Many thanks to one of our readers for writing the following to us:
It’s not called gossip once a wife’s murder is reported after many years of hidden domestic abuse, but it’s called gossip if she talks about it before her murder. It’s not called gossip when it is reported that a company/man goes into bankruptcy, but it’s called gossip if his wife talks to people about her husband’s laziness and refusal to work (financial abandonment) prior to the bankruptcy.
I am a conservative, Bible-believing Christian, and I intend to remain one. I have had to make many changes in my thinking in the last few years, especially as I have learned about abuse, but those changes are in me, not in the Word of God. God’s Word is truth. It stands forever. Every jot, every tittle, shall be fulfilled. Trust God’s Word and it will never fail you. Our problem is that we so often get our word, or man’s word, jumbled up with God’s Word and then we are in trouble.
In past years, when I heard or read about the topic of domestic violence, I skimmed over it. I was largely ignorant of it’s real nature and of it’s prominence, and how erroneous teaching in my own arm of Christianity was contributing to it. So I blew it off as far as my ministry went. But there was another reason for my blindness to it, and I think that this reason is something that Christians like myself need to name, claim, and own up to.
Philippians 1:15-17 ESV Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. (16) The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. (17) The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
I wanted to take time in this post to caution everyone in regard to a particular brand of counselor or therapist or pastor or other such person who claims to want to “help” people. There are many kinds who we must be wise to and avoid, but the kind I want to talk about here is the “counselor” who makes the counseling all about themselves. I don’t know if you have met such people, but I have and I have run across them often enough that I felt this warning to be necessary.
Continue reading “A Warning Sign – Counselors who are Self-Centered”
