Surviving Toxic Relationships Podcast with The Matadoras · Elizabeth Jane and Deana Lynn

Episode #94: When Scripture Is Used to Control | Spiritual Confusion, Marriage, and Discernment

·25 min·1 clip

“Deception often sounds just close enough to truth to make us question our discernment.”

1. Surviving Toxic Relationships Podcast with The Matadoras centers Episode #94 on scripture about marriage, spiritual confusion, and discernment. 2. Dina and Lizzie host the conversation, and Lizzie also speaks as someone who has lived through a spiritually abusive marriage. 3. The episode asks what happens when Bible verses are quoted without context and a woman feels pressure instead of peace. 4. The hosts say marriage is sacred, covenants and vows matter to God, and the church should not be attacked. 5. They argue that isolated verses can be misapplied without discernment and leave women spiritually confused. 6. Dina says toxic relationships are hard to discuss on a Christian platform because the topic cuts against faith language. 7. Lizzie reads a passage from Love with Eyes Wide Open about deception sounding close enough to truth to make discernment difficult. 8. The passage says spiritual manipulation uses the language of faith to justify control and the vocabulary of love to mask abuse. 9. Dina says scripture is infallible, God is the same, and human interpretation is what can be wrong. 10. She adds that maturity in God’s word requires wisdom and that cultural tradition is not always biblical doctrine. 11. Dina states that “authority should always reflect Christ character,” and that “submission is not silence.” 12. Lizzie describes being told that a certain Bible version was “against God’s word” and being forced to use the version her husband accepted. 13. She says that restriction made reading scripture feel like “chaos” and “emotional trauma.” 14. Lizzie also says she was called “Jezebel” many times and felt like a “Christian and godly wife” who could never get it right. 15. She says the relationship felt like “a volleyball game inside of me,” with constant pain, turmoil, and no peace. 16. Dina and Lizzie connect endurance with suffering and reject the idea that enduring abuse is automatically holy. 17. Dina and Lizzie use a conversational, back-and-forth format with several repeated phrases and pauses for emphasis. 18. The tone is earnest, pastoral, and cautionary, with direct questions about peace, fear, and discernment. 19. Best for listeners navigating faith, marriage, or boundary confusion. 20. Skip if you want light discussion without heavy religious content.

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