When I was in seminary in the 1980s, open warfare broke out over competing counseling models. During these debates, I was struck by the fact that no one was using church history as a guide to assess modern church counseling approaches. I kept thinking:
“Surely the church has always been about the business of helping hurting and hardened people!”
So I started reading everything I could find (this was before Google and Amazon) on the history of soul care. For the past 40 years—that’s a whole generation—I’ve continued that study of church history.
Sure enough, I have been able to learn a great deal about what makes biblical counseling truly biblical and what makes Christian counseling truly Christian by learning from that great cloud of historical witnesses—Christians who have been counseling one another for the past 2,000 years.
Biblical Counseling Before the Modern Biblical Counseling Movement
The “modern biblical counseling movement” was launched in the 1970s by Jay Adams. Jay wrote in an era where many in the church were seen as abdicating their responsibility to counsel God’s people. Or, if pastors were counseling God’s people, they often focused on secular psychology rather than on biblical principles. Jay launched the “nouthetic counseling movement” to return the church to their ancient role of soul care.
Of course, this indicates that there had been—for nearly 2,000 years—a long history of biblical counseling that predates the modern biblical counseling movement. That’s what I’ve been exploring for the past 40 years—that’s my 4-decade-long treasure hunt!
The Fruit of My Treasure Hunt
It’s been a joyful treasure hunt to learn from brothers and sisters in the faith who have gone before us. My historical treasure hunt has led to:
- A course on The History of Soul Care that I’ve taught over two dozen times in seminary settings.
As the title suggests, this book explores Martin Luther’s biblical counseling. Luther not only provided face-to-face counseling, but he also wrote over 3,000 letters of spiritual consolation.
- The book Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction
As this title indicates, this book explores how African American Christians—many of them enslaved—provided one-another soul care and biblical counseling to each other. Note: At the link above, you can download the complete PDF of the book for free.
As this third title reveals, historic biblical counseling has long been an arena where women soul care givers provided rich, relational biblical ministry. In fact, many of the “church fathers” were discipled and counseled by women (as you’ll learn in this book).
Indeed, the church has always been about the ministry of biblical counseling.
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