What Biblical Counseling Is And Isn't---Some of This and Some of That

[00:00:19] Hello, this is Become A Competent Biblical Counselor, and I'm Dr. Dave Jones.

[00:00:24] Today's episode is What Biblical Counseling Is And Isn't, or in other words, Some of This and Some of That.

[00:00:35] Today I want to give you some information and help about various counseling systems that are on the market today.

[00:00:43] Now, it's sort of like breakfast cereals. You walk into the food store, there's so many of them there.

[00:00:48] You hardly know which one to take.

[00:00:51] And sometimes people look for the prize on the package, and they find out that they get a surprise instead.

[00:00:57] Well, there's no prize in any of the counseling systems today.

[00:01:01] There's only one system that is truly the one you want if you're a Christian,

[00:01:05] and that is the system that we call the Word of God.

[00:01:09] God gave us this book, His book, the Bible, to teach us, to convince us of our wrongdoing,

[00:01:16] to correct us so that we do what He wants us to do and to train us in righteous ways of living.

[00:01:23] This is what God gave us His book for, and we can't find the answer some other place when God gave us those answers in His book.

[00:01:31] Have you ever wondered why there are so many competing systems on the market today?

[00:01:36] Have you ever wondered why in other areas there is so much consensus?

[00:01:40] But in the area of counseling, we saw that the Saturday Review of Literature says that today there are at least 130 different systems of counseling on the market.

[00:01:53] Have you ever wondered why there are so many here that while in other kinds of disciplines, you can get a consensus,

[00:02:00] you can't get a consensus in the area of counseling.

[00:02:03] If there was little consensus on medical practice, then I surely would not take pills if I were sick,

[00:02:09] and I wouldn't let a doctor put me on a table and cut me open.

[00:02:13] But the fact of the matter is there is a great deal of consensus in medical practice.

[00:02:18] Over the years, medicine has developed a basic core of understandings and areas from which they can operate and from which they can help people.

[00:02:28] And if there were a little consensus as there is in counseling, let's say among airline pilots and the people who are involved in aerodynamics,

[00:02:36] I surely wouldn't get on a plane to try to fly, nor would you,

[00:02:40] because you see, in these fields, there is consensus in almost every other field.

[00:02:45] And yet in the field of counseling, there's disarray, no consensus, whatever.

[00:02:51] Have you ever wondered why?

[00:02:53] Well, the answer is this.

[00:02:55] The reason why is because people have missed the place where consensus can be found.

[00:03:00] They have missed the Bible, the Word of God.

[00:03:03] They have neglected God's system of counseling, God's method for dealing with people's problems.

[00:03:10] And we've seen how some have attributed people's problems to poor socialization,

[00:03:16] some to environment, some to failure to live up to potential,

[00:03:20] some to maladaptive behavior in the community.

[00:03:24] And they have found, accordingly, the solutions to fall in psychoanalysis

[00:03:29] or in some kind of retraining or reorienting the contingencies in the environment

[00:03:34] or by reflecting on man's ideas back to himself,

[00:03:38] since the resources are supposed to be in himself,

[00:03:41] or by putting him in community with others in some kind of a group therapy session

[00:03:46] whereby the resources of the community can be followed.

[00:03:49] All of these viewpoints are essentially,

[00:03:51] in their basic understandings of man's problems and of his solution, anti-Christian.

[00:03:58] And you should watch out for them and be ready to identify them in counseling.

[00:04:02] By the way, we've also noted that counseling can be done by a pastor

[00:04:07] and still be done in a non-Christian way.

[00:04:11] Many pastors have been trained in these various non-Christian viewpoints

[00:04:15] and simply don't know any better or by them as the proper ways to go.

[00:04:21] But a pastor who turns to the Word of God

[00:04:23] and who gives you his answers there in a definitive and in a practical way

[00:04:29] is the man that you want to help you in counseling.

[00:04:32] Not somebody who just reads a verse and prays with you and says,

[00:04:36] go home and it will all be better.

[00:04:38] But a person who really digs into your problem to find out what's going on

[00:04:43] and then digs into the Word of God to find out what God wants to be done about it.

[00:04:47] This is a biblical counselor.

[00:04:51] Now, there is another group of people on the scene today who you see are eclectic.

[00:04:56] People who say, no, I'm not going to use psychoanalysis.

[00:05:01] No, I'm not going to use behaviorism.

[00:05:04] No, I'm not going to use reflection.

[00:05:06] And I'm not going to use group therapy.

[00:05:08] And so they'll say, no, I don't identify with any one of these viewpoints.

[00:05:13] I will use, get this, a little of this, a little of that, a little of something else,

[00:05:20] and a little of the Bible too.

[00:05:22] Probably there are more Christians who use this eclectic approach

[00:05:26] than ones who use the Bible alone.

[00:05:29] And yet this is critically an important matter.

[00:05:33] Can you mix God and the Bible with Freud or with behaviorism

[00:05:38] or with reflective viewpoints or with group therapy viewpoints?

[00:05:41] That's the question.

[00:05:43] Can you say that the resources are in oneself as the reflected people do?

[00:05:48] And at the same time, they say that they are not in yourself,

[00:05:52] but they are in God, His Spirit and His Word.

[00:05:56] Can you say on the one hand that man is responsible for what he does,

[00:06:00] as the Bible says,

[00:06:01] and that he must stand before the judgment seat of God someday

[00:06:05] to be held responsible for everything that he has done while living in this world?

[00:06:09] And at the same time say,

[00:06:11] No, he's not responsible.

[00:06:13] It's what other people did to him.

[00:06:15] He is certainly not to be held responsible at all.

[00:06:18] Can you say that man is created in the image of God

[00:06:22] and a moral being who will live with God forever

[00:06:26] throughout all eternity who will be like Jesus Christ

[00:06:29] and on the other hand call him only an animal

[00:06:33] and treat him and train him as if that's all he were,

[00:06:37] simply an animal?

[00:06:38] Can you say that the answers to man's problems

[00:06:41] are found in Jesus Christ and His Word

[00:06:43] when what you're really saying is that all he needs to do

[00:06:47] is to get into the right kind of horizontal fellowship with other people

[00:06:50] and get his life straightened out in relationship to them

[00:06:54] and learn how to live with other people?

[00:06:56] Can you ignore the most important person in his life, God,

[00:07:01] the vertical dimension in his life,

[00:07:03] and say that his needs and his answers to them

[00:07:05] are only to be found on the horizontal level?

[00:07:08] No, you can't.

[00:07:09] You cannot say that eclecticism is a valid way of going.

[00:07:13] You can't have a little bit of Freud,

[00:07:15] a little bit of behaviorism,

[00:07:17] a little bit of reflection,

[00:07:19] and a little bit of group therapy,

[00:07:21] and a little bit of this and a little bit of that,

[00:07:23] and also a little bit of the Bible all sprinkled together

[00:07:25] in some kind of pot,

[00:07:27] stirred together,

[00:07:28] and then poured out into the pan to harden.

[00:07:31] That is the eclectic viewpoint.

[00:07:34] The eclectic will will use whatever he thinks might work.

[00:07:39] He will use bits and pieces.

[00:07:41] He will use little bits of this and little bits of that

[00:07:44] and larger doses of something else.

[00:07:47] But you can't take godless systems

[00:07:49] and find that God will get in bed with those systems.

[00:07:52] God will not ride in the same car.

[00:07:55] God will not have anything to do with it.

[00:07:58] They are strange bedfellows to God.

[00:08:00] You can't take a godless system

[00:08:02] and tack God onto it

[00:08:04] and make it Christian that way.

[00:08:06] You've got to start from the bottom

[00:08:08] and you've got to have Bible assumptions

[00:08:10] that man's problems are sin.

[00:08:14] You've got to have biblical assumptions

[00:08:16] that man's solution is in Christ.

[00:08:19] You've got to have biblical assumptions

[00:08:21] that the Bible has the resources

[00:08:23] and that the Holy Spirit gives the power to live according to them.

[00:08:27] You've got to have biblical assumptions

[00:08:30] for your counseling to be biblical.

[00:08:34] And then you've got to have biblical methodology

[00:08:36] that grows out of biblical assumptions.

[00:08:39] You can't use just any old person's methodology.

[00:08:43] You can't start reflecting

[00:08:45] when you really don't want to evoke something from man,

[00:08:49] but you want to give man something from the Word of God.

[00:08:53] You can't use people spilling out all of their problems

[00:08:56] all over the table

[00:08:57] when really what a person needs to learn to do

[00:09:00] is to take the responsibility himself

[00:09:02] rather than to slander others.

[00:09:05] And so I want to urge you against eclecticism,

[00:09:08] probably the most prominent viewpoint

[00:09:10] in Christian circles today,

[00:09:12] which really means a mixture of Christ and Satan.

[00:09:16] There is no agreement between the two.

[00:09:20] And lastly, I want to refer you to Colossians 2.8,

[00:09:25] where it says,

[00:09:26] Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy

[00:09:29] and vain deceit

[00:09:31] after the tradition of men,

[00:09:34] after the rudiments of the world,

[00:09:36] and not after Christ.

[00:09:38] So there you have it.

[00:09:39] Biblical counseling means biblical.

[00:09:42] The Bible doesn't need any more help,

[00:09:45] doesn't need any additions,

[00:09:47] doesn't need any corrections.

[00:09:48] It is what it is.

[00:09:50] Use it effectively and wisely.

[00:09:53] Thanks for listening.

[00:09:54] Any questions, get in touch with me.

[00:09:57] Bible help number four you at gmail.com.

[00:10:01] Bible help for you at gmail.com.

[00:10:04] Have a blessed day.