Bare Marriage

Episode 299: What Does the Bible Say about Divorce for Abuse? Feat. Helen Paynter

• Sheila Gregoire • Season 9 • Episode 299

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Does God really tell women they need to submit to abuse and stay in marriages where they're being raped and harmed? Today's interview with Dr. Helen Painter is one you need to hear—whether you're stuck in an abusive marriage getting horrible advice from your pastor, or you know someone who is. We're diving deep into what the Bible actually says about abuse and divorce, and spoiler alert: God does NOT require women to stay in abusive marriages. Please share this episode with anyone who needs to hear this life-saving truth.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains detailed discussion of marital rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence

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Sheila
Does God tell women they need to submit to abuse and that they can't divorce an abusive husband?
Hi, I'm Sheila Wray-Gregoire from BareMarriage.com where we like to talk about healthy, evidence-based, biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage.
And that's what we're going to be doing today.
You know, I do all kinds of interviews on the BareMarriage podcast and all of them are wonderful. I've really enjoyed my guests. But today's is special.
Today's an interview that somebody that you know really needs to hear.
Either it's you yourself because you're stuck in an abusive marriage and you're getting horrible advice from your pastor, or it's a friend, a sister, somebody.
So will you share this podcast with them? This is a message that really needs to get out there.
And I am so pleased to be able to bring you my interview with Dr. Helen Paynter.
Well, I am so thrilled to welcome Helen Paynter onto the BareMarriage podcast today.
Hello, Helen.

Helen
Hi.

Sheila
And people may notice that you have a British accent and that is because you are in fact in Bristol.

Helen
I am.

Sheila
I have where you teach and you write and you are the founder of, I'm going to get this right, the center for… No, I'm not.

Helen
The Center for the Study of Bible and Violence.

Sheila
Right.
Which is, I think that's amazing.
And you know, I need to tell you that I recommend one of your books all the time,
The Bible Doesn't Tell Me So.
And because I am constantly getting women saying, I am an abusive marriage and I want to leave, but I don't know if God will allow it.
And even though we have talked on this podcast a lot about how abuse is grounds for divorce and how you shouldn't stay, we haven't actually looked at it from a biblical standpoint yet. Like, totally looking at just the Bible.
And so you're an expert on this. And I'm really excited for this conversation.

Helen
Oh, well, it's a privilege to be on your podcast and yeah, I love talking about these things because I love God's Word. And I believe God's Word is good.
And I also am absolutely convinced from my heart study of God's Word that it does not keep, should not keep women abusive marriages.
It does not tell women that they have stay abusive marriages.
So I'm very excited to have this conversation.

Sheila
Amen. Amen.Okay. So I want to do something that I don't normally do. So this is a little bit strange, I know. But I want to tell a story and I want to read a pastor's email that was sent to a woman and just have you react.
It's a long email. And so we'll just stop at various times.
But I just think this is so typical of what women hear when they are abused and they go to the church for help.
Now, not all the time. Obviously, there are many churches which thankfully handle abuse really well now. 
And your work is a big part of that. So thank you for that. But unfortunately, so many don't. 
And so I want to tell the story of a woman. She sent me all the documentation. She sent me all the email chains.
She sent me her victim impact statement. She sent me everything.
And I want to focus on what the pastor said. But to set the stage, her story is basically one of constant rape in her marriage. She had to get drunk in order to tolerate it.
Her husband was sodomizing her consistently. He was asking her for threesome. He was using sex toys on her without her consent. Again, she would have to get drunk to be able to do this. She says, the first time he raped me was in January 2016, shortly after I had given birth.
I was still recovering from serious postpartum complications and had been diagnosed with a medical condition that made such penetration especially painful and dangerous. And she goes on, I won't read all of it. It's really, really disturbing, seriously disturbing. But her pastor replies that she doesn't have grounds for divorce. And she ends her victim impact statement with this:
Because of the repeated non-consensual acts, the ongoing pressure to do things I had refused, the need to self-medicate to endure sex and the betrayal of my trust through emotional infidelity, I no longer feel safe, respected or valued in this marriage. I have become a shell of myself. My body keeps the score of what has been done to it. And I cannot heal while remaining in this relationship.
I am seeking a divorce for my well-being, even though he believes it is unjustified because he hasn't slept with anyone else.
He believes I do not deserve child support or alimony because I am the one leaving. But my decision is not based on a single act.
It is the result of a long-term pattern of sexual violation, coercion and betrayal that is deeply harmed me emotionally, physically and spiritually.
So before we get to the pastor's letter, that's heartbreaking.

Helen
Yeah.
And I'm, if the person who wrote that is listening, I am so sorry for what you've experienced.
And I know that other people listening will have similar stories and I am so sorry and this should never happen.
And nobody should ever be telling you that you have to put up with this ever.

Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And so I'll start with the pastor's letter now.
He says, an important starting point is to believe that the Lord loves us and his desire for us is that we would leave an abundant life.
Jesus makes it clear that the way to a joy filled life is by abiding in his love and
living according to his word.
At the same time, his lovingness does not always mean that he will spare us from adversity
and hardship, but he promises to walk us through it all, even through the valley of the shadow of death.
The Lord often calls us to endure, persevere and to suffer long.
First Peter 2, 18 to 22 says, servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.
For this is commendable if because of conscience toward God, one injures grief, suffering, wrongfully. For what credit is it if when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently, but
when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.
And I'll stop there.

Helen
Okay.
So I like what he says at the beginning.
I like his commendation that God wants us to live a kind of exactly words, but God wants us to live a life that is flourishing, a life that is fruitful, a life that is virtuous, a life that is faithful. Of course, I wholly agree with that.
And I also believe, and I also share his opinion, his belief that God's word is good. But I think we differ in our interpretation of some of these key passages.
So for sure, the Scriptures, the apostles teach and Jesus teaches that we sometimes have to suffer in order to be faithful.
And we need to remember the context in which they are living.
We need to remember that actually each one of these people, Jesus and all the apostles, they all go to a martyr's death. So these are people who are walking the talk. These aren't people who are sitting on the sidelines telling other people to suffer. So that's one thing to notice.

Sheila 
Oh, that's so good. I just got, I got to sit with that for a minute.
Yeah.
And when they said suffer, they all died.
Whereas when pastors tell women to suffer, they're not suffering like this.

Helen
Yeah.
I mean, obviously they may have other causes of suffering in their life.
But there is an awful lot of people sitting comfortably on the sidelines telling women that need to continue to suffer.
Now the next thing is what does it mean to be called to suffer?
Because undoubtedly there are people and contexts where we are called it to be the only faithful way is to, it will involve suffering.
I'm thinking about people who are in situations of extreme persecution, where they have the hideous and unenewable choice of whether to deny the name of Jesus or to suffer for it.
And I wouldn't judge anybody who takes the easier option there because I haven't walked that.
But, but I do know that we are commended to, to be faithful to the name of Jesus.
However, what does it mean to be faithful to the name of Jesus in, in a situation like the one that, that you've been describing?Does, is Jesus saying you have to put up with this? Because if Jesus is saying you must stay in this relationship, then I guess being faithful to the name of Jesus means putting up with it.
But we do see in back, back in the New Testament, these same people who are telling us this, we see them choosing at times a path that does not require suffering because they know that they don't have to take this particular path.
So you know, you've got Paul on more than one occasion being stretched out to be flogged and he says, Oh, did you know I'm a romanticism? And then immediately, Oh, oh, so sorry, sir. So sorry, sir. Let me escort you to somewhere comfortable. So, so there are times when we have to suffer to be faithful.
And there are times when the faithful path does not require us to suffer.
We don't have to opt to suffer. Do you see what I'm saying?

Sheila
And it's like suffering in and of itself isn't the goal here.

Helen
Exactly. Exactly. Faithfulness is the goal and discerning the way of faithfulness is the goal. Thinking again, you know, I want to come to that, that passage from Peter in a minute in more detail, but thinking again about the whole thing about slaves in the Roman Empire, most slaves did not have any agency, any choice at all about whether they remain slaves or not.
But we do know that Paul says, if you have the chance to get your freedom, take it. Paul doesn't say, if you have the chance to get your freedom, choose the way of suffering.
What does he doesn't say? Hey, if you have the chance to get your freedom, you take it, my brother, you know, my sister.
So what we see is we see a call that sometimes faithfulness requires suffering.
And we also see the apostles commending and acting in a way that does not pursue suffering for its own sake.

Sheila
Yeah.

Helen
So there's some important principles, I think.
Now, I want to think about that passage from Peter in particular, because it's a tricky one. It's a tricky one in all sorts of ways.
It tells women to submit to their husbands and it tells slaves to submit to their masters. But there's some really interesting things about that passage, because as we look at that, what we realize is that, well, you know, we talk about the Empire sometimes, you know, the Empire being kind of the imporced time very literally, this impressive Empire. And these days, you know, kind of hegemonic structures. And the Empire infantilizes its subjects. The Empire strips moral agency from its subjects. The Empire says, this is what you have to do and you have no choice about it. And that's what the Empire was doing to women and to slaves in Peter's day. So I think that's something really remarkable in this passage. If we look at chapter two, verse 16, it says in my translation, it says, as servants or slaves of God live as three people. And in chapter three, verse seven, it says, women are also heirs of the gracious gift of life.
So you see, the Empire infantilizes, the Empire tells people you're just subjects and you have an immoral agency.
And what he is doing is he's saying in this Empire, in this kingdom of God, things that are quite different and slaves are free in this kingdom. And women are also heirs of the gracious gift of life. And women are co-airs with men.
And so he's, and these are the kind of the things that we need to hold on to as we read the rest of the section because you see, to tell slaves to obey their masters is saying, choose, choose this way.
Because do you know what you're free in God's kingdom?
And he's saying to women who also can't escape their marriages, they don't have the option to divorce that women today do.
He's saying, women wives obey your husbands because do you know what you are co-air with him. And so it's the opposite of infantilizing. It's the opposite of stripping moral agency. It's actually remarkably empowering.
And, you know, he talks about this chosen race, royal priesthood, a holy nation.
And to take that and, and he's sorry, he's applying this to women as well.
And to take that then and say, and kind of extract this little bit from its in from
the whole context is kind of to, is kind of to repeat the Empire's lies.
It's kind of to repeat and say, you're nothing. You're just a subject.
You're just a wife who is subjugated to her husband. And that's not the way the apostle speaking because he's speaking this.
He's telling this greater truth of liberty.

Sheila
Yeah, I love that.
But the, and this idea that we, that we are called to suffer no matter what happens, it comes up a lot in abuse. And I have a clip from a different pastor.
So we're just going to interrupt this for a minute.
Interesting with both these pastors from Calvary Chapel churches. I was sent these within days of each other. So both of these so interesting factoid. But to give the context, this is pastor Paul. I don't know how you say his last name.
LeButelier. That would probably be the French pronunciation. I don't know if the Americans say it with a French pronunciation.
But Nagma Panahi went viral with this when she started, when she put this clip up on social media and she's having a very public discussion with this church about how wrong this clip is and some of the things with the church.
But let's just hear what he has to say about abuse.

Paul LeButelier
27 and 28.
So we put him on the screen just to remind you of what these verses say.
Chapter 6 verse 27 and 28 says, but I say to you who hear love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. And this is what I meant just a moment ago when I said Jesus said more than just love one another. He gets a lot deeper than that, doesn't he?
Now the verse that you see up there, you saw on the screen, it contains some really strong words. Words like hate, people that hate you, people that curse you, people that abuse you. And those are trigger words in our society today. And words like abuse and abusive, they make those passages really hard, very hard.
Because you see, we live in a culture today where we've elevated abuse or abusive behavior to, well, let's just say we've elevated it, okay?
I mean, as a pastor, if I had a dollar for every time somebody asked me about divorce and whether or not abuse was Biblical grounds for divorce, I would be a very wealthy man. And it's interesting that they don't ask about other possible grounds for divorce. But abuse is the number one question that I get as it relates to understanding perhaps grounds for divorce. And let me just say, abuse is terrible. It's hard to even find the words to describe the devastation that abuse brings into a person's life, but as horrible as abuse is. You'll notice that Jesus didn't say love your enemies unless, of course, they abuse you. And then all bets are off. You don't have to worry about loving them then because he didn't say that.
In fact, Jesus had loved those who abuse you.
And it puts it into a whole different realm than just going by a sign and seeing Jesus says, love one another. You see, we've got to go a lot deeper than that.
Jesus goes a lot deeper than that. And we have to follow him there, even though it's uncomfortable. Because we're following Jesus. We're not following culture.
We're not following our own inclinations. We're not following our own feelings here in this matter. We're following Jesus, amen?

Sheila
It's basically, and it's tricky because he never comes out and says, you can't divorce
for abuse.
But that comment that if I had a dollar for every person who comes to me and asks if I can divorce for abuse, which makes me think, what is going on in your church that that many women are coming to you asking if they can divorce for abuse? And he just misses it like it's nothing and goes on about how Jesus' way is higher. We're not just supposed to love our neighbor.
We're supposed to pray for those who abuse us, who hurt us.
And I guess, and for enemies.
And I guess the question that I have in both what this pastor said and what the previous pastor said about how you need to suffer is the suffering in these cases that Jesus and Peter are talking about, they're not coming from fellow believers.
It's not coming from your spouse. It's coming from Empire.
Like your spouse isn't supposed to be your enemy.

Helen
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and to pick up on this idea that this, of course, Jesus' words that we have to pray for our enemy, we have to forgive them.
I hope no one will ever hear me say that Jesus is wrong because, of course, I wouldn't have to be blasphemous to say so.
But we need to understand what Jesus is and isn't saying when he says this.
Because if I, and I do this occasionally, and if I'm speaking in a group of people,
I say, you know, if you know your Bible, think to yourself, what does Jesus say and answer the question, what do I do with my brother sins against me?
And then sometimes I take a bit of a poll and I say, did you, were you thinking to yourself, you know, forgive 77 times?
And kind of usually about half the congregation put their hands up.
And then so maybe you were thinking to yourself, well, then I go and speak to him myself and then I take some witnesses and then I take the takes to the church and then eventually. And then about half the congregation is putting their hands up. I say, yes.
And Jesus says both of those things in answer to the same question, which is, what do I do with my brother or sister sins against me? And I mean, it doesn't really matter, but they're in the same chapter. I mean, if Jesus said it in different gospels, it wouldn't matter. It would still be true. They're actually, they're in the same chapter.
It's like Matthew was saying to us, these things are compatible. It is compatible to forgive and therefore to pray for your enemies. And that is, sorry, that is compatible with following a due process which may end up in alienation separation. These things are entirely compatible. Jesus puts them right next to each other. And however we interpret the one, it has to be held alongside the other one. So yes, forgiveness is important.It's not easy. It's not quick. It's not cheap. And for people who've experienced the sorts of trauma that the lady who sent you that letter of experienced, it is the work probably of a lifetime.
And it's not a once for all thing.
It's a, it's a process.
So yes, as a, as a Christian believer, she's a disciple. She's, she's going to be called to forgive, but that God is patient and he will do that with her gently.
But that does not preclude her from following the due process, which will result
in separation, permanent separation from her husband.
And I'm absolutely convinced that Jesus's words in Matthew 18, hold, holding those two things together, demonstrate that it is entirely fine for her to separate permanently.

Sheila
I've never, I've never realized that both of those things are right next to each other.
That's really interesting. Isn't that interesting? OK, I'm going to, I'm going to meditate on that in a little bit. All right.
I'll read the rest of this letter.
So he goes on to say, well, what, how does this apply to marriage?
Should we expect that we will also need to endure suffering in marriage?
The clear answer according to God's word is yes. In 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul encourages all who are able to remain single and to do so in order
that we may focus solely on serving the Lord, but he concedes that not all are able to live the single life without sin.
He acknowledges that many will get married, but states plainly in 1 Corinthians 7, 28, that those who get married will have troubles.
The Apostle Paul tells us if we choose to be married, that we will have troubles in marriage. So according to God's word, we should expect that marriage will be difficult. That is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard.
That is not what Paul was saying. 

Helen
That is absolutely not what Paul was saying.
Paul is, you know, Paul is speaking in the context of persecution.
And he's saying if you don't have dependence, then, you know, love, the flip side of love is pain, isn't it? And we all experience that all the time. And I'm not talking about people doing horrible things to us. I'm just talking about the pain of normal relationship and the pain of seeing people we love suffer.
I've got a daughter at the moment who's really unwell and it's really painful to watch that being being the case. And I'm in the context of persecution when people we love are being thrown to the lions or being crucified or whatever.
That's what he's talking about here, I think. This is not saying, oh, yeah, marriage is going to be dreadful. And marriage is going to be a. I mean, it's just that's just beyond bonkers. Yeah, honestly.
Sheila
it really is. OK, here's the rest of here.
Here's the next bit history shows that we live in a society that has fundamentally
changed the way we view marriage, especially in Western culture.
As a culture, marriage is no longer motivated by doing our part for the community
or the family name or honoring God. Marriage is most often seen as a mean to person as it means to personal fulfillment or happiness.
And this shift has resulted in a greater willingness to leave the marriage when it
becomes difficult to continue to love our spouse or when we feel unloved or mistreated. But as Christ followers, we must ask ourselves, why are we here?
Is it to pursue personal happiness or safety? What is the foundation for our lives?
Who or what is the authority of my life? For those who are born again, the answers should be simple. We're here to know God and make him known to bring honor and glory to him. Can I just say the false dichotomies here are wild?
Like and he says, you know, when we feel unloved or mistreated, she has just
sent him a letter documenting how his, her husband's physical trauma of her
actually required surgery on her part because of the trauma that he did to her.
Like and his thing is, well, if you feel unloved or mistreated, like this is wild.

Helen
It's so tricky, isn't it?
Because again, he starts in a good place. He starts by saying, you know, marriage is intended to be to be good. It's intended to be a blessing.
It's intended to be lifelong and faithful and loving.
Yeah. And to all of those things, of course, it is intended to be all those things.
But to take that, that's truth and totalize that to the exclusion of many, many other
things that the scriptures also teach us. It's well, this is what happens with, this is what happens sometimes with good theology it’s it gets, it gets taken and detached from its context, detached from its, its nuance, it gets detached from other things that are also true. And it gets held up as the, the only thing that matters and the only, and that's, this
is for him, this is the only thing you have to say to this woman is, you know, you
have to stay married to your husband. And it doesn't matter about all the other things that the gospel speaks about freedom,
about life to the full about the way that her husband has broken that covenant, which de facto has released her from her marriage. The many, many other good things that the gospel speaks, he's not applying any of those.
He's taken one little bit of the truth.
And by making it the only truth, he's kind of speaking an untruth, if that makes sense. Because whenever we take just one little bit of the truth and make it everything, then it ends up getting walked and twisted.

Sheila
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, he goes on and he's, he's, he writes about all of these different divorce
passages and he quotes multiple from Matthew Mark, Luke.
I'm not going to read it all. I'll just, I'll just read a little bit of it because he has like, this is half the letter is, is him using all of the passages that Jesus talks about divorce. So he says, so what does God's word say about divorce?
Other than a few Old Testament passages, there are a handful of New Testament passages that speak directly to the topic. And if we are to know Jesus's heart, we must read them all. And like I said, he quotes them all. It doesn't even matter.
You know, the ones where Jesus is asked if divorce is okay.
And he says, because of your hardness of heart, you know, Moses permitted you. Anyway, he goes, he goes and all them. And you know them all.
I'm not going to read everything. But what's your, what's your take on that?

Helen
So, so here I'm drawing, well, partly I'm drawing on the work of the scholar called David Burr, who's done some work looking at the Benwick thought around the time of Jesus to try and understand the conversation that Jesus is having with the Pharisees. So when they come to Jesus, they don't actually say, is divorce okay.They actually say, what's your opinion about any cause divorce?
And any cause divorce was a hot topic in the Benwick discussions of the day.
It was a kind of technical term. We have something in Britain called no fault divorce. I guess it was a bit like that. It was basically allowed a husband to divorce his wife. And it would have been that way around, you know, 999 times up 1000. It would have been that way around.
It allowed a husband to divorce his wife if she, you know, sneezed in his direction or burnt the toast or, you know, whatever.
She just stopped looking as beautiful after bearing seven children and she looked the day they got married, you know, any cause divorce.
And there was a, there was a debate about whether any cause divorce was acceptable or not. And so what they, what they come is they come to try and trap him as always. They're not, this isn't a genuine theological question.
It's a trap. And Jesus as always sees the trap and just cuts right through it.
But they come to trap him because they want him to make enemies and they want him to adjudicate on this technical point of law.
And so what Jesus does, of course, is he goes back to Genesis and he says,
marriage is intended, it's gonna be paraphrasing, but I think this is what he's saying. Marriage is intended to be permanent, loving, permitted and faithful.
That's God's plan. And anything less than that is, is, is, is less than God's plan.
God's best plan. And I don't think that that is in any way controversial to anyone, us, people who sent the, the chap who sent that letter or probably the lady who received that letter. What Jesus doesn't do is he doesn't go back and kind of overturn the Old Testament divorce law.
And he could do, I mean, he's very happy to go back and say, oh, you didn't understand this right from the Old Testament. And he doesn't do that here.
So the Old Testament permits divorce for two main, two, two principal reasons.
One of them's kind of got subsections, but two reasons. Now, the one that everybody knows is the Old Testament permits divorce for adultery.
And this is the one that, you know, that this lady's pastor is saying, he hasn't been sexually unfaithful to you. And so you can't divorce him. Okay.
There's another, there's another reason the Old Testament permits divorce.
And Jesus does not overturn it.
And the Old Testament permits a woman, interestingly, a woman to divorce her husband if he neglects her, if he deprives her of food or clothing or marital love.
Now, given the way the Old Testament law works, we always know that it will, that it gives kind of the ethical flaw, if you like.
So if you are allowed to walk away from your marriage, if your husband neglects you, then obviously if he abuses you, you're allowed to walk away because neglect is a lighter form of abuse, if you saw something.
So the Old Testament permits divorce for adultery and for neglect and therefore,
by extension of abuse. And Jesus does not overturn that. And this is, this is just a plain reading of the texts. This is not, this is not weasel words of the text. This is simply what is going on. I want to come to Malachi, if I may, because Malachi is actually,


Sheila
He brings that up in a second.

Helen
Okay, go ahead.

Sheila
So, so he goes on, he goes on to talk about 1 Corinthians 7, how a wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she's at liberty to be married to whom she wishes. And how a wife is not to depart from her husband, but even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried to be reconciled to her husband. And her husband is not to divorce his wife. If a woman has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her and let her not divorce him. So he says those first and then he gets to Malachi. So once you're taken 1 Corinthians 7 there.

Helen
Well, this is, this is what it, how it should be.
This is, you know, this is Paul again, holding up as Jesus does. This is the, the, the model for marriage is, it is to be committed, faithful, loving and lifelong.
Of course it is, but he's not, he's not speaking about hard cases of abuse. He's speaking, he's speaking about, he's speaking about the ways to be together in covenant community. He's just, he's just not answering the questions that are being implicitly put to him, if you see what I mean. To give you an example before we move on to Malachi, martial rape is a really good example here.
So, and I read this wonderful book by a man called Michael Gorman
called Cruciformity. And I really recommend it. It's one of those books that years ago I read it now and it kind of completely opened my eyes to something I've never seen before. So I expect many of your listeners will know the Philippian hymn. I mean, Philippians to Jesus Christ, although in very nature God,
yet he did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped,
but rather he took the form of assurance and, and a human and be,
you know, to death, even death on a cross. And what Gorman shows is you've got a kind of grammar here, an actual grammar, but it almost forms a theological grammar then for poor because you've got the, although yet not, but rather.
So although Jesus was God and had all these entitlements that God only has,
yet not yet he did not consider equality with God, something to be used to his own advantage, but rather he took the nature of the servants and so on,
although yet not, but rather. And Gorman shows how this for the Apostle Paul is.
This is his go to grammar. This is his go to template for any pastoral problem he has asked, particularly in the Corinthian correspondence.
If you look at the things he's dealing with in the Corinthian correspondence,
people who are shouting other people down in church because they've got a better spiritual gift. People who are, who are eating, meats been offered to idlers because they're much wiser than those fools down the road who
think that there's a reality behind the unidles. People who are eating all the communion food, eating the community, the love feast before the slaves have arrived because of their rich ones. So there's a number of pastoral issues that Paul addresses. And in each case, he says, although yet not, but rather, although you might be very, very spiritually gifted, how about you don't stand on your entitlement but give the other people a chance? This is me paraphrasing.
Although you're very rich and you don't have to work, how about you don't eat until the slaves have arrived? Although you're very, very wise and you know those idols are nothing, how about you don't do something that's going to lead your brother or sister into sin? Although yet not, but rather, it's wonderful for me.
It just kind of unlocked a whole load of ways of understanding scripture and ways of understanding pastoral ministry. And so if you think about how would Paul answer that question of marital rape?
You know, and Paul gets trotted out on this question because he says, you know,
wives, your body does not belong to you, belongs to your husband.
He also in the same verse says husbands, your body belongs to your wife. And that's the radical thing because in the ancient world, all wives knew that their bodies belong to their husbands, but nobody had the idea that a husband should be accountable to his wife for what he did with his body. So in that context, what would Paul say to the situation of marital rape? Although you might think you've got this entitlement because she said yes at the altar once, yet not, but rather, well about how about you notice that your wife isn't feeling well today? How about you notice that your wife has just had a baby and is still hurting and bleeding? How about you notice that your wife is having to, it has not given consent to this particular form of sexual practice that you want to do? How about you notice that your wife is having to drug herself in order to tolerate what you're doing? Although you might think you have this entitlement. How about you live like Christ?
Sheila
Amen. Amen. Okay, let's turn to Malachi. 
So he says, as we look to the word of God on marriage
and divorce, the Lord's heart is clear as Malachi 2 16 says, for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce, for it covers one's garments with violence as the Lord of hosts, therefore take heed of your spirit that you deny teal treacherously. Which is not what Malachi 16 says, but whatever.

Helen
He's not what Malachi 16 says, no. No, I mean, the most important error there is because, as he has said, the Lord hates divorce because it covers your garment with violence. It doesn't say that. It says the Lord hates divorce and he hates the covering of a garment with violence. And that's not the same thing at all. So actually, what this verse says is really unclear because the Hebrew is very, very difficult to translate. If you go on something like, well, you can do all sorts of
ways, but BibleHub is really interesting because BibleHub will give you all the different translations of the verse on the same web page. And if you just put that verse in to BibleHub and have a look at the different translations of the verse, some of those translations don't even have anything about God hating divorce. They have the man who hates and divorces his wife, says the Lord. So
that's a clue that this is really difficult verse to translate and pro tip never build an
entire theology on single verse that it's hard to translate. So that's the first thing to say.

Sheila
That goes for first Timothy two 12 as well.

Helen
Oh yeah. It goes for a few verses. Yes. So, so what we need to see is the thing about is what's going on here? What's the context? So this is as probably many listeners will know, this isn't the post-exilic context. So the God's people
have been sent away into into Babylonia as a punishment for their unfaithfulness. They're now trickling back and they're trying to kind of reestablish a worshiping community. And some of these men are putting aside their wives. Now it's not quite clear whether Malachi is speaking to the situation that Ezra and Nehemiah face, but it may well be that. In Ezra and Nehemiah we see men who've married wives outside the covenant people outside the family of Israel. And basically
they get told, you've got to divorce them. And they it's awful. It's this terrible thing. God is not saying this. There's nothing in Ezra and Nehemiah that says this. There's this terrible thing where these men are divorcing their wives and these wives and children as being sent off, just cut off and sent away. So whether or not.

Sheila
Which was really bad at the time,because she would have no way of looking at yourself. 

Helen
Exactly. So whether or not that's the reason for divorce. What we know is that in this context, men are divorcing their wives. And where is today in your country and in my country, a woman who gets divorced can probably move down the road, move city perhaps and in a house getting a new job and hopefully start a new life. I realize it's not that easy for everybody, but you understand what I'm saying. That's not an option for these women. These women are entirely dependent really on men. It's very hard for women to make her own
living. So she's if she's not got her husband anymore, who's she going to turn to? She's going to turn maybe to her father if he's still alive, maybe to have brothers if she's got a brother, but she's divorced now. She's tainted and hear that in air quotes, please. But you know, in the ancient mind, there's this kind of doubt around this woman's virtue or integrity or something.
It's quite unlikely that she'll be welcomed back into the family home, even if the parents are still alive. So what is this woman's option? Putting it bluntly, prostitution or destitution. And so these men are for whatever reason, they're cutting their wives loose. And those wives are suffering and potentially suffering violence and potentially even dying or prostitution themselves as a result of what is being done to them. And God through the prophet is speaking to the one who
holds the power in that relationship. And he is speaking for the purpose of protecting the on who is powerless. So it's not really so much about the fact that this men and women, it's not that God only says these things to men, but he's saying it to the one with power who in that context happened to be men. And he's speaking about the protection of powerless. That's the context. And then we've got this language of blood and of violence. And so I think the best translation is something like the NRSV's translation. I hate divorce says the Lord, the God of Israel. We get that because we know from reading Genesis and we Christians who've read the Gospels much later know that God's plan for marriage is that
it should be permanent lifelong loving and faithful. I hate divorce says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence says the Lord of hosts. And if we know anything about how Hebrew poetry works, we know that we get these coupling of lines where they kind of match one another. We see it all the way through the Psalms and the Proverbs. I hate divorce and I hate violence says the Lord, I hate divorce and I hate bloodshed says the Lord.
So to take this and to totalize it, like I was talking earlier, to take that little phrase,
I hate divorce and we don't even know if it's intended in the original scripture.
To take that and to say this is the only takeaway from this passage, this is the only thing that you need to learn from this passage. It hasn't just misunderstood the passage. It is actually completely 180 degrees flipped it. Because God through the prophet is saying men with power do not use your power to cause harm to your vulnerable wife. And this pastor is saying man with power knew this text permits you to continue to cause harm to your vulnerable wife. That is a 180 degree reversal. And I think the conflict Malachi would be walled at that use of that text. And I feel really confident that God does not like it either.


Sheila
Amen. Amen. Thank you for that. I think that's going to be very healing for a lot of our listeners. And I hope some pastors are listening too. Okay, we'll go on. He says he goes on to say only in
Matthew 19 9 does Jesus seem to give the caveat for unfaithfulness as grounds for divorce. But even though Jesus seems to give that out, he also makes it clear that the caveat of unfaithfulness is only because of the hardness of hearts. This reveals once again that it is not God's desire that we divorce, though he may allow it in the case of adultery. The only other ground given for
is the case of abandonment as stated in 1 Corinthians 7 15 where Paul says, but if the unbeliever departs, let him depart a brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases. In light of the biblical passages pertaining to divorce, the question of abuse often arises. Does God require us to remain in an abusive marriage? There are no New Testament passages that speak directly to abuse in marriage, though some would include abuse under the abandonment clause of 1 Corinthians 7 15. So I would. I mean, he's see I would, would you?

Helen
Yeah, absolutely, because it's a lot. It's abandonment, like, you know, thinking back to what I was saying about the Old Testament law for neglect. Abandonment is a lighter form. It’s neglect isn't it? And it's a lighter form of abuse. But I would, I mean, I have to say, fair play to this pastor, he has worked really hard on this email and he's, you know, he's carefully doing his best to interpret God's word faithfully. And I, I, wholly disagree, almost highly disagree with him. But he's not trying to cause harm, I don't think. He's trying to read scripture well and faithfully. I'm really interested that Wayne Grudem. And Wayne Grudem, as many people know, is a, is a complimentary and biblical scholar who for a long, long while held out that the only, well, basically what this pastor has said, the only legitimate grounds for divorce is sexual infidelity. And he has, he's changed his view more recently. And he's changed his view publicly, which I really commend him for because it's really hard to stand up and say, I think I was wrong. And I think I think something different now. And he's done it on a, on a careful reading of one of the Pauline texts, which I'm afraid off the top of my head, I can't tell you, but I can look it up if you want me to, where he reads, where the apostle says, in such matters. And that he says that the apostle therefore is slightly broadening it to say not simply sexual adultery, but other forms of breach of covenant. And here's the thing you see, if a woman divorces, or if a person, if a man or woman divorces and an adulterous spouse,
they are not breaking the covenant. They are simply enacting publicly the covenant for each that has already taken place. And it is just the same in the case of abuse. Looking back to the Old Testament permissions for divorce, it makes it clear. But looking at the looking at the covenant promises that a couple makes, a couple makes the promise that they will, that they will love, that they will cherish, that they will protect, that they will, and that they will, and faithfulness is more than what you do with your genitals, quite putting it bluntly. Faithfulness is how you, is how you love, is how you treat the person. And there are other forms of covenant breach, which are as conclusively breach of covenant as sexual infidelity. And that all divorce is doing in these circumstances,
is making public and social what has already taken place, the breach of covenant that has already taken place. A woman who divorces a husband who is abusive in the way that the lady who sent me that email is experienced. She is not breaking the marriage covenant. A husband broke it months or years ago.


Sheila
And I also find it strange that we're so quick to say,
yes, you could divorce a friend, faithfulness, but not for abuse. Because in my mind, okay, so, so if my husband had a one night stand, I could divorce him. But if he punched me every single night, I couldn't like, which is worse? 

Helen 
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 

Sheila 
You know, it just, it's wild. All right. So he goes on to say, what does the Lord require of the offended hurt or victimized individual? The action of the victim would depend on the type severity and frequency of the abuse.
If bodily harm through physical or sexual abuse is a recurring issue, then the victim needs to find a way of separation, but not divorce or needs to be removed from the offending spouse. In the scriptures, we see both Jesus and the Apostle Paul wrongly subjected to abuses, both physical and verbal at the very least. We do not see biblical examples of them fleeing verbal abuse, but we do see examples of both Jesus and the Apostle Paul doing what they can to escape bodily harm. But we also see them choosing to endure bodily harm at times for the sake of honoring God. It's my contention that in cases of ongoing bodily harm, there needs to be a separation for safety, but a plan needs to be put in place for therapy, counseling, accountability, and a time
for trustworthy than is to be regained before the victim returns, but separation must always be with the intent to return. 

Helen
Oh, my word. Again, again, I just, I just feel like this guy is, he's just
really trying to be faithful and kind and, and, and, and to honor what he believes God is saying. And I don't want to say he's a bad man. I just believe he's so misguided here. So let's just think about in practical terms from a minute, what separation without divorce means, even before we think about the question of with the intention return, I guess. So someone who is separated but not divorced is, has ongoing financial entanglement with a spouse, has ongoing, you know, if they get admitted to hospital, their spouse is, is, is, so they're power. Yeah, exactly. They, they, they never have complete independence. They can
never be wholly safe and confident that their spouse will not just waltz back into their lives. You know, we're speaking about, we're speaking about marital rape, about that, quote, hear the scare quotes entitlement to, to, to sexual intercourse whenever the husband feels like it is a husband who has been separated from his wife going to suddenly say, Oh, that's, that's no longer an entitlement of mine. So there are the, the, a couple who are still legally married, but even if they are living separately, the emotional, the financial, the social, the sexual, the every sort of entanglement continues. And that's, that is not a safe place for a woman
who's experienced serious abuse. It is not safe. So that's the first thing to say. The second thing to say is, I think you spoke about, about, about counseling. And while, I mean, please hear me. I, I don't, you know, I've been a minister in two local churches, although I now teach in theological college, I don't teach cheap divorce. And when couples are going through difficulties, I, you know, I try and help them in everywhere can to be reconciled to learn to listen to one
another, to communicate well, to work things through, I believe in these things. And I do not believe in cheap and easy divorce. But a situation of abuse is, is a very different situation from a situation of marital conflict. Situation of abuse is very asymmetrical. And one of the things about abusers, we often think about abusers as being people who just, I don't know, they just lose their rag occasionally, or they, they have too much to drink. And so they lose control. And
that they're fundamentally, you know, really good people, but, but just occasionally something gets the better of them. And while that, I guess may be true for, for minority, most people who are subjecting spouse to sustained domestic abuse, they, this is, this is a way of life that they have chosen. This is something that they have, they have manipulated their spouse to, to tolerate and endure. Most abuse does not begin at the physical and sexual level. Most
abuse begins with what we call coercive control. And it's that coercive control that kind of strips away the, the sense of agency and autonomy and self worth and so on, which ultimately then gets the, gets the person who is experiencing the abuse to this, to this date of immability almost that they, that the abuser can then ramp it up into physical and sexual harm. So what I'm saying is abusers are manipulative. And there are so many stories of couples being forced to go to marriage counseling in this context of abuse. And the counselor listening to this
very, very plausible man explaining how he's, you know, he's sorry on the odd occasion, and he's loving and he's, and the counselor just completely gets it wrong because they are manipulated by this very manipulative man. And, and when marriage counseling is predicated on equal power within the relationship is predicated on both sides being able to speak and listen and to work things through and both sides being of goodwill and good intent. That is not the case
in the situation of significant domestic abuse. So counseling is a very, very bad idea. Couples counseling is a very, very bad idea in these situations. I'm not saying that probably both individuals would benefit hugely from counseling, but not couples counseling. And then the idea that this woman, that this dear lady who has experienced such appalling things should be ever forced to be in the same room as that man again, let alone to, to be intending to,
to reunite. And so he has forfeited any, any entitlements to, to access to her in any sense, through his butcher covenant that is, that just cannot be the aim of the pastoral aim in this in a context like this. 

Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. He actually addresses what you've been saying about neglect. He says another frequently asked question concerns neglect. Here again is something the scriptures do not speak to in regards to grounds for divorce. And again, it is my belief that the lack of naming neglect is grounds for divorce is that it is very subjective. Who's to define what extent of neglect warrants divorce? 

Helen
Well, the scriptures do speak to it. The scriptures explicitly speak to it. I'll find it now. X is 21 10, yeah. So the scriptures do speak a bit.
And this is what I was referring to earlier, Exodus 21 10. If a man may not deprive his, this is about situation of acquiring a second wife in this particular context, but he must not deprive his first wife of her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does deprive her of those things, she is to go free. That is Moses charter, God through Moses, amidst divorce in those circumstances. And just to return to something that was mentioned earlier, that I forgot to pick up on that thing that Jesus says, is just for your hardness of heart. Yeah, it's hardness of heart. Do you think Jesus is talking about the abused woman's hardness of heart or maybe the hardness of heart of the man who abused her God in his mercy, in his mercy, allows in the situation we're talking
about a woman who is being abused to divorce her husband because of her husband's hardness of heart. I'm sure that's what Jesus is speaking about.


Sheila
 Yeah, I completely agree. All right. And here's the
end of the letter. First Corinthians 13, 7 and 8 says that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and jurors all things. Love never fails. We are to bear, believe, hope, and God's love never fails and ours is not to either. The Lord requires us to remain true to our commitment, even if that means that we stay in a difficult and uncomfortable marriage, one that does not
satisfy, fulfill, or make us happy. Again, this does not mean we are to remain in a place that is harmful to us or to become complicit in this sinful behavior of our spouse, but it does mean he may very well call us to a long suffering hardship. Again, if a spouse needs to separate to escape pain or abuse, it must be for healing and restoration. And if the offending spouse does not or will
not make the necessary changes in order for the defendant's spouse to return, then the Lord's call may be for that person to remain single with a willingness and hope for restoration to their spouse. With all that said, I think the reality is that all of us, according to God's word, have
committed offenses, either in our hearts or actions that could be considered cause for divorce. So all of us, the sin leveling is amazing. The sin leveling here, all of us have done things
that could be considered cause for divorce. And who are you to judge another? And he says, he says, I love this one, he says, who the Lord requires us to remain true to our commitment, even if that means we stay in a difficult and uncomfortable marriage. 
How can he describe her marriage as difficult and uncomfortable when the things she was describing were so horrific, I didn't want to read them on the air. 

Helen
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I don't know the context in which exactly exactly what exact context in which this exchange takes place, but this is this is not an email, well, it's not an email I would just send for its content, but it's also not an email I
would just sent for that approach. I think this is something that I would hope he would have met with her and listened to her. And you know, anyway, it feels very odd to be sending, sending this sort of thing by email, like a very cold and remote.
Yes, of course, we have a beautiful image of what love is in First Corinthians 13, of course we do. But again, the apostle is not speaking to the hard case, he's giving the ideal of what love looks like. But just to extract that from everything else, if love indeed bears all things, and that is the only truth, then presumably love also bears adultery. So why divorce and adulterous spouse? There are things that love has to say no to. And we see that in the letters as well.
You think about the there's really interesting tension in the letters between
sort of loving inclusion and when do we draw barriers? It is about church,
kind of, you know, when do we protect the church by saying to false teachers,
you have to leave now. And when do we kind of lovingly welcome the stranger and the risks that kind of relate there? There's a kind of attention there. And so when we're going with this, the apostles understand that these things are there's a pastoral dynamic to be worked out here. And you cannot take just one element and say this is the whole story. Yes, love bares all things.
That's the that's the principle. But when somebody's been harmed in the way that they have, there is there is nothing in Scripture that encourages a woman to support, to submit to this, to continue to remain entangled with this man. And there is much in Scripture that encourages her that she is absolutely and God will bless her choice to walk away permanently and legally.

Sheila
Amen. I think what what really gets me about this letter is I'm just picturing how many women have received similar letters when they've gone to elders boards for help when they've gone to pastors for help. This particular woman is really articulate and bright. You know, I've read her her victim impact statement in the letter the emails that she sent back and she asks really good questions and isn't afraid to stand up for herself. But this kind of letter would be so intimidating for so many women and would just kill any hope that they had of getting any help. Like when when Jesus is supposed to be your safe space, when Jesus is supposed to be and is like often the only comfort that these women have in these horrible situations. And now Jesus is being taken from these women because you're being told, oh, when you were getting raped, Jesus says he wants you to keep doing that. Jesus says he's happy when you ensure that. Well, now your only source of comfort is gone because how can you pray to a Jesus like
that that doesn't even care? 

Helen
Yeah. So this is this is the work what I call the weaponization of Scripture.
And it is for exactly the reasons you articulate it is so so terrible because it's it because it does something far bigger, even bigger than the actual harm it is doing in the moment. I'm astonished by women who who keep their faith in in these situations and I'm humbled by many who do. But God's God's word does not God's word, even if it is being weaponized by your abuser or being weaponized by the church in ways that are really unhelpful to you. God's word does not belong to the violent and the powerful God word belongs to God's word is liberating for those who are trapped for those who are enslaved for those who are being harmed for those who are pushed down, kicked around, shoved around. Look at the way Jesus meets with women, dignifies them, listens
to them. He's a safe place for them. There are so many women in the gospels for whom men were not safe spaces. The woman who had been bleeding for many years, you know, she was she was reviewed as a threat and she was outcast and and men would have shunned her that she was not safe with men.
That woman who met Jesus in the middle of the day in the Samaritan desert,
you know, she what what had she been through that she had been married to was at five different husbands. What had she been through? Men were not safe for her. And when she met that man in the middle of the desert, I wonder if she thought to herself, well, I know what the price of water is going to be today. And the man that she found was not was not that man. And you think about the
woman who had been forgiven a great sin and we don't know what that sin was, but she was so grateful that she'd been forgiven that great sin that she let down her hair and wept over Jesus's feet and wiped them with her hair. And you imagine how many men would have taken advantage of that situation,
either just by humiliating her or ridiculing her or something much more harmful. And he was a safe person for her to be with. She was those women and all the others, they discovered the very, very safest man they could possibly be with. We talk about toxic masculinity sometimes, but Jesus is the exact opposite of a toxic man. And I so, so want women who are trapped in these situations. That's women listening to this podcast to know Jesus is your safe place. I'm really,
really sorry if people have made you feel otherwise and believe otherwise. God is not on the side of those who are harming you. God is on the side of the people who are being harmed, always.

Sheila
Thank you so much for that, Helen. That was just beautiful. And I just I want people to know if you've ever received a letter like this, your church is not a safe place. And there are safe places that do know Jesus. Please find one of those places. But if if you've received a letter like this and
you're confused, please get ahold of Helen Paynter's book. The Bible Doesn't Tell Me So. I'm going to put a link in the podcast notes to it. But Helen, why don't you just describe the book in a nutshell? 

Helen
Well, I had a letter, an email out of the blue a few years ago. I've been speaking
on a podcast about some of the texts of sexual violence in the Old Testament. And this lady had heard me speak about that and thought I might have something helpful to say about her abuse situation. And she she told me the story, a little bit like the one that you told us at the beginning. And she asked me why the church had ignored it, pretended it wasn't happening,
why her husband had been able to continue to do it for over 30 years. And why God thought it was okay. And that broke my heart. And I had a short email correspondence with her that that was that was the that was the trigger for me. That was God's word to me. And I wrote the book for her of 30 years ago. So it's written. It's not a it's not a never academic book. I hope it's, you know,
leaning on biblical scholar. So I hope it's leaning on very good biblical scholarship. But it's not going to be difficult to read. It's speaking directly at women who experiencing things like this for those who want to be allies. And at the end, little bits to church leaders and even a little bit at the end to people who are the abusers. But really mostly it's speaking to women like the
one who have sent that email.

Sheila
Well, thank you for that. And please pick up this book. We all need to
get better educated on this so that we may never think any of the things that this pastor wrote ever again, please. Thank you, Helen. Where can people find you?

Helen
Look up the Center for the Study of Bible and Violence. So csbvBristol.org.UK. But if you just put in Center for the Study of Bible and Violence, you'll find us in loads of resources. We look at the weaponization of scripture and also it violence within scripture. We're not just although
I'm in Britain, but we're an international network and we're always welcoming people who want to be part of what we're doing to benefit from what we do. We've got YouTube channel and got blogs and Bible studies. We even run an online MA and PhD program for people who want to do further study.
So loads of different opportunities to get involved if anyone's interested. 

Sheila
Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. 

Helem 
Thank you. 

Sheila
Helen Paynters, an amazing woman. Isn't she just so
pastoral? I just I just loved our interview with her. And I hope that you were blessed by that conversation. I hope that you can see through the fog of what we so often hear in Christian circles. This horrible way of weaponizing a distorting scripture to make it sound like God actually wants women to be hurt and that he takes delight in that. That is so not the heart of God. And to
me that sounds like the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to ascribe to God things that God would never want to be associated with that he that he delights in women suffering in horrible abusive marriages. And that that is his preference. And that's just it's not okay. It's just not okay. In church, we simply have to do better. So please check out the links to Helen Paynters book. The Bible Doesn't Tell Me So and the links to her organization and everything else I've put there.
But share this podcast too with other people that you know. And if you want to be part of partnering with us to get more information like this out there, will you consider becoming a patron for as little as five dollars a month or eight dollars or more. You can get access to exclusive Facebook group and to unfiltered podcasts and more so you can find us at patreon.combaremarriage. And we will see you again next week on the bear marriage podcast. Bye bye.