We Need a GPS
Helping hurting people is complex. It can often feel like a maze—or like a complex interchange on the interstate—zig-zagging roads where you can easily feel lost…
We need a GPS: Gospel Positioning Scripture. We need God’s wisdom to know where to start, where to head, and how to get there.
For the past 40 years, I’ve practiced and taught an approach to biblical counseling that highlights the 4 Compass Points of:
- Biblical Sustaining
- Biblical Healing
- Biblical Reconciling
- Biblical Guiding
You can read about these four aspects of biblical counseling in Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ.
For a quick introduction, check out this blog post which has several links, including links to 2 PowerPoint lessons and 2 handouts/outlines about sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding.
Overviewing Parakaletic and Noutehtic Biblical Counseling
Frank Lake, writing in the 1960s, noted that:
“Pastoral care is defective unless it can deal thoroughly both with the evils we have suffered as well as with the sins we have committed.”
Others have described Christians using 4 “S” words: saints, suffering, sin, sanctification. We are:
Saints who face suffering and battle sin on our sanctification journey
We live in a fallen world and it often falls on us. We need biblical counseling for suffering and sanctification through sustaining and healing soul care: parakaletic biblical counseling.
We also are not-yet-glorified/perfected. We need biblical counseling for sin and sanctification through reconciling and guiding soul care: nouthetic biblical counseling.
Biblical Sustaining: “It’s Normal to Hurt”
In sustaining, we join with others in their suffering—comforting them as we weep with them. We grieve together, empathizing with them—compassionately identifying with them in their pain. Sustaining gives the other person permission to grieve. It communicates the biblical truth that it’s normal to hurt when our fallen world falls on us. Sustaining enters the other person’s troubling earthly story of suffering and despair. Shared sorrow is endurable sorrow.
I use a macabre image to capture the essence of sustaining ministry: climbing in the casket. I’ve developed this picture from 2 Corinthians 1 where Paul says, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death” (2 Corinthians 1:8b-9a). When Paul despaired of life and felt the sentence of death, he wanted the Corinthians to “climb in his casket”—to identify with what felt like a death sentence.
Biblical Healing: “It’s Possible to Hope”
In biblical counseling through healing, we journey with sufferers to Christ, encouraging them to live today in light of Christ and his eternal hope. When bad things happen to God’s people, Satan attempts to crop Christ out of the picture. He tempts people to conclude, “Life is bad; God is sovereign; so God must be bad, too!” God calls us to crop Christ into the picture. We have the privilege of journeying with sufferers as we listen together to God’s eternal story of healing hope in Christ alone. We move with them to the place where they can say with conviction, “Life is bad, but God is good.”
To balance the sustaining image of climbing in the casket, I capture the essence of healing ministry with celebrating the empty tomb! Earlier we saw Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 1:8b-9a. Paul continues, “But this happened so that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9b). Paul does not remain in the casket because Jesus did not remain in the tomb! Because of the resurrection, it is always possible to hope!
Biblical Reconciling: “It’s Horrible to Sin, but Wonderful to Be Forgiven
People come to us not only hurting, but also hurtful. They not only need biblical comfort and encouragement through parakaletic sustaining and healing; they also need biblical discipline and discipleship through nouthetic reconciling and guiding. In reconciling, God calls us to expose sin humbly yet firmly—speaking gospel truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Like the early Christians, we are aware of the deceitfulness of sin, so we commit to being sure that no one has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God (Hebrews 3:7-19). Like the Puritans, we are able, when necessary, to “load the conscience with guilt” so that hard hearts are softened by God’s Spirit of truth.
Biblical reconciling does not stop with the exposure of heart sin. God also calls us to be skillful at magnifying grace—where we communicate that where sin abounds, grace mega-abounds (Romans. 5:20). We not only communicate that “it’s horrible to sin,” but also convey that “it’s wonderful to be forgiven.” In biblical reconciling, we communicate that “God is gracious to you, even when you are sinful.” We not only load the conscience with guilt; like the Puritans, we lighten the conscience with grace.
The image I use to communicate reconciling is the picture of every Christian as a dispenser of grace. Grace is God’s medicine of choice for our sin. Grace is God’s prescription for our disgrace.
Biblical Guiding: “It’s Supernatural to Mature”
In biblical guiding, we help people discern how God empowers them to put off the old sinful ways and put on the new ways of the new person in Christ. We help them practice the biblical spiritual disciplines that connect them with Christ’s resurrection power (Philippians 3:10). We assist them in thinking through the implications of their identity in Christ and what Christ has already done for them (the gospel indicatives), and the implications of commands to obey Christ out of gratitude for grace (the gospel imperatives). We practice what first century Christians practiced in spurring one another on to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:19-25).
The picture I use for guiding is fanning into flame the gift of God. Our role is not to place power within our counselees. Our role is to stir up and fan into flame the gift of God already in them, just as Paul stirred up the gift of God in Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6-7).
1 Verse Capturing Parakaletic Sustaining and Healing: Romans 15:4
For the past three decades, I’ve been teaching these 4 compass points from all over Scripture (and all throughout church history). Here is 1 verse that captures these first 2 compass points.
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through the endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).
What are the Scriptures sufficient for? For parakaletic counseling for suffering and sanctification.
- Sustaining: “Through the endurance of the Scriptures”—the Bible provides us the comfort—the co-fortitude that sustains our faith. Shared sorrow is endurable sorrow.
- Healing: “Through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”—The Bible en-courages us—puts courage into us so that we know that it’s possible to hope.
1 Verse Capturing Nouthetic Reconciling and Guiding: 2 Timothy 3:16
Here is our second verse, which captures our next 2 compass points.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).
What are the Scriptures sufficient for? For nouthetic counseling for sin and sanctification.
- Reconciling: “For rebuking and correcting”—exposing the horrors of sin and returning us to the wonders of grace.
- Guiding: “Useful for teaching and training in righteousness”—enlightening people to discern God’s will and empowering people to live out God’s will through God’s power.
Join the Conversation
If you had just 2 verses to capture your approach to biblical counseling, what 2 verses would you use?
