A Word from Bob
First, I posted this blog mini-series back in 2009. I am thankful for how the modern biblical counseling movement has developed and grown since then, especially in the area that these posts focused on: biblical parakaletic soul care for the suffering.
Second, if you find yourself troubled that I am saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then I would ask you to be sure to read my comments at the end of this blog post. Thanks!
For Part 1, please visit: The Gravity of Grinding Affliction
For Part 2, please visit: Whatever Happened to Sin?
For Part 3, please visit: Embracing the Legacy of Comforting Biblical Counseling
For Part 4, please visit: The Great Cloud of Biblical Counseling Witnesses
My Premise
Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then such biblical counseling is only half biblical.
What To Do After the Hug
Some might conclude, “But there’s really no need to teach people how to comfort the suffering because they do that naturally.”
I’m sure Job would disagree with that as it relates to his “miserable counselors” who called his suffering “sin.”
So, today we ask and answer the question:
“What might it look like to train pastors and lay people to be soul physicians and spiritual friends who deal with suffering?”
The Bible has a great deal to say not only about suffering, but also about how to comfort the suffering. Church history has highlighted two core parakaletic biblical counseling competencies for suffering:
*Sustaining
*Healing
In Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, pages 39-214, I teach lay people, pastors, and students the following ten biblical relational skills/competencies for sustaining and healing. (Note: The updated version of Spiritual Friends is Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ.) Here is your primer:
Sustaining: “It’s Normal to Hurt.”
Using the acronym GRACE, we need to learn five biblical relational competencies if we are to be comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed soul care-givers who offer sustaining comfort:
1. G: Grace Connecting
2. R: Rich Soul Empathizing
3. A: Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening
4. C: Caring Spiritual Conversations
5. E: Empathetic Scriptural Explorations
Healing: “It’s Possible to Hope.”
Using the acronym RESTS, we need to learn five biblical relational competencies if we are to be comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed soul care-givers who offer healing hope:
1. R: Relational Treatment Planning
2. E: Encouraging Communication
3. S: Story Reinterpreting
4. T: Thirsts Spiritual Conversations
5. S: Stretching Scriptural Explorations
How to Train Biblical “Sufferologists”
My point is not to say that I have cornered the market on equipping people how to offer biblical comfort for suffering. My point is that you can read many biblical counseling training manuals, attend many biblical counseling training seminars, and read many biblical counseling definitions, and find very little equipping for “sufferologists”—biblical counselors who offer sustaining empathy and healing encouragement.
Rather than assuming that we do this naturally, let’s do what the Bible and Church history do: let’s focus on biblical counseling and spiritual friendship equipping on how to train believers to deal both with sin and with suffering.
Where Do We Go From Here?
In my next post, I’ll share why I think biblical counseling lost its way. What historical, cultural, and personal realities help to explain why some modern biblical counseling is only half biblical?
Why I Am Addressing This Topic
All who have followed my ministry know that I am about bridge-building and not about wall-building. You might wonder then, “Bob, why blog about something that is surely to be controversial?”
Those who follow my ministry also know that I am about equipping God’s people to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth through comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation.
Biblical counseling that fails to deal with suffering, fails the test of comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling. I would be a hypocrite to my calling if I remained silent.
Others might wonder, “Are you talking about a particular person, persons, or groups who are writing and ministering today?”
No. I am not. This is not an attack against. These blogs are not directed toward any one person or group.
These blogs are directed to all of us—myself included—who love biblical counseling. They are for all of us—myself included—who need good Bereans to help us to assess how biblical or unbiblical our approaches to biblical counseling truly are.
I write to help, not to hurt. I write to equip, not to attack. I write to start a conversation, not to finish one.
Join the Conversation
“What might it look like to train pastors and lay people to be soul physicians and spiritual friends who deal with suffering?”
