Originally Posted by toddpedlar

But, see, I'm not sure I buy the argument that Scripturally it's permissible.

Not every sin committed by the people in every Biblical story is condemned explicitly. Doesn't it seem that polygamy satisfies, at least, as a good and necessary consequence of Scripture as a whole, what we'd normally call sinful? Certainly there is no explicit command, "Thou shalt not take more than one wife," but the weight of Scripture, it seems to me, comes down against polygamy as a sinful act.

Now Bruce makes some good points about members in the church going outside the church and securing a second marriage via the civil magistrate. One needs to recognize that marriage as legal according to the state - but that need not require us to accept the act as something which is not sinful. I also agree that a man's multiple wives must be cared for - and that he is not to put away those wives when he converts. That would indeed be adding sin to sin - but the point is that his polygamy WAS and IS a sin... we can't for expediency's sake call it what it is not.