174. Fundamental Footprints - The Rebecca Davis Interview - Testimony from BJU

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 Brett Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast today. Me and James are in studio and we're bringing you the podcast this morning. We're glad to be here. It's a great day to be saved. It's a great day to be in church. It's a great day to be a child of God. James, we've got something great lined up today in just a minute. But before we get to that, how are things in your neck of the woods? Man, things are good. We are apparently they just started working on my car from the accident that I had a couple weeks ago. So getting some of those processes done. And man, we're gearing up. I mean, we're just a couple of days for me. I'm going out to Dallas a little soon to be out there with my sister and McKinney. And so, man, we're gearing up to get everything done. I've been busting it this week to get all my sermon prep in. And that way I don't have to work on much of that while I'm on vacation. But, yeah, man, it's been wide open. We finished school last week. And now we're gearing up for Texas. And we've had this interview today. Man, it's phenomenal. And I'm excited about jumping into it in a little bit. But, man, we've been wide open. It's been great. We've got this weekend, my sister-in-law was texting me and saying, hey, can you come hang out with us? I told her, I said, I've got Birdie's got a baseball game on Friday. I've got two graduations on Friday. Saturday, I've got a church cleanup day from 8 to 4. We've got a youth car wash from 10 to 12. We've got Sunday service. After Sunday service, I've got a church council meeting. Sunday evening, I've got to take the dog and drop it off at the sitters so that we can get ready for our trip to Texas. I said, I don't know when I'm going to have time to even come and see you guys, much less breathe. Like, it's been wide. It's going to be wide open. And so I'm excited. It's going to be a great time getting everything in for Texas. And it's going to be a great, great thing. We've got a community day planned this coming Saturday at the local Dollar General store. We're going to cook like 200 hamburgers, bring them out in the parking lot from 11 to 2, and just hand those out. And so we've been trying to work out logistically. We've never done anything like this before. And so we're just going back and forth. And how's the best? Do we need to get the pre-cooked burgers? Do we need to get the uncooked because they'd be cheaper? Just have somebody cook them. And so a lot of logistics and trying to plan this day. But my people are really excited about it because one of the things I've been pushing lately is servant evangelism. It's going outside the walls of the church, going out into the community, meeting needs. And that's what this thing is all about. And then, like I said, we've got a busy, busy month. We've got this going on. Then we've got Dallas. We come back from Dallas. We have a week-long VBS. And so a lot of things going on. And so we're coming up close on our summer break, too. Just a couple more episodes, and we'll be in our summer break for the podcast. But that doesn't mean that things are stopping here at the 4 Freedom podcast because we've got not only things going on this summer, but me and you still got some recordings this summer for when the season starts back up. We've got some great interviews lined up. We've got some good things coming down the pike, some things we're really excited about. And we can't wait to share those with you when the time is appropriate. Absolutely. We have thoroughly enjoyed this foundational fundamental footprints and looking at some forefathers of the IFB. We're not done with that. We've got some great legacy people we're going to talk about as we conclude this in the first couple weeks of our fall season. We've got interviews lined up with guys that many have asked, are you going to talk about Ruckman? We're going to talk about Peter Ruckman. We've got a guy that was born and raised in the system of Ruckman, and he's going to come on and share some of his experience. We're going to talk about Tennessee Temple. We're going to be talking about Champion. We're going to talk about West Coast Baptist College. We're going to talk about Commonwealth. We're going to be talking about some of these newer ones as well. And then we're really excited, Brett, because we're going to be talking through some camp meeting stuff and some of that vein of it. And so we've almost got our entire fall winter season lined out already with just the excitement that's been going on with what we've been talking about. And so if you've got a story you want to share, again, we've got an interview today. We want to have you on there. Reach out to us. And if you've had an experience at any of the colleges that we've talked about or any of the people that we've talked about or some of the people we're going to talk about, reach out to us. Maybe there's someone that you were raised under or you are familiar with that we have never heard of. We're not the all-knowing James and Brett, even though most people think we are. We want to be able to incorporate that into the series that we're doing and hopefully be a help to people. And then, of course, Brett, our cigar line is completely out and rolling, not out of stock, but completely out and ready to go. We've got four different lines of cigars, and it's going to be a great thing. If you haven't got any, now is the time to order to get them in for Father's Day. Be looking at some great things coming up. Next week we're going to be announcing something great that you can do for your Father's Day gifts. And so if you want to jump on that, it'd be great. Go to our website. You can also go to 1689.com backslash for freedom cigars, and you can see those things. And just a great opportunity to support the podcast, help us out in our endeavors. Believe it or not, we've got website fees. We've got hosting fees. We've got some other things that do cost some money. And so this is a good way for us to give you something tangible in ways to support what we're doing. And if you're going to be in Dallas, if you're going to be in the area, let us know. We'd love to get together with you and hang out. Brett, we've also got something coming up in 2026. We're coming up on our first deadline. Tell us about that. Yes, 2026. We've got our Israel trip still planned. We're coming up on a deadline end of June for registration and the first payment. And we are going for freedom of the Holy Land. We are going to Israel. We want you to come with us. It's going to be a great trip. It's great price. And as always, we're going to have a great time in the Holy Land. We've got some places that we've been before, some places that we actually haven't been before. That'll be new to us, but that's what makes it exciting. There's always something to see. This is a life-changing trip, and we want you to go. And so check out our website on that and come to the Holy Land with us. It's safe. They've got tours on the ground. If you're thinking about going, that means you should go. So come with us. Absolutely. And without further ado, we are looking at and excited about the interview today. I want to just read just a short bio of Rebecca. She is a trauma-informed Christian book coach. She's put out several books called The Twisted Scripture Books. It's all based on her 40-plus years of Bible study, and she's excited to see the Lord work in mighty different ways. And so we're excited to jump into this interview today. Hope you enjoy it. And as always, if you are encouraged by it, share it, leave a review, give us a five-star, one-star, just make it count in however you give us that review. And we look forward to talking again next week and enjoy this episode today. And we're excited today to have with us Rebecca Davis. Rebecca is a wonderful person that we've been able to get a hold of over the last couple of weeks and months. I've been connected to her through Shannon McEagena. You may remember her episode back in episode 150 or so. She shared her story, and we have been able to talk with Ms. Rebecca for a little bit. And she's a Bob Jones grad and here to share some of her story today. So, Rebecca, let's get started today. Introduce yourself. Tell us who you are. And we'll jump into the interview today. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Pertinent to this particular interview, I am a graduate of Bob Jones University with my master's degree way back in 1983. I got my master's degree in math education. That isn't what I'm doing now, but I did do it for a while. And my experience with Bob Jones was a pretty decent experience. I wasn't abused. I didn't like the rules, but I was fairly compliant. I got called into the dean's office for having a messy room. And they couldn't give me demerits for it because I was a grad assistant. So, I do remember that. But in general, it was a pretty decent experience, in part because I was working at Bob Jones University Press, and I really loved it there. And I knew nothing about any abuses that were going on behind the scenes. And then my journey continued, and here I am today. So, I guess that will be part of the interview, right? Absolutely. Great. Well, as we get started today, I want to sort of begin by talking about your time with survivors and abuse. And we'll talk about the grace report in just a little bit, but sort of how your relationship opened your eyes to sort of a deeper issue inside the church when it came to survivors. And especially when you begin hearing reports of people from your alma mater, right? This is a big eye-opening experience that you didn't see any while you were there. This was, by the way, way before I was born. I was born in 88. So, you graduated before I was born. And so, you began to see some of these things. So, how did these begin to, when you began connecting with some of these survivors, what was that like? Yes. Well, that's kind of my origin story for my Untwisting Scriptures books, we might say. In 2012, a mutual acquaintance, or an acquaintance called me because she saw me communicating with someone on Facebook. And she called me on the phone and started asking me questions. And I couldn't understand what she was talking about. She seemed very troubled. And she lived not far away. And so, we started getting together. And I started listening to her story. And it turned out she had been abused. And Bob Jones University had mishandled her abuse. And, like, majorly, horribly mishandled her abuse situation. And I knew nothing. I knew nothing about this sort of thing. I hadn't been abused in my life. And I'm talking about sexual abuse. I hadn't been abused. And people in my circles hadn't ever talked about it. I hadn't ever heard about it. I was very upset because I was in my 50s. And I was thinking, I should have known. I've been in church all my life. People should have been talking about this. I should have known this was a real problem that needed to be addressed. And the more I learned, she asked me to please read the blogs and Facebook pages. And at that time, it was 2012. And there was a lot of blogging out there. And the Facebook was just really getting going at that time. And I dove into it with a ready will and started reading and studying and learning. And I knew a little bit about domestic abuse because of a previous friend. And that was a whole new thing to me. That's a different story. But they ended up merging at some point. But this seemed quite separate to me at the time that women, children were being abused by their pastor fathers and their missionary fathers and their youth leaders and their pastors. And it was just like, it was absolutely overwhelming to me. And I began speaking about it cautiously and carefully on Facebook. And at that time, the reason the woman was thinking and talking about this was because Bob Jones University was being investigated for having mishandled cases of sexual abuse. And as you just mentioned, the organization investigating them was GRACE, G-A-R-C-E, Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment. That was the name of it. The head of the organization at that time was Baz Chivijian. And they had not signed to be investigated by them at that point. And lots of people were trying to pressure them to sign to be investigated. It was like a big kerfuffle that was going on that I had been unaware of because I was just living my life and doing other things. And so I began to get educated. And months later, after I'd been being educated for probably six months, I started cautiously speaking about it. And people started coming to me in private messages saying, I was abused too. I was abused too. And I began to feel like I was the one in the minority, like I was the only person who hadn't been abused. There were so many abuse survivors coming out at that time. And more and more, I began to speak. And it just grew. It snowballed from there. And so that was like my first year of getting into it. Mostly just speaking on my own Facebook page. That was it. And so some people were speaking to me saying I was abused too. So recently, we've seen a lot of survivors begin to come forward with the telegraph that came out from the New York, Texas, and then with the guidepost stories that came out with SBC. We've began to see the survivors feel strength to come forward and be able to talk about things. How has that made you feel and really be able to see in light of events of people being able to come forward publicly? How was that for you? So I was seeing that in 2012. And the difference was from the past when I had no awareness of it, the difference was social media. Before, social media didn't exist. When MySpace got started, it was not the phenomenon that Facebook became. With like most of the people in the entire world getting on Facebook, it was a phenomenon never seen before. And it was the first time in history that the little guy had a platform. The little guy could write something or say something. And in those days, it was just writing and be read by hundreds or even thousands of people because of shares. So it was an entirely new phenomenon. And even back then, more and more people were starting to speak. And people like me, people like me who wanted to learn, I was going specifically to their Facebook pages and their blog posts, their blogs, and reading what they had to say. And I was learning. I couldn't always sort out, like, is all of this really true? It was extremely overwhelming to me. I will tell you. It was very, very overwhelming. And there were many ways in which I just wanted to pull away. I didn't want to be overwhelmed like this. I had a good life. I was raising my children. And I had a decent marriage. And I was going on about my life. Why? In one sense, not really, not totally. But there was this question, like, why do I have to be pulled into this awfulness? But there was a calling inside of me, I believe from the Lord, that said, this is an important place for you to go. It's important for you to learn these things. So it hasn't just been recent that people have been speaking out. It started as soon as there was a platform for them. Excuse me. As soon as there was a platform for them, they started speaking out. And it just grew and grew and grew. And because of that platform, and now, of course, it's been podcasts, too. Podcasts came along after blogs. They overlapped by a little bit. I mean, people still blog. But you see, blogs started in the early 2000s. And podcasts started around 2010 or so. And so there are more and more and more platforms for people to speak. That's what's made the difference. It's not that people didn't speak before and now they are. It's just that now they have the platforms for people to actually listen to them. In the past, the churches, or I shouldn't say just churches, but all the leaders, any leaders, any people with that position of authority, the person with the microphone controlled the narrative. The person, like if it's in a church setting, the pastor and his elders controlled the narrative. And the people back in the pews, they didn't have a voice unless the pastor decided to give them a voice. So this just completely changed the dynamic. And I'm very grateful that more and more voices are coming out, even though it's horrific to see the state of the church. That so many people, I believe, go into church leadership specifically because it's a good way to find people to abuse. That those people who have been abused are able to speak out. Well, we kind of want to talk about the process of the Grace investigation. How did that unfold at Bob Jones? Like talk about what kind of cooperation or resistance you encountered from the university leadership during the investigation. Well, I wasn't involved in the investigation. I only watched it as an outsider. So I can tell you my perspective as an outsider watching it unfold. In 2012, people were asking the school to get this investigation done. And there was a catalyst for that. It was in 2011, Bob Jones, the third, who was president at that time. No, he wasn't president at that time, but he was the former president and he was the chancellor. If I remember correctly, he said on the platform that the university had always handled cases of sexual abuse correctly. And so there was an outcry from all the people whose cases were not handled correctly, as you can imagine. And so they were pushing them to have this investigation. By the time I entered the scene, that push was really going strong. Well, they didn't get hired until 2014. Perhaps January, maybe February. I don't know, but right around there. So it was a long process. And the investigation began. I don't remember the exact dates because I was on the outside. But I do remember this part. In January or February of 2014, Bob Jones University fired Grace. And there was this huge outcry about it. And for two weeks, I was on Facebook. It felt like 24-7 answering people's questions, trying to encourage people and pushing for BJU to rehire. This would be like on Bob Jones University's Facebook page. And responding to all the pushback that came. I had been speaking more and more since 2012. It was becoming more and more a thing. But it was still only on my own personal page on Facebook. That was pretty much it. But when I started responding, like the people saying, guilty until, I mean, innocent until proven guilty. Or he that answereth the matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. Bitterness, the root of bitterness. You must be bitter, Rebecca. So many different things that people were coming at me about. And I was thinking at that time, that's when it really, really overwhelmed me. It was during those two weeks that I was saying, wow, Christians really don't know the Bible. Because I knew the word of God enough to know that verses were being taken out of context. Verses were being misapplied. They weren't practicing critical thinking. At that time, I was thinking Christians can't think logically. It was really critical thinking skills that I was, or a lack of critical thinking skills that I was observing. And I started writing more and more. I started writing long, back in those days, Facebook had what they called notes. And I was writing long Facebook notes. And people started telling me how much I appreciated them. I started responding to the misuses of scripture. And eventually, I put up a website to respond to the misuses of scripture. And that, I believe the website is defunct now. But most of the things that I wrote about eventually went into my Untwisting Scriptures books. So it was really Bob Jones University was the catalyst for the Untwisting Scriptures work that I'm doing now. That's great. You know, for those that may not, Grace is a godly response to abuse in the Christian environment. So some people were throwing that name out. They may not have even heard of it before. I know up until recently when Shannon got me a hold of you, I had not heard of the Grace Report at all and had not known about it. So that was huge for me. Brett, you had something to say there? I just, you know, as an observer, looking in, you hear these survivor testimonies. And I know that they can be powerful. They can be impactful. Can you just speak into the testimonies of the survivors for a minute and tell me what kind of impact that made? I will tell you, when I was hearing the stories, I would go to bed in a fetal position. I would cry and cry and cry. And it was very, very hard for me. I was not trained to know about these things. I did not know. I had read about wickedness in the Bible, but I didn't understand or know about the depth of wickedness and the depth of hypocrisy that was going on around me all the time. I felt like I had entered an alternate universe. This was all a big part of what I needed to do. I had to understand, come to grips with during that, especially that first year, 2012, 2013. I would even say into 2014. So it took quite a while. I was also doing research constantly, not just the blogs and Facebook pages that got recommended to me, but I started reading scholarly works and reading memoirs from survivors. And I went to trainings. So I was, I'm informally trained. I have no letters after my name, except that master's degree in math that I got from BJU. But I was becoming trained to the best of my ability. I didn't know anything about flashbacks and the nightmares caused by abuse. And I didn't know about dissociation. I had all these things to learn. It was such a steep learning curve. And I went to the Lord and I said, I do not have the capacity for this. My capacity is like a thimble. And then I said to the Lord, you have all the capacity in the world. Can you give me a greater capacity to hold these stories without it just completely knocking me over? I had been feeling like it was just tsunami after tsunami after tsunami. And I was just, I was drowning. And I asked the Lord for greater capacity. And I did a lot of sleeping because that was one way for me to recover from the stories I was hearing. But the Lord did over time increase my capacity. He also increased my ability not to trigger people. I had never heard of triggering. I didn't know what triggering was. And I was triggering people right and left without realizing it. And I said, Lord, you have called the wrong person. I'm like a bull in a china shop. I don't know what I'm doing. Will you call someone else to this work? And can I just go back to doing something kind of normal like homeschooling? And I can help other people homeschool, you know. But the Lord called me to this. The Lord called me into this arena. This dark, dark place where I didn't know what I was doing. I needed to get trained. And I needed to rely on him. So the stories had a powerful impact on me. And, you know, people have asked me, what do you do? How do you figure out what's true and what's not true? I'm not trying to sort out details. I'm going with the big picture. The big picture says something terrible has happened. And people are deeply affected by it. And they have experienced great trauma at the hands of others. Not a nameless trauma, but at the hands of others. And that means great evil is taking place in the world. And I will tell you, it was like my world went from pastel to full color. Because I started to really see righteousness and wickedness. I started to really see the spiritual battle, the evil in the world. Such evil. So much evil. Because I wasn't just learning about molestation or, you know, the youth leader taking advantage of the girl in his youth group. I was learning about trafficking. I was learning about ritual abuse. It was just like, it was really, really overwhelming to me to come face to face with the evil that was going on. And very often in the guise of Christianity, because that was the door through which I entered this. And I certainly know these things take place in other areas, too. There's Hollywood and there's the politicians and everything. But Christianity and the church is the door through which I entered this arena. And so that's the world where I was seeing it. And by the grace of God, he gave me the capacity. And I now meet with survivors regularly to give them encouragement, to pray with them, to listen to their stories. And to seek healing with them from the Lord. It's always heartbreaking and discouraging, I can say for myself. When we look back and we see these places that we love, we cherish, we adore, we have so many fond memories of. And we began to hear things that happen that just shatter our image of what we had for them and things that we lifted to such a high elevation. Brett, we're going to skip number three. We're going to go number four. You mentioned on Facebook notes and on your website how you had begun publishing some of these things. I can imagine there was some pushback that was happening with that. Sort of talk about the pushback that was happening. And then you also mentioned about the misuse of scripture. How we were, they were quoting certain things and how scripture has been misused. What sort of revealed to you in that area about the misunderstanding of scripture from your perspective? So the first woman who came to me and started talking to me and I listened to her a lot and I spent a lot of time listening. I spent far more time listening and talking because I didn't, I knew I didn't understand and I knew I needed to learn. And I've learned so much from the abuse survivors themselves. But two of the areas that she talked about that were very significant to me, she talked about several, but two of the ones that came out as most significant to me was we were taught we should give up our rights. And I thought, oh, that sounds kind of familiar. I think I remember that. And the other one was we were taught that if we speak about it, we're just bitter and we'll be a root of bitterness that will defile many. And I thought, oh, yeah, that sounds familiar, too. Well, both of them are based in the teachings of Bill Gothard and probably other people. But Bill Gothard is the one that that I tracked it back to. And my responses to these two terrible teachings that are not scriptural and that serve to keep people in a place of oppression. My responses to those became part of my very first Untwisting Scriptures book in 2016. Some of the pushback on. I should have looked it up before we came to the interview because it was a while back. So I'll do the best I can remember. One of them I mentioned a minute ago was he who answers a matter before he hears it. It is folly and shame to him. And people were telling that to me like I was speaking out about this without ever having heard the matter. And so I was showing my folly. And I thought that's like I was incensed. That's ridiculous. I have been hearing this matter for years, for years. And you're the one who hasn't been hearing the matter. I was thinking because you need to listen to the survivors themselves. And another one was innocent until proven guilty, which, of course, is not scripture, but it's America. And I wrote a whole blog post to refute that. A person is deemed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But, of course, if the person is guilty, if the person is actually guilty, then the person he abused, in this case, because we're talking about abuse, she doesn't have to assume him innocent. She knows that he's guilty. She doesn't have to say, no, he's innocent. He hasn't been proven guilty in a court of law yet. So he's innocent. She doesn't have to say that. And I said, any witnesses to the crime don't have to say that. And so I just thought that's illogical. That's not unscriptural because it's not in the Bible, but it's illogical. It's not carrying through the thought. It's not looking at the big picture. It's taking this tiny little phrase out of context, out of the context of the way the American legal system is set up and applying it outside of that. So those are two. If I racked my brain, I could come up with probably a dozen more. But another one people said was, well, rape happens everywhere. And I thought, I mean, my head wanted to explode. I thought, what in the world? That's an excuse? Like, how can you possibly say that's an excuse for what is happening now? So it was astonishing to me. I was absolutely astonished. And I was, I felt punched in the gut over and over and over. But I kept coming back for more because I must be a glutton for punishment. Well, you know, you had a striking realization. Christians don't know the Bible and Christians don't think logically. Can you unpack what kind of led to that conclusion and how your thinking has evolved since then? Well, my thinking has evolved since then to say, well, the Christians I was working with or who are coming at me at that time. So I don't want to say all Christians don't know the Bible and all Christians don't think logically because, of course, that's not true. And that would be very illogical to say that. But the ones who are stuck in fundamentalist thinking, thinking that my authority must always be right and I must always submit to my authority and never question them, those people are in big trouble. Those people need to know the truth. Those people, I often think about how Jesus said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And I pray for people to have ears to hear that they may hear. And when I write and untwist scriptures, and I have six books in my Untwisting Scripture series so far. So I've been doing a lot of Untwisting Scriptures and on my website, which your listeners can get to by going to untwistingscriptures.com. On that website, I have a lot more Untwistings that aren't in any of my books. So you can see there are a lot of twisted scriptures. And my thinking has evolved in the past. It's been close to 10 years. Well, it's been over 10 years since I started. But since I started the Untwisting Scriptures work, about 10 years, I would say, that I see a similar pattern over and over. And that is basically two things. There are a lot more, but I'm going to name the main two that I've seen. And one is, I am the authority. Never question me. The other is, everything that you think is going wrong is really your own problem. So those two things, and all these different scriptures, and all these different non-scriptural things that sound scriptural, like believe the best and things like that. That's not in the Bible, but people think it is. All of those things are brought against abuse survivors and those who want to help abuse survivors to silence them. You are going against your authority or the pseudo-authority, and you haven't dealt with all that sin in your own heart. How dare you be speaking up about anything when you haven't dealt with the sin in your own heart first? And that teaching is still very prevalent in the Christian world. That's great. We love it. And, you know, these resources are out there. I think oftentimes people, when we struggle with things, we want resources, and we just don't realize that good, faithful people have put them out that love people and care about people wanting to grow in their faith. A friend of mine, Brian Edwards, has put out a podcast. I think there are six or eight episodes now. I don't remember exactly. It's called Text in Context, and it's dedicated to just simply correcting textual and scriptural error by teaching what the misuse of scripture is. And how it's in their proper context. And so just trying to balance that out sounds a lot like what you're doing with the untwisting scripture. Absolutely. Yes. I'm looking at context, looking at who. I put a lot of emphasis on pronouns. Who is the person speaking? Who is he speaking to to? If he says I or me, that isn't talking about the reader. It's talking about the speaker. And you might apply it to yourself, or you might not. Let's look at the context. Let's look at why he said it. Things like that. So that Christians can have a right understanding of the word of God. And, of course, the way translations have been misdone to make verses say things they don't even say. Absolutely. Absolutely. So in the process, this will be our last question, and we'll open up for anything that you have. In the process of writing these books and putting them out, what was your goal in offering hope to the readers? But also, has there been feedback to you from publishing these books? Have people reached out and said, hey, this point that you used or this thought was a great thing to help me grow? Sort of share some personal testimony from the books that you've written. Sure. What was your first? You had two questions. What was the first one? Sorry. Yes. What hope did you plan to offer? Yes. All right. Yes. Perfect. I am a book coach. That's my profession. What we're talking about here is my ministry. And in my book coaching business, I encourage my clients to think about their target reader and their goal for their target reader. So you're asking me one of my big book coaching questions. Who's your target reader and what's your goal for your target reader? My target reader is very specific. That is people who have experienced spiritual abuse. And I define spiritual abuse as the misuse of the word of God and the character of God to keep people in a place of bondage and oppression. People who have experienced spiritual abuse. Who are recognizing that something's wrong, but they still want to know who God really is. A lot of people, once they recognize the abuse, they say, that's it. I'm done. I'm out of here. I'm walking away from everything. That's happened a lot, as all of us know. And it's so grievous. It breaks my heart that that happens because they're walking away from a God that is not the true God of the scriptures. And so I'm writing these books for the people who want to know who God really is, who they really are, what the Bible really means, who are willing to walk with me as I walk with them to investigate and to see the beauty of who our Lord Jesus Christ really is. Because the real picture is so beautiful. And he loves them so deeply and wants relationship with them. So that's my goal. That's my target reader and my goal for my target reader to help them understand who God really is, who they really are, what the Bible really says, and how they really can have relationship with the Lord. And yes, I do get emails regularly. I get a lot of emails thanking me for one thing or another. And I have a regular email that goes out every week. And sometimes it will let people know, like, about an interview I've just done or a blog post I've just written. But often it's just what I call a tiny untwisting. It's a teaching that I can address in a fairly short amount of space to help people understand. And people can get access to that by going to my website, which you can get to through untwistingscriptors.com. I've got several free offerings there. You could actually get Untwisting Scriptors book number six in audio book form for free just by signing up. You can also get a guide that is called How to Enjoy the Bible Again After Spiritual Abuse When You're Ready Without Feeling Guilty or Getting Triggered Out of Your Mind. So that free guide is there, too, in both written and audio form for you. And once you sign up to get any one of my free things, you'll be getting on my mailing list and you'll get regular emails from me just to help you understand the scriptures better, to untangle some of those teachings. Maybe ones that I didn't address in my book or on my blog or maybe just a small repeat of one tiny little piece of something I talked about in my book. So I've gotten many, many responses, feedback from the emails, from the books to thank me for them. So, yes, I've gotten a lot of that. Rebecca, we want to thank you so much for coming on with us today. And I know me personally can't wait to check out your books. I'm definitely going to be somebody that signs up. But I just want to ask you as we get ready to close, if you had any closing thoughts or anything you'd like to add. For any of your listeners who have experienced abuse, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, violence of any kind, trafficking, any kinds of abuse that you can think of. If you've been in the church, the spiritual abuse is the web that holds all of the other abuses in place. Because you are made to feel like God is on the side of the abuser. And maybe God is an abuser himself. And what I want to offer you is hope. There is hope to get out of this shame, fear, and confusion. The three big results. The three big demons that you carry on your back when you come out of abuse. You can be delivered from shame, fear, and confusion. And you can know. You really can know who God really is. I know hope is a scary word for a lot of people. But there really is hope to know the true God and to know his love for you. And it's a pure love. It's not a love that wants to take advantage of you. It's not a love that's conditional on your performance. It's a gracious, free, and full love through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can receive the love of God. And you have people who love you and who want to walk with you and who are cheering you on. That's great. There's hope. There's encouragement out there. And there's people like Rebecca who are doing tons of work to help expose things, but also to help give that hope for those next steps. And that's what I love is not just showing you there's wrong, but also how to work through that, how to work through the process. So I love that. Thank you for coming on, Rebecca. This has been great. Thank you. We'll link all those websites in our show notes. So if you didn't quite get one, we'll put that in there so you can go to Unquisting Scriptures and her website and everything. So thank you for coming on. And until next time. Thank you. All right. God bless you. Bye-bye. Until next time. To God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. 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.tletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletle

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