A Word from Bob
You’re reading Part 3 in a multi-part series on What Makes Biblical Counseling Truly Biblical?
- Go here for Part 1: Where Do We Find Wisdom for Life in a Broken World?
- Go here for Part 2: Looking for Answers in All the Wrong Places.
I’ve developed this series from Chapters 1 and 2 of my book Gospel-Centered Counseling: How Christ Changes Lives. In Gospel-Centered Counseling, I use the ten classic systematic theology doctrines as a grid for answering the question, what makes biblical counseling truly biblical? I turn those ten doctrines into 8 ultimate life questions. In this blog mini-series, we’re focusing on the first question:
- Question #1: The Word: “Where do we find wisdom for life in a broken world?”
Heaven Invading Earth
In Part 2 we focused on two entirely different sources of hope:
- The false hope of man-made remedies
- The one true hope in Christ.
Paul’s purpose in responding to the real life concerns of the Colossian believers was to call them back to the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ, the gospel, Scripture, and Christianity for salvation and for life today—rich wisdom for life in a broken world. He does so by helping them and us to understand the gospel narrative—the drama of redemption.
This is no academic exercise for Paul. Remember where he is as he writes—in prison. What keeps him going when life knocks him down? What keeps him serving freely when life locks him up? What keeps him pursuing righteousness when he’s the recipient of injustice?
Paul Tripp words those questions like this,
“What is the best news you can imagine? What is your reason for getting up in the morning? What is so significant that you will build your whole life around it?”[i]
The apostle Paul’s answer is “the good news—the gospel.”
The Good News as the Epi-Center of the Good Book
When people come to us, we don’t shout, “Gospel!” as if it’s some magic wand. Instead:
- W first understand the gospel story, then we seek to understand our friend’s story, then we journey together to intersect God’s eternal story and their temporal story.
I picture it as pivoting back and forth with our friends between the larger story of the gospel and the smaller (but real and meaningful) story of their life.[ii] We earn the right to bring God’s perspective to bear on our friends’ lives by first listening well to their life story.
- Gospel-centered counseling means that together with our counselees we derive our understanding of earthly life from heaven’s viewpoint.
- We look at life not with eyeballs only, but with spiritual eyes; we live under the Son, not under the sun.
Paul helps the Colossians and us to understand the gospel narrative by placing it within the context of eternity and time. In Colossians, he develops what I call “the CCFRCC Narrative” or “The Drama of Redemption.”
- Prologue: Community—Before the Beginning/Eternity Past
- Act I: Creation—In the Beginning
- Act II: Fall—The End of the Beginning
- Act III: Redemption—Eternity Invades Time
- Act IV: Church—In the Fullness of Time
- Epilogue: Consummation—After the End/Eternity Future
In today’s post, we’ll explore the first 3 of these narratives. Then in Part 4 of this series, we’ll examine the final three acts in the drama of redemption.
Community: Listen to the Creator of Life for Wisdom for Living
Secular psychology, by very definition, must begin with us—who are we?
Gospel-centered counseling begins before the beginning with God—who is God and what difference does He make in how we look at and live life in a broken world?
That’s why Paul doesn’t start with “once upon a time;” he begins before time, in eternity past by reintroducing the Colossians to the cosmic Christ (Colossians 1:15-19).
If you have a problem understanding yourself, others, and life, who is sufficient for understanding people and life if not the Creator? It’s as if Paul says,
“Okay, you could try to understand the creature by the creature, or, you could turn to the Creator to understand the creature.”
Since “all things were created by him and for him” (Colossians 1:16); turn to Him.
And it’s as if Paul says, “Is your life falling apart? Do you feel like you’re coming unglued? Then turn to the One in whom ‘all things hold together’” (Colossians 1:17).
It’s also as if Paul says, “You want to know how relationships work? Then turn to the Eternal Community of Oneness—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Paul describes it beautifully in Colossians 1:13 when he speaks of the Father bringing us into the kingdom “of the Son he loves.”
Before God created, what was He doing? This vital question exposes the vital quest in the human soul created in the image of God.
Before God created; He related.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (John 1:1). The Trinity always enjoys the sheer delight of eternal, unbroken communion, connection, and community. Their love teaches us how to love—even in a broken world.
Creation: The Way Things Were Meant to Be
In describing the Creator, Paul teaches us about creation and the creature—about us. We were not made to live for ourselves or by ourselves. All things, especially image bearers, were made “for him” (Colossians 1:16). All things, especially image bearers, were made to be dependent upon Him—“in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
What a perfect picture of the Garden—Adam and Eve as dependent worshipping beings living in a perfect paradise where everything is held together—shalom, peace, oneness, wholeness, holiness, health, unity. No separation, division, shame, fear, mixed motives, or false love.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit did not need to create, did not need us, did not need anything (Colossians 1:19—the Trinity is infinitely full and complete). Not only is our salvation by loving grace-gift (“God so loved the world that He gave—John 3:16), even our very creation is a loving grace-gift from our Trinitarian God who chose to invite us into relationship with their Divine community. The essence of life is not only relational, it is a certain type of relational living—mutual self-giving, self-sacrificing, other-centered living.
In the flow of God’s grand narrative, Paul’s Creation narrative teaches us how we were meant to live life with God and each other. His other-centered worldview guides us in unique directions when we seek to help Ashley and Nate answer central life questions like,
“What does it look like to live a whole life in a broken world? What is the purpose of life?”
Fall: Not the Way Things Are Supposed to Be
Tragically, it all fell apart when Adam and Eve attempted to live life apart from the Creator of life. As a result of their rebellion, they moved from other-centered, dependent God-worshippers experiencing shalom to self-centered, independent self-worshippers experiencing shame. Paul captures it in a sentence. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” (Colossians 1:21).
As a loving soul shepherd, Paul speaks the truth to the Colossians and to us. He informs us that apart from Christ our wills are bent only toward Satan’s sub-version of God’s grand narrative because our minds are under “the dominion of darkness” (Colossians 1:13).
We can trace every inch and each ounce of separation, shame, sadness, and selfishness to Adam and Eve’s willful choice to choose Satan’s counsel over God’s counsel—to choose Satan over God. The Colossians were facing that same choice. It is the choice we and our counselees face every day—to whose counsel will we commit our hearts and minds?
Since the Fall, life is not just one grand narrative—it is a competition between two grand narratives that each vie for our attention and commitment. As we’ll see in chapter five, Satan’s grand narrative is filled with lies, self (self-sufficiency, selfishness, self-effort), works, and condemnation while Christ’s grand narrative is filled with truth, God (Christ-sufficiency), others, (other-centered), faith, grace, and forgiveness.
How we respond to Ashley and Nate’s plea for help and hope depends upon how we answer the question: “Where do we find wisdom for life in a broken world?” Throughout God’s Word, He invites us to make a choice between two clear paths—the path of wisdom or the path of folly. Gospel-centered counseling seeks to follow humbly the wisdom path of Christ’s grand grace/gospel narrative rather than arrogantly following the foolish path of Satan’s grand works/condemnation narrative. Our imaginations are held captive to Satan’s lying, condemning narrative (2 Corinthians 10:4-7). Gospel-centered counseling is part of God’s frontal assault on mindsets surrendered to secular stories—the wisdom of the world.
The Rest of the Story
Joy us for Part 4, where we explore:
- Act III: Redemption—Eternity Invades Time
- Act IV: Church—In the Fullness of Time
- Epilogue: Consummation—After the End/Eternity Future
Join the Conversation
From the first three aspects of the CCFRCC Narrative, what one principle in each “act” in the drama of redemption stands out to you as most important to your life and ministry?
- Community: Before the Beginning/Eternity Past
- Creation: In the Beginning
- Fall: The End of the Beginning
Notes
[i]Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, 1.
[ii]Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ equips you in this process of relating God’s story to our life stories. It provides practical, hands-on instruction and equipping in developing twenty-two biblical counseling relational competencies—the art and skill of soul care.
