force to be reckoned with. Thus we see that Russell, with a crystal clear apprehension of the issues involved, self-consciously and deliberately chooses a path of lies and deception.

Russell continues:

“In spite of the patriarchal nature of the biblical texts, I myself have no intention of giving up on the biblical basis of my theology...In spite of its ancient and patriarchal worldviews, in spite of its inconsistencies and mixed messages, the story of God’s love affair with the world leads me to a vision of New Creation that impels my life.” —pg. 138

Well, those are a lot of weighty “in spite ofs” to overcome! Russell acknowledges as much:

“Perhaps it would be more useful to give up on the Bible as a normative source of my theology, but I don’t seem to be able to do that. The biblical witness continues to evoke my consent, even as I reject many of its teachings as well as its patriarchal context. And, as Mary Ann Tolbert has pointed out...feminist biblical scholarship is profoundly paradoxical because ‘one must struggle against God as enemy assisted by God as helper, or one must defeat the Bible as patriarchal authority by using the Bible as liberator.’ ”—pg. 140

Comment on these remarks is hardly necessary. Here, out of their own mouths, is what “biblical feminism” is all about in all its stark naked blasphemy. Many of the teachings of the Bible are to be rejected! God is an enemy to be struggled against! The Bible must be defeated by using (i.e., subverting) the Bible! 

Russell continues:

“No interpretation of authority that reinforces patriarchal structures of domination would be acceptable for feminist interpretation. The Bible is understood to be a ‘dangerous book’...The Bible is especially dangerous if we call it ‘the word of God’ and think that divine inspiration means that everything we read is ‘right.’ ”—pg. 140-141

It is clear from statements such as these that Russell and her co-conspirators do not know God, that they are no Christians at all, but the emissaries of Satan, false prophets and false teachers “taken captive by the devil at his will.”

New Covenant Patriarchy and the Advantage to Women - II

Choice Tidbit from the Book: Page 228

"A single woman may, indeed, lawfully covet, desire and have an already-married man."

The relevance of the Song of Solomon should be considered here. For there we have described, in the most glowing terms conceivable, the desire of the Shulamite woman for Solomon. As pointed out earlier in this work, the Shulamite woman was about to become the 141st wife of Solomon! It can safely be said, therefore, that Foh’s conclusion in this regard is erroneous. A single woman may, indeed, lawfully covet, desire and have an already-married man.

I was told one time by a very irate person that my views on polygamy represented a “double standard” which is essentially very permissive for men and restrictive for women. The fact of the matter is, however, that there are two sides to this coin. There is a complementarity to the Biblical doctrine of patriarchy that just simply is not appreciated by monogamy-only adherents: the Law severely restricts men’s choice of women exclusively to available single women. All married women are prohibited. But it is very permissive in this regard toward women. A single woman may desire and have any man whether that man is single or married.

It is a simple fact of everyday observation that truly desirable women, whether those traits are in regard to physical beauty or character traits or both, tend to have a lot of competition for their affection and commitment from men. There is a certain truth in the proposition that “all the good ones are taken” in regards to women, as well as in regards to men. In a patriarchal law-order, it is more difficult for a man to find a good woman than it is for a woman to find a good man. The advantage in this regard is clearly in favor of women.

How many times amongst us Christians have we witnessed godly women winding up with unsaved men because “all the good Christian men are taken?” I can think of several examples from amongst Christians I have known, and I have no doubt that everyone reading these words can cite examples of such from their own acquaintances and fellow church members. There are virtually always more women in any given church than men—usually by a wide margin. I think all of the statistics will bear this out uniformly, and it has certainly been true of the churches I have attended. This presents a serious dilemma for Biblically-based congregations who understand that it is against God’s will to marry the unsaved. How are we to counsel single women looking for a husband when their choices of “available” Christian men are so limited and their competition from other Christian women so pervasive?

New Covenant Patriarchy and First Wives

What is the concern over and over again in Scripture with regard to men and their wives: do not deal treacherously with the wife of your youth.

Malachi 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.  2:15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. 2:16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

Monogamy as practiced today does nothing to alleviate this problem.  Men still deal treacherously with the wife of their youth, trading her in for a younger model, leaving broken lives in their wake. 

When a relationship is broken it must be restored and healed.  That is what confession, repentance, restitution, and reconciliation are all about.  But what God is talking about here is the systematic, pre-meditated destruction of a marriage covenant by a man.  When this is the case God Himself takes up the cause of the woman so victimized.

So the concern in Scripture is not that a man would take a second wife, as Tom Shipley makes clear in Man and Woman in Biblical Law, but that he would break covenant with his first wife.

It is false righteousness when our Christian culture is quite accepting of such treacherous men, but totally intolerant of men who want to be faithful to the wife of their youth when they desire another in addition.  What kind of monstrous evil is this!?  We say to a man who desires another wife, "Yes, you can have her, only be sure to get rid of the wife of your youth first."  Thus, through our man-made definition of sin (having more than one wife at a time) the church has, in effect, decreed the exact thing that God abhors and brings the severest punishment upon.

In this the church has sinned against God and we have been made subject to our enemies as a result.

Malachi 2:9 Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

When you remain silent when faced with evil, you are partakers of it and will be judged accordingly.  Beware the doom of God. Confess, repent, make it good, and be reconciled to God.

New Covenant Patriarchy and The Ultimate Source of Authority

Tom Shipley responding to Jay Adams: “The doctrine of monogamy is treated as an unquestionable premise and first principle.”

The commentators treat polygyny as a pariah that must be avoided at all costs. Adherence to Scripture goes out the window and all things must bend to avoid polygyny. Nowhere in the culture, Christian or secular, is Biblical polygyny allowed to be portrayed; and if it is even referred to it is in the context of things that are clearly defined as perversions by Scripture such as incest, sodomy, bestiality, and pedophilia.

So, to the list of common false gods we may add one more:

• The authority of the church trumps/interprets/amends Scripture - Roman Catholic - traditionalism
• That part of the Bible is something we can just dispense with - dispensationalism
• The state defines right and wrong - statism
• God's Law is like water but the interpretation is like wine - Phariseeism
• As long as my wife approves - matriarchalism, feminism
• The father's word is law beyond appeal - patriarchalism
• To each his own - relativism
• Lets vote on it - democracy
• As long as it feels good - hedonism
• Whatever works or Oh that will never work - pragmatism
• Go along to get along - peer pressure - group level humanism
• Why change anything or Don't rock the boat - existentialism
• I don't believe it so its irrelevant - solipsism

and now:

• Polygyny (one man with more than one wife) is wrong no matter what - monogamania

In opposition to all of these we stand on Sola Scriptura (the Bible alone) as the revealed Word of God and thus our ultimate source of authority which altogether we call theonomy.  It is upon the enscripturated word of God upon which we base our doctrine as did Christ, the incarnate Word of God.  It is the two-edged sword of this Word that we bring to bear in our battle for the truth.

New Covenant Patriarchy and the Law of Moses

Choice Tidbits from the Book: Page 211

"the attempt to repudiate polygamy is to take a stand against God."

Smith believed that the Law of Moses “sought to bring the people up to the pure standard of moral law.” To which it must be asked: Does Exodus 21:10 make an attempt to bring the people up to the pure moral standard of monogamy? Or Deuteronomy 21:15-17? Or Deuteronomy 25:5-10? Or Exodus 22:16-17? Or Deuteronomy 22:28-29? Or Deuteronomy 21:10-14? No, rather it is clear that each of these laws establishes a standard of morality which includes the institution of polygamy as integral to God’s Law. And since this is so, the attempt to repudiate polygamy is to take a stand against God.

Exodus 21:10
21:10 If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.

Deuteronomy 21:15-17
21:15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated:
21:16 Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn:
21:17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

Deuteronomy 25:5-10
25:5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.
25:6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
25:7 And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.
25:8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;
25:9 Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house.
25:10 And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

Exodus 22:16-17
22:16 And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.
22:17 If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

Deuteronomy 21:10-14
21:10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
21:11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;
21:12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
21:13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.
21:14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

New Covenant Patriarchy and the Purpose of History

What is the purpose of life anyway?  You have always wanted to know.  Well here it is.

God is in the process of making citizens fit for His Kingdom - that is, the place where Christ will rule in the hearts and through the thoughts, words, and deeds of His people, one local jurisdiction after another.  Since God totally controls history there is no question about whether He will be able to bring His Kingdom to pass, but the timing and events that bring it about are His business, not ours.

These citizens will have the laws of this kingdom written on their hearts.  The laws of this kingdom are revealed to us now in the enscripturated word of God.  It is the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that makes it possible to take law-breakers like ourselves and transform them into law-keepers.

For now two kingdoms co-exist: Satan's kingdom which is granted limited power and authority over sinners (law-breakers), and God's Kingdom which is granted greater power and authority and which we are told will roll back Satan's kingdom till it is out of power and whose last vestiges (death) Christ himself will come to defeat and then manifest His Kingdom fully.

In the meantime all of our reality is put in place to provide a kind of boot camp for God's soldiers; it is a training ground for us to prove our metal.  What do you learn in boot-camp?  In a word, obedience.  Obedience to proper authority - God's enscripturated LawWord.  Obedience that is heart-felt and whole-hearted.  "Not my will, but thy will be done."  We are not here for our own pleasure and reality is not a mechanism for our convenience but for the production of citizens each of whom is a walking Torah of God.

Imagine if a foreigner came to the United States in 1800 or so and everyone he met could not only tell him the laws of land but would go out of his way to help him understand how to fully obey them and enjoy the freedom they gave him to work within those laws an benefit from them.  There would be no police (there weren't actually) to make sure everybody kept the laws because in effect everyone was his own policeman and a policeman to others if need be.  So was America a police-state in 1800?  Hardly.  Was it a self-policing society?  Quite so.  Self-propagating self-government was the order of the day.  Parents taught their children and tithe agencies taught new immigrants to be Christian through and through.  We need to do the same with an even better understanding of what it means to be Christian.

So where is a tithe agency when you need one?  Since few people tithe anymore, and even then give it to polite social clubs and their building programs, there aren't any.  But there are a few people who tithe.  That is what created and published this website and the book it offers.

So welcome to boot-camp.  Now straighten that spine, get your training manual, and lets get cracking soldier. Because we are going to take you bunch of ladies and turn you into patriarchs worthy of the name!

New Covenant Patriarchy and Divorce as Punishment

Choice Tidbits from the Book: Page 171

New Covenant Patriarchy and the Advantage to Women - I

Since, by definition, Biblical patriarchy presumes the LawWord of God is written on the heart of the true patriarch, the wife of such a man lives free of fear of abandonment, real or virtual.  She will always be provided for and her needs met.  This is the law of God.

Thus secure, such a wife would welcome the companionship of other godly women into the marriage.  Rather than seeing other potential wives as competitors she will see them as blessings to her husband and herself.

For the Godly women who long for fulfillment in their calling to be wives and mothers, Biblical patriarchy means they may ask the true patriarch with whom they would be equally yoked, to take them as a wife.  Whether he is already married or not is no longer the pertinent question but whether he is in fact a true patriarch, a mature man of Godly character who has shown that he has the LawWord of God written on his heart.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Prerequisite Reading

1. Theonomy and Christian Ethics by Greg Bahnsen
2. Institutes of Biblical Law by R J Rushdoony
3. Principles of Conduct by John Murray

Also note that the context for the practice of Biblical polygyny is a theonomic law-order encompassing the families and churches involved.  In other words, do not try this out of context.

Furthermore, this book is only one of a series that will go on to make the cases for:

• arranged marriages (the fathers are responsible with the consent of all),
• the Biblical dowry (three years wages paid by the man for a virgin),
• covenantal patriarchy (it is not just for the Old Testament after all),
• and the one-flesh nature of marriage (the disestablishment of church and state from marriage).

To help Tom make progress in this work to which he is called please donate to this cause.

New Covenant Patriarchy and the Division of Labor

Outside of theonomic polygyny men have two basic choices: 1. Have big brass ones and be self-sufficient, or 2. Be virtually castrated and cooperate with others under a nanny state.  Many swing in frustration from one to the other.

Home Depot is a phenomenon that can be attributed to the truth of the above statement.  If I want an addition on my house I would normally hire this work out to an expert in building additions.  I do what I do very well and a builder does what he does very well.  We should trade services.  But we don't.

The nanny state requires that I charge double for my services and give half to the state.  Same with the builder.  So I pay double and the builder only gets half.  No wonder we are a nation of "do-it-yourself-ers."  The state does not tax you to work for yourself.  So you end up climbing unprofitable learning curves that lead nowhere.  "Yep, now that I am finished I could do it again in half the time and with a lot less waste."  So we are forced to rob ourselves of the benefits of the division of labor.

Either way we are frustrated in being unable to exercise dominion and end up living lives under a lot of stress.

Theonomic polygyny overcomes this in the home and shows the way for other relationships as well.  In a polygynous home the husband is submitted to God's LawWord and teaches it and models it to his wives.  They do the same to their children.  Submission to God's LawWord provides a context of authority that is not onerous but loving and completely in-sync with our God given natures, giving of oneself for the good of others.  As in the larger economy, bearing one another's burdens is much easier than bearing your own alone.

We all live in two contexts: the home and the world.  In the world we are highly specialized in order to be productive.   In the home we have the same duties as every father and husband.  But there is a chance for a division of labor with our wives.  With one wive you have a great benefit - a 50% or so division of labor.  With more than one wife in the home you all have that much greater room for specialization in work and attention to children and help in the crises of life. The reality and the benefits of this economy make a theonomic polygynous household a truly blessed place.

Thus, within true Biblical Patriarchy, men can have big brass ones and all the health, and material, and spiritual benefits of being manly men as well as have all the benefits of a full division of labor that is profitable and peaceful and blessed for all.

I am a prisoner of this hope and work to its realization. Please join us in this Godly endeavor.

New Covenant Patriarchy, i.e. Theonomic Polygyny; Not Just Polygyny

Like all of God’s institutions - in civil, church, and family life, marriage outside of God’s LawWord has failure built in.  We must live theonomic lives to be blessed by God. 

What is amazing about our society's divorce rate is that it is not higher considering the near universal hostility to any overt proclamation of God LawWord as such.  We must still be coasting on the faithfulness of earlier generations.

Since God's LawWord as our source of morality (i.e. theonomy) is the mediator between man and man, it is required for smooth low-friction relationships within marriage.  When there is more than one wife in a marriage we would expect the necessity for theonomy to be even greater since there are even more relationships involved, and it is. Non-theonomic cultures which practice polygyny are only able to maintain such marriages by arranging "multiple-monogamy" living arrangements and/or the most tyrannical authoritarianism.  It is the latter that makes for some strong anti-polygyny feelings among some.  They attribute the horrors of man-made tyrannical authoritarianism to polygyny rather than to antinomianism (being at war with God's Law).

Thus we do not advocate polygyny as such, but Biblical theonomy with marriage that is potentially polygynous.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Creation

Strict monogamy and the doctrine of evolution are fellow travellers and not-so-strange bedfellows.

An unspoken presupposition in our anti-polygynous church culture (anything but polygyny!) is that, "Yes you can find polygyny in Scripture, but that was in the primitive bad old days of a proto-Christian society when the great patriarchs of old were still living in theological caves and God tolerated all kinds of pagan practices.  Back then God was less sophisicated than he is now and that is why polygyny is now a sin."

This attitude is purely evolutionary and nearly universal in the church.  It assumes that God evolved in his standard of right and wrong, that His commands and laws where for back then but no longer apply.  This is anti-nomianism.  It also denies the Gospel since it assumes Christ came to die, not for our sins as defined by God, but for sins as we define them.

This evolutionary model applied to morality means that we must now accept homosexuality as acceptable as the next step in our evolving definition of right and wrong.  After all, the same God who said said a man lying with a man as with a woman is an abomination had no problem with a man having many wives.

If God is the source of your morality then you will also believe that a man may have more than one wife at a time.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Life

The first command of God - a prime directive - is to be fruitful and multiply.  Strict monogamy restricts the obedience to and fulfillment of this command.

Do you know of any perfect or even near perfect fathers?  If you do please tell us all about him since I know I am not and I would like to know the secrets of raising children that would never fight with each other or go astray.

However, despite our imperfections, we are commanded to multiply and fill the earth.  Having children and lots of them is an act of faithfulness to God and a belief in the future.  To arbitrarily limit the number of children we have, say to due to false ideas of holiness, is to live in disobedience to God.  This is what the false doctrine of strict monogamy does.  It says that a man must not have as many children as he can care and provide for but rather whatever one particular woman can have.  That number is further limited by more anti-life attitudes and values that make having more that one or two children unthinkable.

Biblical patriarchy is fully pro-life.  It sees having more than one wife as a way to maximize the potential to have children and thus fulfill the command of God given in the garden even before the fall.

New Covenant Patriarchy and Two Ways of Life

The choice is clear.  Live by principle or by example; by the word or by sight; by the law of God or by the law of the group.  Does the group or society decide what is right and wrong or does God’s LawWord decide morality.

"Community standards" as a handy phrase has gained prominence in our day when it comes to judging matters of morality and law.  If this had been the case 50 years ago, people of color would still be riding in the back of the bus.  The tyranny of the 51% (or less, if the leaders know how to work the system) is being felt across our society, from schools to neighborhood associations.

Soap operas don't preach morality but they communicate it loud and clear as do music videos and movies.  Copycats are not restricted to criminal actions reported in the news.  Our society is made up of copycats who get their daily marching orders from their media masters.

Peer pressure is the ultimate authority in many people's lives.  They send their kids to school to make sure they get put under, and learn to respond to, peer pressure.  The answer for many is to get their family into a better peer pressure group.  Its a handy system for making people into whatever you want.  Whether it is the liberal left with an anti-Christian agenda or church leaders with a much more Christian sounding agenda, group-pressure with group morality is the order of the day.  The culture war we are in is between the leaders of these two groups.

The result of all this is what Cornelius VanTil called "integration downward into the void." After many years of this kind of acculturation into the group as the source of morality (5-7 hours of TV a day) there is no ability left to stand against the crowd in any matter.  Just the perception that the crowd has changed the standard in some area is all it takes.

Faith has wained so all action is taken on the basis of seeing the examples of the powerful and mighty. Thus they have the need to change their styles of dress, language, worship, diet and morality, to whatever other people expect of them, to what the "stars" are doing.

The end is conflict, law-suits, broken relationships, divorce, disease, and death.

What is God's answer to all of this?  "Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord of hosts." Those who live by faith do not get their marching orders from the group, from their circumstances, but from God. Thus we do not despair but live and work in the glory and hope of God, bringing into the world the effect of our faith.  This enables us to stand.

"Who has despised the day of small beginnings."  Biblical patriarchy is a small beginning today.

So who is the source of your morality, your definer of right and wrong.  It is God or the group; is it theology or politics.  What reigns in your life: Christ through His LawWord or political correctness?

New Covenant Patriarchy and The Center of Life

Surely you would agree, good Christian, that Christ should be the center of all of life, for us personally and for all creation.  That there is no other center that will hold, that can fill the role of Christ as the source of all meaning and definition.  Thus to live a meaningful life, a purposeful life, you must have Christ informing all of your life, reforming it where it has gone astray, and formalizing it in your culture.

Rich forms developed over the centuries are awaiting to be used by those who live Christ filled lives.  True Christian culture is not difficult to achieve; neither is dominion over creation and over the pretenders to the throne of Christ our King.

What is missing are the people who who will submit themselves to his rule willingly and wholeheartedly, embracing his Laws, his definitions of right and wrong, his standards of behavior and conduct.

The uproar over the redefinition of marriage to include 'gay marriage' is, so far, an argument between different types of humanists over who gets to define marriage.  Neither side is appealing to Scripture since to do so would be to call upon God to be the definer of right and wrong and all things else.  This would lead to polygyny and what could be worse?

Some truly idiodic commentators, without batting an eye, present polygyny as one step in a slippery slope leading to all sorts of perversions as if the Father of the Faith, Abraham, and the other great patriarchs of Scripture were perverts.  What perverts these commentators are.  They stand on sand and call it rock.  Now comes the storm of gay marriage.  Will they be able to stand?

New Covenant Patriarchy and Jesus Christ

Do you feel latent hostility to the Laws of God, the books of the Law and the Prophets of the Bible?  Do you have a hard time relating to the delight in God's law the writer of Psalm 119 speaks about? Most Chistians do.  Yes, you are in fact in company with a great deal of Christianity today.  But you are out of sync with Jesus.

The Bible, in its entirety, is the character of Christ writ large.  What the Bible defines as right and wrong is what Jesus thinks is right and wrong.

If you are a dispensationalist then you are guilty of idolatry since you dispense with major portions of God's word as irrelevant to you.  This makes it possible for you to pour man-made meaning into Christ instead of letting him define you.  A dispensationalist thus worships a god made in his own image.

So stop dispensing with the Torah of God!  Confess you have dispensed with His LawWord and then turn from your wicked way to the way of God.  Study it and learn it every day.

Like polygyny without God's Law is tyranny in the family, so is society without God's Law, and churches, and religion, and the state, and so are all the other relationships in life tyrannical without God's Law.  Christ came to reconcile us to himself as defined by His law.  Forsake man-made law, which is Phariseism, and turn to the real Jesus.  True freedom and liberty await, in marriage, political life, church, and community.

Table of Contents for Man and Woman in Biblical Law

Preface
Introduction

Article 1:  How Feminism Denies the Gospel
Article 2:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 1
Article 3:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 2
Article 4:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 3
Article 5:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 4
Article 6:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 5
Article 7:  Patriarchy Before the Fall, Part 6
Article 8:  In Defense of Patriarchy and Polygamy

Article  9:  "Contradictions" Between Genesis and the Law of Moses, Part 1
Article 10:  "Contradictions" Between Genesis and the Law of Moses, Part 2

Article 11:  The Laws of God, Part 1
Article 12:  The Laws of God, Part 2
Article 13:  The Laws of God, Part 3
Article 14:  The Laws of God, Part 4

Article 15:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #1:  Lamech
Article 16:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #2:  Abraham
Article 17:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #3:  Jacob
Article 18:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #4:  Esau
Article 19:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #5:  Moses
Article 20:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #6:  Gideon
Article 21:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #7:  Jair
Article 22:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #8:  Ibzan
Article 23:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #9:  Abdon
Article 24:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #10:  Elkanah
Article 25:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #11:  Saul
Article 26:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #12:  David, Part 1
Article 27:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #12:  David, Part 2
Article 28:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #12:  David, Part 3
Article 29:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #13:  Solomon
Article 30:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #14:  Caleb
Article 31:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #15:  Caleb #2
Article 32:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #16:  Rehoboam
Article 33:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #17:  Joash
Article 34:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #18:  Xerxes
Article 35:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #17:  Belshazzar
Article 36:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #20-21:  Abijah and Jerahmeel
Article 37:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #22  YAHWEH
Article 38:  All the Polygamists of the Bible, #23-40

Article 39:  Polygamy: Miscellaneous Passages and Comments
Article 40:  Patriarchy and Polygamy in the New Covenant
Article 41:  The New Covenant and Polygamy, Matthew 19:3-12
Article 42:  Martin Luther and Polygamy:  The "Strange" Case of Philip of Hesse

Article 43:  The Commentators, #1:  Rushdoony
Article 44:  The Commentators, #2:  Archer
Article 45:  The Commentators, #3:  Hodge
Article 46:  The Commentators, #4:  Murray
Article 47:  The Commentators, #5:  Kaiser
Article 48:  The Commentators, #6:  Wenham
Article 49:  The Commentators, #7:  Jordan
Article 50:  The Commentators, #8:  North
Article 51:  The Commentators, #9:  Smith
Article 52:  The Commentators, #10:  Adams
Article 53:  The Commentators, #11:  Lockyer
Article 54:  The Commentators, #12:  Tucker
Article 55:  The Commentators, #13:  Foh

Article 56:  God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ
Article 57:  Patriarchy in the Church:  I Corinthians 11:2-15; 14:34-37
Article 58:  Feminist Hermeneutics:  Making the Straight Places Crooked

Epilogue: The Biblical Reformation of Marriage
Victims of Monogamania

Scripture Index