I have often heard, whether openly or more subtly, that Biblical counseling is not really a necessary thing. You only need to use the Bible with people in helping them with their problems.
This kind of thinking is making a couple of false assumptions. It is assuming that Biblical counseling can be done by giving out Bible verses when people have problems, much like giving out a necessary vitamin or supplement when a person has a physical need and is lacking in a particular type of nourishment. It assumes that the counselee can just simply be ministered to by finding the appropriate Bible verses or passages that pertain to his or her problems. But it goes much deeper than that.
The Bible talks about how we are to be doers of the word, and not only hearers, lest we be deceived. I think this is part of what I am trying to get at. Many of us know Bible verses. We know the verses that pertain to worry, fear, needing wisdom, trusting God for our needs, etc. It would be easy to tell a person not to worry because the Bible says that we can cast our cares upon God for He careth for us. Or we can tell the person that he or she can trust God because God takes care of the sparrows and we are more important than sparrows.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with pointing out those verses to people who need to hear them. But what happens when we tell someone not to worry because we should be casting our cares upon God, and a month or two later, the person comes to us falling apart because they tried to do what the Bible said and they still had the problem with worry and the problem led them to a worse state. Plus now, there is condemnation in their minds because they feel like they have failed God. What's a person to do? What's a counselor to do?
Giving out Bible verses like vitamins in counseling doesn't do the job the way it was intended to. First of all, you have to give the whole picture of what is going on. You have to help the person to identify his or her sin (not just the symptom). You have to point them to the power of the Cross. They have to understand why their sin is there, so they can look at their heart and repent. Then they need the power of God, provided by the Cross, to help them over come their sin. Simply speaking, they need to apply the Word of God to their hearts, not just know what it says in their minds.
In some ways, Biblical counseling is like discipleship. Jesus told us to be fishers of men. He also told us to be disciplers of men and women. Biblical counselors need to become skilled in teaching the word of God. The word of God needs to be taught, but even more importantly, it needs to be applied to the heart. That is the heart of Biblical counseling.
I understand that today in modern evangelicalism, many think that we get saved, go to church, preach the Gospel so others can get saved, go to church and bring our converts there, teach the converts how to preach the Gospel so others can be saved and come into the church. What is missing from this? The whole subject of sanctification is. I'm sure that some people think that sanctification and justification are basically the same thing, and since we are saved by faith, then we are justified by faith, and that we are automatically sanctified, so, that is the end of that. Now we just tell others the Gospel and they will get saved, so they can tell others the Gospel, and so on. But sanctification has to happen in our own lives, and if it doesn't we won't be spiritually healthy people, and the church won't be healthy either.
Sanctification is spiritual growth. It is God working in us, changing us by His grace. It is as we feed upon God's word, we grow spiritually. It is not just memorizing Scriptures, but, letting those Scriptures become part of us. We digest them. We live them out by the grace of God. If we just memorize Scripture and never apply it to our lives, we become deceived and spiritually malnourished.
One more angle to look at. The devil knows the word of God better than any human being. I think sometimes we know the Scriptures and try to use them, but unless they are working with the Holy Spirit in the person's life that we are counseling, they will only be like words on paper. They have to be activated in our lives by the Holy Spirit. If they aren't, then we end up in legalism. I have a saying that a friend came up with, and it goes like this; Grace without Truth = Lawlessness. Truth without Grace = Legalism. But Grace plus Truth = Liberty. That is what we want for our counselees; liberty. Not liberty to sin or be selfish, but liberty to be free from the bonds of sin so we can serve God and live out our lives for His glory. And that is why we do Biblical counseling.
No comments:
Post a Comment