The Root of Abuse

One of the most common ways that a Christian is persecuted today is in the scenario of a Christian who is married to a non-Christian. Very often the unsaved spouse, the abuser, parades himself or herself as an eminent Christian, but is really only a Saul. And at the root of the abuse is a fear of Christ, as the abuser sees that the Spirit of Christ is in the victim, and a hatred for Christ and thus for the victim.

As I am contacted by abuse victims who are Christians — and usually it is the wife — I am learning this to be true. And it is something that the victims often have not yet realized. Here is the root cause of the abuse —

(John 15:25  ESV) But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

(1 John 3:10-13  ESV)  (10) By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.   (11) For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.  (12) We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.  (13) Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, you can be sure of this — no matter what an abuse victim does, no matter how much she alters her appearance or her behavior or her words in an attempt to appease her abuser, it will not work! He will not change. Why? Because nothing can change the fact that the victim is a Christian and he is not. And that is what is at the very root of the conflict. Learn this well, and be wise!

[May 6, 2024: This post was used to test editing and updating a post….WordPress was giving an error message referring to failing to load a Jetpack plugin. The plugin listed in the error message doesn’t appear to be applicable to our website, and the error message didn’t appear yesterday morning, May 5, 2024, Mountain Time in North America. Editors.]

[May 8, 2024: There wasn’t an error message this morning when editing the post….the error appears to have been fixed. Editors.}

[May 6, 2024: Editors’ notes:

—For some comments made prior to May 6, 2024 that quoted from the post, the text in the comment that was quoted from the post might no longer be an exact match.
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UPDATE Sept 2021: I have come to believe that Jeff Crippen does not practise what he preaches. He vilely persecuted an abuse victim and spiritually abused many other people in the Tillamook congregation. Go here to read the evidence. Jeff has not gone to the people that he spiritually and emotionally abused. He has not apologised to them, let alone asked for their forgiveness.