The Foolishness of the Cross

Whether you’ve been counseling for any length of time or you’re simply having a conversation with friends about counseling, common objections that raise doubts about the sufficiency of Scripture for addressing the full range of life’s problems often include the following:

My experience with therapy (fill in the blank) made me feel better.

My problem is much more complex than the answers found in the Bible.

But the experts of our time say…

Are you saying I need to repent of my sin?

I’ve tried reading my Bible and it doesn’t work.

Though not exhaustive, these lines of thinking are not only centered on common caricatures of biblical counseling but are also commonplace when we discuss our Christian lives. We tend to give too much credence either to our emotions and personal experiences (i.e., my feelings and experiences dictate truth, which is a form of experientialism) or to worldly philosophies and novel ideas that appeal to our intellectual pride because we have grown tired of the “same old truths” (a form of rationalism). Both ends of the spectrum locate ultimate authority in the self rather than in God’s Word, which alone is the sole standard of Truth for interpreting life in this world (Psalm 18:30; John 8:31-32; 14:6; 17:17).

Carried to their logical end, these ways of thinking—whether experientialism or rationalism—lead either to pragmatism (doing whatever “works,” regardless of what Scripture says) or to syncretism (the dangerous mixing of God’s truth with the world’s passing fads). In counseling, the inclination toward either ditch can be seen at one extreme in secular counseling and at the other in integrationist counseling. Secular counseling essentially operates by the motto: “Let’s do whatever works for you.” Integrationist counseling, on the other hand, presupposes that the wisdom of God in Scripture is “Not enough”—so Scripture must be supplemented with insights borrowed from secular thought.¹

The temptation of appealing to experiences or intellectualism is common to all. In fact, Proverbs 3:5 is familiar to many, yet the command—“trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding”—underscores this truth: the posture of faith requires trusting God fully, which necessitates renouncing reliance on our own understanding, whether that takes the form of personal experiences and feelings or intellectual reasoning. This is why an essential task in our apologetic efforts to persuade our counselees or even believers about the sufficiency of Scripture for their overwhelming pressures of life and internal pains of the heart is to present the gospel in those conversations. The gospel must not merely be a part of your counsel, but it must be the point of your counsel.² The message of the cross may be foolishness to those who want “an immediate fix” or “a complex explanation,” but to those who are called, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24-25).

Tired of the Gospel?

Just as the Jews sought after signs and supernatural experiences while the Greeks sought after oratory prowess and new philosophies (1 Corinthians 1:22; Acts 17:21), we don’t have to board the pragmatism-or-syncretism express and ride it to the bitter end to discover where it is headed. God’s Word has already revealed the final destination of this world’s so-called “wisdom” (Isaiah 29:14; Proverbs 14:12; Ecclesiastes 8:17b; James 3:15).

We can learn from the apostle Paul, who did not minister with superiority of speech or of wisdom; rather, he was determined “to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” so that the faith of the Corinthians would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). Anticipating that people would have ears that itch for high-sounding ideas, Paul charged Timothy to “preach the word… with great patience and careful instruction,” because the time will come when people “will not endure sound doctrine… they will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:2-4). This reality—that people will desire to turn their ears from truth and toward myths—should not surprise us. At the same time, we must not be naïve about the potential skepticism and resistance we will encounter when we rely on the gospel, which is the power and wisdom of God in our counseling.

In A Gospel Primer for Christians, Milton Vincent writes about the daily need to preach the Gospel to ourselves: “The gospel is so foolish (according to my natural wisdom), so scandalous (according to my conscience), and so incredible (according to my timid heart), that it is a daily battle to believe the full scope of it as I should. There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnations of my heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel.”³ In other words, our senses (emotions and intellect) may resist hearing the gospel rehearsed and proclaimed to us, but our souls (and counselees) need to hear the gospel in order to be saved and rehearse it to fortify faith and mortify sin.

What about Complex Problems?

Now, the objectors may raise complex, bizarre, and difficult issues that do not appear in the Bible’s index.⁴ For instance, intrusive thoughts and compulsive obsessions may seem to have taken a life of their own, sometimes for many years. However, often in those cases, the heart craves control and certainty rather than a humble belief and submission to God’s omniscience and sovereignty. The spiritual remedy, therefore, is to reinterpret life and thought patterns according to a high view of God and a biblical view of self. While the daily renewal of the mind is made possible only through the Spirit’s regenerating work that creates a new heart and a new mind in the believer, this process is neither passive nor automatic.

Or take trauma as another example. Trauma is often presented as a complex problem that people say, “My experience is far more complicated than the answers found in the Bible.” It can then be tempting to, as counselors, take our epistemological cues from secular trauma theorists in order to sound intelligent or credible. Yet when trauma is rightly defined as the problem of evil and suffering, Scripture sufficiently addresses it. The problem of evil is commonly distinguished into two categories: moral evil and natural evil.⁵ Moral evil refers to the unrighteous thoughts, words, and actions of all morally responsible creatures—angelic and human—in violation of a holy God’s moral commands and principles to whom all stand accountable, and these evils cause suffering for others.⁶ Natural evil, on the other hand, refers to adverse conditions of a fallen world that also cause pain and suffering, such as natural disasters, accidents and mishaps, sickness and diseases, physical and mental handicaps (e.g., paralysis or Down syndrome), and physical toil.⁷ In other words, Scripture has no lack of descriptions and explanations for the universal human problem of evil and suffering.

More importantly, Scripture does not leave believers at the mercy of mere coping mechanisms for suffering. Rather, God has given us the ultimate solution in the message of the cross: all of the evil outside of us and done against us will be judged and made right at Christ’s second coming, and all of the evil inside of us and done by us has already been paid by Christ at the cross.⁸ The gospel of Jesus Christ is the solution to every counseling issue, for it is sufficient for the salvation of the lost and the sanctification of the regenerate believer. From election to glorification, God’s Word is entirely sufficient to redeem the individual from the penalty, the power, and (one day) the very presence of sin (cf. John 6:68; 2 Peter 1:3-11).

Trust in God’s Wisdom

In fact, the apostle Paul through a series of stinging rhetorical questions in 1 Corinthians 1:20 shows that none of the recognized experts in his time—the wise man, the scribe, the debater—has attained true knowledge of God for wise living. God has made them all foolish. The Jews demanded signs from Jesus (Matthew 12:38; 16:1; Mark 8:11-12; John 6:30), yet they rejected the greatest sign of all: their crucified and risen Messiah (1 Corinthians 15:3-5). They expected a political liberator or conquering king but Christ came as a suffering Servant at His first coming (Isaiah 53; Philippians 2:7-8). The Greeks, absorbed in speculative philosophies (Acts 17), missed the most profound demonstration of God’s wisdom—the Word made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1-5, 14). To both groups, a crucified Messiah was an assault on their senses and intellect; the glorious gospel became “a stumbling block” to Jews and “foolishness” to Greeks (1 Corinthians 1:23). Yet to those who are called (both Jews and Greeks), Christ is seen with eyes of faith as the power of God and the wisdom of God. To drive home the infinite chasm between God’s wisdom and human foolishness, Paul unequivocally asserts: “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25; cf. Jeremiah 8:9).

Even though the world did not come to know God through its wisdom, believers can still be fascinated by the world’s high-sounding ideas. Like the experience-seeking Jews or the intellect-loving Greeks, they await new insights and discoveries from those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness for spiritual matters of the heart. They become more excited to learn from psychological fads and experiment with the latest evidence-based therapies than they are about the unchanging message of Christ, which Scripture declares to be the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:21-24). However, any elevation of personal experiences or intellectual speculations above God’s Word will inevitably lead to the eventual jettisoning of God’s wisdom and power in counseling. As pastor Jerry Wragg aptly warns, “The danger of frolicking in the playground of the mind [cannot be] minimized.”⁹

Why, then, do we so often seek respectability from the world instead of wisdom from the true and living God in the pages of Scripture? Here, pastor John MacArthur insightfully writes: “[The] gospel collides with our emotions; it collides with our minds; it collides with our relationships. It smashes into our sensibilities, our rational thinking, and our tolerances. It’s hard to believe. And unfortunately, this is why people compromise; and when they do that, they become useless because God saves through this truth. You can’t be faithful and popular. So take your pick.”¹⁰ God saves and sanctifies through His power and wisdom alone, for He does not share His glory with anyone or anything else (Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31). Therefore, we must guard against the subtle pull of respectability from the world, lest we eventually shy away from counseling with the message of the cross and become ashamed of the gospel—the only power that can raise the spiritually dead to life and transform slaves of sin into slaves of Christ (Romans 1:16-17; John 8:34-36).

Conclusion

The world may offer temporary relief and community around a shared problem, but it cannot offer righteousness, sanctification, or redemption (1 Corinthians 2:14-16; Colossians 2:23). Therefore, it is of first importance that we daily overwhelm our own hearts with the power of God and the wisdom of God revealed in the gospel so that the plights of life are rightly interpreted according to man’s greatest problem (sin) and God’s remedy (the gospel). Only then will that same gospel-saturated truth naturally flow out of us into our counsel to weary, sin-stricken, and despondent souls. The message of the cross, which the world considers scandalous and foolish, is the very message we must boldly proclaim in our counseling. When we do, those who are despairing in the counseling room will find salvation, hope, and peace in our God, who alone is mighty to save.