So pressing on, seeking to attain spiritual heights, would be seen in your lifestyle. And Paul is putting himself up as a pattern of this, and those who have a similar reasoning. 

The point is Christianity is not a box you check in a document. It affects how you think, how you live. People who are pursuing Christ with all the ounce of their energy, who think there is nothing more noble, more worthy than that, who do not just talk the talk but walk the walk, these are people who begin to distinguish themselves as worthy of emulation, and Paul wants their example to shape others, and ultimately, the form the church takes. 

When Paul said that elders should be husbands of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2), you know he is talking about setting standards, and not that it is okay for others to be polygamous. 

He does not give you a reason for this; he just said it as a matter of fact. 

If some people want to refer to the Old Testament and say that David and co had multiple wives, and from that conclude that it is not a problem, why not also say that since Jesus did not marry, so everyone should not marry? 

The point is that we cannot arrive at truth through analogy, through the giving of examples. The truth is independent of what people do or do not do. And we can say that the truth is that God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Eves, regardless of what happened between then and the coming of Christ. 

But still, some people who want to pursue the desires of their flesh may persist in argument, because they are pursuing fleshly desires which we are told war against our souls (1 Peter 2:11) and want to bend the truth to serve them. 

Someone else may say Jesus did not directly speak against certain things, therefore it must be okay, or certain people, that God had a relationship with, did it in the Bible, then it must be okay.

But underneath all that is the lust of the flesh, rather than the love of the Father (1 John 2:15-17), not a love for the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10), or desire for holiness (Hebrews 12:14).

To recognize the difference between the ideal and the permissive is an important distinction to make here. 

The people say Moses permitted divorce for whatever reason, but Jesus said it was permitted because of the hardness of their heart (Matthew 19:8). 

When God said the High Priest must only marry a virgin (Leviticus 21:13-14), He was signaling the ideal, the standard to emulate. 

So, the scripture is not really meant for argument. It is not meant to justify the indulgence of the flesh, it is not. 

The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). 

The moral law represents the bare minimum; grace and truth become the standard that needs to be placed before us, and spiritual leaders with their way of life become another form of standard placed before us (1 Peter 5:3).

Ultimately, Christ is the standard that should be placed before us (1 Corinthians 11:1). Christ and His truth, Christ and His commitment to one bride, the church, should be placed as the standard before us. 

We are not under the law, so we do not look for how to marry the requirement with our fleshly desires. 

Jesus told the Pharisees that they have clever ways to jettison the word of God to uphold their tradition, a clever way of coming to their preferred conclusion, maybe focused on the letter of the law, but violating the spirit (Mark 7:9). Jesus said they strain at the gnat but swallow a carmel (Matthew 23:24), or in modern parlance - not seeing the forest for the trees.

But not so under grace and truth, where Christ becomes the content of truth (grace) and edge/outline of grace (truth), where the focus is the living Christ.

Remember, at the time Paul was writing to this church, he could not be referencing the gospels, which reveal Christ, so he talked about himself and the need to have him and others with similar lifestyles as examples.

But now we have more than that; we have the 66 books of the Bible, and we can read them.

Christ is the one who says Carry your cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24), not look for excuses and reasons to justify the indulgence of the flesh. 

Christ sets himself as an example to follow. And Paul said that in Christ we have crucified the flesh and His desires (Galatians 5:24), and we are supposed to live in self-control, etc (Titus 2:11-12). 

Back to the question of polygamy and homosexuality (because some people say Jesus did not mention it). 

What is the in-Christ answer? What is the answer that flows out of following Christ? What is the in-Christ answer, seeing that Christ said that if our hands cause us to sin, we should cut them off, and even eyes (Matthew 5:29-30)? 

So Christ represents a serious attitude against moral filth (what are called abominations in the Old Testament). For the woman caught in adultery, Jesus did not say it's okay. He said go and sin no more (John 8:11), still calling her to the ideal. 

If anything goes and there is no moral filth that needs to be clearly delineated, then we have a clear rejection of Christ and His word. 

And some other people might say, Oh, oh, all those things Jesus said should not be taken seriously, because we are now in the episode of grace. 

Remember, John said grace and truth came through Jesus, and Jesus is one, either pre- or post-resurrection. And to cancel all misgivings, the Bible says, "Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). 

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This book lays out the case for the Sufficiency of Scripture, arguing that it is enough to define the life and practice of Christians and the church. It pushes back against both subtle and blatant violations of this tenet, including Tradition, Imagination, Divination, Emotion, Revelations, and Visions (TIDER).Join the author as he explains:Passages that prohibit adding to or removing from God’s word.Scripture has a special quality that sets it apart from anything else that has ever been written or will ever be written.The need for humility so that we can separate our biases from the truth.There are consequences for either adding to or removing from God’s word.How Jesus and Paul argued for the Sufficiency of Scripture.How the devil is the enemy of the Sufficiency of Scripture, and humans willingly cooperate with him for different reasons.How, “The Scriptures, as a fixed set of documents, is a shared body of agreed reference that defines the contours of truth,” and not the preacher’s charisma or eloquence.Holding to the Sufficiency of Scripture one day doesn’t mean the preacher will always do so, hence the call for carefulness.Why it’s wrong to pit one passage of Scripture against another.That “humans have been building up reasonings apart from and against the light of God’s truth for centuries.”Take the journey to deepen your understanding and appreciation for the Sufficiency of Scripture.

The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved