As I speak around the country on biblical counseling and spiritual formation, I’m frequently asked the question. “When you say ‘biblical counseling,’ you don’t mean ___________ do you?” Various people fill in that blank with different labels—all negative to them. What a shame that placing the word “biblical” in front of “counseling” causes so many in the church to recoil in fear. Something has gone terribly wrong.
What Makes Biblical Counseling Biblical?
But there’s good news—the tide is turning. Warped caricatures of biblical counseling are being replaced by scripturally and historically accurate portraits of counseling that are truly biblical—and attractive (Titus 2:10). While no one can provide the final, authoritative definition of biblical counseling, I offer for your consideration this summary understanding.
Biblical counseling depends upon the Holy Spirit to relate God’s inspired truth about people, problems, and solutions to human suffering and sin to empower people to glorify God by cultivating conformity to Christ and communion with Christ and the Body of Christ.
Given this working definition, envision with me the nature and shape of the future of biblical counseling—twelve dreams of one possible future for biblical counseling as practiced by lay spiritual friends, pastors, and professional Christian counselors.
Dream Number One: Biblical Counseling Will Be Scriptural
Biblical counseling will cling tenaciously to the supremacy, sufficiency, and profundity (depth of wisdom) of the Scriptures. God has provided us with all that we need for godly living (2 Peter 1:3). The Scriptures, rightly interpreted and carefully applied, offer us all-encompassing insight for life.
The Bible provides us with the interpretive categories for making sense of life experiences from God’s perspective. By building our counseling models on Christ’s gospel of grace, we obtain wisdom for bringing people healing hope, the stimulus for change (God’s glory), and the understanding of human motivation that energizes these God-honoring changes.
Dream Number Two: Biblical Counseling Will Be Theological
Too often, current models of biblical counseling start and end at the Fall—focusing almost exclusively on human depravity. As a result, they often counsel Christians as if they are still unsaved—apart from the justifying, redeeming, regenerating, and reconciling work of Christ.
Biblical counseling will unite Creation, Fall, and Redemption. In studying a biblical theology of Creation, biblical counseling will examine people—God’s original design for the soul (anthropology). In probing the Fall, biblical counseling will examine problems—how sin brought personal depravity and suffering (hamartiology). In investigating the Bible’s teaching on Redemption, biblical counseling will examine solutions—the gospel of Christ’s grace which offers eternal salvation and provides us with daily victory in our ongoing battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil (soteriology).
Creation, Fall, and Redemption also have psychological correlates. Creation is biblical psychology—the biblical study of the soul. The Fall is biblical psychopathology—the biblical study of the sickness of sin. Redemption is biblical psychotherapy—the biblical study of God’s healing of the soul through Christ.
In the minds of some, the use of these psychological terms is invalid. How sad that we have allowed the world to steal these solidly biblical, theological, and historical terms. It is time that we took back our heritage and redefined these terms. Franz Delitzsch, writing in 1861 (before the advent of modern secular psychology), noted that “biblical psychology is no science of yesterday. It is one of the oldest sciences of the church.”[i]
Psychology is native to our faith. Not secular psychology, but biblical psychology—understanding and ministering to the soul designed by God, disordered by sin, and redeemed by grace.[ii]
Dream Number Three: Biblical Counseling Will Be Historical
The future of biblical counseling is the past. During the last twenty years we have witnessed the Christian community returning to its proper respect for that “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1-3). History, Chesterton reminded us, is “the democracy of the dead.”[iii]
I vividly and sadly recall the “counseling wars” that occurred while I was in seminary—wars pitting competing modern counseling “camps” against each other. I also recall thinking, “Surely the Church has always helped hurting and hardened people.” That sentence sent me on a quarter-century search for the legacy of Christian soul care and spiritual direction. Simultaneous to that, God’s Spirit was moving many others along the same path.
Biblical counselors of the future will return to the ancient paths (Jeremiah 6:16). They will seek and apply the ancient legacy and consensual wisdom for living found in the writings of great historic Christian soul physicians.
Note: Future Blog posts will continue sharing further dreams for the future of biblical counseling.
[i]Franz Delitzsch, A System of Biblical Psychology. Second edition. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1861, p. 3.
[ii]See Eric Johnson, “Christ: The Lord of Psychology,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 25(1), 1997, pp. 11-27. See also, Robert Kellemen, Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 2007, pp. 131-141.
[iii]G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004, p. 3.
