What Should Biblical Counselors Do with Secular Counseling?
In a recent blog post here at RPM Ministries’ Truth & Love blog site, I shared 6 Words Describing What Jay Adams and Nouthetic Counseling Do with Secular Psychology. I drew this post from an interview that David Powlison did with Jay Adams and John Bettler on the 25th anniversary of the launch of the modern nouthetic counseling movement.[i]
In the course of their discussion, Adams, Bettler, and Powlison suggest 6 “R” words that can label what nouthetic counselors do with secular psychology:
- Recycle It
- Reinterpret It
- Reshape It
- Reconcile It
- Redeem It
- Recast It
What Did Martin Luther Do with Worldly Counsel?
This reminded me of how Martin Luther “re-narrates” worldly counsel. I’ve written two publications on Martin Luther’s counseling.
- My Book, Published by New Growth Press: Counseling Under the Cross: How Martin Luther Applied the Gospel to Daily Life
- My Ph.D. Dissertation: Spiritual Care in Historical Perspective: Martin Luther as a Case Study in Christian Sustaining, Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding
Today, I’ll use my book and dissertation to highlight one example of how:
Martin Luther redeems a worldly narrative that was prominent and popular in his day by using the Christ-centered narrative of Scripture to “re-narrate” this worldly perspective with the Word’s perspective.
Luther Ministers Spiritual Care to a Political Leader
In 1519, the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise was stricken with a serious illness. His court feared for his life. Frederick’s chaplain, George Spalatin, suggested that Martin Luther prepare some writings of spiritual comfort for Frederick. Indebted to the Elector for protection against his enemies, Luther felt a special sense of obligation to comply with Spalatin’s suggestion and penned “The Fourteen Consolations: For Those Who Labor and Are Heavy-Laden” (LW, Vol. 42, pp. 119-166).
Luther Redeems a Worldly Mythical Narrative with the Word’s Spiritual Meta-Narrative
Here’s the fascinating part. Luther derived the structure, focus, and outline of his writing from a cult popular in medieval Germany.
According to the legend behind the cult, a Franconian shepherd in 1446 had a vision of the Christ Child surrounded by 14 saints. In the course of time, the 14 saints acquired names and each became identified as a protector against a specific disease. Luther devised 14 consolations arranged in the form of 14 frescos or altar screens similar to the altar screens depicting the 14 saints (LW, Vol. 42, p. 119).
Luther’s altar screens had a specific purpose and method. His purpose was to bring “spiritual consolation to uplift and strengthen the pious heart” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 123) to trust in God’s love and good purposes in suffering.
Luther’s method was to use spiritual screens, images, portraits, pictures and thoughts to enable people to contemplate suffering from a new, divine perspective (pp. 123-124).
“Luther thus effects a literary altar screen, the first panel or section of which is devoted to the contemplation of seven evils; the second, to the contemplation of seven blessings which God’s grace bestows upon the faithful believer” (p. 119).
Luther used this literary device in counseling Frederick to consider suffering from the viewpoint of a biblical theme, story line, or meta-narrative that could alter his perspective on suffering.
Mind Renewal Through the Renewal of Our Faith Perspective
Luther believed that how a person viewed life made all the difference in life.
“The Holy Spirit knows that a thing only has such value and meaning to a man as he assigns it in his thoughts” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 124).
So Luther sought to help people in suffering reshape their perspective, interpretation, or narrative of their life situation. Luther saw faith as the divine perspective on life from which a platform could be erected to respond to suffering (LW, Vol. 42, p. 133).
Strohl (1989) examined the Fourteen Consolations in detail and summarized how Luther rooted his approach to soul care in nurturing alternative ways to view life.
This whole treatise is concerned with what one sees. It presents fourteen images for contemplation, and their purpose is to renew our sight. The consolation offered by the Word is a new vision, the power of faith to see suffering and death from the perspective of the crucified and risen Lord. It turns our common human view of these matters upside down, lifting us as Luther puts it, above our evils and our blessings, making them res indifferentes. This does not eradicate the pain or the fear of our misery, but it robs it of its hopelessness (p. 179).
The words that Luther chose in writing to Frederick demonstrated the value he attached to changing people’s perspective, interpretation, and narrative of events. He urged the Elector to:
- “be mindful” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 126),
- “remember, meditate, ponder” (p. 131),
- “comfort yourself by the remembering of God’s works” (p. 132),
- “perceive the blessings of Christ” (p. 147), and
- “try to attain to the knowledge and love of this blessing” (p. 149).
Luther selected similar words when he explained how to change perspective:
- “if we consider this (the broader rule and plan of God) rightly, we shall see how greatly we are favored by God” (p. 135),
- “we thus see that all our suffering is nothing when we consider and ponder the afflictions of men” (p. 139),
- “oh, if we could only see the heart of Christ as he was suspended from the cross, anguishing to make death contemptible and dead for us” (p. 143),
- “this (delighting in suffering) will come to pass if this image (of Christ’s resurrection) finds its way into our heart and abides in the innermost affections of our mind. This is the first panel” (p. 145).
Luther focused on changing the faith perspective because he believed:
“If only a man could see his God in such a light of love . . . how happy, how calm, how safe he would be! He would then truly have a God from whom he would know with certainty that all his fortunes—whatever they might be—had come to him and were still coming to him under the guidance of God’s most gracious will” (p. 154).
When life is bad, Satan tempts us to doubt God’s goodness. The Christ of the cross reminds us that God is good even when life is bad.
Mind Renewal Through the Biblical Narrative Renewal
Summarizing his method, Luther wrote:
“By means of such splendid symbols the mercy of God shows us in our infirmity that even though death should not be taken away, its power has been reduced by him to a mere shadow” (p. 150).
Luther wanted Frederick’s non-faith or earth-bound, human story of suffering to give way to God’s narrative of life and suffering.
“He who does not believe that he is forgiven by the inexhaustible riches of Christ’s righteousness is like a deaf man hearing a story. If we considered it properly and with an attentive heart, this one image—even if there were no other—would suffice to fill us with such comfort that we should not only not grieve over our evils, but should also glory in our tribulations, scarcely feeling them for the joy that we have in Christ” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 165).
Luther encouraged Frederick to consider a new way of looking at life.
“All that remains is for us now to pray that our eyes, that is the eyes of our faith, may be opened that we may see. Then there will be nothing for us to fear” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 163).
Luther taught the Elector that it was not what happened to him that mattered most, but how he framed what happened to him.
“And it is equally true that we measure, feel, or do not feel our evils not on the basis of the facts, but on the basis of our thoughts and feelings about them” (p. 127).
The Sufficiency of Scripture’s Meta-Narrative
Here’s the key. In the preface to his letter to Frederick, Luther contrasted scriptural consolation with the consolation popular in his day.
“The Fourteen Consolations are to replace the fourteen saints whom our superstition has invented and called ‘The Defenders Against All Evils.’ Now this is a spiritual (scriptural) screen and not made of silver” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 123).
Luther believed that the Scriptures were the context for realigning our faith perspective.
Luther expressed his high view of Scripture even more forcefully in his introduction to The Fourteen Consolations.
“In speaking of the consolations which Christians have, the Apostle Paul in Romans 15:4 writes, ‘Brethren, whatever was written, was written for our instruction, so that through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.’ In this passage Paul plainly teaches us that our consolations are to be drawn from the Holy Scriptures” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 124).
Luther taught that the Bible provides God’s story of and explanation for the human condition. Thus the Bible was his source book for developing a faith perspective concerning suffering. He felt so strongly about this that he quoted or referred to Scripture no less than 169 times in his 45-page letter to Frederick.
The Focus of Scripture’s Meta-Narrative: The Cross of Christ
If the Scriptures were Luther’s main text, then the Gospels of Christ were his theme text for renewing a faith perspective. Specifically, when Luther conceptualized his Christian view of suffering, he focused on the suffering of Christ on the cross (McGrath, 1990, p. 1).
The events of life made no sense to Luther apart from Christ’s death on the cross “on behalf of sinners” (Althaus, 1966, p. 173). The Christian must suffer, because Christ also suffered.
“Did Christ not offer himself? It is true that he offered himself on the cross for every one of us who believes in him. But by this very act he at the same time also offers us, so that it is necessary for all those who believe in him to suffer too and to be put to death according to the flesh, as happened in this case” (LW, Vol. 30, p. 111).
According to Luther, Christ is so connected to the Christian in suffering that He literally suffers with the believer. Luther wrote to Frederick,
“Thus, Most Illustrious Prince, since I saw that your Lordship has been stricken with a grave illness and that Christ also is sick in you, I have deemed it my duty to visit your Lordship with this little writing. I cannot pretend that I do not hear the voice of Christ as it cries to me out of your Lordship’s body and flesh, saying, ‘Look, I am sick.’ Such evils as sickness and the like are borne not by us Christians, but by Christ himself, our Lord and Saviour, in whom we live” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 122).
Luther saw Christ suffering everything the Christian suffered. Rather than viewing Christ as uncaring, Luther saw Christ as the Son of God who cared so much that He felt His children’s infirmities.
Luther wanted to help Frederick to understand that the death of Christ for him and the suffering of Christ with him could change Frederick’s perspective, his narrative of life, and his interpretation of suffering.
“How does this come to pass? Surely, it comes to pass when you hear that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, has by his most holy touch consecrated and hallowed all sufferings, even death itself, has blessed the curse, and has glorified shame and enriched poverty so that death is now a door to life, the curse a fount of blessing, and shame the mother of glory. Suffering has been touched and bathed by Christ’s pure and holy flesh and blood and thus have become holy, harmless, and wholesome, blessed, and full of joy for you. There is nothing, not even death, that his passion cannot sweeten” (LW, Vol. 42, pp. 141-142).
Luther urged Frederick to not “fail to perceive” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 162) the implications of Christ’s passion. He counseled the Elector that in his pain and suffering he should turn to the image of Christ,
“firmly believing and certain that it is not we alone, but Christ and the church who are in pain and are suffering and dying with us” (p. 163).
In very practical terms, Luther explained how to nurture the faith perspective that God is good even when life is bad.
He believed that “the Christ of the cross” (LW, Vol. 42, p. 162) was the only Person who could make sense of life when suffering came; the only One who could enable the sufferer to believe by faith that God is good even when times are evil.
Applications for the Counselor and for the Counselee
How do biblical counselors redeem worldly thinking?
In order to use the Bible competently in biblical counseling, we must help people view life through the lens of Christ’s gospel victory narrative.
How do each of us as Christians deal with the trials and temptations that come when suffering enters our lives?
When life is bad, we defeat satanic doubts about God’s goodness by facing our suffering face-to-face with God in the face of Christ.
Notes
[i]David Powlison. “25 Years of Biblical Counseling: An Interview with Jay Adams and John Bettler Conducted by David Powlison.” The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Vol XII, Number 1, Fall 1993: 8-13.
