This is a geeky type of seminar because we’re going to get a little philosophical and talk about what makes up a counseling system. I have a very simple point: to send a message to you that you do not need to be intimidated in any way by the secular psychologies since we have a complete counseling system. I’m kind of geeky about this and I study secular counseling systems. I want to send a message that we have a sufficient counseling system not only biblically, but I want to send a message that we have a complete counseling system theologically. That’s the point of this seminar.
We’re going to talk about: How do you tell what makes up a counseling system?
A really quick testimony. I’ll just have to give you the nickel version of this testimony. I really believe that people are looking and searching for answers. Coming back from teaching internationally, I was seated on my return flight home, and this young 27-year-old man sat down beside me. He wasn’t supposed to sit beside me. He was supposed to sit somewhere else on the plane. He switched seats graciously with someone. Within about three to four minutes, we were engaged in a gospel conversation that lasted for two hours. He had just come from Czechoslovakia from living in a cabin for a month trying to find himself. He was an engineer from Canada, and he said, “I’m so tired of the materialistic worldview. I grew up in an atheistic home. There’s got to be more to life than just materialism.” I said, “I have really good news for you.” I am thankful for the providence of God, of the Lord, having that young man sit beside me, and we were able to engage for two hours. I would stop, just trying to be polite, because I didn’t want to talk his ear off, and he’d say, “No, keep going.” He just wanted to hear hope. I believe there’s people like that. I praise God for that opportunity.
How do you tell what a counseling system believes? Because I’m a biblical counselor, I want to keep this really practical and not just theoretical.
I’m going to start off with a story about a personal visit of dialoging with a psychologist about her belief system. I was speaking at a church here in the United States, and this psychologist came up to me after the Sunday School presentation where I had taught a now-famous diagram called the “Three Trees Diagram.” The church had asked me to give an introduction to biblical counseling because they were thinking about starting a biblical counseling ministry. I thought, “Okay, what better start than to just teach them the ‘Three Trees Diagram.'”
This female psychologist came up to me afterwards and she said, “I’m very thankful for your presentation. I’ve been a member of this church for about nine months and I keep offering my services to the church. I’m a state licensed counselor, and they don’t ever tell me why they won’t let me counsel, but I kind of feel like a stiff arm. Could you help me understand why this church is not letting me counsel?” That made me feel like I was walking into a minefield right away. Then she said, “I actually am in charge of overseeing all the counseling needs of the state’s death row inmates. I have 60 therapists because we’re not only responsible for the state’s death row inmates, but for all their families, so I have a bunch of people that work with me. I love the Lord and I just want to help my church. Could you help me understand why they won’t let me counsel?” I was speaking in the morning worship service, so I said, “How about after the service we get together and talk?”
What I did after the service is I went through these 6 S’s (it is now 7) that make up a counseling system. One of the words that I would like to get into your mind right away is not psychology, but David Powlison drilled into my brain and my soul to call them the psychologies because there is no unity in the secular world. Because I understand counseling systems, I asked her, “What is your training? In what type of theories? Which of the psychologies is your approach?” She said, “Well, I’m Adlerianand I have certifications in CBT.” I started to explain to her what constitutes a biblical counseling system, and I only got to my third S when she said, “I get it. It’s a worldview issue.” I said, “That’s exactly right.” The S’s that you’re about to see, she named off for Adler’s system: what was Adler’s first S, what was Adler’s second S, and what was Adler’s third S. She recognized that these are the recognized things that constitute a counseling system. She said, “I now get it. We have worldview issues. How do I learn biblical counseling?” I was able to tell her. Her words were, “I’m really tired of not being able to tell people the gospel. I really want to be able to talk to people about the gospel. So how do I learn about biblical counseling?” I told her about ACBC certification (NANC certification at the time).
I hope that this presentation will help you understand what makes up a counseling system and that it will give you confidence that, not only do we claim biblically that we have a sufficient Scripture—Scripture is very clear on that and I’ll show you some passages in case you’re wondering in just a moment—but theologically we have a complete counseling system. That’s my simple argument: if we have every ingredient that makes up a counseling system, we have a complete counseling system, so therefore it is sufficient and I don’t need to integrate with other counseling systems. Just to further make that point, I really want to stay practical, so I want to tell you about a friend of mine that I call Larry. I’m going to read to you a story (a way that I write up case studies).
The S stands for the situation.
This is the way that we do data gathering. We’ve actually changed our PDI at our Counseling Center. Rather than the four or five typical questions that a PDI has at the end, we ask our counselees to tell us their stories. Part of my rationale there is that we want to be relational and want to send a message to people that we care about their stories. What’s the situation? What is the person’s thinking? How are others involved? What are your responses or reactions? What’s the main emotions that are being manifested? What are your expectations, hopes, and wants?
Here’s Larry’s story. The reason I’m doing this is to be practical, but then I know what I do with Larry. In fact, I counseled Larry and have spent a lot of time with Larry. I gave this Larry story to a clinical psychologist, and I asked, “What would CBT do with Larry?” I have her description of what CBT would do with Larry. I’m just trying to show you that these S’s and this type of thinking are recognized as the ingredients of a counseling system.
LARRY’S STORY
Larry is a new believer in your church. He has a desire to grow in Christlikeness. The Lord used very difficult circumstances in his life to provoke him to search for answers. He has come to Christ out of a background of alcohol and drugs in a very dysfunctional family. He’s divorced and his wife is a drug addict, so he has custody of their 10-year-old son. The family he grew up in was also difficult. He had a father who was a yeller and a mother who was not really tuned into caring for him. Larry does not have a regular job, and he and his son have lived in a bedroom in houses of five different families from the church in the last year. He tries to pay rent, but he isn’t always consistent. He also isn’t very energetic about finding a job. Since coming to Christ and being baptized, he has been faithful to church and bible studies and has his son in Awana until recently. He started to struggle with drinking again—vodka was his drink of choice—after a failed relationship with a woman. Larry regularly thinks about himself as a failure. He also dwells on how no one cares for him and says to himself, “I need people to love me.” He daydreams about “his big check coming.” In recent weeks, he has thought that life’s out of control and he just needs stability. Those are actual statements. He has also thought that the church isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do to help him. That is a really ironic statement since he lived with five different families in the church, we were buying him groceries, and our pastor is a very savvy car mechanic and was repairing his car for free. I’m sure you’ve met people like that where it doesn’t matter how much you do; it just seems like they’re always absorbing. That was Larry. We couldn’t do enough to keep him satisfied. As a counselor, that raises a question for me: What’s really going on in Larry’s heart that he has become like a sponge and is so needy all the time? He doesn’t think the church is doing enough to help him with all his needs. He also wonders if God is punishing him since he can’t find a stable job and he has to move from house to house. He’s starting to offend others in the church because of his poor work ethic, and they’re beginning to wonder if he’s just taking advantage of the church. His relationship with the church is getting shaky since he’s making accusations against the church.
How is he responding? Recently, he’s responding with highly emotional outbursts, crying, and drinking. He’s become a bit more inconsistent in church attendance and has at times wanted to leave.
What are his emotions? Panic would be a good way to describe him, especially as there’s been more financial pressure and pressure from the church to be more diligent in finding a job. He worries regularly about the future and what people are thinking of him. He has a lot of fear that people will reject him, and he yearns for stability and some peace and quiet. “I just want someone to love me. I need a job, but it has to be one that fits my schedule. I really want a relationship with a woman and I don’t want to be pushed.”
We’re not going to diagnose Larry. We’re only going to look at it in the sense of understanding counseling systems. This isn’t going to be case study practice. This is just going to be understanding how different counseling systems would handle Larry.
Just so you get what’s going on out in the secular world—and you may understand this as well as I do, but just to make sure we all have the same understanding—let’s say that there was a street called Counseling Street in your town and there were a number of different clinics in your town that were all different counseling centers. Larry could walk into each counseling center, presenting his issues, and he could walk out with 10 different diagnoses of his problem and 10 different methodologies of how to get help. I tested this out in the Santa Clarita area when we were still out in California. I had a research assistant call five different mental health centers in the Santa Clarita Valley near where the Master’s University is and present as a man with out-of-control anger. I had him ask the following questions:
1. What’s his problem or using the technical language, what’s the ideology of the problem?
2. What’s the solution?
3. What’s the methodology to help him?
Guess how many different answers we got. We got five different answers of what is the source of the problem, what is the solution to the problem, and what is the methodology to help him.
- Source of authority
The first S, which is the foundation to every counseling system, is that every counseling system has a source of authority. I told you this is going to be geeky, so I’m going to use the big words. This is what we would call epistemology or epistemological concerns: who or what gets quoted. There has to be some basis of authority. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Every counseling theory has some type of epistemology. Somebody gets quoted. There has to be the authority.
Obviously, what’s our authority? Scripture, so praise God. The Creator of the universe has spoken into our dark world and it’s a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We have a very distinct advantage over other counseling systems to have not just a historical book, but this is the Living Word of God. Let me just remind you again that we believe in the doctrine of inspiration, which is that every word is given by God and it is alive. The Puritans said that what God’s word says, God is saying. We believe in the doctrine of inspiration and the Living Word of God, that God is speaking into the issues of today. That’s just mind-boggling right off the bat here as we think about counseling systems.
If you went to UCLA or some secular school and got a degree in psychology now, you would probably learn the top 15 theories and then your professors would say to you, “You can pick and choose what you think will work for your clients. You put together a counseling approach that you think is going to be best for the people that you’re working with.” That’s eclecticism. One of the most offensive things about our counseling system is that we claim exclusivity, which is considered arrogant by secular systems. They would say, “What do you mean you don’t need everybody? Everybody practices eclecticism.” Another word we use is syncretism. Everybody is syncretizing belief systems. We don’t syncretize belief systems in the biblical counseling world. We just believe that the Living God is speaking through His Living Word into the needs of humans. We don’t have time to study 15 main theories, so what I’ve chosen is just 2 popular ones: behaviorism and the medical model.
These are quotes from somebody at the Master’s University who came to us to do the Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling degree, but she already had a master’s degree in Skinnerian behaviorism. When I taught the S’s in my theology class out at Master’s, I asked her to evaluate the S’s and tell me what she was taught in her master’s degree in behaviorism because I didn’t want it to be a prejudiced biblical counselor saying what Skinner believed about each of these S’s. That’s just trying to be fair in representing what they say about their source of authority, what they believe the problem is, etc.
Behaviorism’s authority would be the theorist’s observations. That’s BF Skinner. Just really quick, our culture is in what’s called the third wave of behaviorism or cognitive behavioral therapy, which is mindfulness, if you’ve heard that term. The first wave was Skinner’s behaviorism, the second was Aaron Beck’s cognitive behavioral therapy, and now we’re going back to an Eastern kind of mysticism type thing of mindfulness. It’s what clinical psychologists would call the third wave of what Skinner started way back in the early 1900s.
Skinner came up with observations about the human condition. It’s the lens through which he looks at life. These are worldview issues. I look at humans and I interpret them based upon my biblical worldview. I’m not going to apologize in any way for that. Looking at you, I actually think you’re all really foggy right now, and I put my glasses on and you become crystal clear. There’s a term we use for what sin has done to humans. We call it the noetic effect of the fall, that our brains and our interpretation of life is distorted (Ephesians 4:17-18). I need lenses. I can’t be an objective observer of humans without lenses.
Counselors, no matter what your system is, you have some type of lens to look at life. My lens is unapologetically biblical, so I look at you and I see image bearers who have fallen (Genesis 3) and who were created to be worshipers, but who worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25) and who need to be restored to relationship with our Creator. Skinner had a different set of lenses. Freud didn’t agree with Skinner and he had a different set of lenses. Secular psychologies all look at life through different lenses and, being quite honest, if some of those early theorists were alive today and they saw the eclecticism taking place of the mixing of all the belief systems, they wouldn’t be happy because they never intended that their counseling theory would get mixed with any other counseling theory. They just wanted it to be, “No, I believe my approach is right.” “Maslow is a cook,” Freud would say, “and he doesn’t get it.” Maslo would say, “No, Freud’s a cook.” They actually wrote articles against one another in the early 1900s.
Every counseling system has a source of authority. Skinner—this is very interesting—was heavily influenced by a guy named Charles Darwin, and so Skinner unapologetically said, “I want to do for psychology what Darwin did for biology.” He was just bringing Darwin’s evolutionary worldview into the psychologies: you’re an animal and you were programmed wrong, so you need to be reprogrammed. You’re going to see how his counseling system then unfolds based upon evolutionary theory.
The medical model leans on brain research: it’s the brain that did it. The medical model would say, “You know, it’s the brain that’s making you do what you do.” Brain plasticity is a new field in neuropsychology right now in the neurosciences. We would say, “We’re not stuck with our brain chemistry and people can put off the old man, be renewed in the spirit of the mind, and put on the new man.” Believing things actually changes brain chemistry.
This is not the kind of stuff you’re sharing with counselees, but this is just stuff for you as a counselor to understand so that you understand the culture we’re living in. Many counselors in the secular world operate out of what’s called a monistic worldview. Monism is that you’re just a single part being. You hear the Latin mono in there, so monism is that you’re just a single part being. You don’t have an immaterial part of you, like a soul or what we would call the heart or the spirit. You’re just a body that’s not functioning right. If your body is not functioning right, that explains your behavior problems and your emotion problems, and you’re going to see then how that counseling system unfolds. Because if it’s a body problem, what do you need to fix it? You need medicine. That’s coming out of a monistic worldview. You’re not hearing in that statement that I believe that medicine is always wrong because we as biblical counselors always have to clarify that it seems.
I want to open our Bibles and let’s refresh our souls to think about some of these passages. We believe our whole system is based upon the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. Way back when I was being taught the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture in Bible College and in seminary, I remember then going to counseling class, which was a real Introduction to Biblical Counseling class in the 1970s. At the Bible College I went to near Washington, D.C. we actually had Jay Adams come in and speak in our Bible College. I really consider it an honor now to reflect back on those days. Way back then, I would go from my theology class to my counseling class and think, “This is just consistent. This is just what I heard in my theology class. I’m now hearing in my counseling class that because we believe in inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, the Bible has complete authority over everything.” That’s what the doctrine of inerrancy is about. It’s not just the doctrine that the Bible has authority and is without errors in spiritual things. It’s the doctrine that the Bible has authority over any subject that it addresses. That has a lot of implications to it.
Turn with me to 2 Timothy 3—you knew I was going to go here—but I’m going to unpack the context just for a couple of minutes. Then I’m going to read a quote from one of my colleagues at Master’s University who is now with the Lord, Dr. Taylor Jones. I love it because he’s a scientist talking about the sufficiency of Scripture.
Second Timothy 3:16-17 [notes added in brackets]:
“All Scripture is God breathed [It’s alive; it’s the breath of God, so it’s inspired by God] and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness [notice the precise wording] that the man of God may be adequate, equipped…” The Greek word translated adequate literally means capable of meeting all demands. The word translated equipped means completely outfitted. Think of an outfitter. If you’re going white water rafting, they give you everything you need to do the rafting on the white water: you get the helmet, you get the jacket, you get the paddle, you get the raft, you get a guide, and due to liability issues, they’re making sure that you have everything and that you get training on how to use all those things to go white water rafting. Scripture is capable of meeting all demands, no matter what whitewater life throws your way, no matter what whitewater you’re on. “…that the man of God may be adequate, completely outfitted for every good work.” It does not say for some good works.
Those verses are beautiful in and of themselves, but let’s look at the context of the chapter and make it come alive. Context just makes things breathe. Here’s the context:
Verse 1 “…in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant….” The list goes on. This is a really depressing chapter in the Bible. Verse 3continues: “…unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good…” This sounds like the Grace Center for Biblical Counseling and what goes on in our offices. “….treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…” That’s a really dark start to the chapter. Now if that wasn’t bad enough, look down in the middle of the chapter.
In the middle of the chapter, he says in verse 11: “…persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered me!” A verse you wish wasn’t in your Bible, verse 12: “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Then listen to the next verse, as if it isn’t dark enough already: “…evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
Second Timothy 3 is a really, really dark chapter. Paul then says to Timothy: “You, however, Timothy, continue, cling to the things that you’ve learned from the time that you’ve been a child. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” Doesn’t the context just make that all come alive? The darker the night, the brighter the light of God’s word. We have the Living Word of God speaking into very dark times. I love that statement: the darker the night, the brighter the light of God’s word shines. We have hope to give to people. We have an incredible source of authority.
Let me read the statement by Taylor Jones, then we’ll go on to the second S.
Taylor Jones was the chairman of the science department at Master’s and I love scientists who are submitted to Scripture. Taylor Jones had a PhD in chemistry. Dr. MacArthur stole him from teaching at the Naval Academy to go teach at Master’s. A few years ago, Taylor suddenly went to be with the Lord. It was probably one of the most interesting funerals that I’ve ever witnessed other than David Powlison’s funeral. At Taylor Jones’ service, he wanted the book of Romans read as people were coming in. The whole book of Romans was read from beginning to end by different professors from Master’s. As you walked in to the funeral service, Romans was being read. Then—this is probably unprecedented—he also told John MacArthur what to preach on. At least that’s what Dr. MacArthur said at the funeral.
Taylor Jones said this:
“The Bible, then, is the only source of tangible, eternal Truth on earth (Isa. 40:8). This understanding ensures the total sufficiency of Scripture when applied to every issue addressed therein (Psalm 19:7-14). Having embraced this view, a scientist looking at the universe recognizes that the entire creation is the handiwork of a sovereign God (John 1:3). His/her subsequent observations and explanations will be consistent with this perspective. Any observations that appear to be at odds with this declaration of the origin of creation will be reassessed in a way that does not deny the Truth of what God has clearly and unambiguously said He has done.”
That’s why Master’s University is a literal 6-day creation university and does not apologize for that.
- Sin: view of what’s wrong with humans
Based upon the source of authority, what do you think is wrong? Obviously, the secular psychologists don’t use the word sin, but we’re a theological counseling system, so I’m using our terminology. However, they do recognize that there’s a problem with humans and that’s a very interesting thing to study. Another geeky thing that I do is I read secular articles on what’s the source of evil, and I would urge you to do the same because there’s some really interesting theories out there. They have to recognize evil or else you don’t need a counseling system. The question remains: Why do humans do the things that they do? There are many, many different theories on evil operating out in the world of psychiatry. Why do humans do the evil things that they do? Remember it’s lenses—I believe our worldview is the model that makes the best sense out of reality.
Counseling systems are in competition with one another. When you have competing models of what’s the best explanation for human problems, then what’s the best diagnosis? what’s the best treatment plan? It becomes a question of who has the best model to explain the data that we’re observing. I believe and am totally confident in my worldview that my lenses make the best sense out of what I hear on the news and what I hear in my counseling office. The Bible just totally makes sense with reality.
Behaviorism’s view: Skinner was heavily influenced by Darwin, so he would say that you’re animals responding to your environment. You were just trained wrong, usually by your parents. It’s your cultural problems and your family background that trained you wrong.
Medical model’s view: It’s your genetics.
Comparing those two, you’re hearing the competition there: nature vs. nurture. One of the models is a nurture model (Skinner’s behaviorism); the other is a nature model (it’s your biology). That’s really what’s going on out in the secular world. They’re competing with each other as nature vs. nurture. We believe, of course, nature and nurture influence you, but there’s something a whole lot deeper going on with humans and it’s the worshiping heart. We have a desire problem that’s going on because of what happened in Genesis 3. The medical model would say, “No, it’s your chemical wiring; something’s malfunctioning.”
Our view of what’s wrong? It’s amazing what Scripture says: You’re image bearers (Genesis 1 and 2). On the first page of your Bible, Genesis 1:26-28 says that you were created in the image of God. That just starts to shape everything right from the very beginning. We are image bearers. We’re made to be worshippers in relationship with God, but something horrible happened in Genesis 3. I heard Dr. MacArthur say one time that he thinks he could make an argument that Genesis 3 is the most important chapter in the Bible. He actually did that at an ACBC conference years ago when ACBC was still called NANC. That was one of his statements, that Genesis 3 is the most important chapter in the Bible because if you didn’t have Genesis 3, you wouldn’t need the rest of the Bible. The rest of the Bible is the answer to what happened in the garden in Genesis 3, and we have the beautiful story that even though there’s the creation and the fall, there’s redemption and then eventually consummation. Even think of that with our belief system. We have a view of the future. Secular counseling models can’t give you a view of the future that there’s hope after life because of faith in Christ. People who are intensely suffering, I can give them all kinds of hope because of what the Bible says about the future. Secular models cannot do that. I believe we have a superior counseling system.
Scripture says that we live out of our hearts, and if you’ve been around ACBC long enough, you know that we talk a lot about the heart. That’s thanks to a man named David Powlison. Even if you have never met David Powlison and you never read anything by David Powlison, he has influenced you and he will continue to influence us for generations probably. Just a quick word about that. I first learned biblical counseling through men like Jay Adams at Washington Bible College in Washington, D.C. and practiced nouthetic counseling back in those days in the 80’s as a pastor. Then I went and did my doctorate at Westminster Seminary, and David Powlison—I won’t talk too much about it, because I’ll start to cry because I miss him already—had a profound impact on my life. I used to love to go to class just to hear him pray. It’s not just to hear the material about my heart. I remember the very first week of class, he was teaching us the “Three Trees Diagram.” I was there to learn how to counsel other people and he was counseling me. I was sitting there thinking, “Oh, that’s why Rose and I fight about those issues. Ouch, this really hurts.” Then he made us do a self-counseling project. We had to counsel our own souls and apply what he was teaching. In many ways this presentation is even because of David Powlison.
Scripture is very clear about the face that we’re living out of our hearts. Why don’t we just look at one passage. Let me show you Matthew 12. Let’s turn there. This is one that I’ve been using in my counseling office a lot in the last couple of years. I used to use Matthew 6 more than this one, but I found Matthew 12 to resonate more. In Matthew 12, the Lord says in verse 34: “‘You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.'” Then the Lord does something very interesting. He gives a synonym for the word heart. He switches the word in verse 35. He says: “The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.'”
I love engaging my counselees in the question: How can you tell what a person treasures? We start talking about treasures and how you can tell what treasures are. I don’t do this with counselees, by the way, this would be way too geeky for counselees, but this is what lexicons say about the word heart. It’s exactly what happens when somebody’s treasuring. It captivates your mind. It stirs your affections (what some would call the emotions). You sacrifice for it. You make decisions about it, and it’s really boiling down to: What are you yearning for? What are you hungry for in appetites and passions? It’s obvious in the Larry case study that Larry’s really hungry for affection from people.
Scholars say that heart in the Bible is the richest term. Soul is not the richest term in the Bible for the inner person; heart is the richest term. Early in ministry if someone would have asked me as a young pastor, What is the most important word in the Bible for the inner person? I would have said soul and I would have been ignorant by hundreds of occurrences. Heart is used hundreds of more times than the word soul in the Bible, and it is a really picturesque word. It’s the mind, emotions, will, desires. I ask people questions about their thinking, their emotions, their will, and their desires, and guess what? You get at the treasures of the heart. You get at what the person is living for and what is motivating the person. The most famous Hebrew lexicon, at least in current days, is Koehler/Baumgartner. They say the exact same thing: the heart is your emotions, mind, disposition, will, etc. In many ways, this is what the secular world would call personality. That comes out of the way you think about life, your emotions, the decisions that you make, etc.
We have a model that really explains what’s wrong with humans. We’ve explained something is wrong.
- Solution or Salvation
The next S is: What’s the solution? That’s what every counseling system does. Based on its source of authority, it then says, “Okay. Here’s the problem. Here’s our theory of what’s wrong. Now we’ve developed this solution.” I’m going to call it a soul-ution. What is the soul-ution for the problem? What comes out of that is your methodology. We would call that another very convenient S: sanctification. It’s our methodology of how to help people grow and change.
Every counseling system has methodology. You can tell what a counseling system believes the problem is by looking at their methodology. As soon as you hear the methodology, you can think, “Oh, they think that humans are animals that need to be reprogrammed,” because the methodology is telling you what they believe about human nature and what the problem is.
The soul-ution can also be called a “way of salvation.” “Way of salvation” is in quotes because that’s from another early theorist named Carl Jung. I just find it so fascinating that I broke out of my outline I was following of just doing behaviorism and the medical model because I just had to tell you that Jung called his system “a way of salvation.” Isn’t that interesting? “If you follow my system, this will lead to your salvation.” Maslow would say your self-actualization. How do you really find yourself? How do you become a complete human? Maslow was self-actualization. For Jung, he just said, “No, it’s salvation. You can really get saved. You’ll find your real self.”
We believe in real salvation and people get saved from their deepest problem, which is being alienated from God.
Behaviorism: This is back to Skinner reprogramming people or cognitive behavioral therapy (what Aaron Beck and his daughter added to the system; they’re like the gurus) and now mindfulness in most recent years—What you do is you restructure thinking.
Medical model: You’ve got to change the brain chemistry. You’ve got to get things firing, right?
What’s our solution? Let’s talk about our soul-ution. We believe the cross and the gospel change everything. Let me say it as clearly and strongly as I can. The gospel is not just a message to believe, the gospel is a person to follow. I’m not just trying to get people to believe facts. I want people to become followers of Jesus. That is the great commission: go make disciples. Don’t just get them to sign on the dotted line that they believe facts. We believe that if true saving faith happens, embedded in the gospel is the power to change lives and it will. “He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ” (emphasis added). It doesn’t say might complete it. The theological term is true saving faith. We believe that if true saving faith has taken place, a power is unleashed in you: the Holy Spirit. How can you have the Holy Spirit living in you—the Holy Spirit who spoke the world into existence in six literal days— and it not change you? “He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ.”
When someone becomes a follower of Christ, a whole new life begins and the person has a whole new potential for living a Christ-like life (Matthew 11:28). Our Savior says in Matthew 11—which I believe, by the way, are evangelistic verses; they’re not just verses to comfort Christians—”Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest for your souls.” He was inviting people to become followers of Him. He says, “Take my yoke upon you.” He’s saying, “Adopt my system, leave your Judaistic system that is oppressive, become a follower of me, and I will give you rest for your souls.” In John 4, there’s the story of the woman at the well. “You need living water. Go call your husband.” That used to confuse me to no end. I remember praying as I was preparing sermons on that passage, “Lord, help me to understand this switch. You just were talking to her about living water, and then you say, ‘Go call your husband.’ It’s like this really radical switch in subject.” Then, as I thought about it, I think what the Lord was doing was going for her heart. He’s going for: “You think you need this, but you really need me. You need relationship with me.” Earlier in the passage He says in the present tense (check it out – it’s really encouraging): “If you will drink from this water, it will become in you springs bubbling up unto eternal life.” He doesn’t say, “It will become eternal life. You’ll just get eternal life.” He says, “If you become a follower of Me, you drink from this water, it will become alive in you.” It’s present tense in the Greek. It’s springs bubbling up. It starts, and then it results in eternal life. It’s beautiful what He was promising the woman at the well that there’s a solution. You think you need a man; you really need living water in your life.
Isn’t it wonderful what we get to promise people and offer as hope to individuals?
One of my favorite passages is Isaiah 61. Let’s just take a quick peek at it, and then we’ll head on to methodology. Now that you understand the flow of thought, you could teach the seminar, right? So, you know what the rest of the S‘s are. This is every counseling system. After I do this one, I will read to you what a clinical psychologist did with the Larry case study.
Our wonderful solution: Isaiah 61.I use these verses with almost all counselees. Speaking about the Messiah who’s going to come hundreds of years later, Isaiah is writing and he says, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me…” Our Lord is the Anointed One. He’s the Christos in using Greek; here it’s mashiach (the Messiah), and He brings the “good news.” What’s our word for that? Gospel. The Messiah is the Anointed One. He’s on a mission by the Spirit and He has been set apart. He’s anointed. What’s He on a mission to do? He’s on a mission for your counselees. Look at all the terms that are used: afflicted, brokenhearted, people held captive; people who are prisoners. That describes the people that are sitting in my office, and Jesus came for them. I love using this passage. Then I talk to them about how He not only makes these promises, but the gospels show us that He has the power to deliver. We talk about the types of miracles that the Lord did that demonstrate that He not only can make promises, but He actually has the power to deliver on his promises. I use these for data gathering as well. I ask how the situation has caused them to feel afflicted. I get a lot of good information. Then I ask how the situation has caused them to feel brokenhearted and how this situation has made them feel like a captive or hooked. I also ask how this situation has made them feel like they’re in a dungeon and a prisoner. I get all kinds of good information at the same time as giving hope using Isaiah 61.
We have an incredible solution. Our lenses give us a perspective on what’s really happening with humans. Then our lenses, as we study Scripture, give us a word to say to people that are the same type of people that our Savior came to minister to. What we’re trying to do is create worshipers. The gospel makes it possible for lives to be changed from the inside out so that the image of God in man is being restored. If you look at Colossians 3:10, there’s purposeful wording by the apostle Paul that the gospel is not just to get you to heaven someday, but embedded in the gospel is the message that God’s original creation purposes of the image of God is being restored. This is a hard argument to get and it’s mind-boggling when you start to get it, but this was part of Jay Adams’ argument when he wrote his theology book A Theology of Christian Counseling: More than Redemption many decades ago. His argument was that you as a believer in Christ are in a better position than Adam. That’s mind-boggling when you start. We don’t feel it, but theologically you’re in a better position than Adam because you have Christ in you, the hope of glory. Adam couldn’t claim that. That was Jay Adams argument decades ago: more than redemption. The image of God in man is being restored.
Romans 11:36 is my favorite verse in the Bible and it says: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” That’s how I want to live my life by the grace of God: that everything’s from Him, through Him, and back to Him. We get to live as worshippers of the true and living God. The cross changes everything.
- Sanctification (Methodology)
Now we’re growing, and sanctification kicks into gear. Every counseling system has a view of methodology. As I said before, you can tell a counseling system’s view of what’s wrong with humans by looking at the methodology.
Behaviorism’s methodology: to teach a system of rewards and punishments to reprogram people.
Medical model’s methodology: take your medicine and be faithful taking your medicine.
What’s our view of methodology? Our view is progressive growth and change unto Christlikeness. I spent a lot of time wording this next statement, so let me explain why. I didn’t want this to sound like legalism. I’ll just emphasize a couple parts. It’s submissive, practical, worship-oriented obedience as the Holy Spirit works in your life, and it’s helped by loving, one-another relationships in the body. It’s not just submissive, practical obedience to the principles of Scripture. You can do that without the right heart motivation. I want to get the worship motivation there. I’m doing this for the glory of God. Whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, I do all to the glory of God. As the Holy Spirit works: I can’t change anybody. You can think through the implications of that. There’s a lot I could unpack. This is the change process that’s going on as people put off the old man, are renewed in the spirit of the mind, and put on the new man.
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Here’s what my clinical psychologist friend did with Larry for the first four S’s.
1. Source of authority [the epistemological concerns]
“The source of authority is the theory and research behind cognition and behaviorism. There’s some authority given to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) Edition 5.” That’s like the Bible in the secular world. “Some authority is given to the DSM in terms of the constellation of symptoms and behaviors. The philosophical underpinning of cognitive behavioral therapy is stoicism.”
“Larry would be given a diagnosis of alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence. A clinical interview or psychological testing would also inquire about symptoms related to anxiety and be called generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder if he’s having panic attacks, and also major depressive disorder looking for symptoms of depressed mood, fatigue, feelings of guilt, worthlessness, suicidal ideation, and psychoticism.” I thought that was an interesting thing that psychologists came up with because they said that Larry’s accusations against the church are a break from reality, so he’s psychotic. “It’s very possible that Larry would also be diagnosed with a personality disorder, which is a long-standing characterological difficulty as opposed to a more short-term mental illness, which is less amenable to psychotropic medication treatment.”
2. Problem [the ideology or sin according to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) terminology]
“He has wrong core beliefs. He has core beliefs and schemas that are developed by early experience which in turn influences conditional assumptions, beliefs, roles and automatic thoughts, and compensatory strategies. CBT would say we get stuck in inflexible ways of thinking about things and behaviors are reinforced. In CBT, the two major core beliefs are ‘I’m unlovable’ and ‘I’m inadequate.’ Larry seems to struggle more with the ‘I’m unlovable,’ though there’s evidence also of ‘I’m inadequate.’ From CBT’s perspective, it’s like he developed these beliefs through his relationship with his parents and because of these deep-rooted beliefs, he now acts as if he’s unlovable and inadequate, and interprets everything in his world through these lenses.”
3. Proposed solution: cognitive restructuring
Since in biblical counseling we’re going to work on his thinking, what’s the difference for us? Praise God, but I’m doing something deeper with Larry. I’m going after his heart motivations. I’m not just a Christian cognitive behavioral counselor. I’m going after wants and desires and worship of his heart. CBT can’t do that.
“We’re going to work on cognitive restructuring. The primary goal is to help patients evaluate and change their thoughts in the service of regulating emotions and facilitating goal directed behavior.”
4. Methodology [the sanctification]
“The methodology is to teach the patient to identify, evaluate, and respond to dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs. Larry would be taught the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.”
Notice the word missing there is desires. We would be dealing with wants and desires and worship of the heart. I think what we’re doing is deeper than what CBT would be doing. We’re also going to be working on his thoughts and his emotions, but even deeper, what’s going on in his affections—as Jonathan Edwards would call it—and what’s going on in the wants and desires of his inner person. Every counseling system would write this differently. Adler would write it differently. Maslow would write it differently. Freud would write it differently. Because every counseling system follows the same model of what’s the source of authority? what’s the problem? what’s the solution? what’s the sanctification?
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- Support System
Every counseling system has support systems. These are the schools that teach it. I’m prejudiced, but if you want to learn biblical counseling, you go to the Master’s University. There are schools that still teach pure Skinnerian behaviorism and you can still go get a master’s degree in behavioral psychology. Most typically right now, if you want to get a degree in psychology, it would just be an eclectic approach. You learn the top theories and then you mix and match and make it work the way you want it to work. Our main support system is the church. If the churches were functioning the way God intended, it’s something that the secular world would die for. The secular world talks about group therapy. We have one-anothering in the body. We have everything that the secular world says you need. The secular world says, “Wow, you need support.” We have it in the church. The typical local church, unfortunately, just doesn’t get how it could impact its culture. What the Lord has given us in the church is amazing. The granddaddy verse of biblical counseling verses (the verse that launched biblical counseling with Jay Adams decades ago now), Romans 15:14, is about the local church.
- Servants of the System
Every counseling system has servants of the system. That is, every counseling system has a view of the role of the counselor. For CBT, the CBT therapist is trained to be an upbeat coach. In psychoanalytics, you’re trained to be the surrogate parent. For biblical counseling, we’re training people to be disciplers; we’re training people to be loving shepherds of others. That ought to affect the way we deal with people. I want to be a loving shepherd of people. I’m a discipler. I’m not perfect. I’m just a disciple like you, and I’m just a little further along maybe in my journey than where you are, but we’re all pilgrims in progress.
Every counseling system has a way to get vetted. Someone becomes a marriage and family therapist (MFT). For us, it’s ACBC. That’s our vetting organization: the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. Just to put a little bug in your ear about another organization that I love to talk about, I also belong to the Institute for Christian Conciliation (ICC), which is a biblical Christian conciliation organization that helps with reconciliation and mediation. We train mediators and you can become certified as a mediator through the Institute for Christian Conciliation.
- Sparring
Lastly, (this is my desperate attempt for an S, so you can laugh) every counseling system does sparring, which means we do apologetics. That’s what I’ve been doing this last hour, right? I’ve been doing apologetics with you. I’ve been defending my belief system and telling you why I believe it is a full-blown legitimate counseling system. A few years ago, I read a very interesting book by a guy named Charles Barber. He’s a Yale professor of psychiatry. It’s a totally secular book. Psychiatrists prescribe medication, so Charles Barber, Yale professor of psychiatry, was attacking and raising concern about our culture’s use of medicine, that we’re over-medicating our culture. The first half of the book is all about medicine, such as why medicines get prescribed, etc. The second half of the book is alternatives. As I read his alternatives and he was describing counseling systems that he believed were just as legitimate as giving a pill to someone, I thought, “Wow, if he can make that argument using secular models, I can make that argument using a biblical model. I have absolutely everything and more because we have the power of the Holy Spirit working in lives.” We have everything and more. We have the Living Word of God, the power of the Holy Spirit.
I’m prejudiced, I recognize it, but I think we have the best counseling model in the world. Our counseling system is not only sufficient because the Bible says it’s sufficient. Amen. I believe that. But our counseling model is also sufficient because we have every ingredient that makes up a counseling system. Don’t be intimidated by the secular world.
