Sharpening Our Focus 

Here’s the focus of today’s article-length post, presenting in question form:

1. As part of comprehensive, compassionate embodied-soul care, is relief-oriented care for the body sub-biblical?

2. What does the Bible say about the value of care for the whole person—the embodied-soul?

3. What does theological anthropology—the Bible’s teaching on the creation, fall, redemption, and consummation of human beings—teach about the necessity and legitimacy of whole person embodied-soul care?

4. What does the history of Christian soul care teach us about embodied-soul triage?

5. Are we soul physicians of souls, or are we soul physicians of embodied-souls?

6. Does whole person embodied-soul care legitimately include physiological interventions that provide relief-oriented care for the body?

Context: Is It Biblically Valid to Include Care and Counsel About and for the Immediate Relief of the Body? 

In the recent Rice Lectures discussion between Marshall Adkins and Brad Hambrick, by my count at least fifteen times the issue of “relief-oriented interventions” were highlighted. Hambrick and Adkins debated the validity of providing care and counsel for the immediate relief of the body—as part of comprehensive care and counsel for the whole person.

One side seemed to claim that:

• Addressing immediate relief minimizes the Bible’s emphasis on eternal and internal concerns. We are going outside our lane when we address the body. Our goal is progressive sanctification which is about the soul/heart.

Another side seemed to claim that:

• While we should focus on the whole person, while we should prioritize the inner person, it is also biblically legitimate to provide care and counsel for the body, and to engage in ministry that addresses immediate relief and ongoing help for the body.

A Shrunken, Sub-Biblical Vision of Biblical Ministry 

Here’s my conviction, based upon biblical, theological, and historical (church history) truths:

• Immediate relief is not sub-biblical.
• Denying or minimizing the legitimate category of immediate relief is sub-biblical.
• Biblical ministry has always been both/and: Both about the soul and body because we are embodied-souls. Both about ongoing progressive sanctification and about addressing immediate relief.

Some might counter,

“But that’s not biblical counseling. You’re describing overall ministry that goes beyond biblical counseling in an office!”

Yes. Agreed. So?

When a hurting person comes to me:

My primary identity is not, “I’m a biblical counselor.” 

My primary thought is not, “I have to stay within the lane of only talking about the soul?” 

My primary mindset is not, “I can only do ‘talk therapy.’ I can’t provide practical relief.”

Instead, when I’m ministering to a hurting person:

My primary identity is, “I am a servant of Christ and a brother in Christ.” 

My primary thought is, “Christ calls me to glorify Him as I minister to this person body and soul.” 

My primary mindset is, “I and the body of Christ/congregation are to be mobilized together to care for this person body and soul both in the area of ongoing progressive sanctification and in the area of crisis and ongoing care for their immediate needs.”  

In summary:

To suggest that pastoral care and counseling must only involve spoken ministry focused only on the soul is to imbibe the modern, professionalized, secular mindset of Western psychotherapy. 

The idea that biblical counseling only focuses on conversations about the heart is a shrunken version of biblical ministry that capitulates to a modernist, secular, psychotherapy model of talk therapy. 

Throughout the Bible, and throughout church history, pastors did not make some magical distinction between the ministry of the Word (pastoral counseling) and the everyday ministry of shepherding the whole person (pastoral care). Instead, they viewed every contact with a hurting sheep to be an opportunity to provide whole-person care. Their primary identity was “shepherd,” not “a counselor/therapist in an office.” 

For greater historical context, see the rest of this post. Also see: Modern Biblical Counseling Is a Shrunken Version of Historical Pastoral Care. 

It Is Biblical to Offer Immediate (and Ongoing) Physical Relief and Care: A Short Sampler 

It is not sub-biblical to offer physical relief as part of pastoral/congregational care and counseling. Here’s a brief sampler of biblical passages on Scripture’s call for comprehensive, compassionate care for the body—the embodied-soul.

• 560 Biblical Passages on the Embodied-Soul: The Bible has a comprehensive theological anthropology of the intricate, intimate, interrelated interaction between the body and soul. No one has ever ministered only to the soul because there is no such thing as a living disembodied soul. All biblical ministry is ministry to the whole person—body and soul. See: 560 Biblical Passages on the Embodied-Soul.
• 102 Gospel Passages; 618 Gospel Verses on Jesus and the Whole Person: Jesus ministered to the body. Jesus ministered to the whole person—the embodied-soul. Jesus came to heal the sin-sick soul. The Gospels also make abundantly and consistently clear that Jesus came to heal not only the spiritually sick, but also the physically sick. If you want to be a soul physician like Jesus, then be a soul physician of the embodied-soul. Don’t take my word for it. Take God’s Word for it. See: Jesus: Soul Physician of Embodied-Souls.
• 48 Gospel Passages on Bodily Rest: Jesus models the importance of relief and rest for the body. Jesus recognized, modeled, and taught the embodied necessity of rest, renewal, withdrawal, solitude, and sabbath. No matter how spiritually mature we are, our bodies are finite and frail, and we require embodied rest. For all 48 biblical passages, see: 48 Gospel Passages about Jesus and Embodied-Soul Renewal.
• 103 Biblical Passages; 432 Biblical Verses on the Body of Christ and Our Physical Body: The New Testament church never neglected or minimized ministry to the body. The New Testament church focused on comprehensive care for the body. If we want to be biblical counselors like the New Testament church, then we must care for and counsel about the body, not just the soul. See: The New Testament Church Regularly Provided Practical Care for and Counseling About the Body: 432 Verses from Acts to Revelation.
• Exodus 20:8-11; Leviticus 11, 13-15, 17, 21, 22; Numbers 5; 19; Deuteronomy 14, 23: The law addresses physical health, physical rest, and physiological interventions. True biblical counselors who counsel like the Bible and from the Bible will counsel about the embodied-soul.
• 1 Samuel 1:7-18; 16:15-16, 23; 1 Kings 19:3-9; Psalm 3:4-6; 4:8; 16:8-9; 34:5; 73:26; 131:2; Proverbs 3:1-2, 7-8, 15-18, 21-22; 4:4-6, 10-13; 9:11; 14:30; 17:22; Ecclesiastes 9:7-9: The Bible provides counsel about the impact of wise living on the embodied-soul. True biblical counselors who counsel like the Bible and from the Bible will counsel about the embodied-soul.
• 1 Kings 19:1-9: God responded to Elijah’s fear and depression with embodied ministry: food, drink, and rest. If we want to minister to suffering saints in ways that follow how God ministers to His children, then we will not minimize ministry to the body.
• Psalm 23:1-3: Our Shepherd cares for us body and soul. “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.”
• Proverbs 5:11-12, 23; 6:12-15; 8:35-36; 10:27; 14:30; 17:22; 20:1; 23:20-21, 29-35; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:18; Galatians 6:7-8: The Bible provides counsel about the impact of unwise living on the embodied-soul. True biblical counselors who counsel like the Bible and from the Bible will counsel about the embodied-soul.
• Jonah 4:6-9: God provides embodied ministry for angry Jonah. If we want to minister to sinning saints in ways that follow how God ministers to His children, then we will not minimize ministry to the body.
• Matthew 4:11; Mark 1:13; Luke 22:43: God provided physiological strengthening for Jesus in the Wilderness and in the Garden. Neither Jesus’s “It is written,” nor His “Your will be done,” eliminated His need for physical strengthening.
• Matthew 6:2-4: Jesus assumes that every disciple will engage in giving to the needy. Church history called this “almsdeeds.” “So when you give to the needy.” God will reward His children for meeting the immediate physical needs of their brothers and sisters.
• Matthew 6:11: Jesus teaches that the meeting of our immediate, daily physical needs is central to God’s nature and central to our God-dependence. “Give us today our daily bread.”
• Matthew 10:42: Ministering to the body is so important that Christ ties our eternal spiritual reward to our embodied ministry. “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
• Matthew 25:31-46: The Shepherd’s true sheep lovingly, gladly, humbly, and sacrificially offer embodied ministry. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
• Matthew 26:41: Jesus recognizes and takes into account the body’s role in our spirituality. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
• Matthew 26:36-39; Mark 14:36-39; Luke 22:44; John 12:27: Jesus suffered in Gethsemane as an embodied-soul. Jesus, in responding to the ultimate suffering of His impending crucifixion, had an intense embodied-soul response. He was sorrowful, troubled, deeply distressed, and His soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death (Matthew 26:36-39; Mark 14:32-38; John 12:27). Being in soul anguish, His sweat was like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). His reaction was a whole person comprehensive, complex body/soul response.
• Luke 10:25-37: The fruit of our salvation displays itself in mercy ministries. Jesus’s Parable of the Good Samaritan should forever silence the false idea that immediate relief ministry is sub-biblical or sub-Christian.
• 1 Timothy 4:8: The New Testament values bodily exercise and physical training, seeing them as profitable and useful during our time on earth. “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” Paul explicitly explains that physical care of the body has value in this life.
• 1 Timothy 5:23: The New Testament presents the validity of mentors recommending physical treatments and interventions for our embodied-soul. “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.” Paul’s biblical counsel includes a specific physiological intervention. He did not deem it irrelevant or unimportant or sub-biblical to counsel about the body.
• James 1:27: Spirituality that pleases the Father is embodied spirituality. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
• James 2:15-16: The Bible highlights the hypocrisy and futility of ignoring the relief of immediate physical needs. “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
• James 5:14: The New Testament commands pastors/elders to use the medicinal means and physical interventions current in their day. See Jay Adams’s interpretation and application of James 5:14.
• 1 John 3:16-18: The fruit of our salvation displays itself in meeting the immediate physical needs of our brothers and sisters. “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

Scripture does not frame these as “techniques,” or “interventions,” but as wise, relational, embodied ministries of comprehensive, compassionate care under God’s comforting providence.

True shepherds and true one-another ministers will never say,

“I’m just your counselor. I only take care of your soul.”

True shepherds and true one-another ministers say,

“I’m seeking to care like Christ by ministering to you compassionately and comprehensively as a whole person, as an embodied-soul.”

Soul physicians are not “operating outside their lane” when they minister physical care to embodied-souls.

It Is Theological to Offer Immediate (and Ongoing) Physical Relief and Care: A Short Sampler 

It is not sub-theological to offer physical relief as part of pastoral/congregational care and counseling. Here’s a brief sampler of theological truths about comprehensive, compassionate care for the body—the embodied-soul. The Bible provides a Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation (CFRC) theology of the embodied-soul.

• Theological Anthropology and the Embodied-Soul: God fearfully and wonderfully designed us as a comprehensive, complex unity of body/soul—embodied-soul—inseparably and intimately intertwined and intricately linked with a continual interaction, interconnection, and mutual ongoing effect flowing bidirectionally between our body/soul. All true ministry is always embodied-soul ministry.
• Theological Anthropology and the Anatomy of the Embodied-Soul: God designed us relational (spiritual, social, self-aware) beings, as rational beings, as volitional beings, as emotional beings, and as physical beings. True biblical ministry ministers to the whole person—soul/body. In the rest of this section, we’ll identify biblical theological truth about the Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation (CFRC) of the embodied-soul.
• Genesis 1:26-28 (Creation): God called us to be His under-shepherds/under-scientists who rule over His physical creation.
• Genesis 1:31 (Creation): God calls our embodiment “very good.”
• Genesis 2:7 (Creation): God designed us so that body and soul are inseparably intertwined.
• Psalm 51; Romans 6:1-14; 1 Corinthians 6:13-17 (Fall): We sin as embodied-souls.
• Matthew 5:29-30 (Redemption): We are to steward our bodies in holiness.
• Matthew 6:19-23 (Creation): God’s all-sufficient Word teaches that both “heart” and “body” represent the whole person. This is why Jesus when discussing storing up treasures (Matthew 6:19-20), uses both the “heart” (Matthew 6:21) and the “body” (Matthew 6:22-23) to illustrate the essence of the whole person.
• Romans 6:12 (Redemption): God commands us not to let sin reign in our bodies.
• Romans 6:13 (Redemption): God commands us to yield the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness.
• Romans 8:18-27 (Fall/Consummation): Because we live in fallen, finite bodies in a fallen, sinful world, our embodied-souls will continue to groan our entire lives until glorification. While we can, in Christ, experienced progressive embodied-soul healing in this life, our final healing awaits our future glorification (Romans 7:25; Romans 8:18-27; 1 Thessalonians 5:23).
• Romans 12:1-2 (Redemption): Our sanctification is embodied. We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is our true and proper worship.
• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (Redemption): Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are to glorify God with our bodies and through the stewardship of our bodies.
• 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (Redemption): Our sanctification is embodied. We are to discipline our bodies.
• 1 Corinthians 10:31 (Redemption): Our daily physical lives are an opportunity to glorify God in even the seemingly most “mundane” and material/physical of activities—like glorifying God through our eating and drinking.
• 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 (Consummation): The Bible repeatedly insists that our final glorification will not involve disembodied spirits but rather, embodied-souls.
• 2 Corinthians 1:8-9; 2 Corinthians 4:7-10; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (Fall/Redemption): The New Testament illustrates the ongoing impact of suffering on our embodied-soul. We are jars of clay. While our inner person can find rest in the Lord, our outer person will always fight an ongoing battle with the impact of sin and suffering on our embodied-soul.
• 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (Fall/Redemption): The New Testament teaches the relationship between our bodily weakness, our emotional/spiritual weakness, and Christ’s grace and strength.
• Galatians 2:20 (Redemption): It is in the life we now live in the body through which we live by faith in the Son of God.
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 (Redemption): Our sanctification includes learning how to control our bodies in a way that is holy and honorable.
• 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (Redemption/Consummation): Our embodied-soul is vital in our present sanctification and in our future glorification. “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”
• Revelation 7:17; Revelation 21:4; Revelation 22:1-5; John 16:33; 1 Corinthians 15:50-57 (Fall/Redemption/Consummation): While we can experience peace in Christ, in this world we will have trouble and trauma (John 16:33) that leads to emotional and physical distress (Revelation 7:17; Revelation 21:4) until that future day when all suffering and sorrow, decay and death, are swept away forever (1 Corinthians 15:50-57; Revelation 22:1-5).

Biblical care and counseling that is theologically-saturated will provide both for the ongoing progressive sanctification needs of the person and for their immediate relief needs—including physical, material, embodied needs.

Church History Sampler #1: “Food Before Talk” 

And what does church history say?

Thomas Oden, in Classical Pastoral Care, Vol. 4, highlights the biblical-historical practice of “immediate relief for those in immediate need” (146). Speaking of the interplay of counsel for the soul and biblical care for the body, Oden writes,

“The first need of the seriously malnourished is food. Food comes before talk” (146).

Oden then documents this reality from church history.

“If your brother should be weak—I speak of the poor man—do not visit empty-handed such a person as he lies ill. . .. God Himself cries out: Break your bread with the needy.

There is no need to visit with words, but with benefits. It is unthinkable that your brother should be sick through lack of food. Do not try to satisfy him with words. He needs food and drink” (Commodianus, Instructions, ch. Lxxi, ANF IV, p. 217, page 146 in Oden).

Oden explains:

“Commodianus in the second century was relying upon a widely available tradition of preaching and care that preceded him. It still remains a key principle of pastoral priorities in care of the poor: bread for the needy must precede talk, and talk cannot be a substitute for bodily sustenance” (Oden, 146).

Perhaps we could encapsulate it like this:

Physical therapy before talk therapy.

Practical embodied ministry provides grounding for the personal ministry of the Word.

Church History Sampler #2: “Bootless Counsel” 

Oden explains that biblically and historically, “the care of the soul does not take place in a temporal vacuum” (153). I would add:

The care of the soul does not take place in an embodied vacuum. We are soul physicians of embodied-souls who meet the immediate, temporal, physical relief needs of people as we engage with them about their ongoing progressive sanctification needs. 

Valerian, writing sometime before 460 AD, explains the “cruel piety” of “bootless counsel” that ignores immediate embodied needs. 

“What does it profit to bewail another man’s shipwreck if you take no care of his body which is suffering from exposure? Or what good does it do to torture your soul with grief over another’s wound, if you refuse him a health-giving cup? These flattering remarks do not feed the hungry man; those bootless counsels do not clothe another’s nakedness. What good does it do to apply soft poultices to an indigent man, if you will not give a bit of food to one on the point of dying from hunger? What kind of mercy is that, in which you desire the man to live, but are unwilling to save him in his need? Clearly, that piety is a cruel one which knows how to grieve over the wretched, but does not know how to help those about to perish” (Valerian, Homilies, Hom. 7, sec. 5, FC 17, p. 349, page 153 in Oden, emphasis added).

It is sinful and cruel to provide counselor empathy for the soul but then ignore the bodily needs of that hurting person. We might paraphrase Valerian:

“What does it profit to bewail a person’s soul anxiety if you take no care of his body which is suffering from anxiety? Bootless counsel addresses the soul but minimizes the body.”

Church History Sampler #3: “A Multi-Lane Highway”

Oden summarized his historical research with these words:

“…counseling ministry and ministry to the poor were viewed as integrated, inseparable tasks” (Oden, 144).

I might paraphrase Oden like this:

Do not shrink historical pastoral embodied-soul care down to secular, modernistic professionalized office counseling.

As Oden explains, based upon his research into the history of Christian pastoral care and counseling:

“A significant amount of the pastor’s time will be given to caring for the sick. In reaching out for the physically ill, the pastor shares directly in Jesus’s own ministry. According to the parable of the Last Judgment (Matt. 25), Christ is present incognito in the sick. In caring for the sick, one in effect cares for Christ’s living body” (Oden, 26).

Historic pastoral/congregational care was holistic, unlike modern professionalized, office-based counseling—which is often unbiblically focused only on the soul, rather than on the whole person—the embodied-soul.

Historically, pastors “saw their lane” as a multi-lane highway of meeting whatever need the person had—physical and/or spiritual—typically both.

Church History Sampler #4: “Physicians of the Soul as Physicians of the Body” 

In the following section, note that I am not suggesting that pastors or counselors today usurp the role of physicians. Instead, I am documenting that throughout church history pastors often provided significant physical care through physiological interventions. This was done both out of necessity—the lack of trained physicians, and out of theological conviction—the belief that comprehensive ministry addresses the whole person: body/soul.

In Depression, Anxiety, and the Christian Life: Practical Wisdom from Richard Baxter, J. I. Packer entitles his Introduction, “Richard Baxter, Spiritual Physician.” Packer explains that Baxter was not only a “physician of souls” (22), but he also acted as a physician of bodies because the town lacked a doctor. Though not trained, “Baxter had evidently gained a good deal of medical knowledge from living with his own sickliness” (22).

Packer explains that Baxter knew “that each human being is a psychophysical unit, in which body and the mind, though distinct, are currently inseparable, and either may make its mark functionally on the other, for better and for worse” (27). Packer then describes how Baxter saw depression (“melancholy”) as a disease of the embodied-soul, and treated it as an “amateur physician.”

“One problem here, whereby physical factors led to a measure of mental imbalance, was what Puritans labeled melancholy. The word melancholy, which nowadays is a simple synonym for sadness, was in the seventeenth century a technical medical term. It comes from two Greek words meaning ‘black bile.’ Baxter’s observant, analytical mind, which fitted him to function as an amateur physician, equipped him to focus and describe melancholy with precision” (27-28).

While Packer describes Baxter as a “soul physician” of embodied-souls, Michael Lundy, MD, describes Pastor Baxter as “shepherd of soul and body” (36).

“Baxter lived a double life…. Baxter was an ordained pastor who also, out of necessity, served as a lay physician” (36).

Baxter sought to “reduce the unhelpful and often unwarranted segregation of the body and soul, medical and pastoral, theological and psychological” (37).

Notice how Baxter understands the biblical truth of embodied-souls, addresses the tendency for Christians to diminish the role of the body, and provides biblical correctives to this imbalance.

“For Baxter, there was no conflict between body and soul, though he would not dispute that there was very often a real and practical tension—or imbalance—between them. But one gathers that encounters with either disembodied souls or soulless but still-living bodies were alien to Baxter’s thought and practice. He had an appreciation of the tendency in his own day for patients to emphasize the soul over the body. His counsel is a directive and effective correction to those tendencies which, while ancient, continue to this very day and still need to be countered” (41).  

“What emerges in Baxter’s material is a curious and compelling mixture of sound Christian doctrines and general holistic medical principles” (51-52).

Puritan pastor Richard Baxter served in the dual role of physician of the soul and physician of the body because of his theology of embodied-souls:

“Baxter wrote about the care of the soul and the care of the body as if they were indivisible if not indistinguishable components of the same person. He actually wasn’t trying to unite two divided parts of the person but saw the soul and body together clearly as the person. His writing and advice reflect that” (41).

Rather than being outside the norm, Thomas Oden argues there is great precedence in church history for soul physicians to also serve as body physicians. Speaking of pastors “caring for the whole person,” Oden writes about Church of England minister, George Herbert (1593-1633). “In that time many folk-medical functions were actually taken care of by pastors within the bounds of their own parish” (Classical Pastoral Care, Vol. 3, Pastoral Counsel, 55).

Herbert described his pastoral ministry to the body of parishioners with these words:

“If there be any of his flock sick, he is their physician. It is easy for any scholar to attain to such a measure of physics [the practice of rudimentary medicine], as may be of much use to him, both for himself and others.” Herbert even lists four medical texts that he recommends every pastor should read. (George Herbert, CP, Ch. XXIII, CWS, pp. 88-89, page 55 in Oden.)

Oden summarizes Herbert’s thinking: “Every pastor should have sufficient knowledge of diet, herbs, and simple serviceable remedies” (Oden, 55). Oden then explains that soul physicians have often also taken on the role of basic physiological interventions for the body. “This has very old precedence in the Christian tradition” (55).

What implications might we draw from this historic reality today?

• Historically, pastors built their comprehensive whole-person ministry on a theological anthropology that understood people as embodied-souls.
• Historically, pastors applied their theology of embodied-souls to their ministry by being quite comfortable providing basic embodied care to their parishioners: non-medical physiological interventions.

Church History Sampler #5: CCEF—“Take a Deep Breath”

What have David Powlison and his CCEF colleagues taught about the validity of physiological interventions like deep breathing exercises as a part of comprehensive biblical counseling? We find one significant answer to that question in The Journal of Biblical Counseling, 32:3 from 2018, both in David Powlison’s editorial, Slow Growth, and in Todd Stryd’s article, “Take a Deep Breath”— How Counseling Ministry Addresses the Body.  

Throughout his article, Stryd consistently affirms the biblical validity of carefully incorporating deep breathing exercises into a comprehensive embodied-soul approach to biblical counseling. What does Powlison think of Stryd’s conclusions and recommendations?

At the time of Stryd’s article, Powlison served as the Executive Director of CCEF and as the Editor of the Journal of Biblical Counseling. In his Editorial, Slow Growth, Powlison outlines eight “significant growth points” that had emerged over the first fifty years of the modern biblical counseling movement under the dual leadership of Jay Adams and John Bettler. Powlison then segues into his introduction of current issue of The Journal of Biblical Counseling, having this to say about Todd Stryd and the other authors of articles in that issue.

“As we finish out our 50^th year of ministry, we are happy to offer some of the fruit of that slow, maturing growth. I am delighted that all of the Featured Articles in this issue are written by the up-and-coming generation of biblical counselors at CCEF” (9-10).

Notice what Powlison does here. He identifies Stryd’s article on the legitimacy of deep breathing exercises in biblical counseling as among “the fruit of the slow, maturing growth” of the foundational work done by Jay Adams and John Bettler. Rather than being contrary to nouthetic biblical counseling, Powlison sees deep breathing exercises as a sign of continued positive growth in the biblical counseling movement.

Powlison, who had final editorial control over what was written in The Journal of Biblical Counseling, then summarizes and affirms Stryd’s article on deep breathing exercises as a legitimate physiological intervention in biblical counseling.

“Speaking of stress and anxiety, what about adults? How do we help them? Is it OK to teach breathing techniques as part of helping people calm their bodies when they experience extreme stress? In his article, ‘Take a Deep Breath’—How Counseling Ministry Addresses the Body, Todd Stryd explores the place that breathing techniques can have in a Christian’s care and ministry. He shows how and why a counselor might make a breathing exercise part of biblical counseling with a distressed person” (11, emphasis added).

For Powlison, the incorporation of deep breathing exercises were part of the positive, necessary “slow growth” of the biblical counseling movement’s competency to address embodied-soul care.

Stryd’s article is not an anomaly in the CCEF/JBC universe.

Mike Emlet: In 2024, in the JBC 38:2 edition, Dr. Mike Emlet, long-time colleague of Powlison at CCEF, wrote, A Biblical Rationale for Embodied Spiritual Practices. As the title suggests, throughout his article Emlet develops a biblical theology for embodied care, and specifically affirms the use of interventions such as deep breathing exercises and grounding exercises, as one part of comprehensive, whole-person care for embodied-souls. I interact with this article here: Of Course Biblical Counselors Counsel About the Body.

Ed Welch: In the 2019 JBC 33:2 edition, Dr. Ed Welch, long-time colleague of Powlison at CCEF, wrote, Trauma and the Body: An Introduction to Three Books. In his article, Welch provides a selective summary of the most relevant information from three secular trauma texts by Bessel van der Kolk, Judith Herman, and Antonio Damasio “so that we can both learn from the authors’ careful research and think Christianly about non-Christian literature.”

For additional Christian resources on comprehensive embodied-soul care, physiological interventions, and relief-oriented care, see: Should Biblical Counselors Counsel About the Body?: 32 Resources.

Church History Sampler #6: NANC/ACBC and Physiological Interventions: Adams, Somerville, Eyrich, and Berg

The use of physiological interventions is also not an anomaly in nouthetic biblical counseling. Consider these examples from Jay Adams, Bob Somerville, Howard Eyrich, and Jim Berg.

Jay Adams: Jay Adams used extra-biblical research, including Harvard sleep studies, to minister to the whole person, including prescribing pastoral counsel that included physiological interventions—relief-oriented care and counseling. See: Jay Adams on Embodied-Souls, Trauma, Neuroscience, Sanctification, and Physical Interventions.

Bob Somerville: ACBC Fellow and professor of biblical counseling at The Master’s University, Dr. Bob Somerville, in his own life, and in his counsel from his book about his own depression, ministered to the whole person, including prescribing pastoral counsel that included physiological interventions—relief-oriented care and counseling for the embodied-soul.[i] See: When a Biblical Counselor Battles Depression: Robert Somerville.

Howard Eyrich: ACBC Fellow, and professor of biblical counseling at Birmingham Theological Seminary, Dr. Howard Eryich, addressed extra-biblical methods in his online e-book, Hearing the Critics, Answering the Critics, and Taking Up Leadership. Eyrich engages with Dr. Sarah Rainer about integration of Christianity and psychology. He quotes Rainer:

“Helping a child with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder organize their school supplies, explaining and modeling the appropriate use of time-out to parents, challenging negative thoughts, and teaching diaphragmatic breathing, are some examples of secular techniques that do not challenge Scripture-based psychology. As Christian psychologists, we should teach, provide, preach, and pray, just like Jesus” (emphasis added).

In his response, Eyrich discusses his view of these interventions—including teaching diaphragmatic breathing. He writes:

“There is nothing in this set of interventions that is psychology dependent. I have lay counselors, who have no psychological training, who work with students and families utilizing similar techniques drawn from their knowledge of the Bible and a commonsense application of love. These are techniques that grow out of good theology/anthropology, the teachings of Jesus and the Wisdom literature. In fact, a good argument can be made that these techniques have been plagiarized by psychology from theology.”

So, diaphragmatic breathing is not “psychology dependent.” It can be “a commonsense application of love.” It can “grow out of good theology/anthropology, the teachings of Jesus and Wisdom literature.” “A good argument can be made” that techniques like diaphragmatic breathing “have been plagiarized by psychology from theology.”

Jim Berg: Dr. Jim Berg is a professor of biblical counseling at Bob Jones University, a Council Board member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition, an ACBC certified biblical counselor, and holds an addiction specialization with ACBC. In his biblical counseling book, Taking Time to Quiet Your Soul, he provides biblical counsel for someone battling stress, anxiety, and panic attacks. Berg provides a classic step-by-step deep breathing exercises as part of his comprehensive biblical counsel.

• “Inhale through your nose for two seconds, counting one one-thousand, two one-thousand. Be sure to fill up your lungs from the bottom by taking deep breaths; don’t just breathe from your chest. If you place your hands on your stomach, you should feel them rise and fall with each deep breath.
• Exhale slowly for four seconds counting one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand. Completely empty your lungs by contracting your stomach muscles.
• Repeat this slow inhale and slow exhale about ten times” (270).

Church History Sampler #7: Baxter, Rogers, and Spurgeon

For additional, detailed primary source documentation of whole person care—including the provision of physiological interventions for immediate relief—see the following three posts:

• Richard Baxter on Depression, Scrupulosity (OCD), and the Embodied-Soul: Baxter ministered to the whole person, including prescribing pastoral counsel that included physiological interventions—relief-oriented care and counseling.
• 6 Lessons from a Depressed Puritan Pastor: Timothy Rogers: Rogers ministered to the whole person, including prescribing pastoral counsel that included physiological interventions—relief-oriented care and counseling.
• Spurgeon’s Depression…And His Body/Brain/Embodied-Soul: Spurgeon ministered to the whole person, including prescribing pastoral counsel that included physiological interventions—relief-oriented care and counseling.

Answer: “No. Relief-Oriented Care and Counseling for the Body Is Not Sub-Biblical” 

Biblical, theological, and historical Christian care has always focused on the whole person, and engaged with them individually and congregationally in comprehensive, compassionate care that addressed their ongoing progressive sanctification issues and their immediate relief-oriented physical/material issues, including through physiological interventions. We are soul physicians of embodied-souls.

We can debate which physiological interventions are scientifically best/legitimate. We can debate which physiological interventions are biblically wisest/legitimate.

However, it is not “outside the lane” of a soul physician of embodied-souls to address the body and to provide physiological care—care for the body, including relief-oriented care and counsel for the body. It is biblically, theologically, and historically legitimate to provide care and counsel for the body, and to engage in ministry that contributes to immediate relief for the body.

Trying to Be More Biblical Than the Bible Is Actually Pharisaical, Idolatrous, and Unbiblical 

Some falsely claim that using physical means of relief is idolatrous and surrenders away the ministry of the Lord to created things. However, the Creator has given us all created things richly to enjoy and freely to use in thankfulness and dependence upon Him (1 Timothy 4:3-5; 1 Timothy 6:17).

It was not idolatry, but dependence that Elijah experienced when God used created things like food, drink, and rest to calm his fears and address his depression. It was not idolatry, but dependence that Timothy experienced when he used God-created wine for his stomach’s sake.

The same Jesus who invites the weary to come to Him for rest for their souls (Matthew 11:28-30), also invites His weary disciples to “come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” for their bodies (Mark 6:31-32; see also Luke 9:10).

Soul rest and body rest are equally spiritual. Soul rest and body rest equally demonstrate dependence upon God. In fact, because God designed us as embodied-souls, we are never more God-dependent than when we humbly choose whole-person, embodied-soul rest in Jesus. Surrendering our embodied-soul to the Lord is not surrendering to created things; it is surrendering to the Creator. It is whole-person dependence upon Christ.

Endnotes

[i] Here are just a few samplers of Bob Somerville, ACBC Fellow, teaching about the legitimacy of physiological interventions, immediate relief, and the embodied soul. “God gave His servant physical rest. The Scripture says that Elijah lay down and slept. It doesn’t say that God judged him for his depression and asking to die” (55). “God gave sleep first. Sleep refreshes the mind and body and is definitely a gift. Sometimes the physical factors need urgent attention before the inner causes of the depression can be addressed” (56). “Here we see God, the great counselor, addressed Elijah’s physical needs first. There is a definite connection between the mind and body. John Piper points this out when he says, ‘What we should be clear about is that the condition of our bodies makes a difference in the capacity of our minds to think clearly and of our souls to see the beauty of hope-giving truth’” (56). “What happened in my case? My body was restored with rest and nutrition, careful use of medication, detox, physical therapy, and exercise” (60). “I had to learn that I had a new normal, and I needed to take precautions against relapse. I now have to set limits for myself in order to care for my health” (60). “Just as God, the Counselor, met Elijah’s physical needs first when Elijah was suffering from suicidal depression (1 Kings 19:4-8), we must examine our own physical conditions and strive to improve them in order to find relief” (110). “Does someone hold the view that as long as you are a Christian it does not matter what the condition of your body us? Well, you will soon be disillusioned if you believe that…. You cannot isolate the spiritual from the physical for we are body, mind, and spirit. The greatest and best Christians when they are physically weak are more prone to an attack of spiritual depression than at any other time and there are great illustrations of this in the Scriptures” (111). “Paul compared our bodies to a clay jar (2 Cor. 4:7). A clay jar is fragile and easily broken or chipped. We get tired and ill and are subject to sicknesses and diseases that limit our ability to fulfill our responsibilities at times. The weakness of our flesh can even lead directly to spiritual depression. Therefore, we as believers are under obligation to be good stewards of our God-given bodies, not by worshipping the body but realizing that because we only have one body in which to obey the Lord, care and protection of health are essential” (111). “God brought angels to minister to Elijah under the juniper tree and to Jesus in the wilderness and then under the olive tree when his soul was grieved to the point of death. Those angels did not minister by playing harps or spiritual songs. They brought much-needed food and drink—physical refreshment. God is in favor of natural nourishment and ministry to your body” (111). Source: If I’m a Christian, Why Am I Depressed? Finding Meaning and Hope in the Dark Valley: One Man’s Journey.