"If I think that Yah'shua isn't treating me well, then I shall not treat Him well either. If I think that Yah'shua is treating me badly and I contine to treat Him well in return, that will force Him to treat me better. If I feel that He is treating me well, than I will respond with worship and love toward Him. If I think He's treating me badly, then I'll throw that right back at him!"

"I don't fall for the misapplied scriptures anymore. I don't show agape love and free respect to my husband if he does not treat me good, if he does not treat our children good and if he does not treat our extended family good. That messes a MAN up and I don't want to mess my husband up.

I am allowed to respond to my husband, for good or for bad. I am allowed to respond with hurt, anger or disappointment, if he treats me poorly. If he is going to "sow" bad into me, I am "allowed" to respond in kind to him. That is what God's promise is to him. As a man sows, so shall he reap.

I prefer to respond warmly to his good actions, his GREAT actions. I WANT a HAPPY marriage. I WANT to be the happiest wife on planet earth."

The Davissons promise to make your marriage 'outrageously happy' if you follow their humanistic formula cloaked in Christian verbage. Hardly surprising that many of the prosperity (health-and-wealth) preachers are endorsing their message. When I first responded to their teachings I more-or-less treated them with kid gloves, recommending their books otherwise. I was wrong. They need to be exposed for what they are - religious humanists. I was immediately reminded of the spirit which Yahweh exposed to a Norwegian Pentecostal lady many years ago which we know by the name of the Kongsberg Vision. I want to reproduce that for you here:

"I saw a woman, a really beautiful woman, who was kneeling in front of a large stone church. She was worshipping with outstretched hands to heaven, and had an expression that radiated joy. I noticed at the same time that she was filled with a superabundance of spirit. I thought immediately in my heart that this woman was filled with the Ruach haQodesh. But at the same time a voice spoke from heaven:

"'This woman which you see is not exactly what you think - filled with my Ruach - but has received that spirit which is being poured out over the whole world - where religious people are to be found. This is a religious spirit, but not My Ruach, says Yahweh. Her worship does not only include Me, Yahweh, but all existing church congregations and religious organisations. This woman which you saw represents the assembly of religious organisations over which this spirit is being poured, but [it is] not My Ruach, says Yahweh. She has received this spirit which shows love to all religions, but she does not love My Word, because it speaks against her belief and way of being. She loves people more than she loves Me, says Yahweh. She is a prostitute in My eyes, says Yahweh, because she either perverts or rejects My Word'" (Olive Branch, Section 467:2-13).

Of course, these Christian-packaged humanistic teachings of theirs are not available free except as short extracts - you have to buy their books and CD's or attend their seminars. This is a business. And are they 'ourageously happy' as they and their followers claim to be? I don't doubt it but I would have to say at the same time that it cannot last because it is rooted in falsehood. Once the actors stop playing their parts, the performance comes to an end. This is not of the Ruach haQodesh but of the spirit of man. It is of the flesh and nothing more that behavioural psychology dressed up as Christianity.

If you do some research on this couple you will find much that confirms what I am saying. Many are classifying them as a cult (see #174 by Bailey or endnote #1 on this page) and just a business racket. Here is the testimony of one woman:

"I have been very involved with Joel and Kathy Davisson since October (2008). I am the wife, and my husband and I have read all books, and watched all DVD’s, been to their intensives in Florida, and more.If you listen and read this man (Joel) for a bit, you will see much wrong. There is no heart change in him - he does what he does as behavior modification. "If I (Joel) am a good boy today, I will get sex tonight". That is the crux of his entire message. There is no humility in this man. Fact: He edits posts on [his message] board and leaves them under your name as if you wrote them. He rewrote and/or deleted the last 10 posts I wrote on my thread, only to suit his pushing of his business. That is all it is to him - a business. Fact: He lies. He took the time to fabricate an entire post and made up some quite tall lies about me, and posted it to a certain section of the board, then proceeded to ban me from that section. He also has recently told another couple on the board that since the marriage is not transforming, he gave the husband of this couple his BLESSING to divorce his wife when he doesn’t get the results he wants - he finds someone or something else to."

If you would like to know the biblical model of marriage, please visit our Holy Echad Marriage website. Everything is free, as it should be, and with love.

Endnotes

[1] Bailey, November 5th, 2009 at 11:11 am, A new “cult” is http://www.GodSaveMyMarriage.com

It’s guise is to grab desperate couples (via the internet) in hurting marriages, and the hook line is “Outrageously Happy Marriage”

This ministry proves that you don’t have to live at a compound, to be a member of a cult. It’s members are all over the United States and they are joined together through weekly hosted national conference calls and the internet. Their leader they pledge allegiance to, lives in the state of Florida.

The founder Joel Davisson and his wife Kathy, have no accountability whatsoever. No board of directors, or anyone to answer to. His book is self-published and proper legal rights to referencing another ministry in Colorado is questionable. He is also the pastor of his own Independent church….with no affiliation ties or anyone to answer to. Their vision is for couples to move down to Palm Coast and help them with this ministry 24/7, but these couples have to attend their church too. Hum??

It is suppose to be a Christian ministry, which is what makes this so very scary for new couples. The founder is a genius in how he’s taken the age of “Information” to make it work for him. The spiritual abuse coming out of this place “in the name of God” is horrible.

Members find out quickly that if they disagree with the founder Joel Davisson and his wife Kathy, they will e-mail male members back with sarcasm, insults, and sometimes cussing at them and/or calling a hurting wife and telling her she has a “Jezebel Spirit.” If you don’t believe “THEIR” way is the only way, you are banned from their forum and you are excommunicated…and the posts that were left, will then be “re-edited” to read as the Founders wish. SCARY!!!! They rule with fear and control.

“When you have a healed marriage for 10 years like us, then YOU can talk” is a classic statement. They make no bones that this is “their” ministry and “their” forum and they can say and do as they wish. Nobody can argue back with that statement, as obviously, people would never stumble onto their ministry or website if they weren’t having marital difficulties.

They elevate people to “helper” status on their forum and groom them for leadership in their ministry, to host weekly national conference calls. (Never mind that these couples are not healed themselves.) Divorced females stay there long after a divorce and worship the leader.

They slowly indoctrinate newcomers into their teachings until these brainwashed members can walk around like robots and no longer think for themselves. They want everyone to read their books, actively post on the forum and become a good member to the ministry, attend their Marriage Intensives, pay monthly fees for mentoring…and the same teachings and “catch” phrases are repeated OVER and OVER and OVER. They use repetition at it’s finest.

At the end of their Intensive they give homework and ironically, much of the homework cost money and then attendees get passed another piece of paper to sign up for automatic monthly drafts. They get $400.00 from each couple for the Intensive, and they desire to get $100.00 more a month (automatic draft) from each couple that attends for more mentoring.

It’s members are bitter to the very end. If you or anyone you know has their books or teachings, please get them out before it’s too late!!!

Important Reading

[1] Coheadship in Marriage: Exposing a Modern Heresy

Comments from Readers

Sad we see this all around us today. Jezebel wants everything her way and demands worship without submission to others but totally engrossed in herself/himself. Both the man and woman many times. Ahab and Baal, Jezebel and Ashteroth. Both deceived, deceving each other and those around them. Demanding self rights and promoting the ways of getting what one wants by payment just as a harlot does.

Chasing the world's fame and fortune, the lure of Babylon, the image and status of that facade, even while proclaiming that to be the way of our Messiah and bring shame to the testimony that should be of overcoming the world but instead is of finding ways to make the world and Babylon's ways fit into the walk of the redeemed.

Like spoiled children who have not learned what unconditional giving and love is all about.

When the man and woman(en) in a marriage are set in the way of love as in loving YHWH first and others that way, showing unconditional forgiveness and facing the fear of doing what may seem to be loss, instead of loss one finds that unbreakable bonding that they are truly seeking to find. Where nothing of the world will interfere because the heart is focused on meeting the needs of the other founded upon seeking the righteousness of YHWH where even self humility is not even thought of because one's life and joy is found where we are really helping ourself by giving our heart to others in that same way we are loving our self as we love YHWH Yahushua, as in a marriage we are one/Echad together.

A step above the world and thoughts of man where only experience will prove the way we are shown by the Holy Spirit and in paying heed to what our Master has given us to learn in the scriptures. I really would not know how a relationship could survive to the end any other way where even the end of this life is to suffer the loss of even a part of one's own self. Like doves that are bound together forever.

Out of all of the people I've known throughout my life, I can remember some of those few wonderful people passed on now who were so bonded in their marriage that they loved each other until the end. And that kind of love is not found often now days. The kind of love that forgives and overcomes and finds joy in that overcoming of all of the things of this world to know that we are destined for a greater place and we have an inward moving to make sure that is always the goal and our loved ones make it there especially our own family. And as our wife, being a man, submits to us we ensure we are in Messiah and would never want to suffer the chastisement of causing anyone to submit in any other way. But that submitting is greater for the man who submits to YHWH Yahushua if one finds that true way.

Thanking YHWH for a blessed marriage and in submitting to His wisdom where few now days hear the small still voice of true success and overcoming all things. Nothing like having a partner who is 100% on the same page but it goes both ways! Not perfect from the perspective of an onlooker but perfect where all things are overcome together. And there are many things to overcome especially for newly married folks! Now which way does that toilet paper go on the roll... now many years later we got it right!

Good thoughts Lev. And we have a better success message for marriage straight from the scriptures and from our testimony of being the way we are taught by the Holy Spirit.

I can hear it now still, after those messages of the past years, where afterwards hearing the Jezebel's and Ahab's complain of submitting to each other not even understanding what that is all about. But, the proof is in living the pattern set within the heart or not. I don't see many who have made it this far who started out in marriage around the time my wife and I were married. A tricky thing though, how to teach someone that success is found within oneself and that begins with a true relationship with Messiah His way not ours. We don't want to act a Jezebel or an Ahab to Him either!

Shalom! (RDR, USA, 22 February 2010)

I read your opinion about Joel and Kathy Davisson's God save our Marriage ministry and it is apparent you know not what you are speaking about. You are lacking in information. And in doing so you could possibly keep those who are in need of this kind of ministry that specifically is for hurting abusive marriages from getting the help they are in desperate need of.

I pray the Lord forgive you for you know not what you are doing. Sure, in sound minded individuals, who have experienced somewhat of a spiritually healthy life will automatically get what it looks like to receive a loving Christian wives unconditional love and service of love with gratitude and thanksgiving for the gift of a wife which is a good thing said the Lord. But there is a population of angry, abusive men, who have been abused themselves and never knew how to love or much less reciprocate Godly selfless love as required of them. Their depth of Christ likeness is narcissistic and oppressive, giving them a sense of control and power over defenseless and powerless, submitted women. That is what this ministry is in place for Lev, to give truth and help setting both partners free. To bring healing and restoration through TRUTH of Gods word. A man is called to love his wife as Christ loves the Church, even to lying down his life for her. As Christ loves and is patient with His church a man is likewise called to Agape love his wife and be patient with her. The men and women who find themselves coming to this ministry are at the end of much hurt and abuse. Abuse of every kind, verbal, physical, emotional, spiritual and sexual abuse including adultery. I have seen much growth and healing come to many different couples through this curse defying ministry, by the way which the shed blood of our Savior broke the curse of men ruling over their wives. These broken hearts of couples who have gone through allot of Christian counseling which missed the mark with them completely, they are left still living in defeat. And Pastors are left not knowing what to do.

This particular population of extremely broken marriages get understanding and come to a place for once of healing and safety in their marriage and for once Yah'shua becomes their focal point into their selfish lives and he brings healing into their marriage. It is a walk into becoming a safe one flesh, which looks like acceptance and the fruitage of the spirit. Please don't condemn what you don't understand. The Lord says my people perish for their lack of knowledge. Maybe you should seek further , ask , knock before you give out advice that may hinder healing and restoration to Gods people that He maybe desiring for them?? I hope you prayerfully reconsider your hurtful advise and judgments you have publicly made. And possibly provide some direction other than hopelessness and defeat for some you know nothing about? After all Lev, Our Lord came to heal the broken hearted and to set the captives free !!! A cult you say? What do you know of Kathy's testimony? Joel's brokenness and immaturity? of him only having an example of an adulterous Pastor earthly Father as an example? How about their testimony on how they were delivered from this and their journey to wholeness in their marriage through Joel wanting to be Christ like to his wife who loves and fought for their marriage and refused to let the devil destroy it??? I've never heard them proclaim perfection, but they do offer help and advise of hope to hopeless marriages which they once had like many Christian marriages HAVE and our suffering through. They have been there and know the road to freedom. I don't know about you Lev, but it's best to go to someone who is successful for advise then to go to someone who is stuck in denial and pretend blessed marriage. Look around you Lev. Christian marriages are failing miserably. I don't think this is the heart of God, Lev. God as always moves and brings change and his desirer is to reach the heart of all people Lev, and wants to be worshiped with Spirit and truth. Legalist want ritual and manmade structure they'll even stay gripped on to demon inspired structures instead of accepting Gods free gift of truth through his precious gift of love his only begotten Son, Through the power of his Name and his blood, Our Lord and savior, Lord Yah'shua of Nazareth who came in the flesh. The Lords ways of doing things were different and didn't please the Scribes and the Pharisee's when he was here physically on the earth, and when His Holy Spirit moves and it doesn't look like it should to those, again they criticize and condemn today as well. You can't put the Lord in a neat package , none could every do this ! Even though that makes man comfortable to think they have it all figured out how God works in all people. Our God even uses the simple things of the earth to do the things HE wants to accomplish. The Tree of this ministry is producing good Christian fruit in these people who are desperate to save their marriages and at the end of the road.

The truth of the gospel is NOT being compromised either! If anything these people are actually getting it for the first time in their hearts where the Lord desires that depth of understanding of what it is to be a true follower of Christ and to make Him Lord of their life, as well. Not just superficially in front of people, but behind closed doors where it counts to The Almighty ! His truth is being taught to a population of marriages that has a critical need and God is meeting them there.. I would suggest you get the whole story Lev. Not taking out of content bits and pieces of the story. You maybe enlightened and surprised. So a Shalom to you Lev (GG, USA, 28 December 2010)

'Deborah Peterson' Response (2 January 2011)

We are commanded to test all things and hold fast (tightly, securely and unwaveringly) to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21) by looking at everything in the Light of Yahweh's Word, what He says (Psalm 119:105,130; 2 Peter 1:19). This divine goodness shows or reveals things for what they really are. For the enemy is seeking to deceive, and in so doing so, to destroy us. When we act on what we believe, and when we believe something as true or the way things really are when they aren't, and act on it, we sin, and the wages of sin is death, as you know. It is with this we also seek to hold fast to what Yahweh says is true about marriage - what is His way and tavnith (pattern), and what is not.

The reason a wife can be (and is) commanded in Scripture to love her husband and submit to him in everything that is not of sin (that is against Torah) (even if he is an unbeliever or abusive) is becuase she is not expected to do so out of her own strength or to do it based on what her husband has or has not done. She is expected (especially more so in an abusive relationship) to depend and trust Elohim in His tavnith that He can (and will, by His grace, as she seek Him) enable her to truly love and submit to her husband in the way Yahweh desires. For the truth of Scripture is no woman can submit to her husband with a heart truly right in the sight of Elohim without His supernatural work in her, because it is impossible for the carnal nature - the flesh - to please Elohim. The flesh may try to produce counterfeits - something that may look like the real thing but still is without worth, for it can never and will never be able to do what Elohim desires (Romans 8:7-9).

It is only by Elohim's grace and supernatural enabling - His supernatural work in her - that she could truly love her husband with the Love He desires - a selfless love that would continue loving and submitting to her husband in whatever way isn't sin, even if he has committed atrocities against her. It is that supernatural work that causes people to ask "How is it possible? How do you do this?", and with that a testimony is born that it is Elohim's grace and power, not our own, that makes it possible. And in case you think this is just a one way process, men too must learn to do what right when it comes to abusive wives. The point being, that not only does this give glory to Yahweh (and not man) but - even more importantly - it's this tavnith or patterm that effects the only real and everlasting changes required for happy marriage that are completely devoid of fear.

With angry, abusive men, the problem isn't Elohim's pattern of headship of Yah'shua as head of husband and husband head of wife - for His ways are always good and perfect - the problem that needs to be dealt with those men and done away with is sin and pride leading to brokeness in that man, where they themselves are not in right tavnith ot pattern or relationship with Elohim. The problem is not Yahweh's pattern of headship which is what the Davissons have made it, presuming that Yahweh got it wrong but, knowing that He could not, then presuming that the trabslators got it wrong, and twisting and perverting the Word to make it the way they wanted in their flesh's demand for human safety nets. Yah's Word is not wrong, and as Lev showed in his study, the translators did translate it correctly. The problem was not mysogenous men translators but men and women building a theology around fear and assuming that that fear justified them in twisting the Word. They are not the only ministers to have done this - we see it all the time. We all have that tendency if we are not very careful and stay true to the Yahweh's revelation of emet-truth

Because of what Elohim did in Yah'shua, no matter how broken that man's and his past is, He is able to change that man, make him clean and whole, and by His grace, enable him to do what he could never have done in his own strength without Elohim, without Yah'shua - to love his wife with selfless love that brings glory to Elohim as a righteous head.

The reason Yahweh hasn't added conditions conditions or exceptions to commandments like "a wife does not have to love, honour or submit to her husband in everything that is not sin if he sins against her" or "a husband is not expected to love his wife as Yah'shua loved the church/messianic community if she is rebellious or he has a hurtful or broken past", is because we are commanded to do and live these things based on Elohim, and His Love for us and what He did for us in Yah'shua and His grace and supernatural power enabling us to do that would be impossible to do otherwise. It is not based on other people or their actions, or trying to do these things alone apart form Elohim... becuase Elohim has called - commanded - that who He is, what His done, and His power and grace be the center of everything, including everything we do, and not those people and things.

Indeed, husbands are called to love their wives as Yah'shua loved the church/messianic assembly. And how did Yah'shua love the church/messianic assembly? When we had done nothing but sinned against HIm - were rebelious against Him, hostile against Him, became His enemies though we rightfully belonged to Him and should and have be submitted to Him - He loved us, based not first on who we were or what we had done, but based on His Father. He, who had never sinned, loved first with all His heart and soul and mind His Father YHWH, and out of that, loved us in such a way that He was willing to submit to His Father's will to glorify Him (though we had sinned against Him). Yes, even to the enduring of the cross. And with submitting to His Father, loving us not based on us but based on His Father and His Father's ability and power (for Yah'shua testified He could do nothing without His Father), we were saved. That we could be changed to be brought into right tavnith or pattern, to do what we could never have done without Him: be brought into submission to Him.

Are we advocating legalism (trying to earn salvation by certain works) and man-made structures? No - we are testifying to the Tavnith or Pattern of Elohim He gave us in Scripture, and that we cannot possibly live it without His grace and enabling. By testifying and holding on to what He says, we are not putting Him in a box or trying to control Him, but submitting ourselves to Him - acknoweldging Him as Master, and that His words are true, and that we need to be lined up with Him. And with that, we are seeking to cling to His word (and Him) as we test all things in the Light of the Truth of what He says.

The testimony of Scripture is that all men and women - because of the sinfulness and the very corruptness of the nature of who we were, stand rightfully under the just wrath and condemnation of Yahweh-Elohim, our Heavenly Father. And yet Yahweh, in His mercy, granted us a sacrifice - someone to stand in our place that justice may be fulfilled, and sin truly dealt with. He gave Yah'shua (Jesus) to become our sin and to recieve the wrath that we deserved, that we may be saved, even to be made the righteousness of Elohim in Him. Yes, even that the core of our nature - who we are - has be changed and made new, for only then can He make us (the core of who we are) righteous.

Lev's Response (10 January 2011)

Firstly, I want to say that I am deeply aware of the dysfunctionality in many men who abuse the patriarchal principle and who, in the process, hurt their wives. And there is no question - these men need healing. Unfortunately, the same is often true of many women too, though their kind of abuse can often be of a uniquely dysfunctional, subtle (though sometimes less subtle) feminine kind. And really all I am saying is that without the keys of spiritual emet (truth) for both genders, any attempted repair of marriage is bound to lead to trouble.

You are also mistaken if you think I am making a blanket condemnation of the Davissons' work. I am not. And I have already said so. And I agree that there is a huge need for redemption in today's marriages. My main concern is that everything is done in true tavnith or order because it only takes a small amount of poisonous error to totally infect the whole. And the Davissons' chief error, which is completely out of Biblical tavnith (pattern) and leads to another kind of dysfunctionality, is the false doctrine of coheadship. The solution to abusive men is not abolishing patriatrchy (which ends up emascualting him) and creating as totally devilish patri-matriarchy, but putting it into its correct, Christ-centered perspective.

This one lie the Davissons promulgate leads to many others. 'Infections joy' is not a criterion for measuring truth because behind such can hide all kinds of fears, which themselves are born of lies. And as I read the Davissons, I keep on encountering this fear - a fear which drives the wife into rejecting spiritual tavnith to protect herself, and a fear which drives the husband into making sure he does not provoke her into withdrawing her affection or love. This is not the Gospel - it is a form of manipulation or existentialism. The checks and guards that we should apply must always be rooted in Messiah and Emet (Truth), not fear of one's spouse's reaction. For when you base a marriage on this, its centre becomes man, not God.

As Christians we are to be on guard against mixinf lies and truth in order to justify a perceived workable outcome to a particular problem. There is only one truth, one way, and one life, not multiple variants. Only what Yahweh says is emet (truth) is ultimately safe. For me - or anyone else, for that matter - to believe and practive the Davisson's theology is to accept and practice a lie. Good seed brings forth good fruit and bad seed brings forth bad fruit. I have seen the fruits of coheadship and they are not good because they then colour other aspects of the Gospel. If husband and wife are coheads then that reflects back on our relationship to Christ (as defined by Paul) which implies that we are coheads with Christ as His Bride...which we are absolutely not. The Davisson doctrine breaks down sacred pattern and ultimately commits blasphemy.

You say that Davissons have brought forth only good fruit. That is not for me to judge as a whole since as you rightly say I do not completely know them and Scripture only permits me to "judge righteous judgment" (Jn.7:24, KJV). Therefore I must, per force, limit myself to what I know and what other people have experienced who have communicated that experience. That is not, of course, to say that some of the latter are not prejudiced or do not have a hidden agenda - I do not know them well enough to comment (see Apostates and New Religious Movements).

What I do absolutely know, though, is that coheadship is dangerous and pernicious a lie and I have proved it conclusively from Scripture. I also know that coheadship does not bring forth good fruit and that as a teaching it belongs more to the world (and occultism) than it does to the Gospel of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). One of these fruits is the denial of grace and the implementation of a kind of retributive system of punishment for wrong-doing, along with the various justifications to do the same. Repaying sin with sin is an antichrist teaching.