Tried With Fire

I was cautiously optimistic when I read Pastor Jason Meyer's sermon " Fooled by False Leadership " last year. Meyer spoke on the issue of domestic abuse in Christian homes because of hyper-headship. Many Christians only acknowledge physical violence as abuse, if that, and have a very limited understanding of abuse in general. In addition John Piper (Meyer's predecessor) is probably one of the last people I would ever send an abuse victim to for advice , hence the caution. However I was pleased to read the following statements and several charts detailing different forms of abuse and naming them abuse . If these are the numbers for physical and sexual abuse, imagine how much bigger the problem is if you add mental and emotional abuse. Let me put this in layman’s terms. Do not say insensitive, misguided things like, “If it doesn’t leave a physical mark, then it is not abuse.” and Emotional abuse is a pattern in the use of words and actions to assault, reorder, and...

Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife: My Story of Finding Hope after Domestic Abuse by Ruth A. Tucker, Zondervan, 2016, 208 pages. In 1967, Ruth Tucker was a young college student. She attended a summer camp and met the ideal Christian single man - a tall, dark, and handsome Bible whiz, who felt called to pastoral ministry. She was swept off her feet, and the relationship quickly progressed to engagement and then marriage. On the surface, it seemed straight out of a fairy tale, but there were red flags that indicated something lurking beneath the surface. Those warning signs did not lie. Ruth found herself married to an abuser who professed the name of Christ and used the Scriptures to justify his abuse, hence the title of her book - Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife.  She endured 19 years of battering and humiliation at the hands of her ex-husband, often hiding her bruises with clothing. 1  After all, who would believe her? Who would believe that a pastor ...