Biblical Counseling
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Biblical Counseling

A Guide for the Church and Community

James Clark

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eBook - ePub

Biblical Counseling

A Guide for the Church and Community

James Clark

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About This Book

Biblical Counseling presents a model for groups setting up a counseling practice based on Scripture. Clark presents the research that is the basis for this work as well as the experience gained through years of work in various venues. In addition to the step-by-step guides and templates of useful forms, there is a wealth of guidance in many aspects to be considered.

Rather than another book about another program, Clark's work represents a move to the development of a culture of concern for others in the local church.The book is divided into three parts: The Case for Biblical Counseling, Developing Counseling Training and Structure, and Protecting the Church. Biblical Counseling will instruct and motivate local churches to equip believers to care for each other within the local church.

Practical wisdom and vast experience makes Biblical Counseling the best resource for pastors and counselors as well as those wanting to assist in setting up counseling clinics.

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Year
2020
ISBN
9781602650671
PART I: The Case for Biblical Counseling
1—The Invasion of a Secular Worldview
“No deity will save us; we must save ourselves, reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses.” Humanist Manifesto II (Preface, 1973)
Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules? Colossians 2:20
In the 1960s, as a young man starting in ministry, I was ready to change the world for Christ. Over the years, opportunities have opened for me in youth, church, and parachurch ministries. During these years, the Vietnam War had a philosophical influence on college campuses, where many of the youth rebelled against authority. In fact, the rebellious mindset challenged government, law enforcement, and even the authority of the church.
Our country had accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution as well as the development of Freud’s psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud, a Jewish atheist, pointed his finger at the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and insisted that the doctrine produced false guilt in people’s minds. Indeed, he considered those who believed the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church to have a form of mental illness. In addition, secular culture rejected Christianity and denounced the Bible as not being the embodiment of truth and authority (Wright, Jr., 1994, pp. 22, 70, 79).
As a young pastor, chaplain, and counselor, I sought to convince people that the Bible was what they needed. Sadly, many students rejected the message and didn’t want to accept the Bible’s authority. They preferred to accept various other beliefs, including biological and theistic evolution, naturalism, Eastern philosophies, empiricism, and psychology. Moreover, these diverse influences produced a corrupted marriage in which the church integrated biblical truth with secular thought, embracing social science as creditable and relevant. One must define biblical counseling from a secular or integration point of view. Tautges, in Counseling One Another (2015, pp. 21–22) clearly defines biblical counseling as
an intensely focused and personal aspect of the discipleship process, whereby believers come alongside one another for three main purposes: first, to help the other person to consistently apply Scriptural theology to his or her life in order to experience victory over sin through obedience to Christ; second, by warning their spiritual friend, in love, of the consequences of sinful actions; and third, by leading that brother or sister to make consistent progress in the ongoing process of biblical change in order that he or she, too, may become a spiritually reproductive disciple-maker. Biblical counseling is helping one another, within the body of Christ, to grow to maturity in Him.
For a list of other biblical counseling definitions, see Appendix A.
During my early years as a pastor, I listened to modern-day experts and read their views on theology and counseling. I realized they didn’t consider the Bible sufficient or relevant to meet the needs of modern man. In fact, the so-called experts inferred that a pastor wasn’t qualified to help people who had deep problematic issues in life, nor was the Bible able to address such needs. In touring the Focus on the Family campus built by James Dobson, I found it interesting that the phone calls from the public who were needing help from someone in their area were referred only to licensed counselors, or to pastors who were on their list as licensed counselors.
Scripture Only? Really?
After preaching in a church one Sunday morning, I was approached by an alumna of Calvary Bible College. Part of my sermon had been about biblical counseling, which I had been teaching. The alumna stated, “I hope you’re not one of those Bible-only counselors just dishing out Bible verses as the solution to people’s problems.” At that moment, I felt severely ostracized for the biblical counseling program that I had established. It was obvious that these church members were disappointed by the direction Calvary was taking in the field of counseling. I swallowed hard and asked if I could read Scripture. Since I was being accused of using Scripture, I might as well stand on God’s Word from 2 Peter 1:3–4, which reads:
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
After reading the verses, I asked if they indicated that Scripture is sufficient, or if there was room to add to Scripture because it was inadequate. I’ll never forget the response: “Well, if you put it that way, I guess nothing needs to be added.” I replied, “I didn’t put it that way; this is God’s Word speaking, not me.”
Even in the Christian community, some have embraced the lie that for the healing of souls, one needs the Bible plus something else (psychology, therapy, psychiatry, …). Some would say that the sciences should take precedence over Scripture in the field of mental illnesses — yet these same Christians would vehemently argue with anyone who believes that salvation is by grace plus something else, such as good works or church membership. Many in the church today do not see the consistency in the belief that only Scripture is needed for salvation. They mistakenly think that Scripture plus something else is needed to bring about emotional healing, transformation, and sanctification for humankind. Ultimately, the question that must to be answered is this: Is the greatest tool for emotional and spiritual healing the Bible?
The late Dr. Henry Brandt, a trained psychologist who later went into the ministry and is considered by many the “father” of modern-day biblical counseling, coauthored a book titled The Word for the Wise, which admonished those who counsel by stating, “Your specialty is a comprehensive knowledge of the Bible and absolute confidence that it is God’s sure guide for all people” (Brandt and Skinner, 1995, p. 18). Brandt’s words are important because he was a well-respected doctor of psychology who embraced the truth of Scripture above all else.
Early in my ministry, the Baptist Pastor’s Choir from Sweden visited our church. My wife and I had the privilege of hosting two of the men in our home for the night. In my conversation with these pastors, I began to talk about books I had found helpful, such as those authored by Francis Schaeffer, John Stott, Charles Ryrie, and others. As I was talking, I could tell they were not familiar with the authors or books I was describing. I asked if they had read books by these contemporary authors and was surprised by their response. One of the pastors stated, “No, the demand for such books is low since they are not translated into the Swedish language.” I responded by asking, “What do you read and study?” The answer they gave completely humbled me. Their simple response to my question was, “We read and study the Bible!” I’m a reader and always have been, but I believe many times I read such books to the detriment of reading the Bible. I’m not denying the benefits of reading and studying for academic pursuit. After all, I have been in Christian education for many years. However, a biblical counselor must recognize that the primary tool of ministry is the Word of God! Do not let it take second place to something else.
Culture and the Slippery Slope
Chafer, who wrote Systematic Theology (1947), in his day recognized the culture shift in seminaries by stating, “While the seminary student needs as much theology as ever the trend unfortunately is to substitute philosophy, psychology and sociology for theology. This may be somewhat accounted for by the fact that Biblical doctrine is a revelation and the substitutes are within the range of the thinking of the natural man” (p. viii). Chafer’s point recognizes that the cultural invasion has influenced the authority of biblical truth.
In Total Truth (2004, p. 23), Pearcey wrote: “To say that Christianity is the truth about total reality means that it is a full-orbed worldview. The term means literally a view of the world, a biblically informed perspective on all reality. A worldview is like a mental map that tells us how to navigate the world effectively. It is the imprint of God’s objective truth on our inner life.”
Pilate said to Jesus, “You are a king, then!” Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify of the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” “What is truth?” Pilate asked (John 18:37, 38a). Jesus told his disciples that He was the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). Keep in mind that this statement is interpreted as meaning that He is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life. There is no room here for negotiation. This contrasts with the worldview of the present culture which denies and rejects biblical truth as final authority. Pearcey’s hypothesis stated that, “historically, nineteenth-century evangelicals tried to build a moral science that was religiously autonomous — lower-case science based on empirical and rational grounds alone. In doing so, however, they opened the door to full-fledged philosophical naturalism (nature is all that exists). And it was not long before scholars who embraced that philosophy walked right through the door that had been opened for them. They abolished the courses on moral philosophy, replacing them with empirically oriented courses on experimental psychology and sociology that spelled out the full implications of a naturalistic view of human nature. The American university was being secularized” (2004, p. 307). Pearcey continued, “The only worldview that supports the highest aspirations of the human heart is Christianity” (2004, p. 318).
Jesus Christ often classified people into two categories, the wise and the foolish (Matthew 7:24–27, 25:1–13). Those who reject Him as the Truth (only absolute truth) are foolish and those who believe in Him as the Truth are wise (Matthew 25:1–13). This is where the conflict between two worldviews stands or falls. Paul acknowledged the truth of Jesus by stating, This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3, 4). The apostle John wrote, But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth (1 John 2:20–21).
Both Paul and John agree that God’s truth is authoritative and totally reliable.
Movement from Biblical Truth Toward Relativism
In The Book that Made Your World, Mangalwadi wrote: “it was the Western Church that gave birth to the university, in its determined and passionate effort to pursue Truth. Following in the train of great universities of Bologna, Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, America’s first institution of higher education, Harvard, was founded upon the motto Veritas [truth]. Over the course of the last century, however, the motto has been stripped of all meaning. ‘Leading thinkers’ within the academy have succeeded in persuading many that ‘truth,’ as such, is largely a function of social convention” (2011, p. xiv). Mangalwadi went on to quote the late Richard Rorty, arguably one of the most powerfully influential American thinkers of the past forty years: “‘The word truth,’ he insists, ‘has no significant meaning’” (2011, p. xiv).
Once our culture denied authoritative, absolute biblical truth, a substitute system was developed through psychological cognitive development in which all truth is relative. An example of this evolution of moving from biblical truth to relativism is seen in the work of William Perry. Perry comes from a humanistic philosophical worldview. His conclusions have strongly influenced the direction of education, which ultimately has influenced our culture as a whole. Perry, a psychologist and researcher in epistemological development, wrote a book, Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years (1970), which was reprinted in 1998. Perry, who was an educational psychologi...

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