Summer Book Review, "To Heal or To Harm"

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Transcript

Ann Maree: Hello, and welcome to the Safe to Hope podcast. Safe to Hope: Hope Renewed in Light of Eternity exists to offer women space to tell their stories of suffering and loss with care, dignity, and honesty. Though all suffering is loss, we ground that belief in a God who cares and remains present. This is our hope. My name is Ann Maree, and I am the Executive Director of Help[H]er and the host of this week's podcast. This podcast is made possible by donors who believe faithfulness means protecting the dignity of women's stories and creating a space for truth-telling without pressure or performance. Together, we listen for God's redemptive thread and look for ways to join Him in His transforming work. Before we begin, we want to take a moment and care for our listeners. The Safe to Hope podcast typically includes discussions of abuse, and this season will as well. In particular, we'll be talking about spiritual abuse. However, our conversations may include other forms of abuse. Please listen at your own pace and take breaks as needed. If at any point you need to pause or step away, that's okay. Your well-being matters.

Ann Maree: So today I am interviewing Dr. Steven Tracy, who is the president and international director for Mending the Soul. He’s also a retired professor of theology and ethics at Phoenix Seminary, where he taught from 1995 to 2025—30 years?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, 30 years.

Ann Maree: Okay, so just recently retiring.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, yeah.

Ann Maree: He’s also served as a pastor for 15 years. Steve’s research and writing are focused on biblical ethics, sexuality, and abuse, and he received a BA from Arizona State, his MDiv and ThM from Western Seminary, and his PhD in Biblical Studies from the University of Sheffield in England, with his research focused on Pauline ethics. You are an underachiever, aren’t you?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. Love to learn and study.

Ann Maree: Apparently. Um, in addition to his domestic work, Steve, along with his wife, Celestia, spends four to eight weeks a year in East Africa coordinating and supervising international trauma training teams. Steve is the author of numerous books, chapters, and journal articles, and because we’re talking to him today about this one in particular, he is the author of the newly released To Heal or Harm: Scripture’s Use as Poison or Medicine for Abuse Survivors.

And so, again, we’re going to be talking about that more today. Steve, I’d love for you to just share a little bit more about yourself—something else that you might add to your achievements, or maybe how did you come to the Lord, or how did you get involved in this work? Anything you want to talk about.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Ann Maree, that’s really an open field. I mean, my credentials are: I love Jesus, and He’s changed my life. Honestly, my academic credentials are simply tools to steward before God. I feel so incredibly blessed that God’s called Celestia and me into a lifetime of focus on abuse and healing, which sounds weird, because it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to focus on the ugliest, most painful parts of the universe.”

Our own family has been deeply wounded by abuse, as so many others have. God chose this field, and while it’s a painful one, there’s nothing we’d rather do. We get to see the miraculous. We get to see beauty from ashes, life from death. And all the things I had studied for years and believed in my head—through our over three decades now of work with trauma survivors in some of the hardest contexts on the planet, particularly in the Congo, as well as our work with Native Americans—has taken what was, in many ways, head knowledge.

I really believed it, but it’s taken it to a whole new depth as I’ve experienced and seen what God can do in some of the worst imaginable cases of abuse and evil and damage. So grateful we get to do this.

Ann Maree: It is kind of an odd thing to say, though, too, isn’t it? And I hear, and believe, too, what you’re saying—just living in this darkness, living in this dark world, it makes the light so much more prominent.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Absolutely.

Ann Maree: Yeah. And a privilege.

Dr. Steven Tracy: It’s a privilege. Tremendous privilege.

Ann Maree: And when I read the title of the book, too, you actually address this book in particular to abuse survivors. So tell me a little bit more about the history. Where did this book come from?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. In many ways, this book is a culmination of a couple decades of work in the field. Both academically—I pull from most of the things I’ve written, particularly journal articles on abuse—but also a couple decades working with survivors, and hearing their stories, and hearing how Scripture had been weaponized against them over and over and over and over.

Celestia spent 20 years as a trauma clinician, a Christian counselor, largely focused on assisting abuse survivors, most of whom were believers. And the stories she came home with—again, the way Scripture was misused—it actually led to several of the journal articles I ended up writing, because she’d say, “Steve, you’ve got to write something on Ephesians 5.”

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm. Wives submitting and everything.

Dr. Steven Tracy: “Steve, you need to write something on X, Y, Z.” So the book came out of many, many years of working with survivors and tragically seeing how Scripture, which should be God’s love letter to us and should be a source of life and hope and healing, can be twisted in ways—sometimes deliberately, often not maliciously—but the effect can be terrible even though that’s not the intent.

But seeing that happen, I really wanted to write a book particularly for survivors to help them understand the nature of Scripture and particular passages that are often misused, and to better understand the heart of God for abuse, for healing—

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: —for those who’ve been taken advantage of.

Ann Maree: I think you’re just answering my next question, which is: What is so urgent about this book that the audience that reads it needs to hear?

Dr. Steven Tracy: I’ll put it this way: Satan knows Scripture better than any of us ever will, at least in this life, and that’s a scary thought. You know, in Matthew 4, when Satan tempted Christ, he twice quoted Scripture. So we have an enemy who absolutely delights in—I mean, he is the master deceiver—and he delights in taking the best and twisting it so it becomes, in fact, something that is very destructive.

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Satan never quits. He works 24/7. So that alone should really sober us to the potential to be misled. Sometimes we read Scripture and misread it in ways that cause us to condemn ourselves at a level God is not. But then sometimes others, often well-meaning, misuse Scripture and apply it to us in ways that are really harmful.

We’ve all had this happen, virtually all of us. And some have had it happen in ways that have been profoundly damaging, and then it makes us extremely reluctant to trust God, to come to Scripture and hear the liberating message that’s there. And sometimes we’re not even fully cognizant of that.

We wouldn’t want to say out loud, “I don’t trust God. I don’t trust His Word.” But if we’ve had Scripture weaponized against us, inside there may be a real ambivalent response that we have a hard time even admitting—

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: —because of our negative experiences with Scripture. So that creates an urgency to clarify what Scripture does and doesn’t actually say.

Ann Maree: Oh, that’s amazing. Yep. I wasn’t—I didn’t know if you were going to be able to say more than you already did, but you said something very profound.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah.

Ann Maree: Satan knows Scripture better than even we do. Wow. Yeah, I’m reading another book at the same time I’m reading yours, and they’re similar themes, and I’m getting more and more angry about the way Scripture’s been twisted.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm-hmm.

Ann Maree: And, of course, it’s going to be Satan behind the twisting, because I think when you were talking, I was thinking, “Oh, that sounds like gaslighting.” Like Satan is gaslighting us—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah.

Ann Maree: —to think different thoughts about who God is and then, of course, not trust Him and His Word.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Right.

Ann Maree: The master plan, right?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. It goes back to the Garden of Eden with the first temptation.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: You know, “Did God really say?”

Ann Maree: Jesus.

Dr. Steven Tracy: And there’s a progression there from just questioning to direct refutation.

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: “No, no, you won’t die if you eat the fruit.” But it was very clever because, in one sense, they didn’t die that day. I mean, they didn’t keel over. And that’s what we need to be aware of. Satan is cunning. So he says things that are plausible, that at one level are true, but at another level they aren’t true, and hence they’re not true.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: And, you know, if it’s just a bald-faced lie with no nuance, it would be much easier to recognize for what it is. We need to understand Scripture properly. But I wanted in this book to empower laypeople so that it’s not just, “Well, you have to go to the experts. Well, if you haven’t been to seminary, then you couldn’t know anything about Scripture.” That’s what I wanted to cut at the root.

Ann Maree: All right. Well, so let’s turn to the content of the book. In it, you start with a story—Cheryl.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yes.

Ann Maree: And it’s, you say, the woman whose story inspired you. She had suffered much from her spiritual brothers, and potentially sisters as well, because of the distortions of biblical truth. In fact, you mention it was her respect for God’s Word and truth that actually made her more vulnerable to this distortion.

And I think I know a lot of women who can relate, myself included. But can you share more about what you mean? Because I want to emphasize this isn’t victim blaming or victim shaming. So help us understand what you mean by being more vulnerable.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. I really appreciate Cheryl writing that preface. Powerful, powerful story of just wanting to honor God, and growing up in a fundamentalistic church that really twisted Scripture, and then getting married young to a man who was horrifically abusive.

Ann Maree: Without going into details, I can testify to that.

Dr. Steven Tracy: And he had multiple degrees from seminary, so he had, you know, lots of knowledge of Scripture and pounded her with that. She just wanted to honor God. So when her ecclesiastical authority, or her husband, whom she believed was her spiritual authority, said, “This is what you have to do,” she just felt that’s what she had to do, even though in both instances they were horribly misconstruing Scripture. But because she so wanted to honor God and be obedient, it put her in a tremendous bind.

Her head said, “This doesn’t seem right,” much of the time. But again, she wanted to honor God, and those spiritually authoritative voices were dumping Scripture on her head. So if she hadn’t cared so much about honoring God, then she wouldn’t have submitted to behaviors that were horrifically destructive.

And she wasn’t given a model for understanding that, in fact, what she was being asked to submit to wasn’t biblical, and she could honor God and not do that.

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: She didn’t understand that. So it was just her—I think it would be fair to say—naive obedience. This wasn’t informed. A beautiful heart posture, but not having a knowledge of Scripture made her very vulnerable.

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Because she just wanted to honor God. And Celestia and I have encountered countless men and women over the years who similarly were so vulnerable to abuse by powerful voices, abusive voices who misquoted Scripture.

Ann Maree: Mm. It’s a conditioning of sorts. It’s a grooming, right, almost?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Very. Yeah. Very, very, very often.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, with sexual abusers and certainly with domestic abusers.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Absolutely, and spiritual abusers, for that matter. We see these patterns with abusive church leaders. Grooming essentially refers to the variety of systematic means by which an abuser breaks down the boundaries of his or her intended victim.

Dr. Steven Tracy: It often involves some other things as well, like isolating them from their support network, et cetera, but it especially involves getting power over them—

Dr. Steven Tracy: —through manipulation, fear—

Dr. Steven Tracy: —a variety of techniques to do that. I argue in my very first book, Mending the Soul: Understanding and Healing Abuse, that Satan absolutely loves to take the best of who we are and use it as a source of attack.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Our God-given gifts, our gender. Sometimes it’s our sense of naive innocence, and this is an example of that. Abusers are like sharks who smell blood in the water.

Ann Maree: Oh, wow.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. And when they see someone who’s naive or, you know, just really wants to please—which is, in and of itself, a wonderful quality—they see the vulnerability in that and go after that.

Dr. Steven Tracy: So I really would want our listeners who maybe have experienced a sense of shame for having been victimized to reconsider when they ask that question, “Why me?” It’s not that something was defective in you that evil was perpetrated against you. It’s that evildoers are cunning.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Plain and simple. Yes, we are responsible for our behaviors. So, say a young woman who—I think of the college setting. Roughly 50 percent of sexual assaults that happen on campus involve excessive drinking. It’s a huge factor in college rape. Should we drink excessively at any age? No, it’s wrong. However, if a woman has been drinking too much, she doesn’t deserve to be raped. Separate those out.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: There’s nothing that a man or a woman can do that justifies being abused.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Period. Period.

Ann Maree: No, I mean, in fact, if she’s had too much to drink, she’s more vulnerable. Take care of her. I mean—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Exactly. Exactly.

Ann Maree: Get her home. Keep her safe.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Right. Protect her.

Ann Maree: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that’s a good word—separate those two things.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Completely.

Ann Maree: Yeah. So when I put together these questions to ask you, I just went through the book and I just went through the chapters and kind of pulled out things that I thought our audience—I mean, I think they should read the book and read the whole thing carefully—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah.

Ann Maree: —with a ruler, underlining much. But I thought, let’s pull out some of these topics that are kind of like hot-button topics right now—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Sure.

Ann Maree: —that we could just give a little bit more attention to.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm-hmm.

Ann Maree: So you talked about the role and power of Scripture, and how Scripture is God speaking to us. And I love to just imagine that, when I’m sitting there with my Bible open or my phone app on, that it is a conversation. And yet there is a nature and an intent to Scripture. So talk about that with me just a little bit, and then I have some questions about some of the subtopics that you talked about in that chapter.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. Big, big topic. I had the privilege for years of teaching a whole course on Scripture, as well as the nature of God, et cetera. It’s a huge topic, but let me just kind of narrow it and think of the longest chapter in the Bible—176 verses—Psalm 119. There are roughly 10 different Hebrew words that are used to describe Scripture. In English: God’s commands, God’s precepts, God’s instructions, et cetera.

And we can easily, you know, when we hear those words—commands—

Ann Maree: Yeah.

Dr. Steven Tracy: —rules—we tend to think just intuitively that’s negative, because it’s going to limit my options.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: That almost sounds harsh. But it’s fascinating to me, and instructive, that in Psalm 119, the author is championing the beauty of Scripture. “I long to keep Your precepts. They give me life.” And I actually have gone through and tried to catalog the blessings that are listed from Scripture, and it’s hard to even do because there are so many listed there: that it’s more precious than jewels, it’s sweeter than honey. You know, there are all these blessings that come from Scripture.

So where we tend to think of Scripture as binding and limiting our options, and hence not in our best interest because it’s someone telling us what to do, Scripture itself says, “No, this is given to give”—Scripture is given to give us life and hope and light and freedom and blessing, to have an abundant life.

So, big picture, Scripture is given for our well-being. God, the Author and Creator, knows how our lives will best experience blessing, and that’s why He gave us Scripture. And I describe Scripture in this book as God’s love letter to us. I really, truly, truly believe that.

When Celestia and I were in college, I went to Moody Bible Institute, and two of the three years that I was there, she was away in Arizona. And especially my senior year—oh my goodness—right before we got engaged, I was heartsick for her. And this is pre-cell phones, obviously, pre-internet. So we literally, every single day, wrote letters to each other, and I couldn’t wait to get that letter in my mailbox. This is my beloved’s voice.

That’s how I want our readers to think of Scripture, and often we don’t. But God, who loves us more than we can imagine, has authored a book through numerous human authors to speak to us of His love and restoration, and Satan never wants any of us to think of Scripture that way. But it’s His love letter.

Ann Maree: And I would testify that in your book, I can sense that’s what you feel about what Scripture is.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Great.

Ann Maree: And even just when you’re talking now about the Psalms, I can watch it in your demeanor and in your face—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah.

Ann Maree: —and in your expressions. I believe it. You love—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. Yeah.

Ann Maree: You love that love letter.

Dr. Steven Tracy: I love this love letter.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm. But this love letter has some hard passages and some confusing passages.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Scripture itself says that.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: You know, Peter says that at the end of 2 Peter about Paul, that he writes some things that are hard to understand, which unstable men twist to their own destruction.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: So Scripture itself acknowledges that this is not a simple book. Yes, there’s a plain message, but there’s also some complexity here, and that has to be accounted for.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we’re going to get to that question, too, about the plainness of the Word. But before we go there, also talk a little bit about—it’s a love letter, but it has an authority.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm-hmm.

Ann Maree: And I would love to hear from you: What does that mean? What does it mean that it has authority? We can slap “biblical” in front of anything.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Sure.

Ann Maree: It doesn’t make it biblical. What is it?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. Several times in the book I say that just because something is in Scripture doesn’t make it biblical, and I intentionally want readers to be jolted and say, “Well, how can that be? If it’s in the Bible, it’s biblical.”

No, no. Let’s nuance that. Let’s not be simplistic in our thinking here. Scripture records lies. Roughly two-thirds of Scripture is historical narrative, particularly in the Old Testament, and there are a lot of, I believe, accurately recorded historic events that aren’t necessarily an example to follow.

Ann Maree: Mm-mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: I mean, surely we’d all agree to that if we just think about it a little bit. So just because it’s in Scripture doesn’t necessarily mean it’s biblical in the sense that this is something I should be following or obeying. And that’s where we get into a little of the complexity of Scripture.

But ultimately, because this is a word from—Scripture itself says that God is the author, and kind of the pivotal text is 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness, that the man or woman of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

And the Greek word that’s used there literally is “breathed out,” that God guided the human authors so that what they wrote were the words of God.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: And because they’re the words of God, it is authoritative. God’s Word stands supreme over other voices.

Ann Maree: Yeah.

Dr. Steven Tracy: But we have to be interpreting it correctly, or we can end up making God say something that God was never saying. A little over 150 years ago, the vast majority of Christians, at least in the Southern United States, said, “Well, it’s perfectly moral to own a Black person because right here in Ephesians and Colossians it says, ‘Slaves, obey your masters.’ So slavery’s biblical.” Hence my point: Not everything that’s in the Bible is biblical.

We have to use proper interpretive principles to arrive at an ethic on any given subject. But the problem is not that Scripture is authoritative; it’s essential that we interpret it properly so that, again, we don’t construe God as commanding something that, in fact, He’s not commanding.

Ann Maree: Yeah. So you’re saying the Word is authoritative, not the translator or the interpreter.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Absolutely.

Ann Maree: Okay.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yes. We’re highly flawed. All of us.

Ann Maree: You think?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, including your pastor, including your seminary teacher, whoever. We’re fallen.

Ann Maree: Mm. Yeah. But I think what goes hand in hand with this is you say that it’s not like any other book. So tell me more about that. What do you mean by that?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. There are all kinds of—and I read broadly, and I love military history, I love fiction, legal thrillers, sports adventures—and I can learn from each of them, and they teach me different things. But Scripture is authoritative in a way that other things I read aren’t.

It has—because, again, God guided the human authors. At least that’s what Scripture itself says. God guided the authors so that what they wrote were the very words of God in human voices. So that’s unlike other things that may inspire me, but they’re a mixture of, you know, there are some great things here, but they also reflect human fallibility.

Scripture stands unique, and Scripture has a unique power. And I think this is one of the biggest evidences of the supernatural character of Scripture: There’s a life-changing, inherent power to Scripture. Scripture can and does change lives in ways that other books don’t. And I could take from now until Sunday to share testimonies.

Again, we work in some of the most grotesque contexts imaginable around the world, and we certainly hear some really hard things here in the United States. I don’t want to minimize any of our listeners’ stories. It’s not just around the world. The bulk of our work now is around the world.

And just last Friday night, I had the joy of training 170 Spanish-speaking leaders from 12 or 13 different countries, including many here from the United States, and heard one of the most painful testimonies I’ve ever heard. I won’t go into the litany, but just think: How can one human being, from basically birth until age 40, endure what she endured—every imaginable kind of abuse over decades?

But then to hear what Jesus has done, and how principles from Scripture have changed a person who has tried to commit suicide and had an abortion because she couldn’t even face the possibility of a family, and just to have had man after man and spiritual leaders and—I mean, you just—

Incomprehensible how much she suffered. But then, decades later, how Scripture had literally transformed her life. And she has hope, and she’s in healthy relationships. She articulated it so well. There’s no human explanation for that.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: But God’s Word has inherent power to bring life in ways that other religious books don’t.

Ann Maree: Mm. I think the evidence is in the changed lives—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm-hmm.

Ann Maree: —from Scripture.

Dr. Steven Tracy: In our ministry, Mending the Soul, we just get to see this over and over and over again. This testimony, while it was really profound, we get to hear this all the time: Native Americans, people in suburban United States, refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, et cetera, et cetera.

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: All coming to Scripture, hearing God’s love letter, and being transformed.

Ann Maree: Succinct. And that’s the word: transformative.

Dr. Steven Tracy: It is.

Ann Maree: What does it say about abuse?

Dr. Steven Tracy: That, in one sense, is a loaded question. You know, I had the great privilege and responsibility of three years of Bible college, five years of seminary, two different degrees, five years of a PhD. Add those up—that’s a lot of education. I did not, in all those years, get five minutes of teaching from Scripture on abuse.

So you would naturally think Scripture must not have much to say about abuse, because you do the formal academic training—and I’m not condemning the institutions I went to. They should have taught us on abuse, but they were good in a lot of ways. But that was a colossal, glaring failure, omission.

And that’s being corrected now in many, many contexts. But the point is, historically, we’ve, as academics and pastors, not tended to have any recognition that Scripture addresses abuse from Genesis to Revelation. So I’ll just say: Scripture addresses abuse from Genesis to Revelation.

There are literally—and once you get a lens for this, and this was the epiphany that happened to me—my goodness, at that point I had a seminary degree, and I’d really studied Scripture pretty extensively. But once you start to see abuse for what it is, then you start to realize, “No, wait a minute. This is all over the place.”

A simple example, Ann Maree: I’ve been on search committees multiple times, you know, looking for a pastor. I’ve applied as a pastor. I pastored for 15 years. I’ve seen those applications. Never once have I seen a pastoral application—and they all list qualifications, right?—never have I seen one that says, “One qualification to be a pastor of this community church is that you’re not abusive.”

That almost sounds funny, right? Except it’s not so funny when you think about the fact that in 1 Timothy 3, Paul expressly lists “not abusive” as a qualification for an elder. So where’s the disconnect? And that’s one of hundreds of examples I could give. There’s this massive disconnect from our perceptions to the reality.

We could go chronologically. The creation account is Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 3 records the fall into sin. The first chapter after the fall into sin, Genesis 4, recounts two kinds of abuse. There’s fatal domestic violence—brother kills brother. And then later in that same chapter, you have the first instance of domestic violence in a marriage, marital domestic violence, with the use of threat. Lamech threatens—he’s the first polygamist as well—threatens his two wives.

Two chapters later, we’re only six chapters into the Bible here, Genesis 6, abuse is so widespread that God sends a flood to destroy the human race except for Noah and his family. And we’re just six chapters in. And we could just continue.

Over and over in the major and minor prophets, abuse is addressed extensively, and it is the stated cause for the judgment of God. It’s a stated cause for the Babylonian captivity. You look at the Messianic passages in Isaiah of the coming Messiah, and over and over they’re tied to mercy and justice in a context of pain and brokenness. And we could just go on and on. It’s woven throughout Scripture: physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse—

Ann Maree: Clergy abuse.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Clergy abuse, absolutely. Jesus’ harshest, by far, words were directed at the Pharisees, His spiritual authorities, in Matthew 23. Matthew 23 is an exposé on spiritual abuse, but we don’t tend to think of it that way. But, you know, if you just go there with that thought, you can draw no other conclusion.

So, yeah, I could wax on and on, but I’ll leave it with that. There is so much Scripture has to say about abuse. And once you start looking for it—not reading in what’s not there, but just seeing what’s there—it’s amazing. I mean, the majority of the Psalms are in a context of some kind of abuse. Verbal abuse is spread throughout the Book of Proverbs, and quite a few instances of physical abuse as well.

So, yeah, once you start to ask the question, “Does Scripture address abuse?” and then you come to God’s Word with that question, you will be amazed how much is there to guide us, to give us light and hope.

It’s not all the negative, but there’s so much in Scripture about God’s commitment to redeem and heal and restore, His passion to protect the vulnerable and the marginalized and the oppressed. It’s just woven throughout the pages.

Ann Maree: I have been asked often by pastors—or not asked; it’s been stated—that abuse isn’t in the Bible. And I don’t usually say anything. I just think to myself, “Are we reading the same book?”

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, no.

Ann Maree: Because I understand perhaps the word’s not there, but neither is the word “Trinity,” right? And so—

Dr. Steven Tracy: That would be my immediate response. I’m with you. Yeah. Yeah. And depending on your translation, in some translations it is there.

Ann Maree: Yeah, yes.

Dr. Steven Tracy: But, yeah, honestly, that’s an ignorant statement, and that’s a phenomenally distortive, hurtful statement.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: That really is pretty much blaspheming the Word of God to say that. That’s almost like saying the love of God isn’t in Scripture.

Ann Maree: Oh, yeah. And my immediate thought, but also now my immediate feeling, is just severe pain for the women in that congregation.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Absolutely.

Ann Maree: If that’s how the Word is being interpreted. Again, I don’t mean to get super-spiritual, but isn’t that what the enemy would love, is for us not to see what the actual—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Right, right.

Ann Maree: —Scripture says? So, yeah. That’s really, really sad.

So let’s flip the coin and do something more positive with Scripture.

Dr. Steven Tracy: I’m ready.

Ann Maree: At the end of that—I guess it’s that chapter—you talk about your wife and some of the difficulties she’s had. And I’m so sorry to hear that she’s had chronic pain and multiple hospitalizations. But she has, you said, this way of making Scripture her anchor for some of those difficult times.

And I was going to ask you either to read it, but I can’t find the page right now. But maybe you can remember and just kind of tell me: What was that? What does Celestia do with Scripture that makes it that anchor for her during those times?

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. That was on—

Ann Maree: Your—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Page 23. Well, I related it to her surgeries. She’s had—we’ve completely lost track—dozens of major surgeries. She had two more this last year: a horribly shattered shoulder and had a—yeah, I won’t go into details—and then an arm break, and now she’s looking at some other facial stuff.

She has a connective tissue disorder that has led to tremendous vulnerability, and that’s led to a pain disorder. So she lives with horrific chronic pain, and just injury upon injury, and then her body doesn’t heal properly.

She embodies what Paul describes in 2 Corinthians with his thorn in the flesh, God’s response to Paul asking for God to remove that thorn in the flesh. And God said, in so many words, “No.”

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: “But I’m going to pour out My power in your weakness.” And that really embodies Celestia. But because she’s had dozens of surgeries, she asks God to give her an anchor passage for every surgery.

And as she describes it, she goes into the operating theater alone. You know, she has a husband and a family and friends who love her dearly, but it’s only she and Jesus in that operating room. That’s the reality of it.

So she asks the Lord to give her what she calls an anchor passage, and He always does, faithfully, and she memorizes that.

Ann Maree: Yeah.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Usually a short passage. She feeds on big chunks of Scripture, but just something that, you know, even in a hazy, hazy state, she can remember—that phrase. And she literally, as the anesthesiologist is knocking her out, has that anchor passage that she is meditating on, focused on, and that’s the last thing she remembers before going out.

And with many of these surgeries, she doesn’t know, and I don’t know, when she wakes up—and it was true last fall with her arm surgery—there was a very good likelihood that they would have to amputate at the shoulder. And then again this spring, that was a very significant likelihood. Thankfully, she still has two arms, but the day may come.

So she literally goes to sleep not knowing the outcome, but she is meditating on God’s promises. That’s her anchor. And then when she comes to, as soon as she can begin to think again, she’s thinking of that message to her that she had asked God to give from His Word, that anchor. And that has just been her lifeline.

And that really is how all of us should live. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Think of the cultural context. This isn’t an LED spotlight. This is written, you know, roughly 1,000 BC, so that light would have been a little oil lamp that would give enough light at night for basically one step. You know, maybe a yard out, it’s lighting up.

Step by step by step. What a helpful metaphor for Scripture. It’s a light to our path, but again, that’s not a spotlight that’s typically going to show us the path for the next year, 10 years, whatever. No, it’s day by day, step by step, sometimes moment by moment. We’re feeding on Scripture.

We’re letting Scripture direct our path, and it’s life-giving. And I want to, just in the strongest words I can, encourage our listeners that God sees your pain. He knows what you’ve been through. He delights in restoring, healing, redeeming, and He wants to use His Word to guide you in that process, step by step.

Ann Maree: This is why I tell you your book makes me cry. It’s just making the Word so beautiful and so practical.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm.

Ann Maree: I’m thinking to myself, why don’t we all go to sleep that way at night? We don’t need hospitalizations to be inspired.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve had none, and I typically will read a Psalm before bed. I’ll often read it out loud for Celestia and me together, and I love that being the last thing on my mind—

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: —as I conk out.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: I mean, we need God’s Word continually because the temptations are continual, the challenges are continual, the lies are continual—just the hard things in life. So we want to feed on God’s Word.

Ann Maree: Okay, let’s flip the switch back the other way again.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Okay.

Ann Maree: So I think you’ve used this word already, but in the harmful use of Scripture, you’ve used the word “weapon.”

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah.

Ann Maree: And I took a quote out from that section, and I’ve actually put this in our promos for when you’ve been on before, and I’ll probably use it again, but I’m just going to read this. It’s, quote: “I was shocked to discover how many diverse and often contradictory doctrines could be ‘proven’ by Scripture. I eventually discovered that the problem was not Scripture. God does not contradict Himself. Instead, the problem is that unless you have a solid template for interpreting Scripture, you can use the Bible to prove ‘anything.’”

And so we’re back to the interpreter again.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, yeah.

Ann Maree: Speak a little bit about that.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, you really can use the Bible to justify just about anything, but you can’t correctly use the Bible to justify anything. And so I give six principles in Scripture for sound—hermeneutics is the theological term, and hermeneutics basically refers to principles for interpreting Scripture properly.

And I identify six, and these aren’t unique to me. This is pretty standard understanding among Christian leaders who study theology. These are the principles that will help you interpret Scripture properly. Because I really wanted to take Scripture out of the sole domain of the experts, so to speak, and encourage and equip laypeople who maybe haven’t had the privilege or opportunity of going to seminary, which is very expensive and, you know, that’s not realistic for most of us, nor is it necessary for most of us.

I wanted to equip our laypeople, lay readers, to come to Scripture themselves—himself, herself—and have some confidence that this is what God says, that they can build and stand on their own convictions of Scripture’s teaching. It’s kind of ironic because I’m a teacher, and I wrote the book using my training to help people not be overly dependent on the experts. But I think you get the idea. I’m wanting to empower laypeople.

And it’s interesting that, in 1 John 2, apparently John had the same goal for his listeners because he says, “You don’t need anyone to teach you. You have an anointing,” and he’s clearly referring to the Holy Spirit. And that anointing teaches you.

It’s kind of ironic because John wrote a letter to teach them.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: So, of course, John’s not saying there is no role for teachers in the body of Christ. I mean, one of the gifts is teaching. One of the spiritual gifts that the Apostle Paul, in particular, mentions a couple times in his letters is teaching.

There’s a role for teaching, and John was recognizing that. But there’s also a sense in which we are not, as believers, completely dependent on others—the teachers—to tell us God’s truth. We can benefit from them, and should, but that’s not the end-all, be-all. Hopefully that’s making sense.

John was writing 1 John, most likely, in a context in which there were some false teachers, what we would now call an early form of Gnosticism. It didn’t really develop in full form until the second century, but this was probably an early form. “Gnostic” comes from the Greek word gnosis, knowledge.

And this heresy taught that there’s an elite class of spiritual leaders who have the special knowledge, and you have to go to them to get the special secret knowledge. Only they have it. They’re the elite spiritual few. That’s probably an early form of what John is battling.

And so, in a context where you have leaders who have the knowledge, and you have to just listen to them because only they really know the truth, John is saying, “No, that’s not how it works. You have a teacher, and He’s called the Holy Spirit.”

So, again, I wrote the book wanting our readers who know Jesus—and if they know Jesus, they have the Holy Spirit indwelling them—to have growing confidence that they can apply sound principles of biblical interpretation for themselves. Of course, there’s a role for teachers and reading more and Bible commentaries and tools.

Ann Maree: Absolutely. We want to be lifelong learners, right?

Dr. Steven Tracy: But we don’t want to put everything in the hands of the elite few. That’s not what God wants. That’s not what Scripture teaches, because sometimes those top-tier teachers are wrong. We’re all fallible, right?

I’ve often told my students, “Don’t believe this just because I’m telling you, or because the author of the textbook we’re using says it. Consider our arguments, and you go to God for yourself and see if what I’m teaching you truly accords with Scripture as you read it. You form your own convictions and stand on them, because you will not answer someday to me; you’ll answer to Jesus.”

And that’s for every believer, every believer. So hopefully the articulation of those six principles of sound interpretation will really assist the reader in doing just that.

Ann Maree: I might be putting you on the spot here. You can answer if you want. You don’t have to.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Wouldn’t be the first time.

Ann Maree: Okay. So we hear, at least coming out of my—I will say—previous culture, we hear “the plain reading of the Word” quite often, and there’s positive to that, but there’s also a negative to that.

Can you speak—because what you’re describing is what I hear when I hear Paul telling us to be good Bereans, to search the Word—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Right.

Ann Maree: —to be connected to God in such a way that the Holy Spirit is able to help us learn, and also recognizing that, you know, even coming out of the Reformation, the Word of God is easily discerned for what it’s meant to do.

But when we hear this “plain reading of the Word,” to me—and you can correct me if I’m wrong—I hear, “Anybody can pick up the Bible and read the words on the page and understand fully what God is saying without having to put in the effort,” or, you know, I don’t know. Yeah, speak to it. You’ll be more intelligent than me.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah. I think I know where you’re going with that. I actually don’t like that phrase, and I don’t use it: “plain literal reading of Scripture.” I don’t quite know what that means. For starters, Scripture’s full of poetry. You don’t read poetry in a literal way.

In the Psalms, David refers to beating his enemies into dust. Okay, using that guideline, apparently David beat them into dust-sized particles? And how did he do that? Like, that doesn’t even make sense.

Again, in the Psalms, we have descriptions of the trees clapping. I spend a lot of time in nature. I’ve never seen trees clap. In fact, I’ve never even seen a tree with hands to clap with. You get the absurdity.

What do you mean by “plain literal sense of Scripture”? I don’t think that’s helpful. I’m certainly not saying most, but some spiritual leaders use that phrase to basically shut down the discussion because what they think is the plain meaning of Scripture may not be what someone else thinks is the plain meaning of Scripture. But if you disagree with them, then you’re rejecting the obvious, plain teaching of Scripture.

So I just don’t like that language. I think we should just give some principles and then demonstrate how our interpretation of a given text, or texts plural, is built on sound hermeneutics.

And, again, I give six. The first two I’ll just state quickly. They’re all six important, but the first two, I would say, are pivotal.

The first principle is this: Interpret Scripture according to its context. If you rip a verse out of its context—and that’s the most common way Scripture is misused—it’s amazing what you can do with it. And that’s the immediate context and then the extended: the paragraph it’s in, the chapter it’s in, the book it’s in, other teaching by that same author, and then the whole of Scripture.

A simple example that could certainly lead to a much larger discussion: We often, often hear Ephesians 5:24 weaponized against women. Paul’s exact words are, “Wives are to be submissive in everything.” Well, okay, the plain literal meaning of Scripture is whatever the husband says she has to do—end of discussion.

This is one of the longest sections of the book, so I really unpack that. Just as it relates to context here, let’s notice two things. Number one, the paragraph for Paul’s teaching on marriage begins—and we know that, in the ancient Greek text, there were no verse divisions, let alone paragraph divisions, so you just have to look at the flow of the passage to discern that—but we know, based on the grammar, that this section begins in verse 21 because verse 22 assumes the verb from verse 21.

So clearly, this section on husband-wife relationships begins in verse 21, and what does verse 21 say? “Submitting one to another out of reverence for Christ.” So if we’re going to talk about wives submitting to husbands, we have to put that in the context, in the passage, of mutual submission in marriage.

Now, that’s a big topic, and I’m not—unless you want to probe it, I don’t feel like I need to say more now other than to point out: Take a verse in its context.

And we’d also see later in this same paragraph, or the same section on husband-wife relationships, where Paul talks about how a husband is to relate to his wife. He’s to sacrifice for her the way Christ sacrificed for His bride, the church.

So if you look at the whole context, you’re not going to read verse 24 and justify a husband being abusive in marriage. You’ve ripped that one phrase out of its context and now misconstrued what God is saying. That would be an example of that.

The second hermeneutical principle is: Let Scripture interpret Scripture. In other words—and this is one of the easiest ways to misconstrue Scripture—you take one verse, maybe two verses, and you make that the end-all, be-all for everything that God has said on the subject.

You know, God has said a lot in 66 books. A lot. And so it’s really important that we are students of God’s Word.

The example I give in the book is, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus condemns anger. Condemns it strongly. If you just take Jesus’ words in that one passage, then you could justify the pastors who tell abuse victims that you’re sinful when you’re angry at your abuser. I mean, potentially, and I bet you and I have both sadly seen that happen numerous times, right?

But if you compare Scripture with Scripture, you’ll move over—I think it’s Mark 3—and see that the same word that’s used there in Matthew, I think it’s Matthew 5, of not being angry, is applied to Jesus Himself when it says He was seeking to heal on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees—I think it was a man with a withered hand. He had some kind of handicap.

When they didn’t want Him to heal on the Sabbath, it says that Jesus looked at them with anger—orgizō or orgē, same word family. So if you’re going to build a theology of anger, look at multiple texts, and then you’ll nuance the teaching of Scripture.

There is a context in which anger is wrong. That’s what Jesus is addressing in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a self-serving kind of anger that deprecates other people. But there’s also an anger, apparently, that mirrors the heart of God. And interestingly enough, in those texts, very, very often the anger is toward abusive behavior.

Ann Maree: Hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: So there is a context in which anger is not only not sinful, but appropriate.

Ann Maree: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: But the only way you can build that understanding is to look at different passages of Scripture. Sometimes just doing an English word study can shed tremendous light on a given subject and help us avoid those simplistic errors that can be so hurtful.

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: I could give loads of examples of this, but I think our listeners have the basic idea. Don’t yourself—or let someone else—just throw one verse at you as if that’s all God has to say on the subject, because you may not be getting the full story.

Ann Maree: And actually, that’s probably a great litmus test, is to ask, “Is that all God said on that subject?”

Dr. Steven Tracy: Not a bad question.

Ann Maree: Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right, one more switch to flip, and that’s now talking about the healing role of Scripture.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah.

Ann Maree: Just share with me what your thoughts were as you were writing that chapter and what you want to convey today.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Satan is the great destroyer. I don’t even have words to describe the pain I carry every day over these abuse survivors that we love so deeply, who’ve had their lives ravaged by abuse. We lost one of our beloved staff members four years ago to an ISIS assassination in Congo, and she’s just one of countless.

So, in a context in which abuse causes such harm—and it’s not just in Congo; it’s equally in Scottsdale, Arizona, or wherever—I am passionate about lifting up God’s commitment to heal, redeem, and restore. And Scripture says this over and over.

It’s quite profound that Scripture is so unabashed in describing abuse. I mean, there are some texts in Scripture—the gang rape of the concubine in the Book of Judges—you just think, “Why is that there? That’s nasty. That’s dark.”

Well, it’s intended to be, because God is not bashful about addressing the darkness of abuse. You have to see the darkness for what it is to appreciate God’s commitment to redeem, heal, and restore. And it’s all there. It’s all there.

The kind of template I use in the book is in the last chapter. I look at the genealogy in Matthew, Jesus’ genealogy, and that genealogy, in very surprising fashion for an ancient Jewish genealogy, records four women. Four women, all of whom have scandal in their lives—not that necessarily they should have, but, you know, they’re the last people that you would expect to be in the lineage of the Messiah.

I mean, you have Rahab, a pagan prostitute, for crying out loud. You have Tamar, who tricks her father-in-law into having sex with her so that she could get pregnant. Like, this is the line of the Messiah? Are you kidding me?

You have Tamar, subject of a power rape by—or, excuse me, Bathsheba, subject to a power rape by King David. Again, that’s scandalous. And even Mary, who was a godly young woman, but throughout her life the scandal was still there. She’s an unwed mother.

And, you know, these five women, and then Ruth the Moabitess, who was, again, an amazing foreign woman, not who you’d expect. But that nation began through an act of ugly incest in the Book of Genesis—Lot’s daughters getting him drunk so that he could impregnate them. It’s like, “Man, this is in the Bible?”

It is, because, again, God apparently intended us to see the darkness of the world. It’s there. God doesn’t delight in that, but it’s there. It’s a fallen, broken world. But in the midst of that darkness, God is working a redemptive plan to heal and restore.

So He showcases five women in the lineage of Jesus who have various kinds of brokenness. They’re, for the most part, outsiders. Two or three are Gentiles. They’re not part of the blessed covenant community of Israel. And God says, “That’s who I delight in working with—the hopeless, the ones that don’t have hope, the ones that have that scarlet letter on their foreheads, so to speak. Guess what? I will choose these women to be in the lineage of the Savior of the world.”

God is not embarrassed by the ways in which we’ve been victimized and feel shame. He grieves over it, but He works that into His redemptive plan. That is astounding. So God is infinitely more committed to heal, redeem, and restore than we can imagine. And Scripture describes that, and I am so thankful.

Ann Maree: Thank you. I’m hoping our audience can, just from this hour, glean the depth to which you read this book as a love letter and convey it to us, the reader, in the stories, in the wisdom, in not being ashamed to share yourself about the abuse and abuses you’ve heard, witnessed, read.

I’m going to strongly encourage that you pick up this book, To Heal or Harm. And, Dr. Tracy, I wish I had gone to your seminary. You have not just a wealth of knowledge about the Scriptures—and you’re just popping them out, and you’re exegeting them, and you’re giving us even context, and also other, you know, Scripture interpreting Scripture, and you’re doing it on the spot—so you have this incredible wisdom.

But I—and I said this to you earlier—just the heart that comes out in that wisdom is what draws me in. And so I—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm.

Ann Maree: —appreciate so much that you’ve taken the time to assemble the chapters of this book with your articles, with your wife, with your stories, and then just given this to our community, the community that’s been so harmed, as a resource and as a different perspective on God’s Word, and one that I pray will do its transformational work—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm.

Ann Maree: —for those who have been so harassed—

Dr. Steven Tracy: Mm.

Ann Maree: —abused, of course, and harmed by God’s very words. So thank you. Thank you for this, and thank you for the book.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Well, you’re so gracious. I really appreciate that. And I would encourage our listeners to go to our website. A lot of our stuff is downloadable for free, and we have other resources that are, you know, nominal cost.

But we created the ministry and the website to provide best-practice biblical resources for abuse survivors. That’s our passion. So check it out: mendingthesoul.org. Pretty straightforward. It’s got descriptions of what we do around the world, Africa, lots of new resources.

We have a new Native American healing workbook—

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: —that we’re super excited about.

Ann Maree: Mm.

Dr. Steven Tracy: To our knowledge, the first Christian abuse-healing workbook written specifically by and for Native Americans. But, yeah, a lot of resources there. So check it out. I think it’d be a source of encouragement.

Ann Maree: And we’ll make sure to put those links in the show notes.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Great.

Ann Maree: And that is intriguing, for Native Americans.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah.

Ann Maree: All right. Well, I hope to have you again on soon. That doesn’t mean you have to write another book. We’ll just have you on again soon, especially if we can get you on for another expert contributor episode. But many blessings—

Dr. Steven Tracy: I’d be glad.

Ann Maree: —to you, and may God increase your territories as you have retired but are now spreading out even further than the classroom. I pray that that will go far. Thank you so much.

Dr. Steven Tracy: Yeah, you’re welcome.

Ann Maree: All right, thanks. Take care.

Ann Maree:  Safe to Hope is made possible by donors who believe faithfulness means protecting survivors and honoring the dignity of their stories. Their support allows us to remain independent, trauma specialized, and committed to truth-telling without pressure or performance. We are deeply grateful to our donors for their partnership. If this conversation stirred something for you, please know you do not have to carry it alone. Support resources are listed in the show notes, and you're welcome to reach out in the ways that feel safest for you. Safe to Hope is a production of Help Her. The podcast is executive produced by Ann Maree Goudzwaard with audio production, mixing, and editing provided by Forward Agency in Raleigh, North Carolina.