Romans 2:21-23 ESV you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? (22) You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? (23) You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.

Every victim/survivor of domestic abuse has experienced the double standard of the abuser. You see it clearly stated here in Romans 2. God sees right through it and condemns these hypocrites.

Churches in particular need to expect that wicked people are going to put on a disguise of holiness and pronounce others less “holy” than themselves. Expect it. This is a universal trait of the religious phoney. In fact very often it is the loudest voice against “sin” that turns out to be the greatest doer of that very sin. How often have we seen church leaders or some “pious” saint exposed as a practitioner of some slimy evil – the very evil they preached against!

Domestic abusers spend as much money as they want, while condemning the smallest expenditure by their victim. They eat out at restaurants regularly while enforcing a strict grocery store budget on their spouse. They quote Bible verses and preach to their target, accusing them of all sorts of sin, while they commit those very sins and more regularly. They demand their victim never talk to anyone about them or about affairs in the home, and yet they will demean their victim to others anytime they feel like it.

I have told you this before I think, but it fits so here it is again. One of the worst wolves in wool I have ever known criticized me for buying a home 16 miles from the church building. We had been living in the church parsonage next to the church building for seven years up to that point and finally were able to buy our own home – a good deal for both the church and us. But this reviler’s response, stated in front of a number of other people at a church board meeting was, “Pastor you have distanced yourself from your flock, and you now have no accountability. You will be living down there with internet access and all of its temptations.” Years later we would figure out just what this man really was and he was put out of the church. And what did he do? He joined a church 16 miles away from our church building!

Why would anyone say such things? Why would anyone even think “you have no accountability and now you will probably be looking at porn online?” That doesn’t even make sense. Unless…unless the accuser was practicing the very sin he accuses others of. I can think of no other explanation.

Abusers practice a double standard that benefits them and imprisons their target. It’s always, always about power and control. It is evil. It is from their father the devil.