“Should a Christian leave a marriage because of abuse?”

Steve Brown:
“Should a Christian leave a marriage because of abuse? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. So, here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing good. How about you?

Pete Alwinson:
Good, good, good. It’s good to see you. You look very spiritual today.

Steve Brown:
I am. I am. In fact, I’m very close to entire sanctification.

Pete Alwinson:
Isn’t that amazing?

Steve Brown:
And then we’ll have to bring to a close,

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
these Friday meetings because pure people don’t hang out with impure.

Pete Alwinson:
That is so true. You don’t need, you wouldn’t need anybody else, except to offset.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson and Pete comes in and has for 25 years, that’s a record. We’ve been doing this for 25 years on Friday, sitting down and answering questions. At the beginning, I just needed somebody to share the blame and then he was my pastor and I had to be nice to him and then I got, so I sort of liked him. And we just finally ended up doing this forever and ever. And we do it cause we love each other and cause it’s fun. Be sure and check out ForgeTruth.com and if you go there, you can find out about the podcast that, it’s weekly, right?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it comes out.

Steve Brown:
You guys, you just would have a great time with that podcast. Go to ForgeTruth.com and by the way, we answer your questions and we love your questions. You can ask a question by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, follow instructions, record your question, sometimes we put that on the air. Or you can send your questions to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

if you’re in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us, think about it, financially, we would appreciate it and we would be as faithful with your gift as you were in the giving of it, squeezing every dime for the glory of God. If you can’t do it, we understand, say a prayer for this ministry. Pete, would you lead us in prayer and then we’ll get to questions.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Be a good idea. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for your goodness to us. We come into your presence, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we do so boldly and yet humbly as we recognize that you are high and holy and lifted up. You are the God of the Universe and there is only one God. We bow before you. We honor you in your glory and your majesty, in the fact that you know all things, you know all about us. And yet you are gracious and loving in your acceptance of us through Christ. And so, we come to you today and we thank you that you’ve been in charge all week and everything that we’ve experienced all week has gone before you and we ask that you would be honored and glorified and lifted up. Lord, in our lives, even how we live our lives today, but also this week-end in church as we gather with your people and Oh Lord, we look forward to that as we worship and praise you in your Holy Name. And God, we ask that you’d be with our pastors and priests and teachers and leaders and worship directors and all those that work hard to bring us into your presence. So, bless them that they would bless us and together we would glorify you. We pray all of these things right now as we do this Q&A, in Jesus’ strong name. Amen.

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

Caller 1:
You were talking about a woman who had questions about when is divorce okay? What about abuse? And you just kind of, I understand you’ve read scripture, but this is a key problem issue in the church is that they turn their backs on women, as myself. Divorce because I was abused for 23 years and thought that I had to stick by my husband no matter what. And please thoughtfully think this through and redo that question for the desperate women seeking God’s truth. Thank you.

Steve Brown:
You know, I think she misunderstood something we said. Pete and I were talking before this broadcast, and neither one of us believed that somebody who is being abused, needs to stay in a marriage. We would include that in the admonishments that are given by Paul and by Jesus, that this is a reason for divorce. Now, you’ve got to be careful how you define abuse. For some people, abuse is, you looked at me funny, and for others it’s a slap, it’s physical abuse, and then become sexual abuse. And if the abuse is real, and I’m sure it is with this lady who called, you were wise, you should have gotten out of the marriage before the 23 years. And if we, either one of us had been your pastor, that’s what we would’ve advised. I don’t understand pastors who say you gotta stay no matter what. That’s the way women get killed.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, Steve, well said. We both agree on this. We’ve agreed for a long time on this. And so, we don’t know what we said that maybe was misinterpreted, but no, you know, the breaking of the marriage bond happens, we think, I think for sure in the physical abuse.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it does.

Pete Alwinson:
That doesn’t mean you have to get a divorce, but we’re saying that you have a right, we think, and, if we were the pastors of that man, we would’ve confronted that man.

Steve Brown:
Oh man. With three or four big elders.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. Stout monks, that we would’ve brought along.

Steve Brown:
To explain this situation.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
So, I hope we’ve straightened that out and dear friend, you’ve been through a hard time and we get that. And you did exactly the right thing. What do terms existentialism, this is an e-mail, and propositional truth mean.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright, well those are terms that you bandy around about. So, Steve, go ahead.

Steve Brown:
Well, existential can mean a lot of different things, existentialism is a philosophical view that was started by a Christian and very quickly degenerated into a basically atheistic kind of view, but Kierkegaard who is considered the first of the existentialists. And it’s kind of fluid in terms, it can mean that you live for the moment. It can mean that you look at life in a particular way, often without meaning. And then I use it sometimes just to mean personal, it’s existential to you, means it’s personal to you. Now, you tell us what propositional truth is.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, the Bible is made up of Biblical narrative, historical narrative and proposition statements that are truth. Of course the Bible is true. And so, when we talk about propositional truth, we’re talking about clarifying the truths of Scripture.

Steve Brown:
Francis Schaeffer called that true truth.

Pete Alwinson:
True truth, yeah.

Steve Brown:
And it’s either not true or it is true. It’s that kind of proposition. If it’s not true, you can ignore it, go be a Buddhist or something else. But if it is true, it means you live your life on the basis of the factual nature of the propositional truth.

Pete Alwinson:
In Scripture, and so if you think of the one dimension of existentialism that says, Hey, there is no God. You’re a fluke, then there is no such thing as ultimate truth.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
But Christians believe that God created us. And so, we do believe there is such a thing as ultimate truth that is codified for us in the Bible, in propositions. So, that connects those two concepts.

Steve Brown:
And we probably ought to address our culture. We have a culture where truth is very fluid. Whatever you believe, if you believe, if you’re a man and you believe you’re a woman, then you’re a woman. If you believe that you can have eight wives or eight husbands, then it doesn’t matter. But the truth is that Christians are anchored to propositional truth.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And it’s very clear about the definition of a man or a woman, not without compassion for those people who are going through those kinds of things. But you can’t fiddle with the truth because it’s true truth.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And that ultimately in Christ and in the Gospel truth sets us free to live in Christ in a wonderful way. We need the truth.

Steve Brown:
This is another e-mail. What does the Bible teach about the practice of communion?

Pete Alwinson:
Ah. To do it, number one.

Steve Brown:
That in fact, that’s the only thing that’s absolute.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
You know, there’s so many different ways, as you read through Scripture, at the beginning, communion was just a meal. And it was a part and there are churches that have love feasts, which are essentially communion. And they’re meals. Other times when it’s practiced on a regular basis, other times when it seems like the doctrine of transubstantiation is true. This is my blood, this is my body. Other times when that doesn’t seem true because Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. Sometimes you get the feeling that Jesus is there. Sometimes it’s something he told us to do, to remember a time when he was there. And it goes on and on and on, that’s for a reason.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah. But it really is, something spiritual is taking place, as we really apprehend Christ. And it helps our faith. It is a means of grace to us, no matter what denomination you’re from.

Steve Brown:
Or how you practice it.

Pete Alwinson:
How you practice it, but we need to do this.

Steve Brown:
You know, we do sometimes, and sometimes that’s not good. We do so much analysis, theological analysis to what goes on rather than experiencing what goes on. What you said is so true, jesus is there. Some people believe it’s in the heart of the believers. Some people believe it’s in the elements itself. Some people believe that it’s, that would be Lutherans that it’s beside the actual, the wine and the bread. But don’t spend so much time doing that. Take communion cause Jesus told you to, the Eucharist.

Pete Alwinson:
And you’re proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes again and you’re appropriating it for yourself as you renew the covenant of grace for yourself, as well as the whole body does that together.

Steve Brown:
When I was a kid, I hated communion cause they did the whole liturgy and I knew the service was going to be two hours.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh wow.

Steve Brown:
Now that I’m an old guy, I can hardly wait for communion. It’s so meaningful to me.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s great.

Steve Brown:
Well guys, we’ve got to leave, we’re out of time. But I must say before we go, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.