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120. Freedom In the Church - Abuse with Jim Newheiser · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:04
Welcome to the For Freedom podcast.
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I found my freedom of you. I found a.
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Joy, I can't lose. Thank God it's true.
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You wrapped your arms around me, and heaven broke through From
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the moment she found me, I found my freedom in you.
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This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
0:36
everyday Christians with everyday issues.
0:40
Now here are your host, James Seyfert and Brett Martin.
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Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast.
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It has been a blessing to be back into the New Year and we
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have got some great interview lined up today.
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And before we get to that though, we have a couple things
1:00
coming up, Brett. We have Israel one year and a
1:04
couple of months away from now we'll be back in the Holy Lands
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and man, we're really excited about being able to go back.
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It's looking like some things are calming down over there in
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the Middle East. And so hopefully, Lord willing,
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the Creek don't rise like we say in the South that we'll be back
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in the Holy Lands and I will have our group going over there.
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If you're interested in going, we'll be sharing the new link
1:26
for you to register for that on our website.
1:30
But Brett, how have things been going the last couple of weeks?
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We did the Let us Pray review, man, we've got a lot of great
1:38
feedback from that over the last couple of weeks.
1:41
And so how are things going in your neck of the woods down in
1:44
Mississippi with all the cold snap that we've got going on?
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Man, things are going great. And you know, I, I actually did
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hear some things through the Grapevine that I've got it on
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good authority that very soon some people that we know are
2:01
going back to Israel in just a few months.
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So that's encouraging that, you know, people we know are going
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back to Israel within three or four months.
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It means that tourism is about to open back up.
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And it it couldn't be, couldn't come at any better time because
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I've got people in my church that are constantly asking me
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every week, what about Israel? Are we still going back to
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Israel? When are we going?
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When do I have to pay? I had somebody talk to me 10
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minutes before the Sunday morning service yesterday about,
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you know, when do we need to make our first payment and how
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does it work. So people are excited about this
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and as soon as they open up tourism again, the floodgates
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are going to be open. If you're a listener, we want
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you to come to Israel with us. We will do everything in our
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power to make it to where you can come to Israel with us.
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We want you with us, but as far as what's going on in my neck of
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the woods, a lot of cold weather.
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I mean, we've had the ice and the cold, and I'm about out of
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firewood and it's, you know, I've got enough wood for maybe
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one more fire. So I got to save that wood for,
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you know, you know, a very cold night, but just trying to
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survive the cold weather. The older I get, the more I like
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summer. Yeah, I'm still cold weather
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guy. I'd rather it'd be 20° outside
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and I can snuggle up, watch the fire, be outside by the fire and
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hanging out and have a good time.
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Store still where I'm at. I do like my summer spring
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nights though. I mean, I'm not not going to lie
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on that area. I just love being outside and
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hanging out with the family. But yeah, hey, I can't wait to
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go back with you. I can't wait to be back around
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you. We've got a couple of other
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things coming up. We've got in November we're
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we're going to start talking about it because it's great.
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Me and John were talking about it just a couple of days ago, me
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and you were as well with the meet up and going down to
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Catoosa. I can't wait for that.
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It's going to be great. The for the sake of the gospel
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conference year three, the meet up down there, it's going to be
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just a fantastic time back in Georgia and we're talking about
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getting a a house and hanging out and having a good time.
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And so we are looking forward to that.
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We hope you'll join us. And then me and Brett, we get to
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get together in June. We're going to be up in Indiana.
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And so if you're in that neck of the woods, let us know, we'll
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try to get with you. We're going to be up there for
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the Southern Baptist Convention in Indiana this year and I think
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both of our families are going to go.
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So we're going to hang out and have a good time.
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And so if you are in that area or if you're planning on being
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there, let us know. We'd love to get together with
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you as well. Well, Brett, we are in our In
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the Church series and we've got an interview lined up today with
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Mr. Jim Neuheiser. He wrote a book called The Abuse
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Pendulum. And so we're going to jump right
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into that and have him come on at this time.
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We're excited to have a returning guest, Jim Neuheiser
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here, a good friend of me and John's, and I've gotten to know
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him well. I've listened to a lot of his
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teaching and just have been a great asset for me as a new
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pastor. And he just recently came out
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with a new book, a booklet called The Abuse Pendulum, and
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that we're in our In the Church series talking about abuse right
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now. And so he is the director of the
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Institute of Biblical Counselling and Discipleship for
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Christian Counseling Program. He's also the Christian
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counseling program director at RTS in Charlotte.
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He's numerous counseling books and topics.
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And he's a board member with both the B Biblical Counseling
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Coalition and the associated Association of Certified
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Biblical Counselors. And we're excited to have Brett
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here. I'm going to Brett and Jim here.
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I'm going to read one verse of scripture out of his booklet and
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then let him talk a little bit. He he wrote this verse that he
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didn't write this, but David did.
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In in Psalms 82, it says grant escape to the abused and the
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destitute, pluck them out of the hand of the false.
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And so as we talk about abuse, Jim, I want you to just come on
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and and talk to us about why you decided to write this book, your
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inspiration behind it, the help you wanted to give.
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And and then we've got some statements that we're going to
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talk about in the book as well that we're going to discuss.
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Sure. Thanks.
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Thanks, James. The idea of a pendulum is that
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we tend to go from 1 extreme to the other, sometimes as
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evangelicals, as biblical counselors.
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And in the area of abuse, there's been a clear
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identification of where the churches and counselors, even
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biblical counselors, have fallen short in the past.
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And a couple primary ways there have been.
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One would just be the scandalous cover ups of abuse, where you
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had Christian leaders committing sin, which should have been
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biblically disqualifying and perhaps even criminal leading.
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You know then there has just been cover up of those like any
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other crimes or sins and it's deplorable.
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And the other broad category would be as in this fallen world
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there is mistreatment of women and children especially
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sometimes men are abused as well.
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But as abuse is taking place in local churches the leadership
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and it's in my mind the first one is really malice.
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You're they're doing wicked things, covering it up like you
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said, like the Catholics did, sending them to another church
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without warning others and but the other would be where I think
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well meaning churches, deacons, elder boards, whatever.
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They get their first case or an early case and they don't handle
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it wisely, not out of malice but often more out of ignorance.
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And part of the pendulum would be maybe like there are two
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statements we all can agree to is that some people are called
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by God to live in hard marriages in some marriages.
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The other point we some marriages are so hard that
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people have the right to escape for their safety.
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You know part of the Christmas story is they fled to Egypt to
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escape you know people trying to kill all the children and
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everything and Herod and so and I think what has happened in I
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think well meaning churches and counselors situation is that we
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were so concerned and I I was trained in the late 80s started
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doing a lot of formal biblical counseling in the 90s.
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We were so concerned about no fault divorce and people getting
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divorced because they didn't find their true soulmate and and
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so we're we were very much about defending marriage and we didn't
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enough understand the rights well the duty we have to protect
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like Psalm 82 says those who were being oppressed.
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And so if you go back many years I think and I can look back
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personally. One thing I confess in the mini
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book and I've confessed when I've taught about this is that
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I've actually gone back to women I counseled like in the 90s or
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early 2000s and said I realize I've put a lot of pressure on
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you to stay. It wasn't we always believed you
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get away from violence. And that's another point I
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should make is, you know, we always believed that someone was
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physically unsafe. We took that seriously, but I
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think we didn't understand the other forms of horrible
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mistreatment that can take place that are tormenting people and
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oppressing people beside, you know, the verbal threats,
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manipulation, control that can be really heinous at a certain
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level. You know, just as Jesus said,
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there's a, you know, you can speak and hate in a way that's
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murderous. So I don't think we took those
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things seriously enough. And so I've gone back to women
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and said I realized that I should have done more to protect
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you, more to hold your husband accountable.
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I don't think I've ever gone to somebody that said I think you
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should have left. But I've gone to people and say,
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I think you had a biblical freedom to leave, that I
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couldn't stop you under those circumstances.
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First Corinthians 7 even says, Paul says in verses 10 and 11,
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you know, don't leave your husband, but if you do leave,
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either you remain unmarried or you reconciled.
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And I think some of these situations fall into those
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verses in First Corinthians 7 where I'm not sure you should
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leave. But we're not going to
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discipline if you if you do, we understand why you want to.
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So that was one side of the pendulum.
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Now as these problems have been identified, the failure of the
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past, there's been a reaction against that which has led to
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the other side of the pendulum where there are multiple
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problems. One is just reactive saying,
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well now you know we can't do that anymore.
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And now I think it's all about protecting people from potential
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harm without adequate attention or to protecting people from
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being falsely accused. And an example would be, and
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maybe we'll get into the details more like the statement believe
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all women. Well, Potiphar's wife may have
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been believable to some, but women are sinners and they can
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lie too. And so that's not a biblical
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statement. They make it.
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I even try to express in the mini book that I understand why
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they say that is, that many women who have been horribly
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mistreated or treated with skepticism and know we shouldn't
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do that, We should take all claims seriously.
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But we can't hold a man guilty without a certain level of the
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general problem, in my understanding would really be
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there are people who have turned away from Scripture to it's
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like, well, because Christians and churches have failed, we're
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going to go to these secular experts, right Theory and
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feminism and other unphysical. We're going to go to them to
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learn how to deal with these situations.
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And that's created a lot of the errors I try to address in the
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mini book. Well, a couple of statements
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that are in the book that we definitely wanted to talk about.
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One statement in the booklet is always believe the victim.
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Now can you talk about what are some of the dangers of, you
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know, false claims and things such as that?
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Right. That you know in the Bible, you
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I was just reading in my own Bible reading, going through the
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Bible in a year and I came across that you couldn't punish
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someone without multiple witnesses.
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There are also things in the Bible about false witnesses
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having to be, you know, people who make false accusations and
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the punishment under the law that would have come to them.
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We have the example in Genesis 39 of Potiphar's wife who
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accused Joseph of attempted rape when really she was the one some
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probably would call her now a groomer and a whatever, But.
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And so they're going to be situations where, you know, a
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woman says this thing happened to me, but she was in the
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situation of privacy. They're going to be situations
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where we will not know for sure what happened.
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And if we don't know for sure what happened, without a doubt,
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we can make the woman safe. And so if she says she feels
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she's in danger, by all means, she has the right to go be safe.
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And it may be that what she's describing has really happened.
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There's certainly ways to investigation, like Solomon and
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the baby, that we may be able to come to a level of proof that we
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could, you know, accept her testimony.
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But we can't hold someone guilty without proof.
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I'll give you a concrete example that you had a situation that
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got a lot of publicity where you have a man and a woman in a
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Christian School and they're in her room.
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They're not supposed to be in there together alone, but
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they're there and they start making out and that leads to
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sex. And then, you know, a day or two
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later, she reports that she's been raped.
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If you, you know, if he says it's consensual.
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And again, there's a lot more detail that could be gathered
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there. But, you know, Deuteronomy says
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a woman who's being forced to have sex against your will
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should cry out. And if you're in a dorm of
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Christian institution, probably somebody will come to help you.
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Now, I understand also that women, when they're in that
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situation and they're being forced off and they freeze up
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and they get quiet. So he may have forced her.
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It may have been consensual. I can't hold him to be guilty of
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rape. You know, fornication lots.
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You know there there are things that were wrong.
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But there are going to be times because God is omniscient and we
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are not, we will not know for sure what happened.
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There's another example in the law where it talks about if you
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find a dead body in the country and sometimes you can't figure
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out who did it. And so the nearest city would
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sacrifice to God and say we don't know who did this.
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And and so there be, there gonna be situations where I think
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people want justice or this woman says she's been mistreated
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and God will ultimately bring justice if human justice fails.
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But we can't say, again, women. I've been in situations where a
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woman actually had another woman scratch her face and then make
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an accusation against another person for having done it.
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And so there's a lot of power right now in victimhood.
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There's a lot of power in throwing out the a word for
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abuse and making those accusations.
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And so we cannot hold someone guilty without clear biblical
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evidence and then try to use biblical language for what they
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actually did. Yeah, I think that's so
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powerful. And you know, and even in our
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day and age today of the world that we're in, a couple of years
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ago, the the Me Too movement, the women's empowerment
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movement, you begin to get more and more women feeling like they
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had this power and they could stand up and they can say
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things. And then you would have, you
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know in the, in the political world you had people making
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false claims and there was almost this, you know, do we
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believe everyone? I mean, how can we believe
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everyone when when women are coming out and making statements
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and legitimately? There were some women that that
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we have talked to, that I've talked to, that were abused,
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that they felt they could not come out.
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But then when other people were now, they felt the power to come
16:50
out, the power to be able to say what had happened to them.
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And I really liked how you said. A better approach would be to
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say all claims of abuse must be taken seriously.
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And I think that's so important because it is a serious matter.
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It is something that we must take them serious and let God be
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the judge and let God rule out these things and the truth is
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going to come out in these matters.
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Sorry, I really appreciate that. There.
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You broke the book down in a couple of different areas.
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I wanted to hit two other statements that you said and
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give you some time to explain them and talk about them.
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Because the last two that we're going to talk about are
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statements that people say often in the realm that we come from
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in the Independent Baptist movement.
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And the first one is this, stop weaponizing scripture.
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What is the abuse or the pendulum swing of weaponizing
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Scripture? And how would you sort of give
17:48
some pushback and and what would be a way that you would be able
17:51
to to to come back at this if someone says, well, you're just
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weaponizing scripture, you're just throwing a scripture out
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there to to, you know, to oppress someone or to hurt
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someone. What would be the pushback that
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you'd give there? Yeah, let me give you a summary
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statement, then I'll expand on it.
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My summary statement is that we should not respond to the misuse
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of scripture by not using scripture, but rather we should
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respond to the misuse of scripture by properly using
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scripture. And so it is a true statement
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that the Bible has been terribly misused.
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And you're talking, you know, for the particular purposes of
18:26
your podcast and some of the concern about some, not all in a
18:29
minute fundamental Baptists where not just in the area of
18:34
husbands and wives, but pastoral authority, where people will
18:38
take a phrase, submit to your leaders Hebrews 1317.
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Or wives submit to your husbands.
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And they will use that in a very sinful, unbiblical way to be
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domineering, to lead either people into sin, to take
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advantage of them wickedly. And it's a true statement that
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you know there are many men who have, we'll quote Ephesians 522
19:02
wives submit to your husbands and have never gotten to verse
19:04
25 where it says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the
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church. And they they use their
19:10
authority not to serve as Jesus who came not to be served, but
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to serve and to give his life as a ransom.
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For many, they use their authority in an utterly selfish
19:19
way, mistreating everybody under their authority.
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And so I understand that yes, the scripture, like I said, both
19:27
in pastoral authority as well. Where you know, men in pastoral
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leadership, you know, part of the cover up has been used
19:33
misusing that authority. But and so sadly though and even
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some people who claim to be biblical counselors will then
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say, well, because Scripture's been weaponized, then I need to
19:44
counsel somebody for several hours before I ever open the
19:46
Bible. And my question would be, well
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then what are you going to say, you know, where's that going to
19:50
come from? Well, I'm afraid it's going to
19:52
come from other sources which are secular, which are contrary
19:55
to Scripture. And so again, my answer would be
19:59
the correct response to how the scripture has been misused is
20:03
with gentleness and carefulness. The the Bible is a weapon,
20:07
Ephesians 6. It's the sword of the spirit.
20:09
And the Bible gives comfort to the oppressed.
20:12
And the Bible gives a proper perspective of what marriage is
20:14
supposed to be and what leaders are supposed to be.
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You know, the Bible is the only source of infallible, powerful
20:20
wisdom we have, you know. And so I think we could
20:24
acknowledge and sympathize with those.
20:26
With whom? Scripture has been misused.
20:29
But then, rather than turning them away to some other
20:31
unbiblical source of wisdom, rather than to say, let's use
20:34
the Bible correctly. It's definitely a case of
20:40
sometimes, just like you said, that pendulum people tend to
20:44
throw the baby out with the bathwater swing too far to the
20:48
other side. Most people that abuse that
20:50
scripture, wives submit. They they take it out of context
20:54
where it's just a you talk about the husband loving the wife.
20:58
Well, just a few verses before that, it says that we should all
21:01
submit to one another in some way.
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We all submit as Christians in some way.
21:07
One of my favorite statements that I read was you.
21:11
You said there's a right way to weaponize Scripture, and that
21:16
is, I love that you bring that out, that scripture, it is
21:20
indeed a weapon. It is a sword and it can be
21:24
weaponized, I guess you would say, in the right way, but there
21:26
definitely is a wrong way to do it.
21:29
Another statement that is that we wanted to bring up was male
21:34
authority structures must be overthrown.
21:37
Now the Bible does put out that you know.
21:42
They there is male. Leadership in certain areas.
21:45
But there's a movement out there today to discredit that, to say
21:49
that that's not what the Bible says.
21:51
Can you speak into that for us? Yes, this has been a huge
21:56
problem, and I think a lot of it gets to what some have called
22:01
critical theory, where it's happening in other aspects of
22:04
society where oppression is caused by people seeking power
22:11
and the answer to oppression is to take the power away from the
22:15
people who had it. And this is actually where, like
22:20
in the area of abuse, there's something called the Duluth
22:22
Power Wheel where they identify all these different kinds of
22:25
abuse or mistreatment. And I would say in a common
22:28
grace way when they talk about using money and pets and threats
22:33
and kids, you know, that's a good description of how people
22:36
do mistreat each other. But then their interpretation of
22:39
that is it's due to, you know, men having power and their
22:46
solution is to take the power away, which is following along
22:50
with the world's way of looking at it in this contrary to
22:53
Scripture And just as you said, Brett, that you know, pastors
22:58
have horribly misused their authority, but this kind of like
23:02
the Bible. So the answer is to get church
23:04
leaders, elders, a plurality of elders in my view, sharing
23:08
authorities, the Bible says, subject to one another under
23:12
God, properly using their authority, not being like the
23:16
false shepherds of Israel and Ezekiel 34 but being faithful
23:19
shepherds and for husbands to be Christ like servants.
23:23
But what's happening, and it is of great concern, is there are
23:26
even people who several years ago would have identified as
23:29
complimentarian and they would have emphasized that men should
23:32
be pastors and elders and preachers and that women, you
23:37
know, should not be behind the pulpit preaching and that, you
23:41
know, women should follow their husbands.
23:42
Some of the same people who were once advocates of that have
23:46
really abandoned what I think is biblical complementarianism.
23:49
And they're trying to talk their way around the passages about a
23:54
male leadership in the home and in the church.
23:57
And you know, some of the same voices that you, you can find
24:00
clips of some of these people several years ago saying things
24:03
we would probably agree with. And now they're pushing back.
24:07
And there's also kind of a subtle thing where again the
24:10
objective is let's get women doing everything they possibly
24:12
can. Some have called it like a soft
24:14
complementarianism where every single thing but preaching the
24:18
sermon and she can go give a testimony that's kind of like a
24:21
sermon. And I'm concerned that again,
24:26
it's an overreaction that male men having misused their
24:30
authority. By the way, I think another
24:31
point that's really important to make is that every day there's
24:36
certain people who tweet and write blogs about pastors and
24:40
husbands who misuse their authority.
24:43
Let's go on the record saying there are far more pastors and
24:46
husbands who try to lovingly lead their families.
24:50
That even was a Toxic Masculinity by Nancy Pearcy.
24:56
And addressing that how men who go to church have a personal
24:59
relationship with God, you know, are the least likely to abuse.
25:04
And so I think even with pastors, there are thousands of
25:07
pastors who are trying their best to faithfully shepherd the
25:10
sheep and protect the sheep. And I think there's people say,
25:12
well, here's another bad one, here's another bad one.
25:15
And I know there are a lot of bad ones in certain circles, but
25:17
even in those circles there are some who are trying as best they
25:19
can to to serve the Lord and and shepherd the sheep.
25:23
And so I I think highlighting those who are, you know, you get
25:29
the proper use of authority to love and to serve those under
25:33
your authority without adopting an unbiblical egalitarianism,
25:39
which really, I mean it's not even egalitarianism.
25:43
It actually becomes transferring power to those who were formerly
25:46
oppressed. Yeah.
25:50
And you know as you think through and and now in my mind,
25:54
I guess when I when I read this book and I, I heard the title
25:58
The Abuse Pendulum, I thought man, what an amazing title.
26:01
Because so often I was told growing up you know what happens
26:05
is when we leave fundamentalism, the pendulum swings to the far
26:08
left and everybody goes liberal and everybody goes to the left
26:12
and they go crazy. But often times it's it's not
26:16
necessarily the pendulum swinging so far to the left.
26:19
But sometimes in in like my case and Brett's case and John's case
26:22
specifically, the pendulum has swung more to a balanced
26:27
approach and a balanced view. And I think that's what you were
26:29
the heart of your book was is you know let's get to a balanced
26:33
view of what we need to do. We can't just harp on one side.
26:36
We we had a summer camp this last year and the guy that was
26:40
speaking the the main thing was talking on spirit and truth,
26:44
worshipping the Lord in spirit and truth.
26:46
He said There's some churches that have really got the Spirit
26:49
down and there's some churches that have really gotten the
26:51
truth down and they're both on opposite sides of the pendulum.
26:55
We need to bring this into the middle and worship in both
26:58
spirit and truth and live in the spirit and live in truth.
27:01
Because if you're just on the truth and you're not with the
27:04
Spirit, then then that pendulum is going back and forth.
27:06
And I guess for me that was so related.
27:09
Well when reading this booklet and and processing all of it and
27:13
and as we think through these last couple of things and and I
27:17
we don't want to be too much longer but wouldn't be mindful
27:20
of your time. We want to sort of give some
27:23
concluding thoughts of of why we have drifted so far away from
27:27
addressing the area of abuse and even in the church and in
27:31
marriages. Why do you feel like that that
27:33
pastors for so long And and you know, you said you grew up in
27:37
the 80s in in that in that realm of the world where we just sort
27:41
of turned a blind eye to what was going on.
27:44
You know, me and Brett, we're coming into this as younger
27:46
pastors in the world now where everyone's talking about it.
27:51
But really there's also that's all they're doing is they're
27:53
talking about it. There's not a lot of, you know,
27:56
practical application of how can we get past it, how can we work
28:00
through this? And So what would be your your
28:03
thoughts or addressed to sort of help young pastors like me and
28:06
Brett and others that are listening as well?
28:09
Sure. I want to go back to part of
28:13
what I began with, which is to say there are some people of bad
28:18
character who are abusing, grooming, hiding, abuse with
28:25
unbiblical malice, doing evil and their wolves among the
28:29
sheep, their Ezekiel 34 false shepherds.
28:33
But there are also, I think, many pastors and church leaders.
28:37
And if you go back to the 80s and 90s or whatever, and they're
28:41
trying as best they can to follow what the Bible says and
28:46
the realities of, like, accusations of abuse, you know,
28:53
it's very, very complicated. So I've written some blogs that
28:57
are on my website, which is Jim newhiser.com, that actually
29:01
speak to some of the question you're raising.
29:03
There's one that is called helping churches to better
29:07
handle cases of abuse. And it goes through a cycle that
29:10
often happens when a woman expresses concern and the church
29:14
treats it as just marriage counseling, and they don't hold
29:17
the husband accountable. And he gets control of the
29:19
counseling. And the woman then is exposed to
29:22
some of the abuse advocates, and she realizes she's being
29:25
mistreated, and she leaves the husband of the church.
29:28
And then she gets disciplined. And the church could have just
29:31
handled it a lot better, a lot more wisely by, you know,
29:34
counseling her separately and, you know, holding the husband
29:37
accountable and realizing how deceptive and manipulative
29:40
abusers can be. There's another one called the
29:43
Battleship of Abuse, like the game Battleship you played when
29:46
you were a kid. And some battleships have two
29:48
holes, three holes, four holes. There's some victims, usually
29:52
women, of marital mistreatment, that can take a lot and don't
29:55
want to leave. And there's some that they're,
29:59
they've had it after less. And I think we have to respect
30:02
some of that. That may be weakness more than
30:04
sin. In terms of just what they can
30:06
handle, I think we need to recognize.
30:09
So I have like 3 broad categories that may be helpful
30:12
on a practical level. There's some cases where there's
30:16
heinous mistreatment that it may be physical, it may be punching
30:23
the wall, kicking the cat, you know, not letting her talk to
30:28
the people she wants to talk. I mean, it's just it's very
30:30
serious oppression where sometimes women stay too long.
30:35
Actually, that's a bigger problem than most problems is
30:37
women stay. When I would say, look, if you
30:38
were my sister or my daughter, I would tell you, get out of
30:41
there, pray that he repents. I mean, I'm not saying go find
30:43
somebody else, but go be safe and get this guy to take it
30:48
seriously. So there are those cases that
30:51
seem to be pretty clearly the marriage that's bad enough, hard
30:55
enough they have a right to escape to safety.
30:58
There's some cases on the other extreme where she's kind of
31:03
attracted to a guy in her running group or the gym and
31:07
he's not that great a provider and you know, she's not happy
31:12
and so she's making excuses and we'll even try to use abuse.
31:17
Really, they have, they're both centers.
31:18
They have normal marital conflict and that really is
31:21
still a problem. You know, not not everybody who
31:23
gets divorced is divorced legitimately.
31:25
And so and then there's the cases in the middle where it's
31:28
pretty bad. And part of it is since I'm not
31:32
all knowing, it's hard for me to know how bad it is when you're
31:35
not there. The first depletis case sounds
31:37
right till someone else comes along and examines it.
31:39
It says in Proverbs 1817. And so in those cases, I find
31:43
myself more in a position to say, OK, usually it's the woman,
31:47
but I've had men in that position, too, is that I'm not
31:50
telling you to leave, but you know, you have a decision to
31:53
make that I have to respect. I realize it's really hard.
31:56
And that's the First Corinthians 7 again, where Paul's even
31:59
saying I don't think he should leave.
31:59
But if you do leave, he doesn't discipline.
32:02
He doesn't kick him out. He still speaks to them as
32:04
Christians. He expects to listen.
32:06
And so I think those are the real tough cases.
32:09
And I think a lot of pastors, and maybe this would be from
32:11
fundamentalist backgrounds particularly.
32:13
We always want to be sure. And there are going to be times
32:16
when, as far as I can tell, the Bible says this person has a
32:19
choice to make that I cannot dictate.
32:22
That's really hard for some of us to recognize those cases is
32:25
that I recognize you're to escape, not to remarry, but to
32:31
escape. What's really hard?
32:33
Your freedom also to stay, and I can't tell you what you have to
32:39
do. Our authority only extends, as
32:41
far as we can say, with great confidence.
32:43
This is explicitly what the Bible says.
32:45
And you know, there are situations where it's it's
32:50
really difficult to be certain what they should do.
32:55
Well, this is a very, we really appreciate you speaking into
32:58
this because it it needs to be talked about.
33:01
This is a very controversial, it's very complex, there's a lot
33:05
of nuance to it. And what I'm getting, basically
33:10
what I would summarize is, you know, all abuse requires action,
33:16
but what we don't need to do is overreact.
33:20
And so we definitely need to seek the wisdom of God.
33:23
And I appreciate everything that you've said on this.
33:26
So much wisdom in in what you're saying, James, What are your
33:31
thoughts? Well, man, Brett, I I appreciate
33:34
what you said, Jim. Loved what you said and thank
33:37
you so much for coming on. It has been a blessing to read
33:41
after you and to glean from you. You're one of those guys that
33:45
for me, anytime I podcast or a booklet or a blog comes out, I'm
33:50
reading after you because there's just a vast amount of
33:53
wisdom there and I appreciate your time and effort because I
33:57
know you're hard. I know you want to help people
33:58
and I know you want to help the the hurting and be there for
34:03
those who have been hurt and victimized.
34:06
And I so appreciate that in in all of your writings and
34:09
everything that you've done. Thank you very much.
34:12
And I think, you know, we we want to protect people from harm
34:18
and we want to protect people from being falsely accused and
34:22
sometimes we won't know. And so we're kind of doing both
34:25
simultaneously. Yeah, well, thank you guys for
34:29
sticking in all this way. And until next time to God.
34:33
Not the pastor. Be the glory.
34:36
Amen. Found my new name.
34:41
Found that good grace. Found that healing.
34:45
And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning.
34:49
That has no ending. Found that second chance.
34:51
Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness.
34:52
Found my happiness. I've been singing ever.
35:02
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35:12
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