A Word from Bob 

You’re reading a guest post by Jason Kovacs. Jason is responding to an article by Greg Gifford in a recent edition of ACBC’s Journal of Biblical Soul Care. You can read Greg’s article here:

“I’m a Biblically-Informed Psychologist”: Is Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling Really Just Integrationism?

You can read some of my reflections on and responses to Greg’s article here:

Are Greg Gifford and ACBC Really the Sufficient Standard for Who Is a Biblical Counselor?

Jason’s Bio 

Jason serves as the Executive Director of the Gospel Care Collective—a ministry that provides counseling, certification, and consulting for individuals, couples, and churches in the US, Canada, and worldwide. He specializes in marriage, parenting, trauma, depression, anger, anxiety, addiction, stress, adoption related issues, and work related struggles. Jason received his Masters from Reformed Theological Seminary.

Jason also has specialized training in trauma care through TBRI® and is a member of the Association of Biblical Counselors. He has the privilege of serving on the Council of the Biblical Counseling Coalition, and the board of the Canadian Biblical Counseling Coalition, as well as an adjunct professor, teaching Biblical Counseling, at Heritage Theological Seminary and Millar College of the Bible.

Jason has been married for over twenty years to Shawnda and has five children. They reside in Southern California.

5 Clarifications

The folks at ACBC recently put out the Fall 2025 volume of the Journal of Biblical Soul Care. This latest edition covers the Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling (CIBC) movement, generational trauma, and the role of common grace.

I want to briefly correct a few mischaracterizations that appear in Greg Gifford’s article, “I’m a Biblically-Informed Psychologist”: Is Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling Really Just Integrationism? In the article, Gifford asserts that I am not a biblical counselor, that I “implement secular psychological methods”, and he places Gospel Care Collective on an integration continuum based on our supposed amenability to secular psychology.

Here are a few clarifications…

Clarification #1: Gospel-Centered Biblical Counseling—GCBC 

I do not use the term CIBC or claim to formally be “CIBC”. I use the terms “gospel-centered, clinically-informed, church-based, mission-focused” to define my model of Biblical Counseling. It just gets a little awkward and cumbersome to say I’m a GCCICBMFBC.

I believe the order is important and in my brief writings I have been very clear as to what is foundational. The gospel and the Person of Christ (His Word and His work) are the source and authority by which my philosophy and practice/methods of Biblical counseling is built from. This is contrary to Gifford’s claim that “CIBC undoubtedly uses the Bible, but not as the source of counseling.”

Clarification #2: Scriptural Spectacles as the Interpretive Authority

The article assumes that I use secular psychological methods. In reality, I pursue learning from those with expertise in fields like trauma, child development, and neuroscience because common grace means unbelievers can observe true things about God’s world. Some of my training I received working in the adoption/foster care field where we observe some of the most devastating impacts of trauma and suffering on embodied souls.

I do not adopt common grace observations uncritically—they drive me back to Scripture to assess, refine, or reject them. When appropriate, I may utilize certain evidence-based techniques or interventions, but always re-adapted and subordinated to a biblical framework and methodology that keeps God’s Word as the interpretive authority and engine of change.

Clarification #3: Scripture as the Comprehensive Lens

I view Scripture as the comprehensive lens that defines what a human being is, what has gone wrong, how change happens, and what real health looks like. The article argues that what we are doing is essentially integrationism or close enough to it that we should just be honest and admit that is what we really are.

This is a loaded term within the biblical counseling world and in practice it is an approach that typically: 1) grants psychology interpretive authority, 2) uses Scripture as a supplement, and 3) mixes competing worldviews. What we are doing is the opposite of integrationism as I define it here.

Clarification #4: The Sufficiency of Scripture  

Gifford’s critique is based entirely on a paragraph from my website and my bio and not any of my teaching or actual counseling approach. Nothing in the article demonstrates that I (or GCC) give secular theory authority to explain or change the human heart.

Any tool we find helpful is subordinated to and corroborates the sufficiency of Scripture—not blended into a new authority structure. I recognize that using resources in this way can be misunderstood as supplementing or competing with Scripture. This is a risk. I agree with Gifford that when secular theories become co-interpreters of the soul, the result is confusion and harm because the counsel offered no longer flows from the authority of God’s Word.

Clarification #5: God’s Word—The Exclusive and Sufficient Authority 

The Church has always used common grace wisdom in care. Puritans recognized medicine, habits, and community as part of embodied-soul care while still holding Scripture as the exclusive and sufficient authority for understanding human nature, sin, and redemption.

I view my approach to biblical counseling as following in this historic Reformed stream as well as in the footsteps of David Powlison. See in particular his article “Cure of Souls (and the Modern Psychotherapies”.

A Final Word 

I welcome rigorous critique—and even disagreement—but I hope future interaction will represent the actual substance of my beliefs and practice. These, along with others issues in this journal, are important and I am grateful they are being discussed.