SPIRITUAL DEPRAVITY DRESSED UP IN CHRISTIAN LANGUAGE (PART II)

“‘Prophet’ Israel T. Ford, His Two Wives, and the Gospel of Polygyny”

By Akin Ojumu

In Part I of this commentary, we explained the three essential elements of saving faith: notitia (knowledge), assensus (intellectual assent), and fiducia (personal trust and reliance upon Jesus Christ).

We demonstrated from James 2:19 and Matthew 7:21–23 that possessing knowledge of Christian doctrine, acknowledging the truth of the Gospel, and performing religious activities do not necessarily mean that a person has experienced genuine salvation.

Even the demons believe that God exists.

And the Lord Jesus warns that many who profess His name and claim to have performed mighty works in His name will hear the terrifying declaration:

“I NEVER KNEW YOU; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WORKERS OF LAWLESSNESS.”

The point is simple.

Religious vocabulary cannot substitute for spiritual regeneration. Neither can an impressive ministerial résumé conceal a life of rebellion against the revealed will of God.

Which brings us to the extraordinary spectacle involving the self-styled Prophet Israel T. Ford, his wife Lydia Ford, and Minister Shakayla Talley Ford.

BEHOLD THE PROPHET AND HIS TWO WIVES

Israel T. Ford is the founder of LifeWorks Church in Ohio, a ministry reportedly established in 2009. His wife, Lydia Ford, serves alongside him in the leadership of the Church.

At last Sunday’s Church service, Lydia made an extraordinary announcement. She informed the congregation that she and her husband were living in a polygynous relationship. The congregation gave the threesome a standing ovation.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, polygyny is a form of polygamy in which one man has two or more wives simultaneously.

In other words, the prophet has two wives.

And the announcement was not presented as an admission of wrongdoing. It was not accompanied by an acknowledgment of conduct contrary to the New Testament pattern of marriage.

There was no indication of remorse. No public repentance. No confession that the arrangement required correction.

Quite the opposite.

The arrangement was publicly celebrated as an expression of the will of God.

Listen to Lydia Ford:

“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.”

She then introduced the woman to the congregation as her husband’s second wife and her own sister in marriage.

And the prophet was delighted.

Giggling and expressing his excitement, Israel Ford invited the woman to address the congregation.

“Minister Shakayla! Wow! This is so amazing. So, are we gonna have just a few words from Minister Shakayla to say whatever…whatever she wanna say?”

And with that, the stage was set for a masterclass in the religious art of transforming personal choices into supposed divine instructions.

WHEN THE SECOND WIFE GIVES HER TESTIMONY

Minister Shakayla began her address with the familiar language of Church culture.

“First, I just wanna give honor to God…”

Of course!

Where else would such an announcement begin?

Whenever a religious leader wants to attach divine legitimacy to a controversial decision, invoking the name of God is usually the preferred opening ceremony.

But the theological spectacle was only beginning.

Shakayla proceeded to declare that their marital arrangement was the will of God.

According to her:

“It is amazing to know that this is the will of God and to live it.”

There it is!

The divine endorsement. The heavenly authorization. The supposed revelation that turns an unbiblical marital arrangement into God’s personal project.

Shakayla continued by celebrating everything she had supposedly gained from her relationship with the prophet.

She praised his influence upon her life. She spoke glowingly of their family. She thanked those who had supported them, prayed for them, and defended them.

And then she made this remarkable assertion:

“This is a family dynamic in the image of what God wants to put in the earth.”

Imagine that!

Apparently, the prophet’s two-wife household is not merely a personal marital choice. It is a model of what God wants to establish on earth. And the congregation is being invited to celebrate it as a spiritual achievement.

But there was more.

Shakayla continued:

“God just keeps increasing us, keeps blessing us, keeps taking us through the journey.”

She described their arrangement as a source of spiritual growth, divine favor, and expanding influence. She claimed that other people had reached out to them because they were interested in living similarly.

And then came the grand declaration.

They were blazing a trail.

Yes, indeed.

After two thousand years of Christian history, the Church has apparently discovered what it was missing.

Not a clearer understanding of justification by faith. Not a renewed commitment to biblical discipleship. Not a deeper appreciation of the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Not a return to sound doctrine.

No.

Apparently, what Christianity needed was a prophet with two wives, a cooperative first wife, an enthusiastic second wife, and enough Christian vocabulary to make the arrangement sound like a spiritual revival.

The prophet, naturally, expressed his approval.

And in his subsequent remarks, he disclosed that he and Shakayla were approaching the third anniversary of their marriage.

Three years!

And now the arrangement was being publicly celebrated as an expression of divine guidance.

HOW TO DRESS PERSONAL DESIRE IN CHRISTIAN VOCABULARY

What makes this episode especially revealing is how thoroughly the announcement was saturated with familiar Christian expressions.

Consider the language employed during the presentation:

Giving honor to God.

Being led and guided by God.

Living in the will of God.

Receiving divine increase and blessings.

Growing spiritually.

Building a family according to God’s purposes.

Being used by God in prayer and ministry.

Becoming a light to others.

Blazing a trail for others to follow.

Everything sounds pious.

Everything sounds inspirational.

Everything sounds like a testimony from a contemporary Pentecostal or Charismatic gathering.

You can almost hear the organ playing softly in the background.

But strip away the religious vocabulary, and what remains?

A religious leader publicly celebrating his immoral relationship with two women and presenting the arrangement as the will of God.

That is the issue.

The question is not whether the participants are capable of invoking God’s name. The question is whether their claims are consistent with what God has revealed in Scripture.

Because the words, “God told me,” are not a substitute for biblical evidence. And the phrase, “This is God’s will,” does not automatically make something God's will.

THE BIBLE RECORDS POLYGYNY. IT DOES NOT ESTABLISH IT AS THE CHRISTIAN STANDARD.

According to his public defense of the arrangement, Israel Ford maintains that restricting marriage to one wife is unbiblical.

He has reportedly appealed to Exodus 21:10 as part of his justification.

Exodus 21:10

“If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights.”

Now we come to the theological heart of the controversy.

Nobody who has read the Old Testament can seriously dispute that polygyny existed among the people of Israel.

Abraham’s household included Sarah and Hagar.

Jacob married Leah and Rachel and fathered children through their servants.

David had multiple wives.

Solomon accumulated wives and concubines on an astonishing scale.

These things are recorded in Scripture.

But here is the fundamental hermeneutical principle that every serious student of the Bible must understand:

JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS RECORDED IN THE BIBLE DOES NOT MEAN IT IS PRESCRIBED BY THE BIBLE.

The Bible records murder. It records adultery. It records incest. It records deception. It records idolatry. It records acts of cruelty and human wickedness.

The fact that these events are included in the biblical narrative does not mean they carry God’s moral approval.

Similarly, the fact that God permitted and regulated certain marital arrangements under the Mosaic covenant does not establish those arrangements as His original design or the normative pattern for Christian marriage.

Exodus 21:10 concerns a man’s obligations toward a woman when he takes another wife. It regulates an existing social practice and protects a woman’s marital rights.

It does not command men to acquire additional wives. It does not establish polygyny as the preferred marital arrangement. And it certainly does not authorize a modern Christian minister to declare that a two-wife household represents a new divine blueprint for the Church.

A regulation is not necessarily a recommendation. And divine accommodation is not the same thing as divine ideal.

JESUS DID NOT DIRECT US TO SOLOMON’S MARRIAGE COLLECTION

When the Lord Jesus addressed the subject of marriage, He did something profoundly instructive.

He went back to creation.

Matthew 19:4–6

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Notice where Jesus directed His audience.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING.

Back to God’s original design. Back to the creation of man and woman. Back to the union of husband and wife. Back to the two becoming one flesh.

He did not appeal to Solomon’s enormous collection of wives. He did not present Jacob’s complicated domestic arrangements as the ideal Christian household. He did not establish David’s multiple marriages as the standard to be followed.

He pointed to Genesis.

And the Apostle Paul reaffirmed this creation pattern.

Ephesians 5:31–32

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

The marriage relationship is presented as a profound illustration of the union between Christ and His Church.

Furthermore, the qualifications for Church overseers in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6 include the requirement that an overseer be the husband of one wife.

1 Timothy 3:2

“Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife…”

Titus 1:6

“If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife…”

Although interpreters debate the precise range of application of that expression, it unmistakably emphasizes marital fidelity and provides no support for celebrating plural marriage as a mark of spiritual advancement.

And in 1 Corinthians 7:2, Paul presents the marital relationship in terms of each man having his own wife and each woman her own husband.

1 Corinthians 7:2

“But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.”

The consistent New Testament pattern is the one-flesh union of one husband and one wife. The Church is not authorized to replace that pattern with whatever marital arrangement a religious leader finds convenient.

WHEN PERSONAL DESIRE BECOMES DIVINE REVELATION

The deeper problem here is the increasingly fashionable practice of treating personal convictions and desires as if they were revelations from Heaven.

A preacher wants something. He becomes convinced that God approves of it. He discovers a biblical passage that can be made to accommodate his preference. He ignores the broader teaching of Scripture. He announces that his position is divinely sanctioned.

And because he carries the title of prophet, his followers are expected to celebrate his conclusion as a revelation.

That is not sound biblical interpretation. That is the enthronement of personal preference as divine authority. 

And it is the essence of eisegesis.

Instead of allowing Scripture to determine what one should believe, the individual begins with a preferred conclusion and searches for biblical language to defend it.

And when the interpretation becomes difficult to defend, the convenient escape route is always available:

God told me. God showed me. God revealed it to me. God is doing a new thing. The Church has misunderstood this matter for centuries.

Apparently, the Bible is never quite sufficient whenever it disagrees with the desires of the man holding the microphone.

And that is why the celebration of Israel Ford’s marital arrangement by his congregation is not merely a controversy about polygyny. It is a controversy about biblical authority.

Who determines what Christians should believe and practice?

The written Word of God? Or the private convictions of a religious leader?

The answer to that question determines whether a congregation is being governed by the teaching of Christ or by the imagination of its pastor.

In Part III, we will examine how the displacement of biblical authority has turned significant portions of modern Christianity into a theater of religious absurdity, where virtually anything can be justified with a Bible verse, a prophetic title, and enough Christian vocabulary.

To be continued.