The Apostle Paul warned his charge, Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3, ESV). Apparently, that time has come to one church, which has a doozy of a story that I stumbled upon on X.

I’m not sure where this church is or who the pastor is, but the pastor’s wife announced recently that her husband is in a polygynous marriage (a form of polygamy in which the husband has more than one wife). She approves of it, by the way. The congregation reacts with excitement and support.

The pastor’s wife, who we learn later is “Pastor Lydia,” begins:

And I want to share that, you know, Prophet and I, you know, we are living even right now in what we would call a polygynous marriage. My husband, our Prophet, he has a second wife. Y'all know her.

Y'all love her. Y'all benefit from her ministry every week. And so I just want to take this time and just as a pleasure of mine to introduce to y'all Prophet's wife and my sister in marriage, Minister Shakayla.

The first red flag: She calls her husband "Prophet." Nope. The prophetic era ended with John the Baptist. Since then, no man or woman’s word is the infallible message from God outside of Scripture. As my Bible software explains, “New Testament prophets’ messages (if not recorded in Scripture) weren’t considered infallible; the church and other prophets had to evaluate them against God’s Word to discern their authenticity.”

Recommended: Progressive Christianity Watch: Boy Band Theology?

Recommended
All Hell Breaks Loose at the United Nations: Waltz Spokesman Assaulted Matt Margolis The Jews Stole My Bananas! Why Michigan’s Israel-Bashing Ad Is a Tipping Point Moment. Scott Pinsker

“I want to speak to the fact that I know people have questions, people have comments and concerns,” Shakayla says. “And one thing that, you know, I want to address is that it is amazing to know that this is the will of God and to live it.”

The will of God to live in a sinful, heretical, fake marriage? Not so fast. Paul also told Timothy, “Therefore an overseer [i.e., an elder or pastor] must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money” (1 Timothy 3:2-3, ESV, emphasis added).

Shakayla wants everyone to know that coming clean about the polygyny apparently has something to do with inclusion. And she wants to make everybody believe that this is more common than they think.

“And we've had the pleasure of just even impacting so many other people around the world,” she claims. “There's been people in different states that has reached out like, ‘This is our life. We want to live the life of God.’”

“There's been people who's been kicked out of churches because they live this life and they don't have anywhere to worship,” she continues. “They don't have anywhere to be vulnerable. They don't have anywhere to go and pray and talk to talk to God because people shun them and shun it so much.”

“Prophet” reveals that the second marriage is nearing its third anniversary. Can you imagine finding out that your pastor has had a second wife for nearly three years with the blessing of the first wife but was just now telling the congregation?

What’s stunning is how the congregation appears to applaud and support this arrangement. Of course, we don’t know if anybody walked out — I sure would have.

I’ll leave this right here with Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians 11:12-15:

And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

Come, Lord Jesus.