Jesus, the Greatest Therapist Who Ever Lived
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Jesus, the Greatest Therapist Who Ever Lived

Mark W. Baker

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Jesus, the Greatest Therapist Who Ever Lived

Mark W. Baker

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About This Book

Jesus: Healer of Body, Soul—and Mind

Over one hundred years of modern psychology and we still haven't improved on the principles and lessons taught by the greatest doctor of the human soul—Jesus. In this accessible and eye-opening book, international bestselling author Dr. Mark Baker offers a refreshing and practical understanding of how the teachings of Jesus are not only compatible with the science of psychology, but still speak to our problems and struggles today. Filled with biblical quotations, real-life stories, and divided into two major sections, "Understanding People" and "Knowing Yourself, " this easy-to-use guide reveals how the gospel continues to have the power to lighten the darkest corners of the human spirit.

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Information

Publisher
HarperOne
Year
2009
ISBN
9780061745928

PART ONE

UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE

1

UNDERSTANDING HOW PEOPLE THINK

“What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”
With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable.
—MARK 4:30–34
Life is about faith. Jesus knew that most of what we do in life is simply taken on faith. We like to think we are rational beings living logical lives based upon objective facts. But the truth is, we are rationalizing beings who base most of our decisions on what we feel or believe and come up with the logic to justify our decisions afterwards. We don’t really know as much as we think we do. Jesus knew this, so he used parables to force us to deal with what we believe rather than what we think we know.
Because we don’t know as much as we think we do, the truly knowledgeable person is always humble. Jesus never wrote a book, always spoke in parables, and led people to the truth through his living example. He was confident without being arrogant, believed in absolutes without being rigid, and was clear about his own identity without being judgmental toward others.
Jesus approached people with psychological skills that we are just beginning to understand. Instead of giving scholarly lectures based upon his theological knowledge, he humbly made his points through simple stories. He didn’t use his knowledge to talk down to people; he used a humble means of communication to talk with them. He spoke in a manner that made people listen because he knew what made them want to listen. I believe Jesus was a powerful communicator because he understood what the science of psychology is teaching us today—that we base our lives more on what we believe than on what we actually know.
His harshest criticisms were leveled at religious teachers, yet he was one himself. You see, he did not criticize them for their knowledge, but rather for their arrogance. To him, knowledge becomes toxic when people cease to be teachable. The more we learn, the more we should realize how much there is that we don’t yet know. Arrogance is a sign of insecurity and only proves a lack of self-knowledge on the part of those who display it. Jesus understood that human ideas are crude approximations of the universe—his psychologically brilliant teaching style always took this into account. I believe we need to learn what Jesus knew about the relationship between knowledge and humility if we want to be more effective communicators.1 Truly great thinkers are humble about what they know. They realize life isn’t as much about knowledge as it is about faith.
Why Jesus Spoke in Parables
He did not say anything to them without using a parable.
—MARK 4:34
Jesus understood how people think. He was one of the greatest teachers in history because he knew that each person can only understand things from his or her own perspective. Because he did not assume that what he had to say would always be understood, he taught in parables.
A parable is an insight into reality in story form. People can take from a parable whatever truths they are able to grasp and begin applying them in their lives. As they grow and evolve, they can return to the parable to extract additional meanings that may guide them farther along their path.
Parables have helped me understand life. This was especially true during one of my most difficult periods, when I was having trouble making sense out of my suffering. It was one of those times when I was forced to question everything, you know, the how-can-there-be-a-God-if-am-I-suffering kind of period. I was in despair, and nothing was helping.
During this time, I went over to my brother’s house to bemoan my situation. Tim is a geologist who spends most of his days outdoors. He doesn’t say much, but when he does, it’s usually pretty good. I have always considered him to be a humble man, in the best sense of the word.
I was sitting in his kitchen looking depressed and feeling hopeless when he said, “You know, Mark, when I was out doing a geological survey recently, I noticed an interesting thing about the way the world is made. Our team climbed up to the tallest mountain in the area, and we were exhilarated by the view. Mountaintop experiences are great. However, when you are up that high you are above the timberline. You can see that trees only grow up to a certain altitude, and above that they can’t survive. On the very top of the mountain there is no growth. But if you look down you notice an interesting thing. All the growth is in the valleys.”
The meaning I took away from Tim’s parable was that suffering feels bad, but it can also lead to growth. It’s important to make sense out of things, and that parable helped me do that. I’ll never forget what Tim said that day. It didn’t take my pain away, but somehow it made it more tolerable.
Parables don’t change the facts of our lives—they help us change our perspective on them. Because each of us can only understand things from our own perspective, Jesus used parables to help us where we need it most. Most of the time we can’t change the facts in our lives, but we can change our perspective.

Spiritual Principle: You can only understand
things from your own perspective.
How We Know the Truth
“I am the way and the truth and the life.”
—JOHN 14:6
Don came to his first therapy session with a list. He didn’t like to waste time, and because therapy is expensive, he wanted to present me with the problems he was facing in his life and get my advice on how he should go about solving them.
Even though I like to give advice to people when I am not doing therapy, I saw early on that this was not what Don needed from me. He was under the impression that if he could just acquire the right kind of information, he could fix whatever was wrong in his life. It has been my experience that most people already have more knowledge than they are able to apply in their lives, and perhaps that is the reason they come to therapy.
When we came to the end of one session, Don asked me for some homework in order to make use of our time even between sessions.
“I’m not going to give you any homework,” I said.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because that will only prove that you are the kind of guy who does homework, and we already know that. You are here to learn something new about yourself. I think you will use homework to put more things in your head when what we need to do is get more things out of your heart.”
Gradually Don’s life began to change in spite of the fact that he got very little advice from me. What he did get from me was a different kind of relationship from others he had in his life. He started to focus less on what I thought about things and more on how he felt about them. As he became better able to trust his relationship with me, he found himself delving into areas of his life he had never explored before. The more he learned about himself, the better able he was to see why he made the decisions he did in his life. Don came to the most important truths about his life not because of my advice, but because our relationship was one that could guide him to a deeper understanding of himself.
Jesus knew that people using their intellect alone can never come to a complete understanding of the truth about life. He didn’t say, “Let me teach you about the truth”; he said, “I am the truth.” He knew that the highest form of knowledge comes not from amassing greater amounts of information, but from trusting relationships. He answered direct questions with metaphors to invite listeners into a dialogue and into a relationship with him, because he knew that the deepest truths do not come from acquiring information, but from experiencing transformation within the context of our relationships with others.
This spiritual principle, that we learn the deepest truths in life through our relationships, is the basis for how I do therapy. We all have conscious and unconscious2 ideas that affect our perception of things. This is why we can only know the truth from our own perspective. It is psychologically impossible to completely set aside the influences of our own minds on the way we perceive things. This is especially so because we are unaware of them most of the time. Consequently, everything we think we know intellectually is filtered through what we already believe. Therapy provides people with a relationship that can lead to a greater understanding of themselves and consequently every other truth in their lives.

Spiritual Principle: You learn the deepest truths through your relationships.
Why We Try to Be Objective
“But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”
—MATTHEW 11:19
Craig and Betty had similar values and goals in life that made them a good match for each other, and their marriage worked rather well for the first several years. However, Betty gradually became dissatisfied with their relationship. She rarely felt she got anywhere when she first tried to talk to Craig about her fears concerning their marriage, and she had given up trying to argue with him since their fights almost always ended with her feeling that she was simply wrong about the cause of the disagreement. Betty respected Craig, but lately she didn’t feel safe enough to even bring up her fears with him, and that bothered her terribly.
“I’ve never been unfaithful to you, and I’ve always been a good provider for you and the kids. I just don’t think it’s right for you to be afraid. If you would just look at things objectively, you’d see we have a good marriage,” Craig insisted.
“This isn’t about who’s right and who’s wrong,” Betty replied. “It’s about feeling safe enough to say how I feel.”
“Safe?” Craig asked. “You’re not looking at the facts! You have a nice house, a savings account, and a million-dollar life insurance policy on me. The only way you would be safer would be if I died.”
Conversations like this never helped Betty much.
It was not until after they came for marriage counseling that Betty and Craig started to feel differently about their marriage. Craig began to realize that the objective facts he was trying to get Betty to look at weren’t helping her. She didn’t want to argue with Craig about the irrationality of her fears; she wanted him to understand that she was afraid anyway and needed support. She wasn’t telling him about her fears so he could fix them; she was sharing her vulnerable feelings in hopes that she could feel closer to him. Craig’s attempts to be objective were only helping him feel better about his role as a husband; that approach gave him something to do that he understood. Craig felt better looking at the facts. The problem was that it wasn’t helping Betty. She just needed him to listen and respond with compassion. There is a time when being objective about the facts misses the point. Once Craig became aware of this, he was better able to respond to Betty in a manner that was really helpful to her.
People tend to deify objectivity. We say things like, “Just give me the facts,” as if getting the facts were really the most important thing. Conclusions based upon objective facts give us a sense of security. We can then turn our attention to the business of daily living without having to spend time and energy contemplating the matters we have resolved. But to Jesus wisdom was much more important than amassing objective facts. To him, the application of knowledge in our relationships was much more important than the acquisition of it in our heads. This is what he meant when he said, “Wisdom is proved right by her actions.” We can be objectively right about something that has devastating consequences in our relationships with others, but wisdom always considers the consequences of our actions.
Jesus taught that insisting we have arrived at the objective facts about things can be dangerous at times. Wars have been fought, religions split, marriages ended, children disowned, and friendships dissolved because of it. Sometimes winning arguments can cost us relationships. As the old saying goes, in marriage you have two choices: you can be right or you can be happy.

Spiritual Principle: Seek wisdom
more than knowledge.
You Can Be Sincerely Wrong
“Humble men are very fortunate!”
—MATTHEW 5:3 (LIVING BIBLE)
Sometimes we place great confidence in what we think because it gives us a sense of false security. We may sincerely believe that something is true, but we can be sincerely wrong.3 Jesus warned us to not mistake sincerity for truth. None of us believe what we believe because we think it is false. We believe it because we maintain it is true. Jesus taught that we should be humble about what we thin...

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