161. Freedom from Victimhood with Guest Jon Hollifield

I found my freedom in you I found a joy I can't lose And thank God it's true You wrapped your arms around me And heaven broke through From the moment you found me I found my freedom in you Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safer and Brad Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. What a great day it is to be here with you today. I'm always so grateful and thankful that you tune in to us every single week. And if you ever have a question for us, we're more than willing to entertain that and talk about it and listen to it. Today was just me. Brett is actually not here. He's not been feeling well these last couple of weeks. If you'd be praying for him, we hope to have him back next week. But right now he's been having some debilitating headaches and just some hard times. And doctors have got him on some different medicine, different medication to work on that. And so as they continue to work on that, we're going to continue to pray for him and be there to help him as he needs the help that he needs. But I would ask you if you would just remember him and pray for him. Maybe reach out to him on Facebook, social media, and tell him that you're thinking about him, that you're praying for him during this time. I know that would greatly, he'd greatly appreciate that. I want to remind you of just a couple of things before we get started with today's episode. We have our website for our Full Freedom Cigars collection. Right now we have three. We're working on a fourth cigar. And it's a great time, man. We've been able to have some great conversations over that. And if you'd like to be a part of that, jump into that collection there. The link will be at the show notes. You can also find it on our website at fullfreedompodcast.com. And a couple of different ways you can order there from the 1689 collection. And just thankful that we have that opportunity to be able to do that. We're going to have some different specials and deals coming out once we get our full line of four cigars ready. And just excited about what the Lord's going to do in that avenue that we've jumped through. If you would like to join us, we'll be going to Israel in just about a year. We've finalized some dates in the end of January, February. We're making sure that's all going to work out well. And we'll have that up and live on our website. If you'd like to go with us, it's going to be a great time. It's a great opportunity for us to be able to do this. And we would love for you to join us and be a part of what the Lord's doing in Israel. I just want to take a moment as I have, this is the 161st episode of the podcast. I was reflecting back and thinking back on all that we've been able to be a part of and just been able to record the interviews that we've had. And I'm just so thankful that we have been able to do this. And I'm just thankful for you as listeners. I've been able to be a part of this. The text messages, the phone calls that I've gotten have been a blessing to me. And I'm thankful that this microphone and the avenues that the Lord has given us has been a blessing to others as well as a blessing to myself. And so looking forward to what the Lord's going to do through this over the next couple of years as we continue on the podcast in this realm of what we're doing. And thank you again for listening. I can't say it enough as I've been thinking through that. And thank you for your encouragement as well. Man, I get so many text messages, direct messages that just encourage me. And I'm thankful for that. So today we've got a great episode for you. We're talking through our woke series and wokeness in the church. And we've got a great one today on victimhood and what that looks like. We've got a great guest that you'll hear about in just a minute. But let's get started with our intro into wokeness from victimhood. We cannot truly worship God while we stay silent on injustice in all kinds of areas. And I know as a white pastor, I have blind spots. So I am part of the problem. James, Paul, elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures. And my friends, we must as well. White people fear black men. That's not fair. But it's true. Jesus repents of his racism and extends healing to this woman's daughter. I love this story because it's a reminder that Jesus is human. He had prejudices and bias. And when confronted with it, he was willing to do his work. I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling child of God. I believe in the rainbow spirit who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity. I believe in the church of everyday saints as numerous, creative, and resilient as patches on the ace quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud and whose eyes gaze at the stars in wonder. I believe in the calling to each of us that love is love is love. So, beloved, let us love. I believe, glorious God, help my unbelief. Amen. This woke self-loathing And we will never let the woke left take it away. It's because they're putting woke ideology to a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is. In this season of the For Freedom Podcast, we want to bring to you some enlightening topics that deal with the wokeness of the church. We want to bring to light some issues that are often overlooked and we hope that it will be a blessing to you in your listening experience. Hey, hey, hey, baby, and right now! Everybody okay? Some wounds don't leave bruises. Some chains don't make sound when they tighten. And some people carry pain that no one else sees until it's too heavy to bear. One day, Daniel sat at his kitchen table, staring at his hands. They were steady, but he didn't feel steady. Across the room, his wife Sarah stood at the counter, stirring a cup of tea, and she had no intention of drinking. The silence between them was familiar, too familiar. It wasn't the kind of silence that brought peace, it was the kind that suffocated. He finally spoke with his voice low, almost as if he were afraid to let the words out. I never thought it would get this bad. I don't know who I am anymore. Sarah didn't respond the right way. What could she say? She had seen it happen, piece by piece. The man who once laughed easily, the man who led his home with confidence, had become small, unsure, afraid. Not of a stranger, not of some outside force, but of the person he was supposed to be. His help, his love. She finally spoke, her voice careful, quiet. Daniel, have you ever thought that maybe this isn't normal? The small bitter chuckle left his lips normal? He wasn't sure what normal was anymore. Every time he tried to stand up for himself, he was told he was selfish. Every time he gave in, he felt weaker. He had spent years trying to be the good husband, a godly man, but somehow, no matter what he did, it was never enough. Sarah had seen the signs long before he had. The way he hesitated before answering his phone. The way he braced himself before walking through the door. The way he second-guessed himself before making the smallest decision. Because he knew that if he had gotten it wrong, there would be consequences. And now, here they were, sitting in silence, of a home that didn't feel like a home anymore. Sarah took the breath. Her hand gripped the back of her chair. Daniel, I think you're being abused. The word hit him like a hammer. Abuse? It was a word for broken bones and bruises of the faces. Not for whispered accusations. Not for guilt trips and gaslighting. Not for him. For a long time, he didn't speak. He just sat there, letting the weight of it settle in. Then finally, in a voice small, it barely sounded like his own, he asked the only question left to ask. What do I do? And that was the moment the silence started to break. The moment of chains loosened just a little. Because for the first time in years, Daniel allowed himself to ask the question he had been afraid to consider. What if it's not my fault? What if there's a way out? For many years, the people around us, the idea of victimhood is reserved only for the most extreme cases. Those that bear visible scars. But today, we will discuss what abuse looks like, where it comes from, in the many forms that it has, and how the church hasn't always known how to handle it well. Today, we're talking about victimhood, care, and how to respond biblically to those who are suffering. Let us jump in today with our episode. Welcome back to the episode. We're excited to have you here today. Today, I will be just solo. Brett is having some medical issues, and he's not going to be able to join us. And so, I've reached out to an old friend of mine, someone who is an old confidant of mine, and asked him to jump on with us today to talk about this. His name, you may know him, you may recognize his voice as the one and the only, Jonathan Wayne Hollifield. You're killing me, man. You're killing me. It's good to be back. How are you doing, James? Man, I'm doing good. We are excited to have you back on the show with us. It's an odd sight to hear you back on here, but man, we are doing well. Our family's doing well. Things are going good. And I hope that things are going well in your area. No sickness in your family. Church doing well as well. Yeah. Everything's been, God's been very good and gracious to us. And everything's going well. Snow in here today. Yeah. I checked the Apple weather on my phone three times, and I said, no snow, just cold. And looked out the window, and I said, nope, it's snowing. Yeah. John, you got to go down to the Super Bowl, man. Tell us a little bit about that. This isn't part of our show, but you got to go down and enjoy being down there. You got to see some celebrities. Really, the celebrities got to see you, if we're being honest. But how was it while you were down there, my friend? It was interesting. It was, you got to see the fans, the fan atmosphere a lot. And so, there was a lot of, I told before the game, I told several people, I said, there's definitely more Eagles fans down there than there were Chiefs fans. And that was an obvious thing. There's definitely more excitement among the Eagles fans than there were Chiefs fans. Like, the Eagles fans were just, when they came through in a cluster, just, like, roaring, excited. The city itself, although it had some very beautiful landscape, it smelled, man. It stunk. Like, it was a, it smelled bad. Great food. Had some really good food while we were down there. We were on a three-day evangelism trip before the Super Bowl. And saw God do some wonderful things amidst a lot of darkness that was there. And, yeah, we saw some celebrities trying to hand a track to Kourtney Kardashian and her husband, the guy from Blink-182. And they refused a gospel track. Coach John Gruden, who may be back in the NFL soon. Yeah. We handed him a gospel track, and he smiled and said, thank you. I think a couple of our guys saw Adam Sandler and tried to hand him a gospel track. He said no, but his security guard smiled and said, thank you. So, yeah, it was a fun time. Some good camaraderie with some other brothers in Christ. And so, it was, yeah, we had a great time. Yeah, that's awesome. Glad you got to do that and go down there. Next year, it's going to be in California, so I don't think you're going to go there. No. You know, with your big-time pastoral salary, I don't know if that's going to happen or not. Yeah. But, well, today, John, we are talking about, we're in this series of wokeness in the church and talking through different issues. We've talked through cancel culture. We've talked about identity politics. We've talked about what wokeness is. And today, we want to address the wokeness of victimhood. A couple of years ago, the movement of the Me Too movement came out and everything became a victimized thought and action. And so, we want to sort of take this thought of victimhood, turn it into a biblical conversation, what it looks like, how we can deal with it. Because we believe it's such an important topic to deal with in the church and really to deal with from a biblical perspective. Sometimes, you know, we encounter these things. And how do we handle this? How do we give support? How do we offer support? And so, we're excited to have you as a trained professional, a trained, certified biblical counselor, getting his doctorate in counseling, maybe an honorary doctorate from the For Freedom podcast. We'll figure out some of those things. But, John, what is, how do we start out by talking about abuse, victimhood? How do we define these? What are some terms that we could use? Well, I don't know about all those credentials. I do have my honorary doctorate from the RFP, though. Yeah, well, you know, that's good, too. Yeah, yeah. Abuse and victimhood. So, we're approaching this from a standpoint of not just what is the right thing, but also sort of tearing apart a very poor and secular definition that has sort of redefined some of these terms over the last several years. And so, abuse is a very loaded term. A lot of people, and the thing is about these terms is that when one person uses it, everybody thinks they're talking about the same thing. When other people are using it, it's sort of like they're talking in cross directions. And that's, the words matter. Definitions matter. You have to define some of these terms. So, yeah, abuse is, I think, one way of understanding this is abuse is like a mistreatment. It is someone who has been mistreated or wronged or abused in many ways. For the longest, for many years, abuse was understood as that which is physical abuse, violent physical abuse against someone by someone that they should view as a friend or a loved one or a caregiver. There is verbal abuse. And verbal abuse is that which is just coming at somebody with angry tirades and criticisms and just very, very hurtful things. A lot of times, a lot of times, a lot of times, a lot of times in the direction of the person who's giving it knows what things would specifically hurt the other and therefore unleashes that. We left after a couple of years, several years ago, we left the idea of just abuse sort of encompassing those factors. And now you pretty much can take the word abuse and put anything in front of it. And now just about anything can become abusive. And I think that's where we should have a little bit of pause. I think we should have some concern because I think that are we are we being helpful and doing that? I think that's a question we need to ask. Now, don't cancel me yet. OK, but I think it's a question we need to ask on whether that has that is a helpful thing. Or if it's more helpful to understand abuse in the in the categories that I just explained it. And then when abuse happens in those subcategories, we are understanding it happening in these. For instance, I believe the context of this talking about church hurt or church abuse. OK, which has been called spiritual abuse. All right. Well, is it is it helpful to make a brand new category of spiritual abuse or is it is it better to then to understand the definitions of abuse that we already have? Physical abuse, emotional abuse, and then see that those two things are happening within that context. All right. So therefore, has physical abuse happened? Has sexual abuse happened? Has verbal abuse happened? OK, are those things happening in the context of a church? And I think that's that's a probably a better way to evaluate it and then work from it from there as far as health. Now, I know people listen, I'm I'm not saying you're wrong if you disagree with me. I'm saying I'm making a suggestion. Could that be a simpler, better way than now labeling anything and everything? It's own category of abuse. And next thing you know, we have, you know, literary abuse and we have television abuse. You know what I'm saying? What I'm saying is this. Don't think that I'm going soft on abuse. It's actually the opposite. See, I think that doing that with abuse dilutes true abuse. It dilutes it and it makes it less. I could use the same example for if we get to it on a discussion about trauma. But we'll get there and just maybe we'll get there. Maybe we won't. But it's OK if you want to bring that back up. Victimhood. Let me talk about victimhood and then I'll turn back over to you, James. We define victimhood. I think I just plug this in Google and the AI for Google. Watch out for the AI. That's right. Definition of a victim is someone who has been harmed or treated unfairly, while victimhood is a way of being that involves feeling powerless. A second definition of victimhood, the condition of having been hurt, damaged or made to suffer, especially when you want people to feel sorry for you because of this use this or use it as an excuse for something. All right. That's interesting. Notice the wording there. All right. We go from being hurt. OK. Now, that's a common human experience. Right. We understand being hurt. Mm hmm. We were bit by a dog as a five year old. Right. We were hurt. There's there's hurt there. People's been hurt. There's some people have seen this movie Black Hawk Down. There's a psychologist in the in the 90s or something that referenced this movie. And I thought this was a very astute observation by the psychologist. And she said, you know, she was working with somebody and said, you know, I've been through this. I've been through this. I've been through this. And she was trying to talk about how she back then, before woke culture came in, how she helped. People. And she realized through her work, this story resonated so well from Black Hawk Down. There's a there's a scene where Tom Sizemore's character. He there. They're they're they're taking fire. I mean, it's just all hell's breaking loose and Mochettishu there. And they get what they call a cut V. It's like a Humvee convertible where the top's taken off and they're taking in machine gun fire. And there's a couple of guys. Tom Sizemore's character, who's a colonel. He gets into the he's he's been shot. He's in the car. He tells the guy to drive. He looks over to the guy. He's in the passenger seat. He looks over to the guy or he's in the back. And there's a guy in the the the passenger seat and a driver. And he tells the guy to drive and they're not moving. And he looks up. The guy that was in the driver's seat had just been shot and killed. So he grabs him by the vest and pulls him out of the driver's seat. And he looks over at the guy next to him and he says, drive. He said, or he says he's a sergeant, I guess. He says, Sarge, I've been shot. He says, we've all been shot. Drive. And what this psychologist was saying was like, here's the thing you need to realize. And I'm not trying to minimize what people go through. But it's it's it's a truth that you need to understand about everybody. And it helps you understand and interpret your stuff. Everybody's been shot. Now, is all of that equal? No. But it helps you understand that you can push on and you can keep going when you understand. You're not the only one that's ever gone through anything. You're not the only one that's ever been hurt. This this world, this fallen sinful world that we live in. And Romans 8 says the creation groans because of the fall. That the common human experience is not flourishing. It's suffering. And so when you see the definition of victimhood, you see these words. I think the interesting word here that it talks about with victimhood is damaged. And I think that may be probably the most problematic way that this stuff and a woke understanding of it is influencing people. And that is that they are cementing and grounding in people that they have been damaged. And that there's not going to be repair. Or they don't have any answers for repair if they're damaged. And I think that is that is a major problem. I know that's long winded. And you got a lot of stuff on here. So this may be like a three hour episode. So I love it. Great. Well, and I think the big thing when we think of victimhood is we've all been hurt. Yeah. But there's a pattern of suffering that begins to happen. Oftentimes, instead of hands of someone they trust or someone that's close to them, a spouse, a pastor, a family member. And that's when the victimhood becomes this way of do I live with this or do I start seeking help? We've all been hurt. But how do we get help when those things come? And so when I think when we from our point of view as a pastor, as someone who who deals with these things on a daily basis, when we're faced with someone who's reaching out for help, how do we handle that, John? How do we help someone who's confessed of their abusive situation, who's confessed that they are in this situation that is out of their hands, it's out of their control? How do we handle that? How do we respond? I mean, you can go through a couple of just the obvious ones, right? Compassion, care, love. That should be no brainers. Yeah. That should be no brainers that that's how we are responding. But let's see. You said how do we handle? Are we talking about handling and helping or are we just talking about handling? Let's talk about handle first. Okay. We need to respond. Well, no, I guess this goes away with this as well. Our first response should be that of Christ. I mean, this is the thing. And it's not like, oh, you know, the typical ridiculous Christian answer, Jesus. Okay. First of all, you're not going to go wrong with Jesus. All right. And we shouldn't not. Listen to me. If you're a Christian. Do not be intimidated by the world. It says that. And let them intimidate you that because you seek Jesus as the answer, that you are somehow less educated or stupid or ignorant or some type of dumb fundamentalist. Because Jesus has changed the lives of so many different people, of so many different life experiences. Yeah. Christ is the answer. There is not a better solution. Think about what we're saying here. Are we willing to admit that the world has come up with a better answer to suffering than Jesus? Yeah. Are we okay with saying that? Because I'm not okay with saying that. No. And I think the problem is, and this may be like I'm jumping all over the place here, but the problem is, is that we're not equipped. And we either don't have the confidence in our Bibles that Jesus is sufficient, or we may have that confidence, but we're just not, we're not, we're not prepared to know where to go. Okay. So I think, and we can, we can, I can dive into that a little bit more, but I think that we handle them. We look at Jesus. So if you were to say, if I said, do this, and I do this sometimes in counseling, just, let's just do this fun exercise right now with you, James. All right. Give me, I'm going to say the word Christ or Jesus, and I want you to just, in one word, give me the first three terms that come to your mind when thinking of Jesus, just in one word. Savior. Savior. Savior. All right. Give me another one. Suffer. Suffer. Give me another one. Do we stay with S's, John? Are you, are you alliterated? Do we alliterated? Let's go with a friend. Think about that. Number one, all three of those things are 100% true about Christ. Number two, think about those things and how much those truths about Jesus, when somebody's been abused or is a victim, they need that. They need that. Yeah. They have the, they can identify with Christ because he is a sufferer. Someone who has become a victim needs a savior. Mm-hmm. Now, that's what the woke culture is like. No, you're enough. You're all right. You're, you know, you are powerful enough in yourself. That is a pagan message. Listen to me, Christian. That is a pagan message. If you were enough, why would you ever need a savior? Mm-hmm. Okay. Then, the other one was friend. Yeah. Think about somebody who's been through abuse or hurt. I mean, a friend means everything. Jesus is perfect in all three of those categories. Yeah. So, we go to scripture and we see where he has been those, and then we encourage our soul, which is what has been hurt, in those categories. I think when you started that conversation, my mind went to one character in scripture. That person was the woman that came to Jesus at the well, right? The woman that came to Jesus at the well had been married several times, had been living with a man that wasn't her own husband. You see the pain, the suffering. She's looking for something in life that she can't find, and she meets Jesus, and what does Jesus say to her? I'm here to give you eternal life. I'm here to give you a living well that's never going to run dry. And she's thinking, hey, I would need that physical help. And he looks at her and says, no, no, no, this is a whole lot better and bigger and greater than the physical need that you have. I'm giving you a spiritual need that will never run dry. And when her life is changed by Christ, what does she do? She goes and she tells everyone that she's met about this savior named Jesus, this man who gave her living water. And her life was changed. Did the abuse go away? Did the seven husbands that she had had, did those husbands go away? We don't know that she stopped living with the man. We don't know the rest of her story, but we know that Jesus changed her life at that point. The suffering didn't go away. The pain of the past didn't go away. But the thing that changed was Jesus was in her life. Let me give a word of caution too. Okay. We don't know if the woman at the well, like the woman at the well, great example. All right. But we also don't know if the woman at the well was suffered abuse. Yeah. Possible. But let me tell you something. This is a caution. And for those of you that's not going to like what I got to say, okay, you can write James and tell him all about that. He can hear it all. Yeah. My email is johnholeyfield.com. That's my email. Yeah. But here's the thing. The reason I'm going to give this caution is because we must be on guard of this or else we're going to end up doing the exact same thing that the legalist and the old time fundamentalist did as well to the scriptures. And that is, we've got to be careful not to be reading things into the passage that's not there. All right. And that is one thing James plays this video or the sound clip on his, on some of these podcast episodes that go along with this whole thing. And one of the things that those that are woke are doing with the Bible is they're taking these social justice issues and reading them into the text that is never there. Now, that doesn't mean the Bible is silent on abuse. There's several issues. And actually, James has several places we're going to talk about a little bit that are legitimate issues that deal with these types of things. But you've got to be careful not to say, oh, well, look at this. Look at this. Look at this. And then you're reading into the situation because you're informed of some secular ideology about men and women. You're an egalitarian and you say, well, this woman has to be abused. She has to be put down. Okay. Take this text. Exegete what's there and pull out of it instead of reading into some social justice woke issue into the text. Well, if you don't, you're doing the exact same thing that the fundamentalist did on the other end. Then let's go to a separate issue, which is the lady that was caught in adultery. Right. The Pharisees brought her before Jesus. There was abuse from them that brought her out to be an example to the community. And how did Jesus respond to that? Okay. This is a great example. All right. You're giving me an inroad to talk about something I wanted to talk about this subject. That's why I'm trying to be here. Okay. Give me that little softball call-sup for you, my friend. All right. Well, here's the deal. Here's the thing that a biblical worldview does with victims. Okay. Let me say this. Victims, there are such things as real victims. Okay. People have been done wrong. Okay. The example that James brings in John chapter eight. And we can do maybe another podcast debate on whether that should be in the Bible. Cancelled. Hey, it's in the King James, baby. It's there. I just got canceled with that note right there. Okay. Anyways, John chapter eight, woman caught in adultery. When you look and examine that whole situation and what the Pharisees were doing, is it reasonable to deduce that she was being done wrong? Yes. I think so. I think that scholarship agrees with that. Okay. As well. But here's the thing. When somebody's a victim, a biblical worldview, and this is the difference between what a secular concept and a worldly concept does. When somebody's been victimized or they've been abused, the approach is, you know, you have been done wrong. You have done nothing wrong. You are the victim. And everything needs to cater around you. And you are the one that everybody needs to feel bad for and that they need to repent. You did nothing wrong. That's the thing. And that's a lot of the training comes – that's one of the first things that a lot of the training comes to people and says whenever they've been misused, hurt, mistreated, abused, whatever, you've done nothing wrong. You've done nothing wrong. And they say you've got to assure that person you've done nothing wrong. A biblical worldview doesn't come this way because think about this. What did Jesus say to her? She came and he said, where's your accusers? What did he do? First, he dealt with their sin. He dealt with their wrong. And whenever they were no longer there to abuse and they left, then he looks at her and says what? Where are your accusers? Yeah. I have done, my lord. He said – Go and sin no more. Go and sin no more, which means what? He dealt with her sin too. And that's the problem. Because a lot of the social justice woke left culture comes at this thing and it says that you cannot deal with any wrongdoing done by the person if they've been hurt. This is what perpetrates – takes somebody from being a victim to victimhood. All right? Victim is a thing that someone has been hurt, but victim should not become an identity. And the problem is that that's what this woke culture has done is it's taken victim and it's gloried in the idea that it's an identity. And that is opposed to a biblical worldview. Biblical worldview is I find my identity in a perfect savior named Jesus Christ. I find my identity in Christ. And as I find my identity in Christ, the light of Christ exposes the things in my life that I have done wrong and then I get those things right with him. And so therefore, a biblical worldview doesn't automatically say when somebody comes and says that they've been abused or hurt, oh, you're a sinner. It's your fault. It's not what I'm saying because that's not what a lot of people are going to interpret what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we treat them like Jesus. We go to them with compassion. We love them. We point out where they have been done wrong. And then we look and we say, all right, is there any area where maybe you before God, a holy God, can say that you need to get right with him? And we hold, we must be held responsible for things that we do. So in other words, like this, I say, is it somebody's, I must clarify these things. I know I'm going along here and we're sort of off the beaten path. But somebody's been abused. Somebody's been sexually abused. Okay. Is it their fault? Am I saying it's their fault and they need to repent of that? No, I'm not. I'm not saying that. Don't run off and say that I'm saying that. Here's what I'm saying. We must be honest and say that a lot of times our response to when we've been hurt can tempt us, or we can be tempted in our response to be sinful. Can we not? I mean, when you've been hurt, some people respond in anger and they want what? Revenge. Isn't that what Hollywood has really taught? That the appropriate response to whenever you've been done wrong is seek revenge. Yeah. Our Sunday school teacher, one of our deacons at our church, he makes this statement all the time. And I love it. I've used it ever since he said it. He said, Jesus teaches us that when we've been hurt to turn the other cheek. He said, but oftentimes what we want to do is turn their cheek. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the response of human nature is when you've been hurt, you hurt back. You want to get even. Yeah. Okay. Another common response to whenever we've been hurt is to escape our hurt and in the form of substance abuse. Okay. That's sinful. And that has very bad ramifications for even those around them. Okay. That must be dealt with. You can't sit there and say you're never, you're not going to help someone by saying, oh, you've been done wrong. It's not your fault. This is not a wrong. No, you have to deal with those things. And that's how, I'm sorry. That's how Jesus dealt with those things. Long, long. I know another rambling answer, but there you go. I think it's good. I think in that response, we already really talked about the next one of how do we offer support? You know, we're there for them. We hold the hand of those that have been hurt. We walk through that journey with them. We offer them support and help and care. We give them a community where they feel like they can respond appropriately. And we put a small group around them where they can feel like they've got someone they can go to. They've got a group of people that can relate to what they're going through. They know that they're struggling as well. They've been through similar situations and concerns and they can help. And so we begin to give them options and ways that they can seek Christ. They can seek a community and help others in that same way. But I want to briefly, and you sort of talked on it for a minute there, but why are these issues happening? Why is this something new, John? Is this something that just popped up in the 21st century in the 2000s with the different movements? Or has this been something that has happened as long as we can remember? You talk about abuse in the church? Victimhood and abuse in the church, yeah. No, this has been going on since the beginning. Okay. Listen, this isn't new. Okay? It's not new. And from two guys that are pastors, we don't need to shy away from that. Yeah. Okay? It's not new. And it's not, you know, to jump ahead, it's not something that's going to go away. And here's the reason why. It's called sin. It's called total depravity. It's called radical corruption. It's called the sinfulness of man, the doctrine of sin. And so while you still have sinful people, that is going to happen. Okay? We cannot sin through far churches. We can try our best to preach scripture and the Holy Spirit begin to sanctify our people. But here's the thing that we need to be doing. All right? You go back. I think one of the reasons why it's so prevalent now is not because it's happening more. It's because with social media, podcasts, television, documentaries, I think that it's being talked about. It's being out there and people are being connected a lot more. So it's not, it's not, I don't know if I could say with confidence or with authority that it's happening more. However, that would, in order to say that, you'd have to be able to examine all churches from all eras for the last 2,000 years. That's just impossible. Yeah. That's just impossible to do. And I tend to think because of my understanding of the biblical doctrine of the sinfulness of man, that that's not the case. What do we do in response to that? We have to go to scripture and we have to follow scripture on how to deal with sin in the church. And we have to hold those, not just people in the church, but pastors. And let me say this, not just pastors, but people in the church. All have to be held accountable. But let me say this. When pastors don't hold church people accountable for their sin in the church, church people will not hold their pastors accountable for sin in the church. That's good. It goes both ways. You can't sit there and say, we need to hold these pastors accountable. Yes, we freaking do. We do. Yeah. But you don't want pastors to be exercising church discipline because then that makes them look abusive. No, it does. It goes both ways. You're not going to get church people with backbone enough to hold elders accountable if those elders have not taught their people how to hold each other accountable through church discipline. It's just not going to happen. So you have to have a healthy understanding of that. And it's got to be taught to the church and it's got to be practiced. And they got to see how it's practiced. I love it. Hey, as we continue this talk on, you made one great thing talking about scripture and how the Bible talks about these things. I think it's important to understand that scripture doesn't shy away from difficult issues. As you read through the Bible, as you read through each situation and stories of people's lives, these difficult issues and people being mistreated, there are numerous examples throughout the Bible that we could talk about where abuse happens, whether it's either physical or emotional abuse. And the beauty is we get to see how God responds in that situation. So let's talk through some examples. I know you've got a couple. We can go back as far as Genesis and talk about Hagar and the abuse that happened there. We can talk about Tamar and the story of abuse with Ammon, her half-brother. And we can talk through when leaders don't respond and what that looks like. So, John, what's your thoughts and what are some examples that you would give with how the Bible deals with abuse? Well, I think the 2 Samuel 13 situation with Tamar and Ammon and Absalom and King David is a cautionary tale. It's a tragedy of what happens when leadership doesn't handle abuse properly. Because what flows out of that situation the next 20 years in that kingdom and in that family is just sin after sin after sin after sin. And it has ramifications that reach out as far as the kingdom as a whole, as far as war. So it's a cautionary tale of whenever leadership doesn't handle abuse properly. I think in the situation of Elijah and Queen Jezebel in 1 Kings, I think you have that situation is a cautionary tale of when leadership is abusive towards God's people. Okay? And that is a problem there. My mind goes to this. Think about the aspect of victim and victimhood. The Bible, I think that a scriptural example for a victim, and I'm going to go to him again, is Christ. I mean, let's think about Jesus for a second. He was perfect. He was innocent. He was wrongfully accused, wrongfully maligned, betrayed, arrested, false trial done, physically abused, verbally abused, tortured, wrongfully killed. I mean, he was murdered. Okay? By the government. And emotionally, every one of his followers and friends left. They abandoned him. I mean, all of the little boxes, you can check. You can check all the boxes. Jesus was the victim. Now, here's the deal. If you've been through hurt, you think you can't find a comfort in Christ? You think he doesn't know what you've been through? He knows and been some. Okay? He identifies with our infirmities. Okay? So, Jesus is someone we can go to as an example of a victim. And what did Jesus do? What did he say on the cross? You preached a message on the sayings of Jesus last year, right? Yeah. All right. What was one of the responses Christ had towards those who victimized him? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Now, are you saying that that's our response? Listen, let me tell you what I'm saying. I'm saying that is a Christ-centered response. Yeah. Towards those that hurt us. Is that going to be able to be expected of you right away? I don't think so. Yeah. But I think eventually, we cannot hold bitterness in our heart towards anybody. I'm preaching through the book of Acts right now, John. And as I'm studying ahead, right, as pastors, we live in the weak, but we also look for the future of where we're going to be at. I'm in chapter 3 right now, but I know that I'm getting to Stephen and the first martyr of the church, right? Yeah, Acts 7. Acts 7. And what does Stephen say as he's being stoned to death? He looks up and he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father, and he looks around and he says, Father, forgive them. He says, lay not this sin against their charge. Yeah. But you brought out a great point there that just clicked with me. Yeah. Why was he able to do that? Because he had Christ at the center. Well, I think because, what did you say? He said he looked up and what? Saw the Father. He saw Jesus. Mm-hmm. I think the reason he was able to do that in the moment is because his eyes were fixed on Jesus. Yeah. Hebrews. Yeah. And I think that's the idea. Like, we must fix our eyes on Christ. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. That's right. Okay. What about that? Yeah. Yeah. Did you write it? Probably not. Okay. That's what I would go to as far as victim. I want to read this passage for you in 2 Corinthians on the idea of victimhood. Because I think one of the aspects of the victimhood is that this cementing that you were a victim, you're a victim, you're a victim, and that, you know, things should be done for you. You can't, you needn't have this bubble around you so it protects you at all times, all this stuff. And it's almost like some people, the mentality that's taught to them is to brag, like to boast, to wear their victimhood as a badge. I want you to listen to what Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians 11. He says in verse 23, Are they servants of Christ? I'm a better one. I'm talking like a madman with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys in danger from rivers. Danger from robbers. Danger from my own people. Danger from Gentiles. Danger in the city. Danger in the wilderness. Danger at sea. Danger from false brothers. Danger in toil and hardship. Through many a sleepless night. In hunger and thirst. Often without food. In cold and exposure. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak. And I am not weak. Who is made to fall. And I am not indignant. If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus. He who is blessed forever. Knows that I am not lying. That's powerful, man. What did he say? He said, listen, I'm not. He says. What he was saying was. I'm not going to boast about this. But if I'm going to boast. I don't mean to boast in what I've been through. I need to boast in my weakness. Because he says another place in chapter 12. It is in my weakness. That I am made strong. Why? Because it is then that I'm becoming more dependent upon who? Christ. Yeah. So, I think that's so good, man. And it's a great example to use Jesus and Paul with what they've been through. And how they respond to those things. But I think from our side of it as well, I want to look at, you know, when these things happen. One, will abuse and victimhood ever end? Would be the first question. And then, how do we avoid these situations and really protect people? Right? We want to. I'm an SVC pastor. They just proposed a budget to allocate about $3 million in prevention and how to handle abuse. And how to do the research and find what's been going on with the cover-up and abuse that's happened. With the recent things that have been coming out from the past. And so, what is the ways that we can help prevent some of these things? And I listened to a couple things. We can talk through it. What's your thoughts on that, John? It will end one day when Christ returns. Yeah. It will end. We will never be able to eradicate it before glory, before heaven, before Christ returns. Can we? Here's the thing, though. The question is not, can we prevent it or stop it? The question is, how do we honor Christ? How do we glorify God in our response and protection and whenever this stuff happens? Yeah. And I think that's what we need to be asking. We need to be asking is, what is the most glorifying way that we can protect? What is the most glorifying way we can respond? Okay. And so, I like your answers here that we talked through before we got on here. We need to know. We cannot be ignorant. We cannot be ignorant of how abusers act. We cannot be ignorant of tactics that abusers do. We must. And listen, we are living in a time where there's so much education out there and good biblical education out there. There's not an excuse. You do not have an excuse anymore. If you're a pastor and you do not have Deepak Raju's book on guard on your bookshelf and have at least skimmed through it. I was pointing to the book, John. Oh, I thought you were telling me to stop. No, it's right below that red helmet right there. Oh, I was like, what is he doing? Is the figure telling me? Hold on one minute. I thought something happened with the video. I was pointing to it on my bookshelf right there. Well, you need to get it. You need to get it. And you need to look at it. You need to be aware. I mean, so, yeah, there's a lot of good things out there for education. Yeah, it's a huge thing. I think that pastors and those that are in this spiritual warfare, they need to be educated on how to identify and help in those areas, right? I like how Jim Neuheiser says it. He said that the DSM Diagnostic Statistic Manual, it gives great definitions that help us identify things, but it doesn't give solutions. So we have this opportunity to give the Bible as a solution, Christ as the help, the church as the body that is building up one another together. And so we meet together in that way to help one another. And so, yes, we have the education, but if we don't have the way to identify when someone comes in and says, these are the things that I'm going through and we just brush it off as nothing, well, we therefore are enabling those that are, one, been abused and abusing others. And so we get this opportunity through the education that we have to help and handle these situations that are sensitive, that require wisdom, that require compassion, that require us to identify how we can give help. I think the second one for me that I would write down would be training and awareness, right? We need to have a culture of openness where people are not ashamed to talk about things and not blame others, but come and say, hey, I need an environment where I can speak out without fear of shame, retribution, acting upon what I'm doing, what I'm going through. And giving this training where people can know that they have that area where they can come and talk about what they're going through. Yeah, and people need to be trained so they can be aware of certain things to look for. Yeah. When you see a red flag, don't dismiss the red flag. Yeah. Okay. And then I like this that you put on there. And this may go more for pastors because you know what, James? I saw a report on this and I think it's 100% true. The majority of pastors in this country are more liberal than their congregations. And so therefore, I think that pastors need a little bit more training in this than their congregation is. And that is a theology of biblical justice and biblical mercy, not secular social justice and secular mercy. Because it's going to fall far short. It's coming from a humanistic perspective. And here's the problem with social justice. It'll never execute accurate justice. It's just not. It's just not going to happen. All right? Biblical justice, whether it happens in this life or not, we know biblical justice will be meted out in eternity. Yeah. And so we can trust that. I love it. Well, John, last thing, and I know we went long and if people want to continue listening, they can. You mentioned this thing of trauma. I want to bring it back up, talk through the idea of trauma, and then we'll sort of shut down the show today. What is your thought on trauma, how to deal with trauma, and the aspects of that? That's a large question. Let me bring it back around to sort of what I was alluding to earlier. I think that there's a problem going on with trauma right now that we need to be discerning about, and that is this. Again, don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying trauma is real. Trauma is 100% real. But around 2014, a book came out called The Body Keeps the Score. I have read the book from cover to cover. I've highlighted several things in the book. I think that if you're going to be somebody that works with those that have gone through trauma, you need to have a very, very solid biblical foundation. And you probably need to read that book because you need to be aware of some of the things you're going to get involved with when it comes to dealing with people that's been through hurt. Because he has some examples in there that are just like rock your world. And you need to know that that's some of the hurt that people's been through. So there are some positive things about the book. There are also some problems, some major, major problems with the book. And it has spurred a trauma culture in this. I mean, the thing sold like, I mean, it was number one on the bestsellers list for over two years. I've got the book, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I mean, it was a massively popular book. But what it's done is now they have, the left has jumped on this thing of trauma. And now here's the problem with it. If everything is trauma, nothing's trauma. Yeah. If you were made fun of on social media, you have not been traumatized. Okay, if somebody that, if you've lost a loved one, that is not trauma. Okay, that's suffering. We have redefined the word suffering with the word trauma. And the problem with that, here's the problem with that, is that it sucks the definite, any meat or weight to the word or the meaning of trauma out of it. Mm-hmm. Therefore, if I'm taking that somebody has been mean to me or I can, let me just say it this way. If somebody has bullied me on social media and I'm equating that to somebody who's been raped or somebody who's been through war, I might as well spit in the face of the person who's been raped and went through war. I've said what they've gone through is no different. No more harmful than somebody that's gone through something on social media. That's the problem we've had that spurred from this, one of the problems that spurred from this trauma. I have another book on my bookshelf by a neuroscientist who's, I don't think he's a Christian, but a neuroscientist that actually debunks 42 scientific claims that Bessel van der Kolk makes in his book, The Body Keeps the Score. So if you're a fan of Body Keeps the Score, you should probably look this book up and get it. I'm looking at it on my bookshelf, but I don't, the title's not on the side of it. But, I mean, if you want to know what that book is, reach out to James and I can send the title of it to James. But, I mean, this guy just debunks, because Bessel van der Kolk, who wrote the book, is not a scientist. He's a clinical psychologist. He's not a scientist. And this guy's a neuroscientist, and he debunks all these claims. Trauma's a real thing. And we're not going to help people in trauma until we define trauma correctly. We're not being helpful to people by categorizing all suffering as trauma. Okay? Again, I go to this. What is a help and aid for trauma? Trauma, I think, gets down to the idea of something that you've been through that has caused a fracture in your soul. And where is the healing balm for your soul? We find it all through Scripture. Yeah. We find it in Christ. There's no simple answer to trauma. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of time. It's going to take, you know, there's a lot of things to work through. So, I'm not trying to minimize that. But I think we need to be discerning when people talk about trauma. And another thing that goes along with this trauma and victimhood idea is that a lot of the secular concepts and trying to help with trauma don't ever heal people from their trauma. It basically keeps them there in this state of, like, never moving on. Yeah. And that's not helpful. That's one thing with the modern therapist psychiatric work is there's never a way out, right? You have to continue for the rest of your life to continue this therapy session. Like, my goal as a biblical counselor is not to meet with that person for the rest of her life. Yeah. I want to give them enough tools in their tool belt to be able to deal with the problems that they're going through. And help somebody else. Yeah. And they're going to help other people. And maybe, hey, once a year, you have to deal with some things. Let's talk. Let's meet. But let's have some intense sessions for a couple of months. Maybe a year. But there's got to be a way where now you're dealing with these things on your own through the help of Christ, through the help of the Bible, through the help of the tools that we've given you so that you're not living with the dependence of a therapist. And I hear people all the time, well, I've got to talk to my therapist first. What? When did your therapist become God? Right? And so that is the whole point and goal. And you did the whole reason why it's all money thing. Right? They want to continue to get you in the system. Well, not all. I can be very cynical sometimes. But, I mean, if you have to keep coming back, you have to keep paying to come back. And so, but let me say this. I don't want to be that guy who just lumps everybody who works in the secular psychology field as just a greedy, money-grubbing person who's not interested in helping people. That's not true. I would say the vast majority of those that are in that field have a strong desire to help others. So it's not, their motivation is not that. But, I can't say I haven't seen it happen before. Yeah. Well, John, closing remarks, thoughts on victimhood and abuse in the church. I know I can come across, because of my passion, I can come across sort of like, maybe like I'm angry. And I hope you don't see that. I hope that's not what came across. We do care about those that have been through hurt. And our desire is to point them to the one who can heal their hurt. And that is Jesus Christ. And not only do I believe that because of my confidence in Scripture, but I also believe that because I've seen it. I've experienced it. I've seen it. I've seen people come to healing. And I've heard thousands of testimonies of people that have done the same. So, our goal was to, number one, see where there's been a bad shift in thinking on this subject. Infiltrate even some of the church. And point to a better biblical way. And I hope that, I hope we've done that. Yeah, that's great. Well, until next time, we hope you've enjoyed this. To God be the glory, great things He has done. I found my new name. I found that good grace. I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. It has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast.

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