“How do I deal with an abusive family member?”

Steve Brown:
“How do I deal with an abusive family member?” The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don’t get any better, God will still love them anyway. That teaching raises a lot of questions, so here’s author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with answers to the Bible, that’ll make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Matthew Porter:
Hey. You look, you look great.

Steve Brown:
I mean, if I got out of bed, I’d look great. I mean, at my age, man, you don’t have to look like Rock Hudson or something, I mean.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right. That’s true.

Steve Brown:
You’ve just got to get out of bed and people say you’re amazing.

Pete Alwinson:
You are amazing, Steve.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Sure I am. That’s Pete Alwinson and for over 25 years, he’s come in and every Friday, we’ve sat down at this table and we’ve answered questions. And we genuinely love being together and we love to answer your questions. You, by the way, check out ForgeTruth.com you ought to be listening to that podcast. That’ll blow you away. It’s fun and it’s easy to get, and you can find out how at ForgeTruth.com. We, as I’ve said, love your questions. You can call, you can ask a question 24 7, just pick up the phone and dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE and follow the instructions. You hit a certain button and then you record what your question is, and we often put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

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in Canada, it’s

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or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, those are places you could do it. They’re touch places. If you can help us financially, please be as generous as you can. And if you can’t, we understand. You can charge it on your credit card, include it in your envelope, or just in cash, we’ll take that. We, and I promise that we will squeeze every dime for the glory of God. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and then we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Our Great God, we come to you today. How grateful we are, it’s Friday. And Lord, the schedule’s going to change a little bit this week-end. And what a joy it is to be able to have a break. And yet, Lord God, we look to you, we thank you, for your great love for us that never changes. And your mercies are new every morning. And we’re thankful that we can meet with you in the morning. We can walk with you during the day. That we know even as we sleep, that you rule the universe. Father, we thank you that you’re over governments and economies, you’re over our relationships. You are sovereign. We give you honor for that and pray that your sovereign power linked with your grace would enable us to to rest in you. Be with our leaders this week-end as we go to church. And Lord, we ask that you would use them in a powerful way, Holy Spirit descend upon our churches and bring your fresh and holy fire to us. So, we commit this time of Q&A to you now. Thank you for Steve and all those at Key Life who do so much behind the scenes. Be with us in this time. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
God must really be mad at me. I’m 69 and still dealing with an abusive aunt. I’ve been abused, had abuse in my life and mental illness all my life. And with the pandemic, life’s getting very hard. I just need your prayers that I can’t understand God’s love. I don’t understand it anymore.

Steve Brown:
That’s I, that, that causes pain to me when you say that.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, man.

Steve Brown:
Because I think of others that are going through a similar kind of thing. You know, one of the things that we, we used to teach assertiveness training for Christians. And that made people, we did it in part of a born free seminar we taught all over the country. And people would say there shouldn’t be assertiveness training for Christians. Well, yeah, there should be. I wrote a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy on Christian boldness. And sometimes we allow our Christian faith to tell us to do and be stuff that God never told us to do and to be. I think it’s perfectly legitimate if you’re being verbally abused by somebody in your family to say, I’m not putting up with this anymore. And if you can’t stop it, I’m just simply not, can’t be your friend. You’ve got to, you know, there’re people who say, I’m going to hang up the phone, not because I don’t love you, I do. But I’m just not going to be abused and demeaned anymore.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right.

Steve Brown:
And that’s Christian, believe it or not. And you say, well, it’s certainly not turning the other cheek. Well, that’s another issue all together. This is different. This has to do with people who abuse out of a dysfunction that kills people. So, you’ve got to say, No, I’m not going to do that anymore.

Pete Alwinson:
I love that. And I think that’s so important. I think you’re right, and you taught me a lot about this, that even as a pastor, when people would talk down. I would say, Whoa, whoa, timeout. Okay. We’re brothers in Christ, and I’m your pastor and you’re not going to talk to me that way.

Steve Brown:
And that’s Christian.

Pete Alwinson:
And that took me a while to get to because I want,

Steve Brown:
Me too.

Pete Alwinson:
naturally I want people to like me.

Steve Brown:
Me too.

Pete Alwinson:
But, you can’t fuel bad behavior. Now, it almost sounds like, I wonder if this lady lives with her aunt and has responsibility for care for her. But still, I think she can say something to her like that, you know?

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I do too.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. And, honey, we’re not going to talk to each other that way. And, it hurts our relationship, you know, we do need to allow our speech to be filled with grace, but we need to address this.

Steve Brown:
And be bold.

Pete Alwinson:
Be bold.

Steve Brown:
Be bold. And the church plays a part in this. We sometimes forget, we think church is only the place where you go and worship on a Sunday morning. And the rest of the week, they have nothing to do. But as a matter of fact, the leaders in the church can intervene in these kinds of situations.

Pete Alwinson:
They can help out.

Steve Brown:
Can make a, and I’ve seen that happen over and over again in family situations.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, it really, it is a, as a side note here, as we get older in Christ, how easy it is for us to get grumpier and grumpier, as a function of age,

Steve Brown:
Speak for yourself.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this.

Steve Brown:
I’ve become nicer and nicer.

Pete Alwinson:
This is an intervention.

Steve Brown:
Boy, you’re right though.

Pete Alwinson:
But you have to manage that and bring that to the Lord too, and let the Lord, because we could justify becoming mean, old, and crotchety.

Steve Brown:
That’s so true. Okay. And we’ll pray for you. That’s a hard place to be, especially if it’s in your house and you can’t just walk out. Talk to your pastor about it. He will be able to say some things that’ll make a difference too. This is an interesting question, I’m sure. Does salvation come through the covenant line? If the answer is no, then is it a decision? How do you define salvation? That’s pretty heavy.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s a big one. And they’re really trying to see. Does it come through the covenant line, therefore are you saved sort of at baptism? Or do I have to make a decision? The baptism is a sign and seal the covenant of grace. So if you’re, through the covenant of line, just cause your parents are believers, doesn’t mean you’re born again.

Steve Brown:
No, not at all. It means that you’re a covenant child.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Right.

Steve Brown:
And that God has a, but no, that didn’t mean salvation.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. So then the whole issue of decision. You know, and we say, Well, I mean it’s the Holy Spirit that converts the heart. We would agree with that, but he enables us, Ephesians 2, to make that decision

Steve Brown:
that’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
to receive.

Steve Brown:
So, yeah. And what is salvation? It’s when Jesus hugs you and says, You’re forgiven and I’m going to get you home before the dark.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
And he does.

Pete Alwinson:
He does. It’s this amazing life transformation, it affects every area of your life.

Steve Brown:
It really is. And you know, don’t underestimate the power of the covenant line. It really is important.

Pete Alwinson:
It is.

Steve Brown:
And you’ll find it, it’s taught in the New Testament, but it’s central in the Older Testament, that being a Christian isn’t just you and Jesus, a John Wayne thing, being a Christian is being a part of a Christian family, of being a part of a Christian covenant, of being a part, when God calls one, he calls a bunch. And that bunch is often within your family. And that’s a family covenant and it is important.

Pete Alwinson:
I think that is, that’s exactly right. We are a part of a family, so if you were raised in a Christian home and accept Christ, you’re continuing that covenantal line, and then, but if you aren’t, that’s okay and you receive Christ, you join that covenantal community and you start the line.

Steve Brown:
Okay, an e-mail. What about physical healing?

Pete Alwinson:
I think it’s a great thing when it happens, right? We believe it happens today.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I agree.

Pete Alwinson:
But you know, does God use first causes, second causes? Can God heal immediately through prayer, laying on of hands? Anointing with oil? Yes. Can he heal through second causes, doctors, medications? Yes.

Steve Brown:
And sometimes he doesn’t.

Pete Alwinson:
And sometimes he doesn’t. That’s right, maybe the healing is by bringing us home.

Steve Brown:
You know, you and I both, me a lot more than you, have been pastors for a lot of years.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh yeah.

Steve Brown:
And we’ve seen some amazing things. I used to tell students one of the great gifts that God has given you is a front row seat, to simply watch what God does.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh yeah.

Steve Brown:
I mean, there have been hopeless situations, physical, and we used to have a healing service in our church. And it was amazing what God did.

Pete Alwinson:
For a Presbyterian Church, that’s an amazing deal.

Steve Brown:
We don’t do that sort of thing. And I really felt called to do that and decided to go ahead and one of the elders said, I don’t like this. And I said, well, you know, I’m ordained and I have a special connection. No, I didn’t say that, but I said, pray about it and think about it. He said, Pastor, I’ll go with you, but let’s see what happens. And we saw God do amazing things because we reached out in faith.

Pete Alwinson:
When there’s a demand that God must heal me. When there is that sense, you have to heal me, then it’s out of line. What, do a study, read the gospels and note that Jesus healed in many different ways, people that had faith, people that didn’t even know who he was, people that knew who he was. There’s no one model of healing in the New Testament. And so, when we put that pressure on God, it’s not of faith, it’s of demanding.

Steve Brown:
And then there’s another problem with theology, when you say that God heals. And if you’re not healed, you didn’t have enough faith or you didn’t exercise the principle.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. That’s a problem too.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. If we had time, we’d talk about that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. If you just had enough faith, you’d be healed. That’s a problem.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s right. I’d have hair as a matter of fact. Guys, we’ve got to go. Hope you have a great week-end. And before I go, must say Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.