Sermon Tone Analysis

Domestic Violence

Friday marked White Ribbon Day.

A day that has been set aside to acknowledge the epidemic that is throughout our society, the hideous and usually hidden atrocity we call domestic violence.

You may be less aware, but today has also been marked as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

So this morning, the plan is to address this issue, but I’m going to do that at the same time as concluding our series on Elijah and Elisha.

Now from the outset, I’ll acknowledge that this passage before us is not directly addressing what we call domestic abuse.

But, that being said, my plan is to look at some of the lessons we can take from it, and I believe they suit very well the domestic abuse issue.

So, let me tell you my plan for this message:

I first want to introduce the issue of domestic violence with a few brief remarks about what the bible says on the issue.

I’m then going to shift gears, looking at the passage before us and giving consideration to the actually context.

And then I’m going to bring it all together and see how the passage can help us think better about domestic violence.

Intro to Domestic Abuse

Well, already I’ve inter-changeably used the terms Domestic Violence and Domestic Abuse.

I’ve used the word ‘violence’ because that is how we most commonly refer to this hideous issue, however the abuse takes on more forms than just physical violence.

The abuse can also include, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, economical abuse or even social abuse.

In each case, what we see is a dominant partner controlling the other is the different facets of life.

Now it is true that domestic violence is not always the man as the perpetrator.

The man can also be the victim, and so I will clarify that all violence and abuse is wrong regardless of who the perpetrator and victim are.

That being said, in the vast majority of cases, it is the man that is the perpetrator and the woman who is the victim.

For this reason I will mostly speak of the woman as the victim, but what I look at will apply either way.

Statistics

Well, we could obviously spend a lot more time looking at the nature of this abuse, but I want to turn to some statistics, because I think it is here that we realise that this is not a few isolated instances.

Now it should be noted that statistics of this nature can be a little tricky to get because so much abuse does not get reported.

But these stats at least give a little insight into the issue.

So if we take women who are 15 years of age or more, than as you see on your screen:

1 in 5 have experienced sexual violence

1 in 6 have experienced physical or sexual violence from a current or former partner, which, if you compare this to the previous stat, shows that most of this type of abuse comes within domestic relationships

1 in 4 have experienced emotional abuse

A staggering 1 in 3 have experienced physical violence

And 1 in 5 women have been stalked during their life time

The sad thing is that this is also having a huge impact on the kids as well.

The stat I have up there shows that 1 in 4 children have been exposed to domestic violence.

I’ve also got the other stat up there showing that far too often the final result is death.

Taken over a 12 month period, on average one woman is killed every week as a result of intimate partner violence.

Unfortunately, statistics also show that this problem knows no boundaries.

It exists with the rich and with the poor.

It exists with people of any colour.

And unfortunately it doesn’t even know any religious boundaries.

While I wasn’t able to find accurate stats on it, but certainly we know that domestic violence exists within church going families.

There are people even here today who I am aware have experience abuse of this nature.

And I will take this time to acknowledge that part of what I want to do today is to make it clear that what happened to you was not acceptable and that we need to do what we can to change it.

The sad reality is that, whether you know it or not, each of you will know multiple women who have suffered due to this terrible problem.

They are in your street.

They are in your group of friends.

They are everywhere - the problem is that big.

Biblical problem

As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to bring into this discussion, but before I do I want to just make a few brief remarks regarding some misunderstanding of Biblical passages.

In particular, the passage found in regarding wives submitting to their husbands.

Now I recognise there are a variety of ways to understand what this means, and I’m not about to get into all the ins and outs of it now.

However, regardless of your understanding of that passage, it can never, I repeat, never, justify a husband abusing their wife.

That passage in actually spends much more time describing how a husband needs to love their wife.

It is completely incompatible for a husband to love their wife and to abuse them.

Instead of abuse, the picture the Bible provides for us is one where the family is a place of safety and security.

The fact that so often this has failed is because we have turned our backs on God and no longer live as we should.

It is as we get back to the ideal, the very thing the Bible helps us to do, that we will start to see things change.

Elisha

Well, as I said before I want to bring the story of Elisha into this conversation.

So I’m going to do somewhat of a gear change as we move into the world of Elisha, but I will draw these two parts together shortly.

Context

Well, this is actually the last in our series on Elijah and Elisha.

As I’ve described during the earlier messages, we’re at a critical point in the history of Israel.

They’ve been at a low point with their relationship with Yahweh, but excitingly, we are about to see a new age, one in which God raises up numerous prophets, many of which we have their words recorded for us in what we describe as the five major prophets and 12 minor prophets.

All of which help prepare us for what is to come in God’s plan for humanity.

It started with Elijah, which we looked at for a number of weeks, but then his ministry moved onto Elisha.

Last week we explored two particular miracles in the ministry of Elisha, namely helping a widow out of a debt, and a Shunammite woman whose son was miraculously brought back to life.

Now it’s the second of these stories that we need to pay attention to because it comes back into the story today.

So let’s just recap that a bit further.

The woman is an unnamed woman, but we refer to her as the Shunammite because she comes from a town called Shunem.

Now, this woman was actually a well-to-do woman.

So much so that she was in a position to add a room on her roof just for Elisha to stay in.

Though this woman seemingly had everything, God saw that she lacked a son, and so graciously allowed her to conceive.

But unfortunately it all seemed to end in tragedy when her son suddenly died, but God, working through Elisha, brought the son back to life.

Now last week, I made a little slip up which you may have noticed - it was pointed out to me by my wife!

When I was making some comparison between other similar miracles in Scripture, I mistakenly

Now I realised I actually made a slip up last week which you may have noticed - it was pointed out to me by my wife!

When making comparisons with similar miracles in Scripture, I mistakenly called the Shunammite woman a widow, but she clearly wasn’t.

Well, she might not have been a widow in chapter 4, but though it doesn’t spell it out specifically for us in chapter 8, it would seem she is now.

This is based on the assumption that the woman’s husband is not mentioned in the chapter and she seems to be making the big family decisions.

(So in calling her a widow last week, maybe I was just a week early).

The Famine

Well, as now look into chapter 8 we find that there is a famine in the land.

We’re not exactly sure of the time frame of this, but it is to last seven years.

Elisha foresees this famine and recognises that it will be best if she leaves the land for those years.

When we get to verse 3, we are now at the end of that seven year period and on the basis that she is making an appeal for her house and land, it would seem that her possessions had unfairly been taken advantage of.

One of those points being that the story ends with the need for her belongings and income to be restored to her.

The precise nature of what happened is a mystery but I want to highlight the unfair nature of it.

You see, this woman rightfully owned that property and certain people took advantage of her when she was in a vulnerable position.

Now, while I recognise this is not domestic violence, yet I certainly think there is a connection there when you consider that this represents a domineering person taking advantage of the vulnerable.

Therefore it is assumed that during the seven year period,

Well, I’m going to come back to this connection but for the moment let’s just stay with this story and see what happens.

Restoration

Well, it’s one of those stories where it is just so evident that God is orchestrating the whole thing.

You see, verse 3 has the woman coming to the King with an appeal.

The difficulty of course is that while she might have been a well-to-do sort of person, it would appear at least that she didn’t have her husband any more and probably doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on (so-to-speak).

But God works in mysterious ways, and so it just so happens that at the same time, Gehazi is there having a bit of a chin wag with the King.

Who knows what sort of relationship Gehazi had with the king, but it doesn’t really matter.

What happens however is the king asks about some of Elisha’s work.

By God’s providence, Gehazi happens to recount the great story of the Shunammite’s son being brought back to life.

And then lo and behold, who should walk in?

The Shunammite of course.