Let me start by making it clear that I am not in support of polygamy. In fact, I detest it. So, my penning this is not to promote or encourage multiple – marriage by men. Rather, I am writing the piece to show that based on the facts in the Holy Bible (in both the Old and New Testaments) and from what the Heavenly Father told me in 2003, when I raised the issue with Him, He is not against polygamy. As many pastors in Nigeria preach and as believed by many a Christian.
Indeed, in the Christian Holy Book, the only men mandated to have one wife are the kings in Deuteronomy 17:17 and the Bishops (church elders or leaders) in I Timothy 3: 1 – 2 and Titus 1: 5 – 6. But the way it is put in the Good News Bible published in the United States, a king can have more than one spouse because he is only told not to have many wives. Whereas in the King James Version published in England the injunction is that “a king shall not multiply wives unto himself,” meaning that he must have only one consort.
Those who say the Ancient of Days is against polygamy do so for two conjectures. The first is that the Lord created only Eve as wife for Adam. They say if He wanted a man to be polygamous that He would have given Adam two or more spouses. Their second postulation is the statement in Genesis 2:24 where the Lord said: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” This they interprete to mean that He was instituting monogamy. When, in fact, as He told me fifteen years ago, He was only putting in place and stating the type of marriage system the men in Israel were to practice. More on this later.
Before this article I had written on polygamy on two occasions. The pioneer one was in 2003 when I first raised the issue with the Heavenly Father. The answer He gave made me write a piece published in the Daily Sun in September that year with the title: “The Church, not God is against polygamy.” That was four years before this column started in December 2007.
The second one was in November and December 2008 written in response to the claim by one of the foremost General Overseers of a leading Pentecostal Church in the country in a report in the Sunday Vanguard that the Ancient of Days gave Adam one wife (Eve) because He wanted a man to marry only one spouse. Adding that anyone who does not believe should go and ask the Lord.
I countered and told him that I had discussed the issue with the King of kings five years earlier and that He told me He was not against polygamy. I drew his attention to passages in Exodus (Chapter 21:10 – 11) and Deuteronomy (Chapter 21:15 – 17) where the Lord said if a man takes a second wife he should not favour any of the spouses and their children over the other. Another proof that God is not against polygamy is that in Leviticus 18:8 and Ezekiel 22:10 He warned male children not to have sex with their father’s other wives. If He was opposed to polygamy was it not that He would have told the husband to send away the other spouse or spouses?
During the Sermon on the Mount Jesus in preaching about marriage spoke only on adultery and divorce (Matthew 5:27 – 32). If God was against polygamy would he not have preached against it on that occasion?
To be continued next Wednesday
Phenomenal matriarch of the Adedipes, Falaes, Ade – Ojos & others (3)
On the day our great grandmother, a very spiritual woman with the extraordinary gift of prophesy, left the palace of her husband, Elemo Atoosin, to return home to her family in Ilara – Mokin, she was said to have prayed aloud standing in the front of her room. After this, with her son and only child, our patriarch, Adedipe the First, strapped to her back, she crawled out of the palace instead of walking on her feet. All the other wives, their grown – up children and the others around saw her out with jeers.
On getting outside the building she was said to have faced the entrance and told those gathered there: “I am leaving now and you’re all hooting and mocking me. But I assure you that my son would one day become wealthy than anyone in this family and in this town and would succeed his father as the Elemo. And his descendants would be the most outstanding stars in Akure from generation – to – generation. She said this in 1816 or 1817.
By the 1860s her predictions started manifesting. Her son who was in his 40s had become the wealthiest in Akure, owning the largest or vastest lands in Akure territory. He had three in different locations, each of which was said to have been about four to six square kilometres in size. They are till today yielding money for the family.
More to come next week
Ebenezer Babatope, the great (5)
My plea for the release of Ebino either permanently or temporarily did not go down well with the General Buhari’s military government. Because at the next meeting he had with media executives after my article was published, General Tunde Idiagbon, the Chief of General Staff, Supreme Military Headquarters and Deputy Head of State, warned me to watch what I wrote in my column, stating that it could cause my arrest and trial under Decree 4 of 1984.
It was a law which made it an offence punishable by one year prison sentence, without the option of fine, if a public office holder, found what a columnist or reporter wrote embarrassing, even if it was libellous. At the time Idiagbon threatened me, Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor, both of the Guardian newspaper, had been jailed one year for publishing the names of those government had picked and were soon to be announced as the country’s ambassadors to other nations.
Some of the names were not on the list the government released a few days after. Sources within government revealed to their friends and relatives in the media, that some of the names Thompson and Irabor published were deliberately removed by the authorities to be able to try and jail them under Decree 4. This was to stop journalists from publishing scoops on what the government intended to do.
Next week: Why General Idiagbon found my plea for Ebino’s release embarrassing to their government
