The Bible and Sexual Abuse Recovery

Today I will be presenting at the Evangelical Theological Society on how to view and use the Bible in providing biblical counseling for sexual abuse. The technical title of the presentation paper is: A Theologically-Informed Approach to Sexual Abuse Counseling Implementing the Hermeneutical Spiral.

It’s much more practical than it sounds…because the Bible has a rich, robust, relevant, and relational approach to helping people to find hope and healing in Christ.

Questions to Ponder from 2 Samuel 13

Part of the presentation examines 2 Samuel 13 and the rape of Tamar by her half-brother, Amnon. In the paper, I suggest some of the rich insights we find in this passage. Consider some of the probing questions we could ask in seeking to discern truth for life in 2 Samuel.

• How does the opening phrase, “in the course of time,” set the broader context for the purpose of this passage in this book? How does David’s preceding sexual sin and murder (just two chapters earlier) assist in understanding the purpose for the inclusion of this passage in inspired Scripture?

• What is God wanting us to learn about life, fallen human nature, abuse of power, etc.?

• How are we to interpret Amnon’s “falling in love”?

• How is Tamar’s beauty used against her and what impact might this have upon her sense of self?

• How should Amnon have handled his “frustration” and depression (“haggard”)?

• How should Jonadab have counseled his friend?

• Why the repeated use of “love” and “do”?

• How does the repeated use of “my sister” and “my brother” impact our interpretation and application of this passage?

• Where did Tamar, especially given the culture of her day, find the strength to speak (find and keep her voice and power) so forcefully about the foolish, wicked nature of Amnon’s attitude and actions?

• How did she find the bold love to force him to ponder the personal consequences of his sinfulness?

• How does his refusal to listen to her (repeated in the text several times) relate to the voicelessness of sexual abuse victims?

• How does his forcing her because he was stronger than her relate to the powerlessness of sexual abuse victims?

• Why did Amnon then hate her so? What do we make of this?

• How did his calling her “this woman” (in the Hebrew it is simply “this”) impact her shame and false guilt?

• How did his bolting the door against her impact her sense of shame (blaming the victim)?

• What does Tamar’s ritual grieving (appropriate for the culture of her day) suggest about helping sexual abuse victims to face their grief candidly?

• How might Absalom’s “counsel” to “be quiet” (another case of voicelessness) and “don’t take this thing to heart” work against her full grieving?

• What, by Absalom’s negative example, can we learn about sustaining and healing a sexual abuse victim?

• What does it mean that Tamar lived a desolate woman and how might this relate to sexual abuse victims today?

• What do we make of David being furious but inactive?

• What do we make of Absalom’s anger, hatred, and eventual murder in terms of family members’ responses to the disgrace of sexual abuse?

• What do we make of David grieving the death of Amnon while never grieving the rape of Tamar?

Questions to Ponder from Specific Words in 2 Samuel 13

Later in the presentation we dive even deeper, probing the following questions that help us to begin to develop a biblical understanding of the damage done by sexual abuse and a way toward God’s healing of sexual abuse.

• What does “fell in love with” mean and imply?

• Why did the author include “beautiful” in describing Tamar?

• What do “frustrated” and “haggard” mean relative to Amnon?

• How are we to interpret the author’s use of “shrewd” to describe Jonadab the evil counselor?

• What is the force of “grabbed”? What is the force of “don’t”? What is the meaning of “force”?

• Why did Tamar choose the phrase “such a thing should not be done in Israel”? What might the cultural context be for this phrase? The cultural meaning?

• What do we make of the repeated use of “don’t”?

• What is the meaning of “wicked”? How does this meaning help us to conceptualize the evil of sexual abuse?

• What did Tamar mean by “what about me”?

• What did she mean by “how could I get rid of my disgrace”? Culturally, what did this imply? How can “disgrace” help us to understand the hideous consequence of sexual abuse?

• What did Tamar mean by “what about you”?

• What does “wicked fools in Israel” mean and what does it say about the evils of sexual abuse?

• How do these words from Tamar help us to glimpse the human author’s and the divine Author’s view of sexual abuse?

• What does “he refused to listen” mean and imply?

• What does “he was stronger than she, he raped her” mean and imply then and now?

• What does “he hated her with intense hatred” mean and imply?

• What does the curt, “get up and get out” mean and imply?

• What does the repeated use of “he refused to listen to her” mean and imply?

• What does “weeping aloud” say about grieving sexual abuse?

• What does “be quiet” mean and imply?

• What does “don’t take this thing to heart” mean and imply?

• Is Absalom’s word for “disgrace” the same as Tamar’s word for it?

Join the Conversation 

How surprised are you that the Bible has such a rich, robust, relational, and relevant approach to understanding sexual abuse?

Do You Trust Your Bible?

G. K. Chesterton noted that, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

The same could be said for biblical counseling. “The sufficiency of Scripture ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

I was stuck by this realization while working on a presentation paper for the upcoming Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) meeting in San Francisco. My topic is: A Theologically-Informed Approach to Sexual Abuse Counseling: Implementing the Hermeneutical Spiral.

With an issue like sexual abuse counseling, I believe we tend toward two extremes.

Extreme # 1: A One-Verse, One-Problem, One-Solution “Concordance” Approach

We can illustrate this approach with another important life issue—anxiety. Someone comes to us with “anxiety issues” and we quote Philippians 4:6 about being anxious for nothing.

We’re like a physician who says, “Take two pills and call me in the morning.” But we’re really saying, “Take one verse and don’t call me!”

This is a shallow, non-relational, and lazy approach to ministering to people. It’s also ineffectual and unbiblical.

Extreme # 2: A Solution-Focused, “Secular” Approach

Because of the stereotype of extreme # 1, many people—pastors, Christian counselors, educators, and “lay” spiritual friends—tend toward the opposite extreme. We don’t want to be shallow and non-relational, and we don’t find the phrase “sexual abuse” in our concordance, so we wrongly assume that the Bible does not adequately address real life issues.

So, if we’re a “lay person,” we race to the self-help shelf of our local bookstore, or we open the Amazon Books tag in our web browser and type in “sexual abuse.” Thinking there’s not a quick biblical answer addressing sexual abuse recovery, we assume there’s no biblical answer at all.

We abdicate our time-tested (two-thousand years of church history), biblical responsibility to be soul physicians who understand life from the perspective of the Author of life, who understand the creature through the words of the Creator.

Sad Example A: The “Secular” Approach in the Church

What’s really sad is when we find this approach in churches, especially churches where in the pulpit the “sufficiency of Scripture” is taught and modeled. Think about that. You have a church where the pastor faithfully exegetes God’s Word, develops a passage in context, and applies it accurately to real life. Yet, in the same church, in the “counseling wing,” in the “personal ministry of the Word,” an entirely different mindset holds sway.

Rather than trusting the authority, relevancy, profundity, and sufficiency of God’s Word for real life issues in the counselor’s office, the counselor turns to and depends upon secular concepts in an attempt to address issues of the soul. That pastoral counselor might actively pray for and with parishioners. The pastoral counselor might “baptize” the counseling appointment by sprinkling in the occasional verse of comfort or guidance. However, the counselor fails to develop a comprehensive, compassionate, Christ-centered approach to the life issue.

Sad Example B: The “Secular Approach in Christian Higher Education

I find it equally sad when we see this approach in Christian higher education. This is especially sad and even maddening in schools where the Bible department, the biblical languages departments, and the theology departments all model a trust in the sufficiency of Scripture. Yet, in the pastoral ministry department or the counseling department, that trust is less evident.

Rather than teaching their pastors-to-be and their counselors-to-be how to engage Scripture deeply and how to relate truth to life wisely and lovingly, the bulk of the time is spent in examining what the world has to say. And a decent amount of time is spent criticizing those “naïve biblical counselors” with their one-verse, one-problem, one-solution approach.

There has to be a better, more biblical way, right? These two extremes can’t be our only options, can they?

A Biblical Way: A SOUL-u-tion-Focused “Concept” Approach

Anyone who reads my blog posts or my books knows that I’m not a “psychology basher.” I don’t spend my time and expend my energy on “what I’m against.” I focus on “what I’m for”—changing lives with Christ’s changeless truth.

While I can’t reproduce my entire ETS paper here in blog form (it’s over 10,000 words), I can offer a way forward. For those convinced that the Bible provides wise counsel for specific and significant soul issues, the core question is, “In what form are those answers provided?”

We won’t find the biblical answer in the “concordance form”—one-problem, one-verse, one-solution. Instead, the Bible provides counsel for specific and significant soul issues in a “concept form.” This requires that we conceptualize problems using biblical wisdom principles that address the complexity of real and raw life as lived in a fallen and broken world.

This takes time, effort, training, work, energy, prayer, and dependence upon the Spirit. That’s why it is so seldom done.

We race to one verse or one secular book rather than entering the marathon of the hard work of studying the Bible cover to cover to relate God’s truth to human life. While our concordance may not contain the phrase “sexual abuse,” the Bible comprehensively and compassionate addresses life concepts such as gender, sexuality, sexual sin, shame, shalom, masculinity, femininity, power and powerlessness, abuse, voice and voicelessness, hiding, longings, desires, mindsets, motivations, emotions, self-protection, comfort, healing, forgiveness, confrontation, mind renewal, the image of God, and so much more.

The Bible offers a robust, relevant, and relational understanding of the damage done by sexual abuse and of the way forward toward Christ-centered healing from sexual abuse. What we need is a biblical and theological approach that provide a way of viewing and using the Bible to develop a theology and methodology of sexual abuse counseling.

The intent of my ETS paper is to share “the how to.” For far too long we’ve told people to trust the sufficiency of Scripture, yet we’ve failed to teach people how to view the Bible and we’ve failed to equip people how to use the Bible to relate truth to life.

The intent of this blog post is to raise awareness, to provoke toward deeper thinking, to challenge each of us to “put feet” to our trust in God’s Word.

Join the Conversation

Do you trust your Bible?

When you or someone you care about is struggling with an intense, real-life issue, where do you turn?

If you turn to your Bible, do you turn there in a way that produces a robust, relational, relevant, Christ-centered approach for changing lives with Christ’s changeless truth?

Note: After November 20, 2011, you can go to my RPM Ministries Free Resources Page to download my ETS paper. Scroll down on that page to the ETS label and click on: A Theologically-Informed Approach to Sexual Abuse Counseling: Implementing the Hermeneutical Spiral.

Peace that Passes Understanding

When life is in turmoil, what passages do you read and reflect on to find the peace of God and to experience the God of peace?

Over the past two months, I’ve face life’s turmoil ever since I heard those words that no one likes to hear from their doctor. “We’re going to need to do some tests.”

I’m pleased and thankful to share that, after weeks of feeling like a human pin-cushion, my doctor has finally given me a clean bill of health. But it was, to be frank, a scary few weeks.

We’re all different, so we all turn to different biblical passages to “fear not.” The following list contains the passages I turned to and meditated on repeatedly. For the words of each passage, feel free to read and/or download Scriptures to Meditate on for God’s Peace.

• Genesis 1:2

• Genesis 45:4-7

• Genesis 50:20

• Deuteronomy 31:6

• Joshua 1:6-9 

• Psalm 23:4

• Psalm 27:1

• Psalm 46:1-2

• Psalm 46:10

• Psalm 95:1-5

• Isaiah 26:3-4

• Isaiah 40:10-11

• Isaiah 40:28-31

• Isaiah 41:10, 13

• Isaiah 43:1-2

• Matthew 6:9-13

• Matthew 10:29-31

• Luke 15:20-24

• John 14:1

• John 16:33

• Romans 8:14-18

• Romans 8:23-28

• Romans 8:31-39

• 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

• 1 Corinthians 15:20-23

• 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

• Galatians 2:20

• Ephesians 1:18-20

• Ephesians 3:16-21

• Ephesians 6:10-18

• Philippians 1:20-24

• Philippians 3:7-14

• Philippians 4:6-8

• Colossians 1:29

• 2 Timothy 1:6-7

• Hebrews 2:14-18

• Hebrews 4:14-16

• Hebrews 10:19-23

• Hebrews 11:24-27

• Hebrews 12:1-3

• Hebrews 13:5-6

• 1 Peter 5:5-10

• 1 John 4:16-18

• Revelation 7:16-17

• Revelation 21:1-7

Join the Conversation

What passages do you turn to in order to find peace that passes understanding?

How to View and Use the Bible for Biblical Counseling

For day three of the class I’m teaching at Capital Bible Seminary, we explored a theology of biblical counseling, examining:

• What the Bible says about the purity, priority, promise, and purpose of special revelation

• What the Bible teaches about the nature and purpose of general revelation

• The biblical teaching on common grace

• The biblical teaching on total depravity

For day four, we’ll be discussing How to View the Bible for Biblical Counseling. We’ll examine:

• The Point of the Bible for Matters of the Soul

• The Principles of the Bible for Matters of the Soul

• The Promise of the Bible for Matters of the Soul

• The Power of the Bible for Matters of the Soul

• The Purpose of the Bible for Matters of the Soul

• The Process of the Bible for Matters of the Soul

• The Pattern of the Bible for Matters of the Soul

Then on Friday, we’ll examine How to Use the Bible for Biblical Counseling. For a manuscript of the lesson, go to Scripture and Soul.

Join the Conversation

How do you view the Bible for biblical counseling? How do you use the Bible to develop a biblical model of counseling?

The Sufficiency of Christ

For day two of the class I’m teaching at Capital Bible Seminary, we’re focusing on the sufficiency of Christ.

From Colossians 1, we’ll discuss the sufficiency of Christ’s grace. His grace is sufficient for our identity, our relationality, our ministry, and our victory. In Christ we have all-sufficient rescue, redemption, rule, reconciliation, regeneration, and revelation. Only Christ is sufficient for relational living now and forever. We’ll apply these truths to practical biblical counseling issues.

From Colossians 2,we’ll explore the sufficiency of Christ’s wisdom. We’ll compare and contrast the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of the Word. We’ll probe the robust, relational wisdom that we find only in Christ and His Word We’ll apply these truths to the discussion of the sufficiency of Scripture.

Throughout the day, we’ll discuss complex, real-life counseling issues and ponder how to explore God’s Word to develop robust insights for understanding people, diagnosing problems, and prescriping solutions–biblically, relationally, practically, and comprehensively.

Join the Conversation

How does the sufficiency of Christ impact your daily life, relationships, and ministry?

The Sufficiency of Christianity

Today begins day one of my five-day modular class I’m teaching at Capital Bible Seminary.

We’re focused today on the Sufficiency of Christianity. The questions we’ll address on day one include:

• What is the state of biblical counseling today?
• What is the purpose/definition of biblical counseling?
• What is Christ’s grace sufficient for?
• Where do we find wisdom for living?
• How and where do we find truth?

Join the Conversation

How would you answer any of today’s questions?