In the Patriarchal society that existed before Moses every Patriarch was the Priest in his own family. His responsibility, in addition to being a husband to his wives and a father to his children, was to teach and admonish the whole family, and its dependents, in the ways of the Yahweh-Elohim, our Heavenly Father.
As we look at society today we discover that most husbands and wives have a relationship that interfaces for the most part mostly on the sexual side, where education is given to school teachers who have little or no emotional commitment to the children they teach, and - if they are lucky enough - if they are Christians or Messianics, where religious education is delegated to Sunday or Sabbath School Teachers who, whilst certainly having a greater interest in the welfare of a child than a state school teacher, nevertheless cannot bond in quite the same way as a flesh-and-blood parent.
Polygamy, I have always asserted, is not just about a man taking more wives. To become a polygamist, a man must also become a Patriarch - a father-leader. That includes not only being a true man as far as his relationship to his women is concerned, but also becoming a teacher of his children and an administrator of the ordinances of Yahweh. That means that he should administer the ordinances of baptism to his new wives and to his children, that means he should administer the Lord's Supper to them, and to preside at Israel's Holy Festivals except the three pilgrim festivals where families and clans gather together as a wider community at, for example, Passover, Weeks and Tabernacles. It means that he should preach and teach the Word of Yahweh, ensuring that his wives and children have a proper understanding of the truth, and setting an example that they will wish to imitate. They should, if he is fulfilling his priestly calling properly, see in their husband and father a reflection - however imperfect - of the Messiah. He is, in short, to be nothing less than the Shepherd or 'Pastor' of his own family.
Every Man is the Patriarch-Priest of his own family. But what, for instance, of the extended family? What is the proper relationship between sons, grandsons, and other dependents if they are married?
In the Millennial World to come villages and towns will not consist of lots of nuclear families as obtained two centuries ago but of large, extended polygamous families. Sons will go and find wives and bring them back to live in the same farm or neighbourhood as their father. As this extended family grows up, so small hamlets, villages and towns will grow up bearing the name of the founding Patriarch. Each family community will be run and governed much as a modern Church or Assembly is only it will be staffed entirely by family members. This kind of arrangement, which obtained anciently in Bible times, was the basis of what is called a clan.
A 'clan' is a group of people related by ancestry or marriage, or a group of families having a common ancestor. Though latterly such spread out, anciently a clan was restricted within its own tribal territory. The result of those of common blood or descent living in close proximity to one another made for solidarity. Not only this, the Bible actually legislated in law for the social relationships of these families, placing obligations on different members of the clan. Only when families divided and went their separate ways did these bonds become weakened and alternative societal forms emerge.
The community of interests amongst the members of the household, clan and - ultimately - tribe, was also a source of unity within these groups, and under their heads, anciently. One of the outgrowths of this unity was the right of each member of the group to protection by that group, and indeed the obligations on the group to provide certain services. Outstanding amongst these was that of the gó'êl, whose obligations might extend from marrying the widow of a kinsman (Ruth 2:20; 3:12; 4) to redeeming a kinsman from slavery into which he had sold himself to pay a debt.
It does not seem to have occurred to the vast majority of Patriarchal Christians that when Christ returns the earth will return to this system of clans and tribes. Moreoever, it seems to have totally escaped nearly all of them that as Christians we are still obliged to live in this fashion because we are, as Paul reminds us, still the nation of Israel, even if scattered abroad through the nations. It is for this reason that the Chevurat Bekorot, of which I am a member, stresses the importance of coupling the restoration of plural marriage with the restoration of the whole Israelite family system. To be a Christian - and to be a Patriarchal Polygamous Christian - means nothing less than the whole reformation of society. And since, I would maintain, the reformation of the wider society is impossible, it the responsibility to build Christian communities where the proper family order obtains, and this devolves upon the Patriarch-polygamists themselves.
Polygamy is part and parcel of a whole way of life. Whilst no doubt polygamists can successfully evolve new ways of living polygamously within the context of their respective cultures and church traditions (and are indeed already doing so), is such an activity in the will of Yahweh? Are we commissioned to try out new forms of societal living, or are we, in fact, bound by our covenant to the King of Israel, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), to rebuild New Covenant Israel upon the foundation of our illustrious ancestors?
Most Christians have very vague ideas of what the Christian world of the Millennium is going to be like and have little conception of the extent of societal restructuring that is going to take place. The Nimrodian metropolis (the original city-state) and today's megalopolis will not exist in the Millennial Theocratic World. The New World of the returned Christ will start all over again as little patriarchal hamlets and grow into villages and towns centred on families and clans. Each clan will belong to one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel either by biological descent or by adoption. The nuclear monogamous family will all but disappear, the average family unit consisting of one father, seven wives, and many, many children. But the polygamous family is not the end of the paradisaical concept of the ideal family - for under key families will be found other families, and under them other families still. Though there is no slavery in the New Covenant, the system of servants will once again obtain, servanthood being seen not as a stigma but as an honour and as a vehicle to spiritual maturation. Serving in a humble and menial job should, and will, be the calling of everyone at some stage in the their development to teach them the Messaianic virtues exemplifed in the ordinance of footwashing. The Nimrodian and satanic drive to 'get rich quick' by trampling on others will not exist in the New World because success will be rated in terms of the way in which a man loves and serves his wives and children, and those under his watchcare, rather than in the way he can amass a fortune at the expense of the weak and the poor.
The modern idea of 'Church' will, I firmly believe, eventually disappear and be replaced by the Family. The whole family community will become the Local Assembly or Congregation. Doubtless in the early days as new generations are being birthed and reared, families not of the same blood will dwell together in the spirit of Christian brotherhood, much as obtains in our Communities today. As they inevitably intermarry, so the blood ties will grow stronger. Communities of unrelated families are good, but intermarried communal families are even better! This is the sense that we have tried to get across in Bouquet of Roses trilogy.
This webpage is not, therefore, just about initiating men and women called into the practice into polygamy, but about building polygamous communities as well. To create polygamous families and just shove them back into the world is not, ultimately, to accomplish one of their more important messianic rôles, namely, to fellowship together and to intermarry.
Polygamous societies are the ultimate threat to Satan and his kingdom of darkness because theirs are the exact opposite of the family-less world that has been his agenda to create. Polygamous families mean strength, but polygamous communities are truly the best and strongest bulwark against the demonic society which threatens to drown us. Polygamous communities are the ultimate threat to the anarchistic society of the devil and his agents.
We want to invite other patriarchs and their families to join with us in this most important of ventures. It is a mighty step, to be sure, to be entering the polygamous lifestyle, but as such it is only a job half done. At some time in the near future such families, along with monogamous households, must gather together and build in embryo the new Zionic world to come.
Author: SBSK
