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 9 of a 10-part blog series on 10 Common Mistakes Biblical Counselors Sometimes Make.
- Mistake #1: We Elevate Data Collection Above Soul Connection.
- Mistake #2: We Share God’s Eternal Story Before We Listen Well and Wisely to Our Friend’s Earthly Story.
- Mistake #3: We Talk at Counselees Rather Than Exploring Scriptures with Counselees.
- 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.
- Mistake #6: We Tend to View People One-Dimensionally.
- Mistake #7: We Devalue Emotions Rather Than Seeing Emotions as God’s Idea.
- Mistake #8: We Minimize the Complexity of the Soul-Body Interconnection.
Mistake #9: We Maximize Sin While We Minimize Grace
Most of us have a tendency toward pulling pendulums in one direction or the other. This was true of the Corinthians.
In 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, Paul had to confront the Corinthians because they were not confronting the public sin of a member of the body of Christ. They were “winking at sin,” minimizing sin, and refusing to use biblical discernment, judgment, and confrontation regarding sin.
Then the Corinthians responded to Paul’s confrontation by confronting this brother. According to 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 (which many commentators believe reflects back on 1 Corinthians 5:1-5), the Corinthians then got stuck in confronting this brother.
“If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes” (2 Cor. 2:5-11).
Paul says, “The confrontation worked! The church discipline was sufficient. He confessed, repented, and is changing.”
Then notice what Paul says next, “Instead.” I love the word “instead” in the Bible. “Instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him.” And, “reaffirm your love for him.”
Why? “So that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” And who is behind excessive sorrow? The accuser of the brethren, Satan, who schemes to outwit us by heaping condemnation on us—sin without grace. If we maximize sin while minimizing grace, then we are actually joining Satan’s condemning scheme.
Of course, none of us would purposefully join Satan’s scheme. And, by God’s grace, all of us when we do confront sin, are motivated by God’s glory and our counselee’s good/growth.
Think about the launch of the modern nouthetic counseling movement. It defined nouthetic counseling as confronting out of concern for change. We confront because we’re concerned for the counselee and concerned for the glory of God. We confront with the desire to encourage the counselee to put off the old ways and put on the new in-Christ ways.
So we’re in no way wanting to minimize the role of caring confronting (care-fronting) of sin. Instead (there’s that word), we’re wanting to emphasize the danger of potentially maximizing sin while minimizing grace.
Where Sin Abounds; Grace Superabounds
Paul says it like this, “where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” I like to translate it like this, “Where sin abounds; grace superabounds!”
Which do we emphasize as biblical counselors: sin or grace? In our concern for confronting sin, do we sometimes inadvertently become sin-sniffers, idol-spotters, and sin-maximizers? Or, as we confront sin, do we consciously communicate Christ’s superabounding, amazing, infinite grace?
In church history, the Puritans modeled well this both-and of sin and grace. In dealing with an unrepentant, deceived, hardened sinner, Puritan soul physicians would seek to load the conscience with guilt. Though the phrase may sound harsh, it reflects the loving motivation of Hebrews 3:12-13:
“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”
The Puritans would never stop at sin, but always magnified grace. With a repentant person and with persons with a tender conscience, Puritan soul physicians sought to lighten the conscience with grace.
They would help one another to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of Christ (Eph. 3:18). They would encourage one another to see the Father through the lens of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. A Father who runs to his repentant children, throws his arms around us, is filled with compassion for us, kisses us, calls us “son” or “daughter,” celebrates with us, and insists that we put on the family attire because we’ve been reconciled by grace (Luke 15:20-24).
For the Puritans, we were not only sinners in the hands of an angry God. Even more, through Christ we are sons and daughters in the palms of our forgiving Father.
Let’s Be Grace Maximizers, Grace Magnifiers, and Grace Dispensers
When I teach biblical reconciling through care-fronting, I use a twin phrase to portray the relational reconciling process:
“It horrible to sin, but it’s wonderful to be forgiven!”
Yes, of course biblical counselors confront sin. However, if we only emphasized the horrors of sin, then we would be sin-maximizers who become sin-spotters. We would spot a sin, expose a sin, exhort toward change, and move on to the next counselee.
But that’s not comprehensive, compassionate reconciling which also communicates—“it’s wonderful to be forgiven!” As ambassadors of reconciliation biblical counselors are grace-maximizers and grace dispensers.
Martin Luther understood our role as dispensers of grace.
“The word of a fellow-Christian has wonderful power. The voice of brethren and fellow Christians are to be heard and believed as the word and voice of God himself, as though God was speaking to them.”[i]
Biblical counselors share the Bible’s truth about the Father’s grace—we help one another to grasp grace.
Luther also understood how we should respond to a repentant brother.
“When we have laid bare our conscience to our brother and privately make known to him the evil that lurked within, we receive from our brother’s lips the word of comfort spoken by God himself. And if we accept this in faith, we find peace in the mercy of God speaking to us through our brother.”[ii]
We speak words of comforting grace to one another—we lighten each other’s conscience with grace.
According to Luther, we not only counsel one another, we also provide ourselves with ongoing grace-focused self-counsel. When Satan schemes to overwhelm us with condemnation, Luther would confront Satan with grace!
“You say that the sins which we commit every day offend God, and therefore we are not saints. To this I reply: Mother love is stronger than the filth and scabbiness on a child, and so the love of God toward us is stronger than the dirt that clings to us. Accordingly, although we are sinners, we do not lose our filial relation on account of our filthiness, nor do we fall from grace on account of our sin.”[iii]
Luther insisted that we hold up before our eyes the gospel mirror of grace in which we see our forgiving Father.
“For who is able to express what a thing it is, when a man is assured in his heart that God neither is nor will be angry with him, but will be forever a merciful and loving Father to him for Christ’s sake? This is indeed a marvelous and incomprehensible liberty, to have the most high and sovereign Majesty so favorable to us. Wherefore, this is an inestimable liberty, that we are made free from the wrath of God forever.”[iv]
Where sin abounds; grace superabounds!
Assessing Our Biblical Counseling
- Which do we emphasize as biblical counselors: sin or grace? In our concern for confronting sin, do we sometimes inadvertently become sin-sniffers, idol-spotters, and sin-maximizers? Or, as we confront sin, do we consciously communicate Christ’s superabounding, amazing, infinite grace?
- As biblical counselors, are we like the Apostle Paul, reminding one another that where sin abounds, grace superabounds?
- As biblical counselors, are we like the Puritans, not only loading the conscience with guilt, but even more so lightening the conscience with grace? Like Luther, are we dispensers of Christ’s gospel of grace?
- As biblical counselors, are we loving ambassadors of reconciliation who seek to share that “it’s horrible to sin, but it’s wonderful to be forgiven”?
The Rest of the Story
I invite you to join us for Part 10:
Mistake #10: We Confuse the Sufficiency of Scripture with the Competency of the Counselor.
[i]Nebe. Luther as Spiritual Adviser, p. 181.
[ii]Luther, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, p. 201.
[iii]Luther, Commentary on Galatians, p. 70.
[iv]Luther, Commentary on Galatians, p. 314.
