Category: untwisting Scriptures

Content Warning. Obviously.

A friend sent me the infamous sermon clip this morning. Here is a link from Sarah McDugal so you can see it yourself:

I was incensed. But I was trying to finish a deadline for a book I’m ghostwriting, and then I had to get ready for a score of people coming for Thanksgiving.

But then a reporter from Julie Roys contacted me to get a quote about it.

“I’m not really your person,” I said. “I talk about domestic abuse a little, but mostly I focus on untwisting Scriptures.”

She said, “That’s what this is about.”

She read me the snippet of a Bible verse that he quoted.  “You are not your own.” That meant, he said, that you belong to your husband and he should be able to rape you.

He actually TOLD husbands to rape their wives.

Here’s where I’m going to get graphic. You have been warned.

This is not about wives acting cute and coy and giving a “no” that is really a “yes,” which is toxic teaching all on its own.

This is about rape, which is not gentle. It is beastly. It is sometimes even done with other equipment, like kitchen tools and curling irons.

I have a husband who has always been supremely gentle with me, so I do not speak from personal experience. I speak from the stories of scores of women whose voices need to be heard.

“You are not your own,” this preacher said.

This is a prime example of Scripture twisting.

“You are not your own” does NOT mean you belong to your husband for him to do with whatsoever he will, to use and bruise and toss aside, wiping his mouth and saying, “I have done no wrong.”

“You are not your own” is a snippet from 1 Corinthians 6:17-20.

But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

This is about your body belonging to God, not your husband. Do not do sexually immoral things with your body, because it belongs to God.

Your body belongs to God, and you and your husband can “belong” to each other in the sense that you can mutually care for each other.

You will abstain from immorality because you belong to the Lord.

But how many will actually look at the Scripture, to understand it? From my experience, not many.

If we understand the Scripture, we will be better equipped to refute false teachers such as this one.

Because teachings such as this are devastating the body of Christ.

UPDATE: This man has resigned in ignominy and given an “unqualified apology.” A statement from his denomination is here: https://www.nadadventist.org/news/north-american-division-responds-statement-new-york-conference-regarding-harmful-comments-made

Heads up: Untwisting Scriptures that were used to tie you up, gag you, and tangle your mind: Book 3 Your Words, Your Emotions will be free on Kindle until November 9th, 2021. Download your copy here.

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Perhaps you’ve been taught that your feelings lie to you. That they will lead you astray, away from God and down Satan’s path, so you shouldn’t believe them.

That really never made sense to me (even in the days before I understood trauma), because feelings are just expressing feelings. They’re not making a statement of truth or falsehood.

You can say, “I feel like God doesn’t love me. That’s a lie, right?” Continue reading “Here’s How You Can Tell When You Should Listen to Your Feelings”

Untwisting Scriptures that were used to tie you up, gag you, and tangle your mind: Book 3 Your Words, Your Emotions is available for the next few days for FREE in e-book form. You can download it without charge here until Tuesday, November 9th, 2021, instead of paying the usual e-book price of $5.99. Continue reading “Paul Sure Did Confront Peter a Lot in This New Book”

Last week, when Paul Kingsbury (who I referenced in regard to “bitterness” in my first Untwisting Scriptures book) preached the sermon I’m critiquing today, I was busy putting the finishing touches on my third Untwisting Scriptures book and sending it out to the readers who will help me with my Book Launch when it comes out November 1^st. Needless to say, I’m excited about this!

But now I’m able to turn my attention back to where it so often ends up going: Bad Sermons.

Paul Kingsbury is a former Chicago-area pastor who was the co-founder of Reformers Unanimous, the addiction recovery program that Josh Duggar attended a few years ago. Kingsbury has been named before and was recently named again in a news article about what appeared to be covering for someone who a missionary who had sexually assaulted a woman.

Continue reading “Let’s Compare Potiphar’s Wife with Tamar, Shall We?”

Last week I took a writing retreat to work on my third Untwisting Scriptures book,  tentatively subtitled “Your Words, Your Emotions.” It will address  good stuff like gossip and slander, and anger and fear and shame. My hope is for it to be out before the end of 2021!

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One of the “Untwisting Scriptures” topics I’m known for tackling is the topic of giving up or yielding your rights. That’s the discussion in the first few chapters of the first Untwisting Scriptures book, and it was the topic the first time I was invited to speak at an abuse conference.

One of the apparently audacious assertions I make about rights—besides the assertion that it’s basically impossible for us to give up our rights—is that Jesus never gave up His rights. Continue reading “What Did Jesus Mean When He Said “Turn the Other Cheek”?”

Colossians 4:6 says,

“Let your speech always be gracious [or in some versions, ‘with grace’ or ‘full of grace’], seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

This is one of the many Scriptures used to teach us to “speak sweet.” When I researched it, I found article after article telling us that having “gracious” speech, or speech that is “full of grace” means speaking in a kind and inoffensive way to and about everyone.

And to those writers, “seasoned with salt” means “pleasant tasting.” Again, inoffensive, causing no waves, just pleasant and smiling and plastic no matter what.

And for my non-American readers, here’s the rest of that old adage:

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Continue reading ““If you can’t say something nice” . . . in Colossians 4:6”

In May I recorded the audiobook for the second Untwisting Scriptures book, focusing on Patriarchy and Authority.

I’m happy to say that the producer is a professional sound engineer who has done audio work for Julie Roys, Dr. Diane Langberg, and other advocates.

It should be available within a few days, I hope!

I’ve mentioned before that most of the chapters of this book were blog posts before they were edited into chapters, going all the way back to 2013. But a few of them were written brand new for the book.

One of those new ones was chapter 18, “The Authority We Have in Jesus Christ.” A day or two ago as I was listening to the optimized version of this chapter, I thought, “Hmmm, this information is so important, I should probably make it available free of charge to those who for one reason or another won’t or can’t buy the book.” Continue reading “Yes, We Really Do Have Authority in Jesus Christ”

Dear friend~

In our correspondence, you referred to the parable of the talents as a story of a person being punished “because he feared the master’s severity.  It was not about the cleverness of investing but about how he viewed the owner/master,” you said. “I hate it… but that’s soo me. And I know it displeases Him. Because if I BELIEVED in my heart what my head and you tell me of Him, I wouldn’t be feeling this. So I don’t. And it feels like I can’t.” Continue reading “The Parable of the Talents, for a Fearful Abuse Survivor”