The month of October is a scary time of year with Halloween fast approaching. We prepare all month for a night of fright, a night of fun and fear. We dress up in the scary costumes of Ghosts and Goblins and pass out treats in exchange for not being tricked. But the month of October, unbeknownst to most people, is also Awareness of Domestic Violence Month. For victims of domestic violence, the fear never ends, and there is nothing fun about that. We have been beaten and battered for most or all of our adult lives, often emotionally and sexually abused, as well, and are intimidated by our partners to the point of hopelessness.
We often give out treats in order to avoid being tricked by our spouses. We walk through years of domestic violence on egg shells, trying to do everything we can to appease and avoid the inevitable abuses. But the abuses do come, followed by a few treats of roses, and cards saying “I love you” and “I’m sorry.” And the cycle continues. The treats we give to our abusers in this repetitive cycle of abuse are our self-image, our self-esteem, our self-worth, our time, our money, our love, and like the supreme sacrifice of Jesus, sometimes even our very lives.
We never know when to expect the tricks our abusers so devilishly play on us. And then we waste valuable energy attempting to mask our ugliness to hide the bruising evidence of those tricks of Satan in disguise. For we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with the very powers of Satan. We then plaster ourselves with makeup and sunglasses to hide the marks of the beasts on our faces. And so our fear never ends.
But there is hope in Jesus Christ, who took our punishment on the cross, and died for our sins. And as I was once told, Jesus did this, so I wouldn’t have to. This is not to say that the victims of domestic violence are at all at fault, but that Christ doesn’t want us to have to suffer as He has already done for us. We don’t have to live this way any more. We can be free from the oppression of our abusers and we can give ourselves and our children better lives.
I Corinthians chapter five gives us, as Christians, some insight as to what the Christian standpoint should be in these types of ungodly situations. Immorality within the Christian community clearly is to be judged by the Church and those immoral people should be separated from the Assembly of God’s people. This passage begins by speaking on sexual immorality but ends by including other behaviors such as abuse that are clearly a pattern of immoral behavior. It clearly tells us that we are not to keep company with those who call themselves Christian and yet continue in their patterns of immoral behaviors. If you are a Christian woman who is being abused by a supposedly Christian man, you have a biblical mandate to separate him from your presence. You can and must bring the facts of your abuse to your home church if you have one and ask for help in dealing with this matter and getting yourself and your children in a safer situation. If you don’t have a home church, seek help from other Christian organizations.
I Corinthians
5 And you’re prideful, instead of crying over this, so that the one who has done this might be taken away from among you. The truth is, being absent in body, but present in spirit, I have judged already, as though I were present, about those who have done this. In the Name of our Yeshua, the Christ, when you’re gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Yeshua, the Christ, let Satan have such as this for the ruin of the body, so that the spirit might be saved in the day of Christ Yeshua.
Your bragging isn’t good. Don’t you know that just a little yeast leavens the whole lump of dough? So put out the ones who remain in their worldly ways, so that you can become a new lump of dough, as if you’re unleavened. Even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us: So let’s keep the celebration, not with the leaven of our old ways, nor with the leaven of hatred and evil; but with the unleavened bread of honesty and truth.
I wrote to you before in a letter not to keep company with the immoral: Yet you can’t stay away from the immoral of this world totally, or with the selfish, or cheats, or with those who worship falsely, because then you would need to completely leave the world. But I’ve written to you not to keep company with anyone called a Christian, who is an immoral person, or is selfish, or worships other faiths, or is abusive, or a drunk, or a cheat; so don’t to keep company with these kinds of people. I’ve no business judging those that aren’t in the faith. I only judge those who are thought of as Christians. But those who aren’t in the faith God judges. So separate those evil people from among you.
