Domestic Violence?

But that said, we'll go ahead and get into this week's episode. Welcome to Stump the Pastors podcast. a Q&A podcast on issues of theology, worldview, and culture with the pastors of Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah. I'm your host, Dan Berkholder. What is a wife's biblical response to physical abuse from her husband? How can a marriage come back when one party has been traumatized by their spouse? Well, this is a very serious question, and it is one of those questions that brings in many, many different categories of issues. We have what is the church's responsibility, pastoral responsibility in this situation, wife's responsibility, what is the police responsibility, what about repentance and restoration, what about separation, what about separation, what about safety of kids? There are just tons of issues in this. But the first thing we want to say, other than that this is obviously not going to be an exhaustive treatment of all those issues. That's a huge, huge topic. First thing we need to say is that if you are in

an exhaustive treatment of all those issues. That's a huge, huge topic. First thing we need to say is that if you are in danger from your spouse, if you have a husband who's physically violent with your threatening physical violence to you or your children, that you need to immediately get separation, physical separation out of that house, out of, you know, private being alone with that person. And you need to tell your pastors and call the authorities, if necessary. If there's been a crime committed, call the authorities. If we, pastorally, if we, uh, pastorally, if we, uh, know of a situation like this happening, that's our first response. We immediately involve the authorities. Let me explain why first, because that kind of gets to the heart of some of the issues at play here. When we're talking about assault, which is what we're talking about with spousal abuse, there's obviously other levels like covenant and different levels, but simply this is assault against an image bearer, which is unlawful. It's illegal, and it should be illegal because of what human beings are. Human beings are image bearers of God. And so when somebody physically assaults another person, justice demands that we involve the civil authorities, which means in our context, calling the police, filing a report, and cooperating truthfully with that report. And that's a good thing because the police are,

the civil authorities, which means in our context, calling the police, filing a report, and cooperating truthfully with that report. And that's a good thing because the police are, the civil authorities are required by God. They were instituted by God to uphold justice by, and this is what Paul says in Romans 13, 1 through 7, by punishing the wrongdoer and praising the good. And so we have a wrongdoer who has committed a crime. Not all sins are crimes, but some sins are crimes that require civil response, like fines punishment, corporal punishment, different levels of response. So that's step one. If that's you, if this, whoever sent this question in, obviously, this is an anonymous form. So we don't have a name or a way of getting in touch with you. If this isn't just a hypothetical question for you, that's step one. You need to tell us, tell the civil authorities get safe. And you're not being unspiritual by doing that. You're not being unspiritual by doing that. Get kids safe. That sort of thing is step one. We treat this very seriously. Sometimes people can talk about these issues as if the only question is, like, what do we do about divorce and that sort of thing? That's not the only question at play here. There's a question of a crime that's been committed and justice being done. And the church has authority to basically encourage the magistrate to do their duty to uphold justice and also cooperate

There's a question of a crime that's been committed and justice being done. And the church has authority to basically encourage the magistrate to do their duty to uphold justice and also cooperate with them when they're upholding the law. So that really brings all three levels together, right? Because we have a home government that's being marred by sin, where a husband is called to be a loving Christ-like head of his wife. The husband is the head of the wife. His wife is to submit to and respect her husband, and a husband is to love and cherish his wife and lay his life down for her. So obviously that structure of authority and submission is being polluted and perverted by sin. The husband is not being a Christ-like head. He is doing violence to his covenant, and he is making it impossible for his wife to relate to him as she should be able to relate to him. So that involves the church government when we're talking about Christians. The elders are now, the church is now required to do church discipline, which means that let's say a man is caught in this sin, and the police are called, and we'll deal with that in a second. They're involved. The church's involvement in this would look like we would be involved in calling that man to repentance, to confession of his sin, to repentance, which would include turning from that sin, displaying fruits of repentance

sins that are crimes to be dealt with in the world that we live in, where sin reigns and there's curse, is for discipline to function as a part of God's love and grace towards how he governs the world. And so the discipline of the civil authorities is a part of that. If we short-circuit that process, even if we do so because we might feel like maybe it's the more, you know, quote-unquote Christian thing to do, like we're being more pious by not and, you know, let's just hush this up. Let's keep the civil authorities out of this. Let's not prosecute anybody. We, you know, we can deal with this in-house. What we're doing is we're being lawbreakers. We are not allowing God's minister for justice to do his duty. And we're not being pious. We're being lawbreakers. So we would encourage, obviously churches must, must participate in these systems faithfully, immediately report, truthfully report, immediately involved the civil authorities whenever there are issues like this. But we would encourage for every party involved to truthfully participate in the process of justice happening. And that will, the goal of that is always, the goal of discipline, whether we're talking about church discipline or even civil discipline, is both justice but also restoration. So that discipline, the aim of it is to restore the person. And so if you've gone through that, the other part of this question was related to

is both justice but also restoration. So that discipline, the aim of it is to restore the person. And so if you've gone through that, the other part of this question was related to how do you come back from that, right? How do you come back from that level of harm being done to a marriage covenant? And that is a high level of harm. We should never downplay the seriousness of the sin that's being committed by a man who's violent towards a woman or a child, especially in the heart of his marriage covenant. That is a serious, serious amount of damage to that covenant. Trust has been utterly destroyed in that situation. And so what are the duties of a Christian wife? And the duties are, again, I want to make it very clear that the duties of a Christian wife is not to play make-believe. That is not what Christian forgiveness, reconciliation, restitution, all those things. It's not about playing make-believe. Christian forgiveness is commanded to Christians. To the same degree that we've been sinned against, we are called by the Apostle Paul, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. We've been forgiven of egregious sins against God, so we are also obligated to forgive. Okay. We're obligated to put ourselves in a posture where we are making it plain that we are

so we are also obligated to forgive. Okay. We're obligated to put ourselves in a posture where we are making it plain that we are eager to forgive those who have sinned against us. But we are also eager for the real restoration in that person, which means that we are eager for their confession. We are eager for their repentance, which means actually turning from the sin. Not just saying I, it's not like I declare repentance, you know, and then you're, oh, you're repentant. No, repentant. is turning from the sin. It means you really are turning and going a different direction. You are not repentant, in other words, if you continue in the sin. That's the, it's in the definition of the thing. And restoration and reconciliation doesn't happen across sin biblically without repentance. It is impossible. This is how the very gospel works. We're not restored to Christ while continuing in our idolatry. God in His forgiving of us frees us from idolatry. We've granted repentance even is the language that Paul uses. And then we stop walking towards sin and death. We start walking towards Christ. We're not being saved by our works, but we are given a new heart. There actually is repentance and faith that is at the heart of the gospel. So when we're talking about interpersonal relationships and reconciliation is basically just the coming together across sin, it requires forgiveness, but it requires more than that. It also requires repentance.

talking about interpersonal relationships and reconciliation is basically just the coming together across sin, it requires forgiveness, but it requires more than that. It also requires repentance. So we're being general about this. I'm not giving specifics of like, what's the level of violence? What's the level of the crime that's being committed? Because in a sense, that's kind of irrelevant to the principles we're talking about. But we'll just note that obviously there's going to be a range of the seriousness of what was done and so what it's going to look like to repent. There's obviously, we know, we all know, there's a difference between a man who regularly does violence to his family in a drunken rage. you know, every Friday night for 30 years. And a man who has, you know, a first instance of, you know, loss of temper and raises his voice. Both are sin. There's a different level. So there's going to be pastoral wisdom required in how we would want to walk through reconciliation and repentance. How quickly, or if at all, these parties should be brought back together into the home to live, you know, to live together as a husband and wife. There's going to be lots of layers to this that we're not going to be able to get into today. But what we would say is participate in that first stage of bringing it into the light, even if it requires civil prosecution of a crime has been committed. Bring it into the light. Let's deal with it. Let's call the abuser to repentance

to be aiming at the restoration of this man who's committed this sinful crime, but it's going to take wisdom, and it's not necessarily going to be a one-size-fits-all thing. So for the person being abused, the victim, that's what we would encourage. If you are the aggressor in this situation, if you are the one who has committed that, then we would urge you to immediately confess your sin to, you know, to the appropriate parties, which in includes the person you sin against, the church, and if necessary, submit to whatever disciplinary measures need to happen, and know that trust has been lost and that that will take a long time to rebuild, and that you don't have, you don't get to demand. People have sinned against another person don't get to immediately demand full restoration of the benefits of the relationship. That will take time. But obviously we're Christians, and so we do deal with this in a different, we deal with this in a way that actually does. have a gospel that is powerful enough to bring even the most wicked of criminals to repentance and restoration of fellowship. So it's not impossible for marriage is obviously to be restored on the other side of all manner of sin against each other. But we don't want to fall into the ditch of pretending in thinking that we're being more spiritual or pious by pretending like we can heal the wound lightly is the way the Bible talks about it. Or there's a difference between

of pretending in thinking that we're being more spiritual or pious by pretending like we can heal the wound lightly is the way the Bible talks about it. Or there's a difference between godly grief and worldly grief. We don't want worldly grief where there's crocodile tears for a minute and then no intention of repentance. We don't want to heal the wound lightly where we don't really deal with the sin in confession and repentance and restoration, moving just immediately from a false kind of forgiveness right into full fellowship without those things. We want to show the reality of the gospel's restoration by actually letting the gospel do its full work, which includes a fully orbed repentance, even under the supervision of elders. If you guys have any more questions about culture, theology, philosophy, worldview, or anything else, go to the refuge church app homepage, click the Q&A button and submit your questions. We'll talk to you next week.

We'll talk to you next week.