A Word from Bob
This series became my book, Consider Your Counsel: Addressing Ten Mistakes in Our Biblical Counseling. For free resources related to the book, and to purchase a copy on sale, go here.
You’re reading Part 5 of a 10-part blog series on 10 Common Mistakes Biblical Counselors Sometimes Make. For Part 1, see: Mistake #1: We Elevate Data Collection Above Soul Connection. (Part 1 also contains further background, explanation, and “motivation” for this series.) For Part 2, see: Mistake #2: We Share God’s Eternal Story Before We Listen Well and Wisely to Our Friend’s Earthly Story. For Part 3, see: Mistake #3: We Talk at Counselees Rather Than Exploring Scriptures with Counselees. For Part 4, see: Mistake #4: We Practice Half-Biblical Counseling If We Address Sin but Neglect Suffering.
Mistake #5: We Fail to Follow the Trinity’s Model of Comforting Care
In Part 4, we explored how our counseling sometimes focuses on sin but neglects suffering—we neglect comforting people in their suffering, grief, loss, pain, and hurt. If we’re not careful, we end up counseling like Job’s miserable counselors whose one-track minds spotted sin instead of comforting Job in his suffering.
The motivation behind this sin-focus is often a desire to be like God in His holiness. We don’t want to wink at sin. We want to speak the truth.
However, in our desire to counsel like God, we must recall that God is a God of holy love, of truth and grace, of righteousness and mercy, of confrontation of sin and compassion for suffering. So, as biblical counselors, in addition to confronting sin, we must follow the Trinity’s model of comforting the suffering.
The most important thing about us as biblical counselors is maintaining a biblical view of God. The same holy, transcendent Sovereign Lord who comes with power to rule and reward in righteousness (Isaiah 40:10) is also our loving, immanent Comforting Counselor who “tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young” (Isaiah 40:11).
Let’s Counsel Like the Father of Compassion and the God of All Comfort
Paul uses the Greek word for “comfort” ten times in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7. Do you think comfort may be the theme of these verses?
He begins developing his theme by presenting a crystal clear image of God.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
All comfort is ultimately sourced in God. The flip side of that is to say that worldly comfort—comfort not sourced in God—is ultimately empty, vain, hollow comfort.
Counsel Like Our Compassionate Father
The Greek word for “compassion” means to feel another person’s agony. People in Paul’s day used the word to signify sympathetic lament.
Isaiah 63:9 tells us that in all Israel’s distress; God too was distressed. God laments our pain; God aches when we ache; He weeps when we weep. He is the Father of compassion.
Is this our image of God when life is bad? In our suffering, do we see God as our Father who sympathetically laments with us?
When suffering friends and counselees come to us, do we sympathetically lament with them?
Counsel Like Our Comforting Father
God is the God of all comfort. The word for “comfort” pictures God fortifying us—He gives us His strength to endure. Paul and others used the word “comfort” to picture:
- A lawyer advocating for a client.
- A mother wrapping her arms of protection around her child.
- A solider standing back to back with a comrade in danger.
In the midst of our suffering, is that our image of God? In our suffering, do we see God as our Advocate, as our Protector, as our Ally?
When suffering friends and counselees come to us, do they experience us as their caring advocate, as their concerned protector, as their empathetic ally?
Let’s Counsel Like Jesus Our Sympathetic High Priest
Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 9:6). And what kind of counselor is He? He is the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3).
The New Testament picture further develops this Old Testament image. Jesus is our sympathetic High Priest.
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).
Jesus identifies with us—empathizing and sympathizing with us. And as we turn to Him we receive grace, mercy, and help in our weakness, neediness, suffering, and sinfulness.
In fact, Jesus shared in our humanity so that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest.
“For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:17-18).
What Hebrews describes, Jesus models in His ministry. We think of John 11 and tend to focus on verse 35, “Jesus wept.” A moving verse, no doubt. And certainly indicative of Jesus as a Man of Sorrows and as our sympathetic High Priest. But we sometimes miss the verses that precede and follow John 11:35.
“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (John 11:33).
As we weep, do we see Jesus deeply moved and troubled over our suffering?
“Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’” (John 11:36).
Do we counsel like the Wonderful Counselor? Do friends and counselees experience us as able to sorrow with them, as acquainted with grief—ours and theirs, as sympathetic and empathetic, as deeply moved and troubled on their behalf, as loving them deeply?
Let’s Counsel Like the Holy Spirit Our Divine Comforter
The disciples’ hearts were troubled when they learned that Jesus would be leaving (John 14:1-6). Because they were feeling orphaned, Jesus promised them that “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18).
But how could Jesus leave them and not leave them!? By sending them another Counselor, another Comforter, another Advocate.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you…. All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:16-18, 25-27).
The Greek word for “Advocate” is the noun form of the word we looked at in Part 4: parakaleo. The Holy Spirit is our Divine Parakaletic Counselor living within us. He is our Encouragement Counselor. He is our Comforting Counselor.
And how does the Spirit practice His parakaletic counseling? As we saw under Mistake #2, in part, by grieving and groaning with us.
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26).
The Spirit identifies with us in our weaknesses, advocates for us in our struggles, and groans with us in our suffering.
Do we counsel like our Divine Comforter? Would our friends and counselees describe us as consoling, comforting, and encouraging? Would they experience us as identifying with them, advocating for them, and groaning with them?
Our Calling to Counsel Like the Trinity
In the immediate context of God the Father as our Comforter, Paul commands us to comfort one another.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).
Biblical counselors are to be biblical comforters because God is the Father of all comfort.
Biblical counselors can be biblical comforters if and when we turn to the God of all comfort for our comfort.
The best comforter givers are comfort receivers—from God.
As God’s infinite comfort flows into us, it then is to overflow out of us into our brothers and sisters.
This is why God calls the body of Christ to care for and suffer with one another.
“But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (1 Corinthians 12:24-26).
And it’s why as individual members of the body of Christ we are commanded to mourn with those who mourn (weeping with those who weep) (Romans 12:15).
And this is why Paul both follows the model of the Trinity and models for us Trinitarian counseling:
“Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).
Assessing Our Biblical Counseling
- Do we counsel like God the Father? Do we sympathetically lament with others? Do others experience us as their caring advocate, as their concerned protector, as their empathetic ally?
- Do we counsel like God the Son? Do we sorrow with others? Do we grieve with others? Are we sympathetic toward and empathetic with others? Are we deeply moved by the suffering of others?
- Do we counsel like God the Spirit? Are we consoling, comforting, and encouraging? Do we identify and groan with others?
- Do we counsel like the Trinity? Does the comfort of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit overflow from the Trinity to us and then spill over to our brothers and sisters?
The Rest of the Story
I invite you to join us for Part 6:
Mistake #6: We Tend To View People One-Dimensionally.
