Quotes of Note: The Résumé of the Biblical Counselor
The following “Quotes of Note” are from Chapter Seven of Equipping Counselors for Your Church. This chapter focuses on comprehensive biblical equipping. For quotes from Chapter One, read God’s Grand Vision for His Church. For quotes from Chapter Two, read Knowing and Loving Those We Serve and Equip. For quotes from Chapters Three and Four read Christ’s Compelling Calling. For quotes from Chapter Five read My First Priority in Ministry. For quotes from Chapter Six read Mobilizing Ministers.
• God calls us to minister to the whole person—the head (content/knowing), the heart (character/being), and the hands (competence/doing) in the context of God’s home (community/loving).
• Competent biblical counselors have résumés with “full of goodness” as their first qualification: Christ-like character that relates with grace.
• To the degree that we increasingly reflect Christ and relate increasingly like Christ, to that degree we will be fruitful biblical counselors.
• The person who is good at relating, is the person whose words and actions have deep impact.
• Knowledge and skill without character is like one corpse practicing cosmetic surgery on another corpse.
• Who is qualified for the task of biblical counseling? The person who increasingly reflects Christ.
• Competent biblical counselors understand how to apply God’s Word first to their own life.
• Biblical counseling is both/and—we unite head and heart, love and truth in our personal ministry of the Word.
• We need to structure our equipping in biblical counseling so that our trainees gain deep insight into people, problems, and solutions—from a biblical perspective.
• Our training needs to equip prospective biblical counselors with the wisdom to relate those biblical truths to people’s daily lives and relationships—changing lives with Christ’s changeless truth.
• Believers who possess Christ-like goodness (character) plus Christ-like insight (conviction) are competent to disciple one another toward communion with Christ and conformity to Christ through the personal ministry of the Word—biblical counseling.
• We need to structure our equipping in biblical counseling so that our trainees develop the biblical counseling competencies of sustaining and healing (parakaletic counseling for suffering and progressive sanctification), and of reconciling and guiding (nouthetic counseling for sin and progressive sanctification).
• Our end goal is to equip our trainees to learn how to care like Christ.
• We need to structure our equipping in biblical counseling so that our trainees relate, connect, and grow together in Christ.
• Say to your biblical counselors, “Your competence comes from Christ. Don’t take a backseat to anyone!”
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What is the biblical résumé of a biblical counselor?
