Gospel-Centered Family Counseling

An Equipping Guide for Pastors and Counselors

Kellemen, Robert W. PhD

• Publisher: Baker Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781493427666
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Ministère chrétien

Pastors and counselors regularly minister to people whose marriages or families are in crisis. Tempers run high and feelings are brought low when a marriage is hurting or a family is in disarray. Pastors and counselors need practical, biblical help in order to connect their theological training to the reality of modern messy relationships. These how-to training manuals provide relevant, user-friendly equipping for pastors, counselors, lay leaders, educators, and students, enabling them to competently and compassionately relate God's Word to marriage and family life.

Part 1
A Theological Primer for Biblical Family Counseling

Chapter
one

God-Dependent Families

Introduction: No, We Can’t Skip the Theology Stuff

A pastor once called me after viewing the summaries of my family counseling training on my website. “Bob, I really like your training outline,” he began. “Just one thing, though. Could we skip the theology stuff and get right to the practical material?”

Before we jump all over my pastor friend, maybe we could all be honest. We’ve had similar thoughts, right? Especially if we’ve been taught theology in a way that is only academic and not related to our hearts, lives, and relationships in a practical way.

So I shared a bit more with this pastor about how my family seminar relates theology to family life and counseling and how that builds a dynamic foundation for the how-to section. Hearing this, he was happy to have me present the theological part of my training. Afterward he expressed how pleased he was that we had built that practical theological groundwork.

In family or parental counseling we are often more like my pastor friend than we are willing to admit. A troubled family enters our office. What do we do? Where do we turn? Often we move right to Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Or if we are focused on the children, perhaps we turn directly to Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Vital verses, of course. In fact, I will build on Ephesians 6:4 in its broader theological contexts as I develop our first three chapters. And that is my point: we must understand, teach, and counsel Ephesians 6:1–4 (and other family and parenting passages) within their theological framework.

The apostle Paul penned Ephesians to equip the church to maturely love Christ and others. Given this relational purpose, we might wonder why in the world Paul spends only one verse (Eph. 6:4) talking about parenting. The answer: Paul expends his energy throughout his entire epistle divulging more and more of the character of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) so that we might develop more and more of the character of Christ. Theology matters. Who God is matters. Truth about Christlike character matters. If we fail to understand this, then we are destined to become like Manoah and his wife—demanding a parenting manual instead of depending upon every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).

Give Me a How-To Parenting Manual!

We all want a how-to manual for parenting. It’s a natural desire. And in Judges 13, Manoah and his wife—Samson’s parents—are no exception. Imagine the excitement Manoah’s wife experiences when, after she had been childless for years, the angel of the Lord appears to her with this promise:

You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines. (Judg. 13:3–5)

Her mind is racing as she hurries to find Manoah. Her words gush out of her overflowing soul as she tells her husband of her encounter.

A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. But he said to me, “You will become pregnant and have a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from the womb until the day of his death.” (13:6–7)

Manoah can no longer contain himself. He is probably thinking, “What? We’ve waited all these years to have a child. Then an ambassador from God comes and he doesn’t leave us a parenting manual? This man must come back!” That’s the message of Manoah’s prayer in Judges 13:8: “Then Manoah prayed to the LoRD: ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I beg you to let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.’”

That is the normal prayer of every Christian parent. “Please, Father, teach me, guide, me, direct me, instruct me how to raise my child.”

In Manoah’s case, we are told that God heard his prayer. The messenger of God returned. He handed Manoah the latest edition of 12 Steps to Raising Your Children for Yahweh and then left. Manoah, his wife, and their son, Samson, lived happily ever after . . .

Then again, perhaps it happened like this. The angel of the Lord comes again to Manoah’s wife. Again she races to find her husband. “He’s here, Manoah! The man who appeared to me the other day has returned. God has answered your prayer.”

Manoah follows his wife, races to the man, and asks, “Are you the man who talked to my wife?”

“I am,” he says.

So Manoah asks, “When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule that governs the boy’s life and work?” (13:12). There it is again: a second request for a how-to manual. How shall we order our parenting? What list of rules will lead, guide, and direct us step-by-step?

The angel of the Lord answers, “Your wife must do all that I have told her. She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink any wine or other fermented drink nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her” (13:13–14).

Manoah’s jaw drops. “Huh? What’s that? Couldn’t you leave us a scroll or papyri manual? What about a list? Some steps? Something?”

Rather than giving Samson’s parents a checklist, the angel of the Lord exhorts them toward a lifestyle: a God-dependent, God-glorifying, God-trusting, God-surrendered lifestyle. That is the cultural meaning of the Nazirite vow that Manoah, his wife, and their son were to fulfill. It was a commitment to consecrate and dedicate their life to God through a living faith embodied by a daily trust in God alone. The sustenance of the day was the fruit of the grapevine. To choose not to drink it was to live according to the words of Jesus in Matthew 4:4: “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Manoah and his wife desired what all Christian parents desire: “Father, teach me how to parent my child.” Our Father answers our prayer, but in his way, not ours. His parenting manual has one rule, one commandment:

Parent, be Christlike by being God-dependent.

God’s Parental Prime Directive

This is the same message we receive from Paul in Ephesians. Paul pens 131 verses about gospel-dependent living in Ephesians 1–5 before he offers us one verse on parenting—Ephesians 6:4.

When I counsel parents, they often expect me to take them straight to Ephesians 6:1–4. Initially they are a tad surprised when we start by exploring gospel-centered principles like our life purpose as parents and children to glorify God (Eph. 1), our lifelong need for Christ because of our guilt before God (Eph. 2), our lifelong dependence upon Christ for grace from God (Eph. 2–3), and our lifelong power for growth through God’s Spirit (Eph. 3–6).

Judges 13 and Ephesians 1–6 convey the same parental prime directive from God:

To become a more powerful parent, we must become a more godly person—a person dedicated to dependence on God.

GRACE-Focused Family Living and Family Counseling

You may be wondering, “But I thought this book was marked by practical principles for family counseling. How does that fit into all this God-dependence and theology stuff?”

In this training manual, we will build upon a gospel-centered focus of Christ-dependence by examining five marks of GRACE-focused families. However, these five marks would be nothing more than steps and how-to principles if we didn’t ground them in hearts surrendered to Christ. Without dependence on Christ, our application of these principles would be results-driven. We would end up being pharisaical counselors counseling pharisaical parents raising pharisaical kids.

God calls us to be gospel-centered family counselors counseling grace-focused parents raising grace-saturated kids. Notice who is in the middle of that sentence—grace-focused parents. This returns us to the themes I emphasized in the introduction:

• Children need good, godly parenting more than they need good, godly counseling.
• The biblical family counselor must never replace parents as the primary shepherds in the home.
• Biblical family counselors are counseling parents to be their children’s best biblical counselors and parental shepherds.

Through these first three chapters, we will build on Ephesians 6:4 in the larger context of Paul’s letter to develop five marks of GRACE-focused family living and family counseling (fig. 1.1). These five marks provide a biblical theology of the family. They become the goal of our biblical family counseling. They become the targets we aim toward and the markers that indicate when family counseling has been “successful.”

Figure 1.1

Five Marks of GRACE-Focused Family Living and Family Counseling

G God-Dependent Families: Parental Dedication—The Workout Room (Eph. 5:18; 6:10–18)

R Revelation-Based Family Wisdom: Parental Discernment—The Study (Eph. 5:15–17; 6:19–20)

A Accepting and Affirming Grace Relationships: Parental Devotion—The Playroom (Eph. 6:4: “Do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up . . .”)

C Care-Fronting the Heart: Parental Discipline—The Family Room (Eph. 6:4: “in the training of the Lord”)

E Equipping for Life: Parental Discipleship—The Living Room (Eph. 6:4: “in the instruction of the Lord”)

Maturing as a Biblical Family Counselor

No, We Can’t Skip the Theology Stuff

1. In your life and ministry, how do you balance theology and life? In other words, how do you ensure that you are relating theology to life—as God always does in his Word?
2. In working with troubled families:
   a. Have they had a tendency to expect you to race to Ephesians 6:1–4 and skip over the rest of Paul’s teaching? If...