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True Repentance

The following excerpt comes from a conversation had with a family member of a perpetrator of sexual abuse. (We post this with their permission.)
“We as churches are quick to apply Matthew 18:21-22 to abuse, thinking we must forgive repeatedly and bear patiently with the repeat offenses. Abusers know this and exploit it.

We default to assuming this is a struggling brother whose outbursts of anger and denial are out of character slips that are perhaps our own fault for pushing him too hard. We do not rather consider the possibility that perhaps the majority of what we see of the abuser is a show and the outbursts reveal the true state of his heart when the evil of his heart is addressed. Is he a wounded sheep, or a wolf struggling to maintain his facade?

A critical question is what does a repentant abuser look like?

It is NOT looking for a check-list and taking a willingness to comply with a checklist as a sign of repentance.
It must be a complete change of heart, not simply observed behavior.

The question is not "what does he have to do to prove to you that he's repentant?". That's the wrong question. Rather, who does he have to be? He has to be a new man.”





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