Group Life: Bill Donahue

Have you experienced "text abuse"?

by Sam O'Neal

I just finished listening to Bill Donahue speak at the Willow Group Life conference. His talk was a bit different from the first sessions in that it dealt specifically with the group leader's role in Bible study and facilitation, which was cool.

Some of what Bill said was pretty basic, but one point especially stood out to me. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but here's what he said about some people's use of the Bible: "When we use our strength to force or beat someone, that is physical abuse. When we use our tongues to cut people, that is verbal abuse. When we enforce our will over children, that's child abuse. And when we use the Bible as a weapon or a method of control, that is textual abuse."

That idea needs to be shouted from the rooftops. So many people feel like the Bible is a club to be wielded against those who need it. They feel that change happens through bludgeoning with verses. And this happens in small groups all the time. If someone's opinion is different than mine, I stone them with BIble verses until they submit or shut down.

This needs to stop. But how? As a group leader, what should we do when this starts happening in our group?

posted by Sam O'Neal on October 24, 2009 1:28 PM

Related Tags: Bible, Bill Donahue

Comments

Sam, sorry I had to miss the conference this year, but followed tweets. Sounded great!

Yours is a great question. I wish I had a great response. I'm looking forward to seeing what others say.

Great stuff Sam. for what its worth, I think this is why helping our people understand how to read the bible well is so important. We've got to read any particular verse or passage in light of its larger context. Otherwise, we run the danger of doing exactly what you say in this post, proving our own opinions with out of context bible nuggets.

So, Im a group leader and someone shows a regular habit of prooftexting (as we can call it). I think my first step is to remind our group of the grand narrative of scripture which every verse falls into the context of. The grand narrative of scripture shows a theme of grace through redemption imparted to us from God.

So as we try to speak via scripture to one another, we must ALWAYS do so with grace and should take great effort to explain the reason the author wrote those words and what context they were written in.

That takes some time to do, but as we guide our people towards correct bible study habits, we will see scripture be used as the life-giving words that they are.

Just my experience anyways. This is a great concept to try and get practical with. thanks sam for bringing it up.

Good thoughts, Spence. I don't think grace and abuse can coexist very well, huh? :)

I think that by using verses in the bible is a great concept in dealing with other people. somehow they soften their hearts a little.