Response to Domestic Violence 2017

Anthony Gentle

Sermon • Submitted 6 years ago

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Domestic Violence is a huge problem in society. The book of Ephesians provides a beautiful picture of the church God created, and in it we can see some of the ways in which we can respond - namely, we are God's temple, our prayers are powerful, and our actions should be characterised by love

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A hidden problem

A few years back, I watched a little video that a group of people had put together whereby they conducted a little social experiment.

The experiment was conducted in a block of units where there where lots of neighbours really close to one another.

On the first night they waited until after 10pm, at which time they started playing music very loudly, and if I recall correctly they had their own drum kit which was played with a lot of enthusiasm. They had a number of cameras facing the various windows, and as you can imagine, the lights quickly came on, people became upset, and the cops were called.

Then on a different night, in the same location, they waited until after 10pm, at which time they created sounds of a violent domestic situation. This time, there were no cops called. In fact, the lights that were on in various windows were turned off.

Unfortunately, domestic violence is a problem that we have no idea how to deal with it, and therefore we like to ignore it.

The problem is, by ignoring the problem, we are in effect giving it power.

When we turn our face the other way, we are in effect saying that we’re not going to do anything, and what you do in your own privacy is your own business.

Well this morning, while I wish I could offer a perfect solution to completely fix the problem, unfortunately this side of Christ’s return that’s not going to happen, but what I do want to do is look at the book of Ephesians, because in this letter we see a picture of what the church is, the power it can have, and the way in which it should act. And so my aim is to give a biblical view of the church that can be in a position to help. As I said, it won’t go completely to fix the problem, but when we do church well, can go a long way in healing many of the hurts.

The problem

But before I turn to Ephesians, let’s look at the problem. I’m going to start with some stats, but the thing to remember with stats like these, is that they are extremely hard to be super accurate. That is because a large part of domestic abuse goes unreported.

But nevertheless, these stats have been pulled together and give an indication of the problem. For the sake of transparency, the stats I’m about to offer have been collated by a group known as Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, of which they have got information from the likes of the ABS and White Ribbon Australia.

These stats show that for women over the age of 15, 1 in 5 had experience sexual violence. 1 in 6 had experienced physical or sexual violence from a current or former partner. 1 in 4 had emotional abuse, 1 in 3 physical violence and 1 in 5 women over 18 have been stalked at some point in their lives.

They also show that 1 in 4 children have been exposed to domestic violence which is a recognised form of child abuse.

If we take an average over a 12 month period, it shows that 1 woman every week is killed as a result of intimate partner violence. I don’t know about you, but I find that stat highly alarming.

Actually it has also been shown that intimate partner violence is the leading contributor to death, disability and ill-health in Australian women aged 15 to 44.

Now it’s worth pointing out that domestic abuse can go both ways, that is, men can also be the victims of the violence and other forms of abuse from their female partners. And so it is worth clarifying that we stand against all forms of abuse regardless of who the perpetrator and victims are, but that being said, the stats show that by far and away, when it comes to domestic violence it is happening mostly with men as the abusers and females as the victims.

Types of abuse

Now before shine the light of the Bible onto this situation, it is also worth clarifying what exactly we are talking about when we talk about this sort of abuse.

Now, I should mention that by no means do I consider myself an expert on understanding this issue, but those that have studied this problem are a far greater depth have found seven main types of abuse and so I think is worth briefly going over these. I’m not going to go into much depth now, but I’ll use some slides that have been prepared by Baptist Care to help us through.

Spiritual abuse

First up they have shown one that we might not immediately think of, and that is spiritual abuse. As you can see from the description on the slide, this can include denying access to various religious type ceremonies.

It can include forcing them to go against their beliefs.

Or perhaps the one that unfortunately has been used with devastating effect, using religious teaching as an excuse for violence - something that I’ll address shortly as being completely wrong.

Emotional abuse

The second type is emotional abuse and again something that you might not immediately think about as a type of abuse.

Essentially this boils down to undermining the self-esteem of the other, generally done by blaming the victim for all the problems in the relationship.

Although this type of abuse might seem subtle, it can have devastating effects on the victim including withdrawing all interest and engagement in all activities.

Physical abuse

We next come to some of the types of abuse that we might naturally think about, the first being physical abuse. This involves various types of assault on the body such as hitting or the use of a weapon. But it can also involve other physical means such as locking the victim out of the house and depriving sleep.

Verbal abuse

We then come to verbal abuse, and don’t ever believe that sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. Verbal abuse can in fact have huge impacts. We’re talking here of the constant put downs and humiliations, both privately and publicly.

Sexual abuse

The fifth type that has been identified is sexual abuse. Now it should be noted here that just because you may be married, this does not mean you can do whatever you want to your partner in a sexual way. This type of sexual abuse essentially is any form of forced sex or sexual degradation. On the slide you can see a number of examples of how this can occur.

Sex is a gift from God, but unfortunately, like many of the good things God has given us, they can very easily be abused to cause pain and humiliation.

Economic abuse

The last two types of abuse are again perhaps not the most obvious type of abuse, but can have big impacts.

The first of these is economic abuse where the abuser takes full control over the finances and provides inadequate allowances to the victim.

Now in many relationships, one person, whether the man or the woman, takes most of the control over the finances, but this is done with mutual consent. This isn’t abuse. Rather when we talk about abuse in this way, we’re referring to the use of money as a means of unnecessary control over another.

Social abuse

And finally we come to social abuse. This is essentially the abuser isolating the other person from friends and family by various means. In effect, it comes down to imprisonment and can have profound effects on the victim.

Summary

I’ve decided to go through this list like this, because while we may readily identify physical and sexual abuse, some of the other types might be hard to see, but having an awareness of them can help us somewhat to better identify when abuse is occurring, either in our own lives or the lives of the people we are caring for.

How do we respond?

Well the huge question that we have to answer with all of this is how do we respond?

It is by no means a simple question.

I’m about to look at a Biblical response, but it is worth mentioning a few resources that are available for both the victims and the abusers. The numbers on the screen can be used for anyone in need, and remember that if it is an emergency to call 000.

If it’s really obviously a situation where someone is clearly being abused, then calling the police is the appropriate response, but quite often when you hear

If you haven’t got time to get these numbers down, don’t worry, because I can give them to you later.

But while it is great that we have services like this available, I don’t believe that it is acceptable for us as a church to then sit back and to think that we play no part in it.

This morning I’m going to argue that by considering the nature of the church as Paul shows us in his letter to the church at Ephesus we can see that the church can achieve so much more.

Now you may wonder why I’ve chosen the book of Ephesians for this task. After all, there is not a clear consensus on why Paul even wrote this letter, certainly, I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that he is directly addressing any such issue of domestic violence. However the reason I chose it is because Paul goes to some lengths to help Christians find their identity in Christ and where they belong in the bigger scheme of things. And I’m going to argue that it is in this bigger scheme of things that we can learn a thing or two about how we can respond to the domestic violence issue.

Finding our identity

Well the first thing we learn from Ephesians is how God has called us to himself. If you read the first chapter you get some just amazing verses that speak of our identity in Christ.

Verse 4 - “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world...”

Verse 5 - “In love, he predestined us for adoption...”

Verse 11 - “In him we were chosen...”

And I could go on.

But while we could focus on how God has chosen us and moulded us into his image, giving us a plan for the works planned in advance for us to do, instead I want to jump down to the end of chapter 2 because it is here that we start to see a bigger picture for what God has planned for us.

The temple

You see, towards the end of chapter 2, instead of just talking about our individual identity, Paul starts talking about our corporate identity.

In verse 19 he starts by calling us members of God’s household, but in the next few verses this imagery is expanded upon.

You see, this is no ordinary house, but instead it is a house built on very special foundations - in fact it is the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as the chief cornerstone.

And on to this firm foundation is us, the ones called by God, and the house we form is no ordinary house, but instead a holy temple (see verse 21).

Now there is a lot to this imagery which I’m only going to touch on, but my aim is to show that if we are to be God’s temple then this should have serious implications for how we think about the problem I just introduced.

Function of the temple

You see, perhaps the main function of the temple is that it is the place in which others can interact with God. In Old Testament times, there was a barrier between humanity and God, and the temple was a significant part of how this barrier was crossed - but since the work of Jesus on the cross and the temple curtain torn in two, the nature of the temple has changed - we are that temple!

This means that as people called and chosen in God, we need to be the place where the people of the world can come and find God. A God whose heart pours out to the oppressed and downtrodden. His heart breaks for those who are being abused.

On being the temple

As God’s temple on this world, we cannot turn a blind eye to the abuse. We need to have an open place where people feel comfortable to come and seek help.

The problem is, for too long the church, (the place that should be full of God’s chosen people) has instead been a safe haven for the abuser. Misunderstanding scripture has meant that when a husband abuses his wife, this has been seen as just part of the submission that should take place. But God’s temple is not a place in which abuse can be tolerated.

What this looks like in practice is not easy to see. Whether we start any specific programs or put in place practices that make us a safe haven is things we could discuss. At a minimum however, it needs to be clear that there is no place for this sort of behaviour here. While this may be a place in which an abuser can seek repentance, it can never be a place where their behaviour is condoned.

A prayer

If I come back to this idea of a temple being the connection point between the people and God, then for us (as God’s chosen people) being the temple, we need to bring the matter before God in prayer.

Prayer is our life blood. It is our means of communicating with God, and we should never underestimate his power.

We do need to be careful not to think that prayers are in someway an excuse to not do any action. Unfortunately this can be the case, where we can be very much at the ready to offer prayers, but never to do anything to help.

But at the same time, we need to be very careful not to underestimate the power of prayer.

As I continue our brief journey through Ephesians we can see an example of Paul using prayer.

Now, it’s worth recalling that this letter to the Ephesians is not specifically addressing the issue of domestic violence, yet it can be helpful for us to look at now.

If we look at , we see the freedom and confidence that we can come to God, with Paul specifically mentioning his sufferings.

And from verse 16 we start to see what he is praying for.

He prays that our of God’s glorious riches, you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being. He then prays that you may begin to grasp the powerful love of God.

Even when we have no idea how to help someone in need, we can always pray for them. Certainly when it comes to someone facing domestic abuse, our prayer needs to focus on their safety - yet as we see in Paul’s prayer, we also need to pray that they can start to feel secure in the love that God provides.

Our own actions

As we come to chapter 4 of Ephesians, Paul’s attention turns to how we should live in light of the truths that he has shown in the first three chapters.

In the first verse he says: “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received”.

Now there are a lot of wonderful things that he says, but for my purposes I want to use these last few chapters to show that how contrary to all of scripture an abusive life is. The sad thing is that within these chapters we will find some verses in which people have used to justify domestic violence.

But before we get to those verses we, the attitude we should have is expressed for us in verse 2 of chapter 4. Here Paul tells us to “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love”.

Now just imagine: if everyone followed this advice then there certainly wouldn’t be any domestic abuse of any kind.

Unfortunately we are actually not that good at following the advice. But Paul continues the advice later in the chapter. Telling us in verse 26 that in our anger do not sin. In verse 29 to not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. And then in verse 31, it’s almost as if he’s addressing domestic violence directly saying: “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”

The truth is, as Christians, it shouldn’t just be about not engaging in ongoing abusive behaviour, rather our bar should be set much higher. We should not even give the devil a single foothold ever.

When we move into chapter 5, Paul now starts to address the domestic relationships directly, and this is where I mentioned before we get a lot of misinterpretation.

What I mean is people take verse 22 which says: “Wives, submit yourself to your own husband as you do to the Lord” and make it mean that the wife should do whatever the husband wants.

Now whatever you understand of male headship, under no circumstance can it ever mean that a husband can be abusive of their wife. We can know this because Paul states it very clearly in verse 25 when he says: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”.

In other words, if we are to use Christ as the example, we should see how the husband should be sacrificial of himself in the way he treats his wife.

It should be straight forward that abuse can never be justified by the teaching of the Bible, but unfortunately this has not been the case in the past.

Repentance

And so as we reflect on the behaviour that should be befitting of a Christian, we recognise that we have a need to repent.

Now I think that I repentance should come in a few forms.

Firstly there is personal repentance. Now, I suspect for many here, you are not guilty of a pattern of ongoing abusive behaviour, however I suspect all of us our guilty of at times getting angry and not treating our partner as we should. Whatever the level of our behaviour, we need to repent so that we don’t allow the devil to get a foothold in our lives.

But there is also a level at which we need to repent corporately. We have been part of a system that has for too long turned a blind eye to this sort of behaviour. There is an epidemic out there, often closer to home than we like to admit, and for this we need to repent for our lack of action.

Conclusion

We could explore this issue in a lot more depth, but my aim today is to try and use the book of Ephesians as a way to frame our thinking about it.

I’ve tried to show how it uses the imagery of us, God’s chosen people being a holy temple that should connect people with God. As a holy temple we should be able to provide a place of solace to those who are hurting.

We seen how it provides an example of how to pray - showing both the power of the prayer and the comfort that Christ can give through our prayers.

And we’ve seen a model for our own behaviour, one where all forms of abuse should be completely absent.

This is a real problem in our society. I wish I could say that it was absent from the church, but unfortunately there is too much evidence to say that it isn’t.

We need to do better. We need to live our lives worthy of the calling we have received, which is to be completely above reproach in this area. And we need to think about how we can be the holy temple that God has made us to be and provide the support that others so desperately need.