00:03:13.480How many of us, when confronted with these passages, immediately recall personal experiences with exactly the kind of woman described in these passages?
00:03:23.000Maybe it's the acrimonious grandmother that anyone knows to steer clear of at the holidays.
00:03:28.860You know, the one grandpa works hard to avoid as much as possible, preferring to spend his time out in the garage.0.67
00:03:34.840Maybe it's the mother-in-law with the acid tongue,0.92
00:03:37.480seemingly able to turn any family gathering1.00
00:03:39.860into a nuclear argument involving four cousins,
00:03:43.260two sons, an uncle, and five grandkids.
00:03:46.240Maybe it's the pastor's wife of the church1.00
00:03:48.000who somehow manages to find time to pick fights1.00
00:03:50.860with every other woman in the church,1.00
00:03:52.960even though she already spends so much of her time1.00
00:04:47.580And the thing you have to keep in mind about gods?
00:04:50.180Gods don't sin, or at least they're not supposed to.
00:04:52.760For many decades, our culture has catechized its men to despise themselves and its women to worship themselves.
00:05:00.780Some time ago, I heard an anecdote that illustrates this point.
00:05:04.900A college professor would routinely run his new classes through an exercise aimed at demonstrating the differences between how men and women thought, particularly their cultural programming with respect to their self-image.
00:05:17.500The exercise went something like this.
00:05:19.520The men and the women each separately compiled a list of the strengths and weaknesses of their
00:05:24.880own sex. Then they would share their conclusions with the class and discuss them. The professor
00:05:30.020noted a fascinating result virtually every time he conducted the experiment. The men would present
00:05:35.820their list with few surprises. Inevitably, they would arrive at similar lists of male strengths,
00:05:41.800things like determination, grit, endurance, physical strength, inventiveness, loyalty,
00:05:47.500etc. And weaknesses like prone to anger, lack of self-discipline, obsession with hobbies over
00:05:53.960family or other commitments, lust, etc. Likewise, the women would compile a similar list of female0.99
00:06:00.480strengths, noting their compassion, tenderness, beauty, communication skills, emotional intelligence,0.99
00:06:06.900etc. But it was always when the women arrived at the need to communicate the weaknesses of their0.99
00:06:12.220own sex, that the experiment became most interesting. See, nearly every time the professor
00:06:17.900conducted the experiment, the young woman would struggle to provide any serious weaknesses of1.00
00:06:23.340their own sex. Instead, they would often note things like low self-esteem as the biggest weakness1.00
00:06:30.040of women. Think about that for a moment. Though masked in psychological jargon, what this means
00:06:35.640is that when women were asked to compile their greatest weaknesses, cohort after cohort of them
00:06:41.380would put at the very front, not thinking of myself highly enough.
00:06:47.340Is the female sex so devoid of common flaws as to elevate low self-esteem to the very top?1.00
00:06:54.940What about manipulation, gossip, backbiting, nagging, disrespect?
00:07:00.620What about the lust to be lusted after or inappropriately seeking sexual interest from inappropriate parties?
00:07:07.400What about pride, envy, vanity, idle talk, slander?
00:07:10.820What about abortion, immodesty, promiscuity?
00:07:15.000Anyone who spends significant time engaged in pastoral ministry,
00:07:19.320particularly those with experience in marriage counseling,
00:07:22.580discover that women are far from the sinless foil of their hopelessly sinful husbands.
00:07:28.320Instead, pastors discover that women are just as capable of sin,
00:07:32.920even desperate and sustained acts of wickedness, as men.
00:07:36.680But pastors also discover that confronting these sins common to women is met with a highly disproportionate amount of rage, emotional manipulation, denial, and recalcitrance as compared to the experience of confronting men in their sins.
00:07:54.040Pastor and biblical counselor David Edgington coined the term reviling wives for this painful phenomenon.
00:40:08.080Yes. You know, it's interesting to me, I was thinking about this, that when you read an old Puritan book, like from the 1600s, this happens pretty much all the time.
00:40:19.280They say, boy, it's never been this bad as it's been now in the church. You ever read those? And you go, really? Really? Why?
00:40:28.400I mean, I've been a pastor for 33 years now, and I go, it's never been as bad as it is right now.1.00
00:40:34.680I mean, we've got a massive problem going on in the church, and feminism is right in the middle of it.0.99
00:40:44.180We've got the destruction of churches. We've got the destruction of families. We've got our society. Just an unraveling of things that are happening because we're, well, it's like the book is going to talk about that we've got two sides of this issue.1.00
00:41:05.560We've got women that are unhinged, and we've got men that are not standing up and saying, this can't go on.
00:41:13.140And so we've got this cataclysmic collision that's happening, and the saddest part is the destruction of families.
00:41:22.980This is what breaks my heart the most.
00:41:29.020what breaks my heart the most is men who have gone through this situation that the book describes
00:41:37.460and they don't just contemplate suicide they actually end their lives yeah and i have a guy
00:41:45.020on x you might have seen his post to me and he said this is what happened to a friend of mine
00:41:49.300he had a reviling wife church full of white knights everybody turned against him even his
00:41:56.040friends turned against him. And eventually he took his life. If that doesn't wake us up,
00:42:02.920I don't know what. Yeah. I mean, think about a husband and your wife, your children are taken
00:42:07.860from you and your reputation and your community. Like what else can be taken from a man? Humanly
00:42:12.420speaking, it's devastating. Right. So, so this is, this is not a light matter. It's not a joking
00:42:19.800matter. I mean, I know we like to have fun and joke around about things, but it's extremely
00:42:25.420serious because it's the destruction of the marriage. It's the destruction of men. It's
00:42:34.200the destruction of children in that family as well. They're alienated from their father
00:42:39.560by the wives. And the guy, a lot of times, does not recover from it. So they come to me and they
00:42:47.020say, help me because my church is a party to destroying my marriage. What do I do?
00:42:53.200And you guys already know this, but I've gotten contacted by people all over the world about this because not only pastors, but even counselors are completely mishandling this.
00:43:08.840And I know people think this is an exaggeration, but I assure you it's not.
00:43:13.120I have interacted with over 500 of these cases just over the last few years.
00:43:19.280Well, I think part of it, David, I know once we started announcing, hey, we're going to be doing this book with, you know, Pastor Edgington, a lot of those people came out of the woodwork, too, to talk to us and say what a big problem it is.
00:43:33.460And I guess just for people, if they're not familiar with this content yet, what is sort of like the prototypical situation that you see?
00:43:42.380Again, we'll get into the three characters in a minute, but you sort of have pastors, the wives, and then you have the husband.
00:49:36.740It's like, OK, we're going to throw this out there just to get the attention and the heat off of me.
00:49:41.700And I go, you know, the wives that do listen and submit to God's word, not submit to me or a husband, submit to God's word.
00:49:51.380It's a beautiful thing. It's just wonderful. These men are not tyrants. They are not oppressive, cruel, nasty men. If they were, I would I would address it with them. But they're not. They're just not. I mean, it's been a few cases of the 500 that I've addressed. A few. Yeah. Vast majority. It's it's the wife.
00:50:16.720Now, the other thing, too, that's changed, and this is actually good news, when I counsel the husband and wife together, about 25% of those wives repent.
00:52:57.600I think when we've counseled people, it also can be a huge time saver because she might
00:53:02.800levy an accusation and then he's right there and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not what
00:53:07.600happened. And you can kind of deal with it right on the spot rather than having to like, listen to
00:53:11.940one whole conversation, go back and try and get all the facts right with the other person.
00:53:16.580It's exhausting. And you'll never get to it. It's exhausting. We listen to just a woman and just the
00:53:22.100man, just the woman. And you know, okay, this is what he said about you. Is this true? It's like,
00:53:26.540get them both together at the same time. We'll have, you know, in our, in our church, maybe
00:53:31.100someone calls me, you know, and said, Hey, Hey pastor, had a fight with my, with my, with my
00:53:36.360husband or had a fight with my wife. And I always say, put me on speaker. Are they there? Put me on
00:53:41.080speaker right now, right now. Let's get it. Cause I mean, we, you literally, this is not an
00:53:45.860exaggeration. I remember one time years ago talking to someone and they said, you know,
00:53:50.060the wife and the husband are both there. And she says, well, he raised his voice at me.
00:53:54.340and and i was like okay let's uh why did that happen what had just happened well she had just0.77
00:54:00.280thrown a lamp at me and i said stop it and i said you know why is that true she's like
00:54:06.400yeah yeah so it was a little lamp that's an important detail you know in the story uh
00:54:13.480why he raised his voice you know raising your voice actually isn't a sin sometimes it can't be
00:54:17.640but you know it's just an example of how these are basic biblical principles of justice witnesses
00:54:23.160not concluding making a conclusion based on just one witness not hearing both sides they're basic
00:54:30.000principles of justice that somehow we have removed from the counseling office it's just madness of
00:54:38.100course it's not going to work god has told us that it won't work yeah and as i explain in in the book
00:54:44.180that you guys are publishing i explain why that's happening why is that blind spot there it's it's
00:54:51.140intentional. It's a deliberate undermining of biblical principles that says that the woman is
00:54:58.260not to blame. The husband is pretty much always to blame. And it's because of what's called
00:55:05.300critical gender theory. Same issue as critical race theory. That's, okay, there's an oppressor0.98
00:55:12.360and there's an oppressee, someone that's being oppressed, someone that is oppressing. And in
00:55:16.560critical gender theory, the guy is always the oppressor. The woman is always the one to oppress.0.87
00:55:21.960It can never be the other way around. Just like critical race theory, you two and myself were1.00
00:55:27.460white, white straight guys. We're the oppressors automatically. Even if you say you're not,
00:55:33.920now you're just pridefully denying it. Same thing that happens with critical gender theory.0.76
00:55:41.040And this is what we have bought. The church has bought this and they don't even know. They don't
00:55:46.220even know the term. They would say, what are you talking about? Or the Duluth power and control
00:55:50.880wheel. Another thing I describe in the book, this is the philosophy that is embraced not just by
00:55:59.260atheists and secular counselors, but by Christian biblical counselors, good conservative pastors
00:56:07.060in every denomination. And it is an infection. It is a cancer that has got to be eradicated.
00:56:16.220With God's way, you know, not in a harsh way, of course, but in God's way, it has to be exposed first so that we see it and then we can address it.
01:03:31.220Like any good book that points at patterns of sin, it's not as if someone is either 0% in this sin or 100%.
01:03:41.040I think all of us have grown up in this culture of feminism and have all absorbed some of the ideas to varying extents.
01:03:50.540And so you might think, well, I don't need this book.
01:03:52.860I would say read the book and just let it be a mirror.
01:03:56.460let especially the word of God in the book be a mirror and show you, okay, maybe I'm not as bad
01:04:02.520as that, but you know, this 10% over here, I, I need to be aware of that temptation there.
01:04:08.800Cause I just had assumed this. It was my cultural programming. Same with a, with a wife. Maybe
01:04:13.700she's not a full blown reviling wife. Hopefully many, many Christian women are godly, God fearing
01:04:19.100Christian women, but, but the scriptures contain many exhortations to godly women. Hey, see that0.93
01:04:24.760you respect your husband, read these Proverbs, make sure you're on the lookout. And really what
01:04:29.940we're talking about is the spiritual discipline of watchfulness, of setting a watch. John Bunyan
01:04:37.760wrote an allegory called The Holy War, and he talked about the heart, Proverbs 4.23, keep your
01:04:43.440heart diligently from it, flow the springs of life. He said, there's the ear gate, what you hear,
01:04:48.960guard it. There's the mouth gate, there's the feelings gate. And a book like this, I really
01:04:54.720hope that it serves to really shake, shake loose and bring to the surface, even tendencies that
01:05:01.260haven't grown up fully into the full grown white night and that they stop it in its tracks before
01:05:07.980it ever gets there and starts destroying marriages. Yeah. And I think that was, that was actually one
01:05:12.300of the things, David, with your first book. Like I know a lot of people in the church read it. I
01:05:16.100read it. My wife read it. And there were just a lot of things like pastorally where I was like,
01:05:20.300okay. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure that we have a good policy for, you know, how, how we do the meetings.
01:05:25.160And, uh, my wife, I remember her saying this actually really edifying for women just to be,1.00
01:05:30.160yeah, we can all fall into these sin patterns. Um, so really helpful on all fronts, I think for
01:05:36.020that, no matter where people are on the spectrum. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it really is for everybody.
01:05:41.300And I've, I've had, I've had men and women tell me that about the abusive wife is that, you know,
01:05:47.020this was really helpful for me and especially women reading and saying, like you said, Brian,
01:05:52.220I have tendencies in this direction. I'm not there, but this just kind of helped me to
01:05:57.380come away from the cliff. So, you know, so again, the goal, I mean, I think the goal is revival and
01:06:04.200reformation. You know, we want to revive souls. We want people to be understanding because a lot of
01:06:09.780the reviling wives, probably most of them are not born again. They think they are,
01:06:15.700But I do not believe that there's just no way kind of behavior that they exhibit.
01:06:20.460I go that there's no fruit of the spirit at all.
01:06:23.040So reviving those people so that they're understanding their lack of salvation.
01:06:28.740But then reformation of the church, because the church should be the place that people turn to when they go through these conflicts, not to the secular courts.
01:06:45.060that's what they should be doing. But instead of getting help, they get more harm. And it's just
01:06:52.540devastating. So it's like, okay, we need the reformation again of the church to say, we've
01:06:58.720got to get this right. Because we should be the ones holding to the truth and holding the line
01:07:06.100and not letting the culture influence us and destroy homes. We as the pastors should be doing
01:07:13.220that. And we're doing exactly the opposite of that when we're white knights. Yeah, that's really
01:07:20.040helpful. It's a good segue, actually, for the reviling woman. Who is she? One of the things0.86
01:07:25.920that you talked about in the book is this aspect of she wants to control, which when I read your
01:07:31.580first book, that was kind of a new way of kind of identifying a particular sin, which was helpful.
01:07:37.520So I guess just talk about the reviling woman. Who is she? What are her characteristics?
01:07:40.680Right. Well, she's argumentative or contentious. She won't just go quietly. She's going to argue her point. Control is a major, a major factor in her life. She's spiteful. You know, she'll be spiteful and malicious, hateful even towards her husband.1.00
01:08:03.100She's going to be harsh and cruel.0.79
01:08:06.660And she's going to be very cold towards her husband, very disrespectful, unsubmissive.0.80
01:08:17.780I mean, we can go through a long list of things that describe her.0.99
01:18:36.180Yeah, that's one of the, it's one of the big things, David.
01:18:38.220I think one of the reasons why I personally wanted to publish the book, I know Brian would probably say the same thing.
01:18:44.840One of the fears that I have is that if we don't help people in this situation, pastors, wives, husbands, that you will get in the next generation just a massive amount of blackpilling.
01:18:56.800You see this a lot in the manosphere where they're like, no young man should ever consider marriage.
01:19:01.520It's a fool's errand, you know, this sort of talk.
01:19:04.200And I just think, well, that sort of thing is going to lead to absolute nihilism.
01:20:45.460I go, well, that's not the solution either, man.
01:20:47.300That's a different type of disobedience to the Word of God.
01:20:51.020But I'll say this, too, that we've got to get away from this other idea that's been
01:20:56.740very popular in the past month or two on X, that what young men need to do, just get
01:21:02.940married and have a bunch of kids and live happily ever after.
01:21:06.220I said, whoa, wait a minute. That's not the answer either. You've got to be discerning and understanding the times we live in. It's not as simple as, well, she's pretty. She wears flowery dresses and they're down to her ankles. She wants to homeschool. So she's going to be the perfect wife. I go, uh-uh, not necessarily. Sometimes that's the cover that she wears for what's really boiling.
01:21:29.380I was going to say, it's a really good point, David. Like we've, we found this a lot where it's
01:21:33.000like, you're actively disobeying your husband while wearing a head covering, which is a symbol
01:21:38.460of authority. Yeah. Of his authority. And you're, yeah, it's a pretty lie. You know, it's, you're
01:21:44.160just wearing a head covering and it's lying. Cause it's supposed to say I am cheerfully under his
01:21:49.060authority. Uh, you know, and it's like, but in reality they go home and she wears the pants and
01:21:54.880belittles them and ah so about half of the counseling of these families that i do they're
01:22:03.760homeschool families interesting just to get an idea because it's like okay if she homeschools
01:22:09.320it won't happen nope wrong wrong well she's a trad con it'll be okay nope no wrong yeah you've
01:22:16.620got to be careful and vet this woman you know over time does she take correction you know yeah
01:22:24.180does she submit to you while you're dating one of the things that i've i've heard this before
01:22:31.760you know it's a weaponizing of something true but then it overextends it that of course
01:22:35.960a man is the head of his home he has authority but with that authority comes responsibility for
01:22:40.120what happens in his house but people can mistake this for that everything's the husband's fault
01:22:44.480and that every sin of his wife can be traced to some defect in him and we can we can refute this
01:22:50.600simply with a biblical test. Does the bride of Christ sin? Yes. Is it because of some defect in
01:22:58.140the leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bridegroom? Jesus is false. Of course not. So
01:23:02.960right there, we can see that it is 100% biblically possible for a husband to be in authority in his
01:23:09.840home and therefore have a certain kind of responsibility for what happens in his home,
01:23:13.300but not be at fault or even, you know, be able to trace the defect in his wife to some
01:23:19.440particular thing in his character that somehow incited her sin or permitted it. I think this
01:23:25.960idea just really needs to die. Well, and one of the other interesting things, I think there was
01:23:30.360this that we got from like the biblical counseling world, which there's a lot of good stuff,
01:23:34.280obviously, but there was this kind of track in your mind, even as a husband, where you were
01:23:38.880thinking, okay, if my wife has a sin, I just need to love her more. I just need to be kinder. We
01:23:46.240need to go on more dates and through this process you know years ago reading your your the abusive
01:23:51.860wife and thinking through this it was like such a light bulb moment but it was so simple it was so
01:23:57.860simple i was just i said well yeah you definitely need to nourish and cherish you need to do all
01:24:02.380that but in this situation if there's sin call for repentance correct yeah simply call for repentance
01:24:08.840and it was great i mean my wife's great but it was like we started doing that in counseling and
01:24:14.100we would see this all the time where i'm like you just need to repent and the woman would go
01:24:17.500oh wow yeah you're right wait a second there's no blame shifting there's no redirection no
01:24:23.800misdirection just you're right that verse says don't do this i just did that so i need to repent
01:24:30.640and it's amazing it's my fault it says to be submissive in all things not just things you
01:24:36.720want to be submissive in but in all things it's like novel idea huh yeah i don't know what you
01:24:42.160You know, and it is a lot of these things are extremely simple.
01:25:20.600This kind of goes to a lot of the weaponized empathy conversation where, I mean, the number of times, David, where I have sat in an elder meeting, everybody agrees on a tough subject.
01:25:31.180They go home, they talk to their wives.
01:25:32.800The next time we meet, everybody's, or at least a few people's minds have been changed.