Sally met Peter in her mid-30s. During their dating, he showered her with affection, and although she was not initially attracted to him, he eventually won her over.
Unexpectedly, his personality changed during their honeymoon when he screamed at her for sleeping in.
The verbal and emotional abuse escalated and became physical as he demanded routine intimacy, often against her will.
Sally’s only support system was the church she regularly attended. Eventually, she opened up to Christian friends and counselors, but instead of helping her leave an abusive relationship, they told her to forgive him and try to make it work.
Eventually, Sally left Peter and sought help through the legal system. She also left her church, feeling isolated and unwanted as a single mother. Ten years later, she still suffers from the trauma of abuse.
If only she had heard one good sermon on domestic violence or had a Christian counselor help her find a safe way out.[i]
Using Scripture to Perpetuate Violence
Given all we know about domestic violence today, it’s astonishing to me that there are still Christian pastors and leaders who cite a handful of verses in the Bible to encourage women to endure abuse. They often begin with Jesus’ prohibition of divorce:
It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (Matthew 5:31-32)[ii]
Then they cite prohibitions in the New Testament letters:
To the married I give this command—not I but the Lord—that the wife should not separate from her husband . . . and that the husband should not divorce his wife (1 Corinthians 7:10).
In good patriarchal fashion, they wrap-up their arguments by citing verses commanding wives to be submissive to their husbands:
“Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church . . .” (Ephesians 5:22-23).
In some of the most egregious cases, pastors misuse 1 Peter 3:1 to convince women that they can convert their abusive husbands by simply submitting to the violence as an act of love and humility:
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives. (1 Peter 3:1)
By pulling these verses out of context and flattening them into absolute moral rules, some of the very people entrusted with the good news of the gospel come to facilitate evil.
Thou Shalt Not Blindly Assent to Authority
I realize that the story of Sally and Peter is an extreme example and that most mainline Christians would be appalled by the idea of using scripture to excuse abuse. However, these stories are real and can help us see a more pervasive problem in religion: the expectation that people should blindly follow rules and refrain from questioning the religious leaders who teach and enforce them.
To illustrate the point, let’s return to Jesus’ prohibition of divorce in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). What changes when we ask the simple question, “Why?”
Why does Jesus issue such strong prohibitions against divorce, especially when men at that time were permitted to divorce under Jewish law? This question invites us to consider the historical, cultural, religious, and literary context of Jesus’ words, as well as the overarching message of his gospel. In light of these considerations, we may find that Jesus was seeking to protect women in a patriarchal society.
In ancient Palestine, women lived within a strongly patriarchal social system in which men held primary legal and economic authority. As children, they were under their father’s authority, but as they grew up, they were expected to marry and have children, preferably sons, to carry on the husband’s family name. This is where women found most of their value in the ancient world, and those who could not have children were often considered cursed by God. To find a husband and earn her father a good bride price, a woman needed to be a virgin. Of course, all of this changed on the wedding night, when the marriage was consummated and she came under the legal and social authority of her husband.
Now imagine several years later, when her husband grows tired of her or falls in love with another woman, tempting him to divorce. Importantly, while men had the right to divorce, women in most cases had little or no practical ability to initiate this kind of legal proceeding. Nevertheless, what would happen to her if she were abandoned by her husband? Since she is no longer a virgin and has already been deemed unfit by her ex, her prospects for remarriage would often be greatly diminished. If she were lucky, her father or eldest male relative might allow her to come home, but this was not a guarantee because of the shame her divorce would have brought on the family. Even so, she would have lived a life of perpetual shame. In some cases, women without family support could face severe economic hardship, including dependence on charity or other means of survival. In short, if a man abandoned his wife in the ancient world, it would have had life-altering negative consequences for her and possibly her children.
While not perfect, life in America today is very different. Legally, women have rights equal to men’s. They can own property, get an education, pursue a career, choose to marry or remain single, initiate a divorce, decide when and whether to have children, live independently, and largely determine the trajectory of their own lives. While divorce is often emotionally, spiritually, and financially devastating, women can and do find ways to recover and go on to enjoy happy, healthy, independent lives. But this was not the case in ancient Palestine—it was a different world.
Then Jesus comes along and says, “Men, don’t divorce your wives. I know the law gives you this right, but if you want to be one of my disciples, I’m telling you to stay married and keep your promise to protect your wife from the dangers of a cruel world.”
In this way, Jesus is not so much offering an absolute moral rule that applies to every person in every situation in every generation. Looking more deeply into his historical and cultural context, we see that he may have been trying to protect women in a patriarchal society, which is consistent with his overall message and treatment of women in the Gospels. Jesus consistently treated women with dignity and respect, often challenging the norms of his culture. His prohibition on divorce can be understood as a call for men to remain committed to their wives rather than discarding them through a one-sided, patriarchal form of divorce that could cause lasting harm.[iii]
When viewed this way, the spirit of Jesus’ prohibition of divorce is diametrically opposed to the way some fundamentalist Christians have used his words to excuse the abuse of women. Indeed, this is one example of how human interpreters can really mess things up when they insist on a naive, flat, literal reading of the Bible that ignores its historical, cultural, and religious context. What’s even more concerning is that such misinterpretations can become requisites of faith as religious leaders equate them with the infallible word of God and command blind assent.
Jesus was fully aware of this persistent temptation in religion, which is why he questioned the religious leaders of his day and their interpretations of sacred texts. Repeatedly throughout the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “You have heard that it was said . . . but I tell you . . .” (Matthew 5:21ff.). It’s as if he were saying: This is how the religious leaders have interpreted our sacred texts for years, but don’t blindly assent to their authority or mindlessly capitulate to their rules. Rather, look deeper, and you will see that, in most cases, specific moral rules are applications of larger ethical principles addressed to a specific group of people in a specific time and place. While the rules may have been life-giving in one context, they can prove to be death-dealing in others.
Life in the Spirit: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience
When specific moral rules are severed from the broader ethical principles from which they derive, we lose the reasons for those rules. Purposeful action becomes meaningless acquiescence, and living faith is reduced to dead moralism enforced by religious authoritarianism. The antidote is a life awake in the power of the Holy Spirit—a close, loving, vital relationship with the living God. While God speaks to us through sacred texts and even through religious leaders seeking to faithfully interpret them, God speaks to us in other ways as well.
In the United Methodist tradition, scripture is primary, but it is interpreted through the lenses of tradition, reason, and experience. All four are important when evaluating moral and religious claims. When we remember that the Bible must be interpreted and that our interpretations are sometimes mistaken, it becomes clear that vital faith requires us to question how the Bible is interpreted and used to derive religious and moral claims. [iv] Listening for God’s voice at the point where the spirit of the gospel intersects with the best of Christian tradition, reason, and experience can guide us in this endeavor.
Life in the Spirit of God is awake, alive, thoughtful, and critical of all absolute claims made by human beings. Instead of blind assent and meaningless acquiescence, we are encouraged to question religious authority and to test religious claims against the Spirit of the gospel and what we know to be true through reason and experience, both of which are progressively illuminated by the Holy Spirit as we practice a wide variety of spiritual disciplines and mature in our faith.
Challenge
Be bold and courageous in questioning religious authority in the pursuit of truth. If a pastor or religious leader tells you to believe something that everything else in your experience tells you is wrong, there is a good chance it is wrong! At the very least, be willing to think critically and entertain questions. If your church teaches that faith requires blind assent and discourages you from asking questions, then you should consider finding a more open-minded and safe spiritual home. True faith will never require you to park your brain at the door or deny what you have learned in all other areas of life. While this kind of authoritarian strategy may temporarily give you the false security of belonging to an exclusive tribe, it will eventually require you to betray yourself and lose the living connection with God that makes our transformation in love possible.
This is especially true when we are navigating change and facing fears of the unknown. Instead of retreating into the illusion of certainty or mindlessly doing what we have always done, we can find the wisdom, courage, and strength to question religious claims as we seek a more integrated knowledge that broadens our horizons of understanding and facilitates our journey toward wholeness.
God is not only big enough to handle your doubts and questions but also loves you enough to encourage them.
Continue the Journey
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Pastor Mark Reynolds is the author of the forthcoming book What Christians Do: Living Like Jesus in a Divided World (October 2026), exploring practical ways Christians can embody the character and teachings of Jesus in today’s world.
This post is the sixth in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.
Notes
[i] Baird, Julia. “’Submit to your husbands’: Women told to endure domestic violence in the name of God.” ABC News, 23 January 2018, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/domestic-violence-church-submit-to-husbands/8652028.
[ii] In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus doesn’t even make an exception for infidelity: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.” (Luke 16:18)
[iii] One thing that really bothers me about Jesus’ prohibitions (and does not support my argument) is his command for men not to marry divorced women. Since divorced women were so vulnerable in the ancient world, this would seem like a very compassionate thing for a man to do. Why not allow men to make personal sacrifices to help vulnerable women without being condemned to deadly sin? Remember, according to Jewish law, men and women both could be stoned for adultery (Leviticus 20:10).
[iv] As Paul Tillich once said, doubt is an important element in faith.
Pastor Mark Reynolds 