Interviewed by the Wonderful Counselor
Imagine that the Divine Counselor—Christ the Wonderful Counselor—was interviewing you for the position of Biblical Counselor. As you prepared your résumé, what qualifications would you highlight to demonstrate your eligibility to enter the ranks of biblical counselor?
Fortunately, the apostle Paul has already completed the biblical counselor’s résumé.
“I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another” (Romans 15:14).
In this verse, the surrounding context, and other biblical passages, we discover the four résumé qualifications of an equipped biblical counselor.
The 4 Dimensions of Comprehensive Biblical Counseling
Since 1992, I’ve used Romans 15:14 to teach the “4C/4H” model of biblical counseling equipping. Today’s post is the culmination of 30+ years of thinking about the biblical counselor’s résumé.
For a much fuller development of how to equip biblical counselors in the “4C/4H” model, see Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ.
- Character/Heart/Being: Christlike Character—“Full of Goodness”
- Content/Conviction/Head/Knowing: Biblical Content/Conviction—“Complete in Knowledge”
- Competence/Hands/Doing: Counseling Competence—“Competent to Instruct”
- Community/Home/Loving: Christian Community—“Brothers/One Another”
Let’s take a brief look at each of these “4C/4H” résumé qualifications.
Character/Heart/Being: Christlike Character—“Full of Goodness”
“I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another” (Romans 15:14). Competent biblical counselors have résumés with “full of goodness” as their first qualification.
“Goodness” is the same word Paul uses in Galatians 5:22-23 as one of the nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. When I first read Romans 15:14, I wondered why Paul would pick the fruit of goodness. Why not love, joy, peace, or any other fruit of the Spirit?
So, I explored goodness. The Old Testament highlights the basic confession that God is good because His love endures forever (1 Chronicles 16:34). It also emphasizes that our good God does good (Exodus 18:9). That is, He displays His goodness in active social relationships.
Further, I noted Christ’s statement that only God is good (Matthew 19:17). Then I noticed the linkage of goodness and godliness with god-like-ness—with Christlikeness (Matthew 5:43-48; Ephesians 2:10; Colossians 1:10). In each of these passages, goodness displays itself in active, grace-oriented relationships, as when our good Father causes His sun to shine upon and His rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Williams Hendriksen, in his commentary on Galatians, explains that goodness is a virtue that reveals itself in social relationships; in our various contacts and connections with others. Theologian and linguist, Walter Gundmann, demonstrates that biblical goodness always displays itself in relational contexts through undeserved kindness.
In Romans 15:14, Paul is talking about Christlike character that relates with grace.
The powerful biblical counselor reflects the ultimate Biblical Counselor—Jesus.
We are powerful to the degree that we reflect the loving character of Christ. Paul is teaching us that the competent biblical counselor is the person who relates well, connects deeply, is compassionate, and has the ability to develop intimate grace relationships.
In discussing goodness, Paul uses the modifier “full.” “Full” pictures a net that breaks due to the stress and tension of too much weight and a cup that is so chockfull that its contents spill over. Paul pictures mature love and godly character flowing through Christ to us, then spilling over from us into our counselee’s life.
We will be fruitful biblical counselors to the degree that we increasingly reflect Christ and relate increasingly like Christ.
The person who is good at relating, is the person whose words and actions have deep impact.
Paul’s first résumé qualification teaches that knowledge and skill without character is like one corpse practicing cosmetic surgery on another corpse.
Content/Conviction/Head/Knowing: Biblical Content/Conviction—“Complete in Knowledge”
Is Paul implying that the best biblical counselor is the “touchy-feely” person who never dedicates himself or herself to serious study of the Scripture? Not at all. Remember that God calls us to love Him with our minds, with our brains (Matthew 22:37). This is why Paul lists “complete in knowledge” as the second qualification on the biblical counselor’s résumé.
“Complete” does not suggest that we become walking biblical encyclopedias with absolute knowledge of all theological truth. Only God has encyclopedic knowledge of all things actual and possible. Instead, by “complete” Paul means that:
We become so filled with God’s Word that it claims our entire being and stamps our whole life, conduct, attitude, and relationships.
We are captured by God’s truth.
What sort of knowledge does Paul emphasize? He could have chosen any of several words that highlight content or factual knowledge alone. However, Paul chooses a word for knowledge that highlights the combination of information and implication. Paul’s word focuses upon insight and wisdom—the wisdom to relate truth to life.
Competent biblical counselors understand how to apply God’s Word first to their own life. They also have the insight to see how God’s Word relates to their friend’s life. Additionally, they have the biblical vision to see how God is relating to their friend. They have discernment to see life from God’s perspective.
In Philippians 1:9-11, Paul develops his philosophy of ministry, his conviction about what equips us for biblical counseling.
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.”
Paul couples truth and love. For him, biblical counseling is never either/or—either we are loving, touchy-feely, heart people, or we are scholarly, academic, head people. Rather, ministry is both/and—we unite head and heart, love and truth in our personal ministry of the Word. When our love abounds more and more in knowledge, the result is insight—the ability to help our counselees to discern, not simply what is good, but what is best in their life situation—from God’s eternal perspective.
Competence/Hands/Doing: Counseling Competence—“Competent to Instruct”
Paul says that the typical Christians in Rome with character and conviction are “competent to instruct.” The word “competent” means to have the power to accomplish a mission, the power necessary to fulfill God’s call to minister to one another. “Competent” also means to have the ability, capability, resources, and strength to function and relate well. Paul is confident that believers are relationally competent in Christ.
Powerfully competent to do what? Powerful to “instruct” (nouthetein). Jay Adams, founder of the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (now the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors), describes nouthetic counseling as confronting for change out of concern. “Instruct” contains this nuance, especially when the proposed change emphasizes inner heart change leading to relational change.
The foundational meaning of noutheteo comes from the root noeo meaning to direct one’s mind, to perceive, and from nous—the mind, heart, seat of spiritual, rational, and moral insight and action. The mind is the place of practical reason leading to moral action. The stress is not merely on the intellect, but also on the will and disposition. Noutheteo means to impart understanding, to set right, to lay on the heart. Nouthetic impartation of truth can take on many forms such as encouraging, urging, spurring on, teaching, reminding, admonishing, reconciling, guiding, and advising.
Paul uses noutheteo in Colossians 1:20-29 to describe one aspect of his multifaceted pastoral ministry. God commissioned him to present Christ’s gospel of grace to people (1:20-25), infusing people with the hope of who they are in Christ (1:26-27), with the goal of presenting them mature in Christ (1:28), through personal, passionate, persistent involvement in their lives (1:28-29), by Christ’s resurrection power (1:29).
Paul is saying in Romans 15:14 that believers who possess Christlike goodness (character) plus Christlike 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.
Paul never intended Romans 15:14 to be the final or only word on the nature of biblical counseling. Nor did he use noutheteo as the only or even the primary concept to describe the personal ministry of the Word.
For instance, in 1 Thessalonians 5:14, Paul uses five distinct words for biblical counseling. “And we urge (parakaleo) you, brothers, warn (noutheteo) those who are idle, encourage (paramutheomai) the timid, help (antechomai) the weak, be patient with (makrothumeo) everyone.”
Among the many New Testament words for spiritual care, parakaleo predominates. Noutheteo occurs eleven times in the New Testament, parakaleo (comfort, encourage, console) appears 109 times.
In 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, Paul informs us that we are competent to comfort (parakaleo) one another. Those who have humbly received God’s comfort, God equips to offer comfort to others.
The word parakaleo emphasizes personal presence (one called alongside to help) and suffering with another person. It seeks to turn desolation into consolation through hope in God. The duty of comfort in Old and New Testament thinking fell not upon professional helpers, but upon close relatives, neighbors, friends, and colleagues.
Comforters come alongside to help struggling, suffering people through personal presence coupled with scriptural insight.
When Christ ascended, he sent the Holy Spirit to be our Parakletos—our Comforter and Advocate called alongside to encourage and help in times of suffering, trouble, grief, injustice, and hardship. The Spirit performs His ministry by being in us and by revealing truth to us (John 14:16-17). As the Spirit of Truth, His ministry is the exact opposite of Satan who is the father of lies (John 8.44). Satan’s name is “the Accuser” (Revelation 12:10) and his core strategy is to speak lying words of condemnation to us. The Spirit’s name is “Encourager” and “Advocate” and His ministry is to speak the truth in love about our justification and acceptance in Christ.
Think about what Paul is saying to you. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in counseling to be a competent counselor. You have the Resource planted within you—the Parakletos, the Holy Spirit. You also have the resources planted within you—the ability to be a competent parathetic (combining parakaleo and noutheteo) biblical counselor.
Community/Home/Loving: Christian Community—“Brothers/One Another”
Every word Paul has written about competent biblical counselors he has penned in the plural—brothers, one another, you yourselves. The effective biblical counselor is no “Lone Ranger” Christian.
Competent biblical counselors live and grow together in community as they commune with Christ and connect with the body of Christ.
Paul sandwiches his words in Romans 15:14 around a one-another community context. In Romans 12:3-8, he writes of each member belonging to all the others, and of using gifts in the context of the Body of Christ. In Romans 12:9-21, the context reflects one-anothering. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another. Share with one another. Practice hospitality with one another. Rejoice with one another. Weep with one another. Live in harmony with one another.
In Romans 13, the context is loving one another: “Whatever other commandments there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (13:9-10).
Paul continues his one-anothering theme in Romans 14:1-15:13. Don’t judge one another, instead mutually edify each other. Bear with one another. Please one another. Build up one another. Be united with one another. Encourage one another. Accept one another. Worship with one another.
In Romans 16, Paul writes about meeting together with one another in house churches where believers connect intimately. Connecting in community is the context, before and after Romans 15:14.
Effective training in biblical counseling is learned in community.
Growth in character, content, and competence occurs in the context of community.
We become effective biblical counselors by giving and receiving biblical counseling in community.
According to Paul, transformed lives occur as we connect together in the body of Christ (Romans 12:3-16:27) and as we connect with Christ (Romans 12:1-2). Conformity to Christ is the result of communion with Christ (2 Cor. 3:16-18; 4:16-18).
Growth in grace is a community project.
We don’t simply launch a biblical counseling ministry. We launch a one-another revolution. Our goal is not simply to become a church with a biblical counseling ministry, but a church of biblical counseling where every member engages in the effective personal ministry of the Word.
The “4C/4H” Résumé of the Qualified Biblical Counselor
Now we know what the apostle Paul would put in his biblical counseling résumé.
- Every Christian can become an effective biblical counselor by growing in Christlike character/heart, biblical content/head, counseling competence/hands, and Christian community/home.
