What does the Bible say about abuse?

Such instruction from God may sound strange to many Christians who are anxious to correct all the social wrongs that threaten their comfort. But God is wiser than we. People's efforts to set things right in the world have only resulted in things becoming more and more complicated and people becoming more and more bitter against each other. God will correct these things in His own time. Meanwhile, believers are to receive grace from God to patiently bear injustices, inequities and hard treatment with calm submission and living faith in the Lord.

Masters are told to "do the same things" to servants. Employers may not think of this, but they ought to serve their servants, not as being subject to them, but as concerned about their proper welfare and treating them kindly and fairly Threatening, simply as a tool to instill fear, would be an abuse of authority. Consider the character of Boaz in Ruth 2:4. His relationship with his servants was excellent, for he first recognized his Master in heaven. If any master feels himself more worthy of respect than his servants, he is not subject to God's will. God is perfectly fair, and every Christian -- whether employee or employer - likewise ought to be.

We cannot understand how anyone calling himself a Christian parent can adopt a system of harsh and cruel treatment towards his children. It can only result in making them liars and infidels. They will tell lies to escape the strap. They will despise the religion which stands connected with such inordinate severity. Such treatment as you describe is more worthy of a cruel slavemaster than of a Christian parent. There are cases in which some discipline is necessary, but it should be administered in such a way as to convince the child that it is only for his good and not the fruit of bad temper or of arbitrary severity. The rod should be most reluctantly lifted. It should be the very last resource. In short, the Christian parent should ever keep before him as his model his heavenly Father's dealings with himself. Does He inflict punishment for confessed sin? The thought is blasphemy. He only chastens in love, to make us partakers of His holiness. It grieves Him to have to use the rod. “His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.” This should be the Christian parent's pattern.

And if Christ, as the Lord of the inheritance, holds out the hope of reward to the servant, so He utters words of warning to the master: "And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with Him." (v. 9.) "The same things" probably mean what is called in the Colossians, "that which is just and equal." The principle here is the counterpart of that in the last verse. Even a Christian master might forget that social distinctions, though recognized and sanctioned on earth, have no existence in Christ's judgment. Master and servant will all answer to Him. To the one whose low position might cause discouragement He holds out, therefore, the prospect of reward for faithful service; to the one whose high position might lead to oppression, He holds out the judgment that will follow an abuse of power. Though the law might give the injured servant no redress, the master was reminded of another tribunal before which he must stand, and in which his conduct to his servant would be judged, not according to man's laws, but according to the estimate of Him that is holy, Him that is true. Thus Christ is made the standard of everything in the Christian's walk. Whether as wife or husband, as child or parent, as bondsman or master, the rule is, that having Christ's life, the walk of Christ is to be shown forth in the believer's ways. "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." T. B. Baines.

(1.) It is somewhat remarkable that the first exhortation is, "But, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." So also in Colossians: "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger." (Col. 3:21.) It is not exactly the same word, though the meaning is not very different. This will be at once understood when it is perceived that this exhortation follows upon the call to children to obey their parents. Fathers are placed in almost absolute authority; and hence the first thing the Spirit of God does in turning to parents is to admonish them as to the manner in which they should exercise their authority. Knowing what the flesh is, even in a Christian, and how apt we are to be tyrannical and despotic in the place in which God has set us, He, in tender consideration for those who are put in the subject position, says, "Provoke not your children to wrath." Parents have almost unlimited control (limited only by the words added to the injunction, "in the Lord") over their children, but they are hereby warned that they must be careful before God as to the method of their government. They must consider the feelings of their children, and while they must never abate one jot or tittle of what is due to the Lord, they must remember their weakness; not lay upon them more than they can bear lest they might be discouraged. A more striking illustration of God's tenderness for children could scarcely be conceived-a tenderness which was exemplified again and again by our blessed Lord while down here upon the earth-than is expressed in this special injunction to parents. And we all know, how apt we are to be capricious or harsh in our rule; and hence our need of this reminder. let every parent therefore remember, that if, on the one hand, God has given him the rule over his family, on the other He has carefully defined the character of its exercise; and that he is as responsible for the latter as for the former.

(1.) The law, then, of the wife is her husband's will; or rather she is put in the place of subjection to his authority. There would seem to be one limitation to this statement, indicated by the words which are found in Colossians, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." (Col. 3:18.) If therefore the will of the husband should interfere with the wife's individual responsibility to the Lord — come into conflict with the Lord's will as expressed in His word — if the alternative be forced upon her of obedience to her husband or disobedience to the Lord, then the Lord must have the supreme claim. With this solitary exception her submission to her husband must be complete. "As the church is subject unto Christ, so also the wives to their own husbands in everything." There cannot thus be any allowed exception apart from the one named.

The exhortation here addressed to Christian masters is very general and wide. As it respects their bearing towards a believing servant, it might well be supposed that a remembrance of their common relation, as members of the one body of Christ, would of itself incline their hearts to kindness and considerate gentleness towards their brethren whom God had thus left for a time at their discretion. Moreover, if they thought of Him who is their Pattern, they would seek" to imitate Him in His way. Example, therefore, rather than compulsion, would be the rule of their administration. Threats of vengeance would come strangely from the lips of one who owed himself to grace as a forgiven sinner. But, as we have seen, a more stringent motive is not wanting to arouse an indolent or inconsiderate master to a just sense of his responsibilities. If he neglected to do rightly, there was One above him who both knew and judged. Both the oppressed and the oppressor are the Lord's.* His ear is always open to the cry of the afflicted; and no transgressor of His own unvarying rule of equity will go unrecompensed. Very real will be their loss, in the coming day, who then discover that their ways in this life have found no approbation in the Master's eyes.

And husbands are certainly not to take advantage of their wives because of their subject place. They are rather to "dwell them (not above them) according to knowledge, in sober recognition of what is right and proper. And because the wife is physically the weaker vessels the husband is to give her honor for the stronger is certainly responsible to support the weaker. Let him show every true consideration for her welfare. In the world today, because! of man's abuse of his authority, women have suffered, and now have turned in resentment of this, demanding equal rights, etc. But neither of these abuses is right and Christians, whether men or women, should properly realize their place, and keep it, also faithfully discharging the responsibilities of that place.

Husband and wife then are to consider themselves "heirs together of the grace of life." This is not heirs in reference to blessing (of which Romans 8:17 speaks), but, in reference to receiving from God present grace to live in devoted obedience to Him. Let us make full use of this precious heritage of "the Grace of life." In this spirit of proper consideration for one another there is a preserving character, so that the prayers of the husband and wife together are not hindered.

A man seducing a woman who was not engaged or married, was responsible to marry her. If the father of the girl refused this, the guilty man must pay money to the father (v. 17). A witch must be put to death, whether she called herself a black witch or a white witch. Death was the penalty also for one who dared to abuse himself with a beast, and the same for one who sacrificed to idols (vv. 18-20).

No precise penalty was prescribed for mistreating or oppressing a stranger or widow or fatherless child, though this was strongly forbidden (vv. 21-24); but God warns that if those who were oppressed cried to Him, He would Himself intervene to kill the oppressor through the instrumentality of an enemy with a sword, leaving their wives as widows and their children fatherless.

Please read Judges 19 and 20

A case occurred within Israel, in the town of Gibeah in Benjamin, of men coming at night to take a visiting woman from the house of an old man who had befriended her, and horribly abusing her all night long, which resulted in her death. This was reported to all the tribes of Israel, who quickly gathered together to learn what had actually happened. When the facts were established, the nation was scandalized and united in their purpose to punish the perpetrators of this dreadful crime (ch. 20:1).

Next comes the word to the husbands. "Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them." v. 19. The wife needs not to be exhorted to love her husband; it is assumed that therein her affections are all right. But it is very possible the husband might allow anxiety and outward pressure of life so to occupy him that he might not take sufficient care of his wife or interest in her anxieties; accordingly, this is the exhortation for him. The wife is necessarily thrown upon her husband; she leaves father, mother, and all, and is cast peculiarly upon her husband; and if he be not watchful, he may fail in thoughtful love, in the attention of every day, not sufficiently guarding his temper, which seems to be what is meant by being "bitter." There should be this affection for the wife, this vigilance against the influence of circumstances; the outward world might often occasion irritation, and then the husband is liable to vent his spleen at home, especially on his wife. This is human nature and what we know too often happens; but it is not Christ; and here it is guarded against. "Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them." Let none presume to think it needless.