There are no blanket condemnations of
polygamy in the New Testament, but the qualifications established for certain
leadership roles exclude polygamists. An overseer or elder should be “a man of
one woman” (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:6), and deacons should be “men of one woman” (1
Tim. 312). It is possible to take these texts as saying that an elder/overseer
or deacon must be married (see 1 Tim. 3:4-5), although this runs counter to
Paul’s example (1 Cor. 9:5) and his advice in 1 Corinthians 7. These passages
might simply mean that elders and deacons, if they are married, must be
faithful within their marriages (e.g., they should not have sex with slaves).
This is a plausible interpretation, although if this were the intent, why do
these texts not simply forbid “sexual immorality” or “adultery”? These passages
might also refer to second marriages. According to 1 Timothy 5:9, a widow
should not be enrolled for church support unless she is “a woman of one man”;
that is, she did not remarry after her husband’s death. Based on this parallel,
Paul might be saying that a man who remarries after his first wife’s death
cannot serve as an elder or a deacon. If so, this requirement for leadership
matches Paul’s personal recommendation in 1 Corinthians 7:8, although he
permits Christians in general to remarry if they cannot control themselves (1
Cor. 7:9). In any case, even if polygamy was not the primary issue, these
passages certainly disqualify polygamists from serving as elders or deacons.
Given the New Testament’s condemnation
of sexual immorality and disapproval of earthly status and power, we would not
expect any New Testament writer to encourage Christians to acquire multiple
wives. But in view of Paul’s advice that Christians should normally remain in
the life condition in which they were called (1 Cor. 7:20-24), it is unclear
what instructions were given to lay Christians who already had more than one
wife when they first believed in Jesus. . . . While not forbidding polygamy
outright, the New Testament speaks of marriage in a way that fits best with
monogamy, and the values of the New Testament discourage men from seeking more
than one wife. (Michael Graves, How Scripture Interprets Scripture: What
Biblical Writers Can Teach Us About Reading the Bible [Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker Academic, 2021], 89-90, 102)
