Ten Reasons Why We Can Counsel ... Part II

Ten Reasons Why I Believe We Can “Counsel”
Members of the Opposite Gender
Part II: Reasons 6-10

Note: For part one, please visit: http://bit.ly/tXR7y

Introduction (Repeated from Part One)

I’ve been involved in a fascinating and stimulating discussion with a good friend and co-worker in biblical counseling. She believes that the biblical norm mandates that “counseling” must always be between two people of the same gender.

While I do not agree with her view, I do respect her thinking. Also, I certainly believe that there is much power in same gender “counseling.” It is not “wrong” to “counsel” someone of the same gender. I simply do not believe the Bible says that our “counseling” must be exclusively with members of our own gender.

Now, I’m no fool. I understand that I am going to have people “on both sides” at the very least disagreeing with me, some angry at me, and some even calling me a heretic (it wouldn’t be the first time!).

So why discuss this?

It’s a vital issue. It’s a question I am asked a lot. It’s relevant to ministry today.

So…this is a blog. It’s not a book. It’s not a published article. It’s not the final word. The following thoughts are my random ponderings on the issue pretty much as they appeared in the email string generated by my conversation with my friend.

So…the following views are not “hills I am going to die on.” I express them in the hopes of inviting intelligent, loving spiritual conversations. If you disagree with me, please share comments—speaking the truth in love, like a good “Berean.” If you agree with me, but would say things differently or would include additional reasons, please share those.

Here goes. In no particular order, some reasons why I believe we can “counsel” members of the opposite gender.

6. Titus 2: The Specific Context

Some would say that Titus 2 “mandates” and makes the “biblical norm” same gender “counseling.” But what is the context? And I don’t even mean, “is the historical context true for us today?” (which is an issue that some address). I believe the historical context of Titus 2 has application for us today. But what was the context then and what is it now?

Paul is talking about the specific situation of older women who are experienced wives and mothers mentoring younger women for/in the roles of new wives and mothers (and/or wives-to-be and mothers-to-be). So, yes, of course, who better to help a young woman to learn to be a mother and wife than an older woman/mother/wife?

Likewise, who better to help a younger man to learn to be a godly husband/dad than a mature husband/dad?

These are legitimate roles still today. And training women and men for mentoring focused on the home is very necessary and powerful.

I just do not happen to believe that this one passage ever was meant to imply that a woman could never minister to a man. This one passage does not mandate that every one another spiritual friendship or spiritual direction “counseling” interaction must be female-to-female or male-to-male.

7. 1 Timothy 2:11-16: Collaborative Spiritual Conversations

What about “a woman should learn in quietness…”? And, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man”?

These are highly contentious verses. I do not intend to address the full spectrum of issues (such as historical context, application for today regarding local church preaching, etc.). My focus is on what implication, if any, this might have for “counseling” today.

I have studied this whole section in detail. I would translate the lexical meaning of the words in context as, “a woman should not have final authoritative teaching over a man in the church.” (Again, I understand that some would take issue with this translation, with whether this is applicable to the church today, etc. For the sake of argument, I am granting that this is applicable for local church final authoritative preaching.)

However, as I’ve stated, my model of biblical counseling, spiritual friendship, soul care, and spiritual direction is not about final authoritative, directive teaching. It is about collaborative spiritual conversations that seek to relate God’s Word to another person’s life. I do not see 1 Timothy 2:11-15 as prohibiting women from offering spiritual friendship, soul care, or spiritual direction to men.

8. But What About Temptation: Fair Question

Many will say, “It’s not simply about whether women can or should ‘have authority’ over a male. It is about men not counseling women and women not counseling men—primarily because of temptation toward an emotional and/or physical affair.”

Granted, we have all heard the horror stories. However, if we are listening, then we have also heard, increasingly, the horror stories of female “counselors seducing female counselees.” I have a female friend who specializes in counseling women who have been seduced by their female counselors. If she specializes in it, just imagine how often it occurs.

And we have all heard the horror stories of “male pastors seducing male parishioners (especially young boys and teens).”

Thus, we really don’t protect against the temptation toward sinful affairs or emotional attachments simply by “counseling” only male with male or female with female.

What we need are mature, wise males and females who establish the appropriate boundaries and safeguards so that affairs and inappropriate attachments do not develop. Whether it is “formal counseling” or “informal spiritual friendships,” all such relationships must follow established procedures that ensure propriety and integrity.

We ought to empower and equip men and women with the spiritual maturity to engage in what God calls us to do with the wisdom to set appropriate boundaries. Instead, we avoid something good and commanded in Scripture because of something bad that might occur. Out of fear of what might occur in our sinful culture we avoid what the Bible calls us to do to impact our sinful culture.

No one is calling for inappropriate relationships without safeguards. No one is saying that every person is currently ready for one another spiritual friendships with members of the opposite gender. (That’s why the title is “Ten Reasons We Can,” not “Ten Reasons Everyone Must.”) For those without the current personal maturity to handle one another spiritual friendships, the answer is personal discipleship.

9. Potential Sinful Bias: The Potential for Negativity toward Women

I understand that many/most who are against counseling the opposite gender are not “anti-female.” However, in church history and still today in the church there are some who use this topic/issue as one more way to demean, discredit, and marginalize women.

There are men who use “women mentor women” to make women second-class Christians. The attitude can sometimes be, “Women, work with women and children because you are inferior to men.” Such attitudes toward female image bearers is sinful in the sight of God who made us different but equal.

10. Proverbial Wisdom: How God Works

We never build theology on experience. However, proverbial wisdom is a legitimate category of thinking and reflecting.

As I reflect on my life and the lives of many other men and women, I have been greatly ministered to by many godly women. They have been my spiritual friends and biblical counselors in one another ministry and in small group fellowship. Many times other men and women have pointed to these healthy, balanced, ethical, with-integrity, moral, pure relationships as examples to them of how men and women can minister to one another.

I've heard many women, in particular, express how sad it is for them that such fear of impropriety causes men never to have a candid, open conversation with them. They feel as if they are lepers or “Jezebels”—a temptress one must run from. How sad.

God, in His affectionate sovereignty, can choose to use healthy one another spiritual friendships as part of His maturing work in our lives so that we do not engage in sinful relationships. Perhaps it is our Evangelical fear of the opposite sex and the commensurate avoidance of one another spiritual friendships that contribute to the number of affairs we are seeing today.

What Are Your Thoughts?

These are my rambling ponderings.

What are your thoughts?

Imparting Healing Hope

Voices of Healing: African American Women of Faith
Part V: Elizabeth Keckley: Imparting Healing Hope

Note: Taken from Sacred Friendships: Celebrating the Legacy of Women Heroes of the Faith. For more information on this book, please visit: http://bit.ly/YmaM1

Note: For Part I on Elizabeth Keckley, please visit my blog post at: http://bit.ly/FSNIt. For Part II, please visit: bit.ly/ENWjJ. For Part III, please visit: http://bit.ly/gI1H6. For Part IV, please visit: http://bit.ly/x9Axx

Healing Hope

Elizabeth Keckley not only understood how to offer sustaining comfort. She also recognized how to impart healing hope.

“At the grave, at least, we should be permitted to lay our burden down, that a new world, a world of brightness, may open to us. The light that is denied us here should grow into a flood of effulgence beyond the dark, mysterious shadows of death.”

Hope-Giving Spiritual Friendship

The hope-giving spiritual friendship between “Lizzy” Keckley and Mary Lincoln continued for a lifetime. The widowed Mrs. Lincoln needed it desperately. Elizabeth describes Mrs. Lincoln in these post-White House years.

“A few words as regards the disposition and habits of Mrs. Lincoln. She is no longer the sprightly body she was when her very presence illumed the White House with gayety. Now she is sad and sedate, seeking seclusion, and maintaining communication merely with her most intimate personal friends.”

Lizzy, or Lizzie, as Mary affectionately called her in letter after letter, was her most intimate of friends—a friendship continued by letters until Mrs. Lincoln passed away. Unfortunately, history records only the letters written to Elizabeth from Lincoln. But even these provide more than a glimpse into the openness of this sacred friendship, and the trust and safety that that an otherwise mistrusting Mrs. Lincoln felt because of Elizabeth’s care for her soul.

A Broken Heart

Writing on a Sunday morning, October 6, 1867, the still-grieving Mrs. Lincoln opens her heart wide to Lizzy. “My Dear Lizzie: I am writing this morning with a broken heart after a sleepless night of great mental suffering. . . . Pray for me that this cup of affliction may pass from me, or be sanctified to me. I weep whilst I am writing. I pray for death this morning. Only my darling Taddie prevents my taking my life. . . . Your friend, M. L.”[1]

One week later, Mary cries out again for Elizabeth’s friendship. “Oh! That I could see you. Write me, dear Lizzie, if only a line. . . . I am always so anxious to hear from you, I am feeling so friendless in the world. I remain always your affectionate friend. M. L.”

It is obvious that Elizabeth provided sustaining and healing soul care from the preceding lines.

Helping Others to Be Better

It is equally clear that she was Mary Lincoln’s source of reconciling and guiding spiritual direction from the following words. “Write me my dear friend, your candid opinion about everything. I wish to be made better off.”

Lincoln offers a great purpose statement for spiritual direction—helping others to be better off—spiritually, socially, mentally, emotionally.

A Friend Like No Other

The next month, on November 9 and 15, 1867, Mary expresses further appreciation for the depth of connection that she shares with Lizzy. “How hard it is that I cannot see and talk with you in this time of great, great trouble. I feel as if I had not a friend in the world save yourself. I sometimes wish myself out of this world of sorrow and care. . . .”[1]

“Your last letter has been received, and believe me, I duly appreciate your great interest in my affairs. I hope the day may arrive when I can return your kindness in more than words.”

The widow’s sadness is unrelenting. Her need for her best friend’s enduring presence is equally indefatigable. “Chicago, November 24. Why, why was not I taken when my darling husband was called from my side? I have been allowed no rest by those who, in my desolation, should have protected me. How dearly I should love to see you this very sad day.”

The End of the Story: What Is a Soul-Care Giver?

What is a soul care-giver? She is someone like Elizabeth Keckley who can be trusted to provide unremitting rest, protection, and presence in the saddest days of life on fallen planet Earth.

Note: Readers can enjoy the empowering narratives of over two-dozen African American women (and scores of African American men) narrated in Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering. For more information, please visit: http://bit.ly/XvsTu

Sacred Friendships Back Cover

Celebrate Women Heroes of the Faith!

Sacred Friendships: Water My Soul

Note: The following is an excerpt from Sacred Friendships: Celebrating the Legacy of Women Heroes of the Faith by Bob Kellemen and Susan Ellis. Sacred Friendships will be released by BMH Books in late summer 2009. For information on pre-ordering Sacred Friendships, email rpm.ministries@gmail.com with a subject line of “Pre-Order.”

Our Passion: Giving Voice to the Voiceless

One resounding passion has motivated our writing of Sacred Friendships: to be a voice for the voiceless. For far too long, people have silenced the voices of women believers throughout church history. We address this imbalance by illuminating the forgotten history of over half of the Christian community.

G. K. Chesterton observes that history is democracy extended through time. History gives “votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to those who merely happen to be walking around.”

Sacred Friendships gives vote and voice to our female forebears in the faith. It listens to their voices communicating the unique shapes and textures of their practice of soul care and spiritual direction.

A Sacred Legacy: Uncovering Buried Treasure

Sacred Friendships uncovers the buried treasure of wisdom about soul care and spiritual direction as practiced by women throughout the history of Christianity. Christian women from all races and nationalities have always helped hurting and hardened people through the personal ministries of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding. Sacred Friendships uncovers the great spiritual riches of this diverse feminine Christian tradition.

By listening to their historical narratives, we learn to speak to today’s world with relevance—sharing Christ’s changeless truth for our changing times. Sacred Friendships assists female and male lay spiritual friends, spiritual directors, pastoral care-givers, professional Christian counselors, and students of all races to become more spiritually aware and skillful by deriving modern implications from these recovered resources.

Sacred Friendships contributes to contemporary soul care and spiritual direction as seen through the eyes, experienced in the souls, and told from the lips of a multi-cultural rainbow of past female believers. As we drink at the well of these amazing women, they water our souls by helping us to develop contemporary models of lay spiritual friendship, spiritual direction, women’s ministry, pastoral care-giving, and professional Christian counseling that are distinctively grounded both in the Word of God and in the sacred legacy of women’s ministry.

A Spiritual Ministry: Telling the Untold Stories

To accomplish our goal, we tell the untold story of women’s soul care and spiritual direction from the early Church to the modern era. Sacred Friendships listens to the voices of these previously voiceless women—hearing the feminine story told by women of all races and nationalities for the benefit of all women and men.

We begin our narrative where the amazing journey began—with the records of the lives and ministries of the Church Mothers and martyrs. Many of them were the physical mothers and biological sisters of the great Church Fathers. By listening to the voices of these courageous women of the faith, we detect new textures from the halls of church history.

The story continues with the sayings of the Desert Mothers who boldly provided feminine soul care and spiritual direction, not only for women, but for men. Their unsilenced voices provide readers with a new melody in the ancient ministry of spiritual friendship.

Moving to the Medieval times, we hear the feminine words of lay women, wives, single women, writers, and poets. Here, for the first time, whole books of spirituality furnish comprehensive manuals for soul care and spiritual direction from a feminine perspective.

The story also visits women of the Reformation and post-Reformation era. We hear the thought-provoking insights of wives of Reformers, pastors’ wives, mothers of denominational leaders, and women who directed substantial ministries of their own.

We then trace the continued development and growth of women’s soul care and spiritual direction in the modern era. Letters of spiritual counsel and books about women’s ministry express the depth of individual and corporate mutual ministry.

Throughout each chapter, we weave together individual stories and highlight common themes. We invite you to enjoy the voices of diverse famous and not-so-famous women who tell their own stories. We pray that their stories will impact your life and ministry.

Listening to the Silenced Voices

Throughout Sacred Friendships we will listen to the previously silenced voices of over fifty godly Christian women spanning nearly two-thousand years, five continents, and a great diversity of nationalities and races. Centuries later, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, we build upon the foundation they laid.

Our prayer as you read Sacred Friendships is that you will marvel at the depth of the spiritual riches that arose through the previously unheralded history of women’s soul care and spiritual direction. More than that, whether you are female or male, it is our desire that when you finish Sacred Friendships you will be empowered to sustain, heal, reconcile, and guide the people you love based upon the wisdom and practice of these female predecessors in the faith.

An Incredible Contribution to the Body of Christ

US Army Chaplain Donald W. Eubank’s Review of
Soul Physicians
“An Incredible Contribution to the Body of Christ”

Dr. Robert Kellemen's “Soul Physicians” is an incredible contribution to the Body of Christ—especially for pastors, counselors, and spiritual directors who seek to base their counsel and ministry on the Word of God. With so much of the published material on soul-care and self-care based upon clinical models and performance/activism based recovery and living, it is refreshing to find a thorough model based upon a Biblical-Trinitarian understanding of the Word of God.

Especially helpful are the study questions at the end of each chapter, providing the pastor, student, counselor, reader the opportunity to reflect upon and apply what is being learned. Dr. Kellemen takes his reader into an honest, thorough, and loving examination of the truth of God's Word that stands against all the secular, narcissistic and self-critical voices that tear down believers.

With great compassion, the pastor-student-spiritual leader, reader is brought to the Cross of Christ and given the tools to believe the only voice that matters, the only truth that matters: His Voice, His Word.

I have personally benefited greatly from Dr. Kellemen's work, and am incorporating this model of Sustaining, Healing, Reconciling and Guiding into my preaching, teaching, counseling, graduate studies, and writing. Most of all, I am growing in God's grace, and believing in His great love, forgiveness, and healing work in my own heart.

I strongly recommend this book, and the companion study, “Spiritual Friends,” for all who seek to encourage other believers—especially pastors and Christian counselors.

Please feel free to contact me at

dweubank@gmail.com.

In Christian Service and Ministry,

Donald W. Eubank, US Army Chaplain

*To Learn More about Soul Physicians: http://tinyurl.com/d8grf6

*To Order Soul Physicians: http://tinyurl.com/d96hc6

*Read a Sample Chapter of Soul Physicians: http://tinyurl.com/npfwsh

*View the Review on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/lzs6ne

Not Conclusion, but Commencement

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical!
Part Thirteen: Not Conclusion, but Commencement

*Note: If you’re disappointed that I’m saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then please read my comments at the end of my first post in this series: http://tinyurl.com/n8k799.

My Premise: Half Biblical Counseling

Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then such biblical counseling is only half biblical.

My Premise Expanded: One-Quarter Biblical Counseling

Even when some biblical counselors do address suffering and sufferers, their focus seems to be upon “directive” counseling that exhorts the suffering Christian to be faithful. When we provide only or primarily directive exhortations to faithfulness, but fail to engage in biblical “sustaining” (empathy, compassionate commiseration, sustaining, weeping with those who weep, sharing Scripture and soul, “climbing in the casket”), and when we fail to engage in biblical “healing” (encouragement, collaborative exploration of biblical responses, trialogues, spiritual conversations, scriptural explorations, “celebrating the resurrection”), then such biblical counseling is only one-quarter biblical. (For a fuller development of biblical and historical sustaining and healing, please see Spiritual Friends: http://tinyurl.com/coh23r).

Not Conclusion, but Commencement

This thirteen-part series could easily be month-long. In fact, it could be book-long.

However, it’s time to conclude.

No. Not conclude, but commence.

Even in “final counseling sessions,” I’ve never liked the word “terminate”! It’s like we are dispensing with our spiritual friend.

I prefer the word “commencement” for the final official meeting, because we are celebrating with our spiritual friend his or her commencing a new beginning as he or she connects more deeply with Christ and the Body of Christ and more fully reflects the image of Christ.

So also, in this blog mini-series, I don’t like the word “conclude.” That could imply that I believe I have cornered the market on the right way to do biblical counseling. That’s not my mindset at all. In fact, you’ll note that in this series and throughout my speaking, writing, and consulting, I quote a great deal from “that great cloud of witnesses”—biblical and historical.

The ideas presented in this series are not “Kellemen’s concepts. I believe that soul care for suffering (sustaining and healing) and spiritual direction for sin (reconciling and guiding) combine to offer a biblically and historically-based Christ-centered, comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed approach to biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

That leads to another reason I prefer “commencement” over “conclude” or “conclusion.” This is still just one person’s “take” on what Church history and the Bible have to say about “comprehensive” biblical counseling.

What Say Ye?

I’ve had many, many emails, Twitter messages, Facebook posts, etc., about this series. It’s been fantastic and fascinating.

Let the conversation continue; let it commence.

Let’s all “graduate” to a Berean-like discussion and application of truly comprehensive biblical counseling.

Let’s stir one another on to love and good deeds.

Let’s encourage one another as we see the day approaching.

Let’s sustain, heal, reconcile, and guide one another.

Let’s minister to those who are facing suffering and to those who are battling besetting sins.

Let’s equip pastors, lay people, and professional Christian biblical counselors with and for comprehensive ministry.

Let’s carefully define “biblical counseling” to nuance and represent what the Bible means when it talks about one another Body life ministry.

As I said, let the conversation continue; let it commence.

Why White Biblical Counselors Need the Black Church

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical!
Part Six:

Why White Biblical Counselors Need the Black Church

*Note: If you’re disappointed that I’m saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then please read my comments at the end of my first post in this series: http://tinyurl.com/n8k799.

My Premise

Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then such biblical counseling is only half biblical.

Why and How We Lost Our Way

So, why do I think biblical counseling lost its way? What historical, cultural, and personal realities help to explain why some modern biblical counseling is only half biblical?

E. Brooks Holifield, in his excellent study, A History of Pastoral Care in America (http://tinyurl.com/mo6ww8), demonstrates how pastoral ministry moved from a focus on salvation to a focus on self-realization. It moved from Christ to self, from Scripture to humanism.

In my own study of pastoral counseling in America, I’ve found that biblical counseling from the end of the Civil War (1865) to the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) moved from a focus on suffering and sin to a focus on self.

Interesting, isn’t it, that for these 100 years, framed by the Civil War and Civil Rights, we lost our way with Christian counseling and pastoral ministry.

In coming posts, I’ll share about the impact of liberalism and fundamentalism on pastoral ministry during this era. I’ll also describe how the modern biblical counseling movement pulled the pendulum back to a focus on sin, but not always to an equal focus on suffering.

Why White Biblical Counseling Needs the Black Church

Here’s my conviction about why pastoral ministry moved from suffering and sin to self, and why modern biblical counseling pulled the focus back to sin but not as much to suffering: church segregation.

From the end of the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act, and continuing to today, Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour in America. We lose so much by this church segregation.

White Evangelical biblical counselors lose the amazing, beautiful, biblical blending of suffering and sin that so characterizes the Black Evangelical Church from its inception in enslavement right up to our day.

In my book, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, readers enjoy 100s of lively narratives that consistently depict how the Evangelical Black Church never compartmentalized suffering and sin. Instead, the Black Church consistently integrated, mingled, blended, and kept united soul care for suffering and spiritual direction for sinning.

Samples and the Full Meal

If you want to read a free sample chapter on the Black Church’s personal ministry of the Word, go here: http://tinyurl.com/nykc3h.

If you want your own copy of the entire book in order to be equipped and empowered by African American biblical counselors, go here: http://tinyurl.com/cm96x6.

Conclusion

Because we White Evangelical biblical counselors pulled the pendulum back from a focus on self and because we did so in segregation from our Black brothers and sisters, we compartmentalized sin and suffering and ignored the development of biblical counseling approaches that help us to move beyond the suffering.

Where Do We Go From Here?

In my next post, I’ll share what White Evangelical male biblical counselors lost when we minimized the contribution of female soul care-givers and spiritual directors.

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical! Part Five

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical!
Part Five: What to Do After the Hug

*Note: If you’re disappointed that I’m saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then please read my comments at the end of this post.

My Premise

Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then such biblical counseling is only half biblical.

What To Do After the Hug

Some might conclude, “But there’s really no need to teach people how to comfort the suffering because they do that naturally.”

I’m sure Job would disagree with that as it relates to his “miserable counselors” who called his suffering “sin.”

So, today we ask and answer the question: “What might it look like to train pastors and lay people to be soul physicians and spiritual friends who deal with suffering?”

The Bible has a great deal to say not only about suffering, but also about how to comfort the suffering. Church history has highlighted two core biblical counseling competencies for suffering:

*Sustaining

*Healing

In Spiritual Friends (http://tinyurl.com/nxbxes), pages 39-214 teach lay people, pastors, and students the following ten biblical relational skills for sustaining and healing. Here’s your primer:

*Sustaining: “It’s Normal to Hurt.”

Using the acronym GRACE, we need to learn five biblical relational competencies if we are to be comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed soul care-givers who offer sustaining comfort:

1. G: Grace Connecting
2. R: Rich Soul Empathizing
3. A: Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening
4. C: Caring Spiritual Conversations
5. E: Empathetic Scriptural Explorations

*Healing: “It’s Possible to Hope.”

Using the acronym RESTS, we need to learn five biblical relational competencies if we are to be comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed soul care-givers who offer healing hope:

1. R: Relational Treatment Planning
2. E: Encouraging Communication
3. S: Story Reinterpreting
4. T: Thirsts Spiritual Conversations
5. S: Stretching Scriptural Explorations

How to Train Biblical “Sufferologists”

My point is not to say that I have cornered the market on equipping people how to offer biblical comfort for suffering. My point is that you can read many biblical counseling training manuals, attend many biblical counseling training seminars, and read many biblical counseling definitions, and find very little equipping for “sufferologists”—biblical counselors who offer sustaining empathy and healing encouragement.

Rather than assuming that we do this naturally, let’s do what the Bible and Church history do: let’s focus on biblical counseling and spiritual friendship equipping on how to train believers to deal both with sin and with suffering.

Where Do We Go From Here?

In my next post, I’ll share why I think biblical counseling lost its way. What historical, cultural, and personal realities help to explain why some modern biblical counseling is only half biblical?

*Note: Why I Am Addressing This Topic

All who have followed my ministry know that I am about bridge-building and not about wall-building. You might wonder then, “Bob, why blog about something that is surely to be controversial?”

Those who follow my ministry also know that I am about equipping God’s people to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth through comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

Biblical counseling that fails to deal with suffering, fails the test of comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling. I would be a hypocrite to my calling if I remained silent.

Others might wonder, “Are you talking about a particular ‘model’ of modern biblical counseling, or about a particular person or persons who are writing today?”

No. I am not. This is not an attack against. These blogs are not directed toward any one person or group.

These blogs are directed to all of us—myself included—who love biblical counseling. They are for all of us—myself included—who need good Bereans to help us to assess how biblical or unbiblical our approaches to biblical counseling truly are.

I write to help, not to hurt. I write to equip, not to attack. I write to start a conversation, not to finish one.

Please join the conversation.

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical, Part Four

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical!
Part Four: The Great Cloud of Biblical Counseling Witnesses

*Note: If you’re disappointed that I’m saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then please read my comments at the end of this post.

My Premise

Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then such biblical counseling is only half biblical.

The Great Cloud of Biblical Counseling Witnesses

The Bible exhorts us to honor and learn from those who have gone before us:

“Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you” (Deuteronomy 32:7).

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for yours souls” (Jeremiah 6:16a).

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).

So, how did the great cloud of biblical counseling witnesses in Church history deal with suffering? Well, for the detailed answer, please refer to:

Soul Physicians (http://tinyurl.com/d96hc6),

Spiritual Friends (http://tinyurl.com/qh5tj4),

Beyond the Suffering (http://tinyurl.com/cm96x6),

Martin Luther’s Pastoral Counseling (http://tinyurl.com/ovw588),

Sacred Friendships (http://tinyurl.com/ql8fqc).

The Readers’ Digest Version

As Church historians have probed the history of personal ministry, they have categorized all “people-ministry” using the four tasks of sustaining and healing for suffering, and reconciling and guiding for sinning. Though different terms were used in different eras, these historians have found consistent categories, definitions, and descriptions. Historically, comprehensive biblical care of people always involved the twin functions of soul care for suffering and spiritual direction for sinning through the four ministries of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding.

John McNeil’s A History of the Cure of Souls traces the art of soul care throughout Church history and shows that Christians always provided ministry for suffering and sin.

“Lying deep in the experience and culture of the early Christian communities are the closely related practices of mutual edification and fraternal correction.”

Speaking of the Apostle Paul, McNeil notes:

“In such passages we cannot fail to see the Apostle’s design to create an atmosphere in which the intimate exchange of spiritual help, the mutual guidance of souls, would be a normal feature of Christian behavior.”

Throughout his historical survey, McNeil explains that mutual edification involves soul care through the provision of sustaining (consolation, support, and comfort) and healing (encouragement and enlightenment) for suffering. Fraternal correction includes spiritual direction through the provision of reconciling (discipline, confession, and forgiveness) and guiding (direction and counsel) for sinning.

Historians of soul care, Clebsch and Jaekle, found that pastoral care has historically involved “helping acts, done by representative Christian persons, directed toward the healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling of troubled persons whose troubles arise in the context of ultimate meanings and concerns” (Clebsch and Jaekle, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective, p. 4).

How extensive has the twin ministries of soul care for suffering and spiritual direction for sinning been?

“The Christian ministry of the cure of souls, or pastoral care, has been exercised on innumerable occasions and in every conceivable human circumstance, as it has aimed to relieve a plethora of perplexities besetting persons of every class and condition and mentality. Pastors rude and barely plucked from paganism, pastors sophisticated in the theory and practice of their profession, and pastors at every stage of adeptness between these extremes, have sought and wrought to help troubled people overcome their troubles. To view pastoral care in historical perspective is to survey a vast endeavor, to appreciate a noble profession, and to receive a grand tradition” (Clebsch and Jaekle, p. 1).

Have we in the biblical counseling movement received or ignored this grand tradition of biblical counseling both for suffering and for sin?

Where Do We Go from Here?

Tomorrow, I’ll address the question, “What might it look like to train pastors and lay people to be soul physicians and spiritual friends who deal with both suffering and sin?”

*Note: Why I Am Addressing This Topic

All who have followed my ministry know that I am a bridge-builder and not a wall-builder. You might wonder then, “Bob, why blog about something that is surely to be controversial?”

Those who follow my ministry also know that I equip God’s people to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth through comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

Biblical counseling that fails to deal with suffering, fails the test of comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling. I would be a hypocrite to my calling if I remained silent.

Others might wonder, “Are you talking about a particular ‘model’ of modern biblical counseling, or about a particular person or persons who are writing today?”

No. I am not. This is not an attack against. These blogs are not directed toward any one person or group.

These blogs are directed to all of us—myself included—who love biblical counseling. They are for all of us—myself included—who need good Bereans to help us to assess how biblical or unbiblical our approaches to biblical counseling truly are. I write to help, not to hurt. I write to equip, not to attack. I write to start a conversation, not to finish one.

Please join the conversation.

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical: Whatever Happened to Suffering?

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical!
Part Two: Whatever Happened to Suffering?

*Note: If you find yourself upset that I am saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then I would ask you to be sure to read my comments at the end of this blog post. Thanks!

My Premise

Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then I am of the conviction that such biblical counseling is only half biblical!

Whatever Happened to Sin?

Some might object, “So, are you watering down sin? Are you saying that Christ came to heal our suffering and not to save us from our sin? Are you saying that our primary problem is our suffering rather than our sin?”

No. Actually, anyone who omits suffering in their biblical counseling is watering down sin!

Unlike the Church Fathers, unlike the Reformers, unlike the Puritans, and most importantly, unlike the Bible, we tend to make Christ’s victory over sin predominantly individual and personal, rather than also corporate and cosmic. Christ died to dethrone sin. Christ died to defeat every vestige of sin. Christ died to obliterate every effect of sin—individual, personal, corporate, and cosmic—including death and suffering, tears and sorrows, mourning, crying, and pain.

That’s why twice in Revelation, John shares the blessed promise that, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:4; see also Rev. 17:7). Christ died to defeat every enemy, every evil, including the devil who holds the power of death (Hebrews 2:14-15), and the last enemy—suffering and death (1 Corinthians 15:25).

Yes, of course, in the evangelism and discipleship process, our first joy is helping someone who does not know Christ to surrender to Christ so his or her sins are forgiven. And, of course, as we disciple one another we want to help each other to grow in their victory over sin’s tentacles.

Whatever Happened to Suffering?

However, our calling from Christ is also to minister to one another concerning sin’s effects—including suffering. That’s why we are called to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). That’s why we are called to comfort one another (nine times in 2 Corinthians 1:3-11). That’s why the New Testament calls us to a parakaletic ministry (to come alongside to help, comfort, and encourage one another in suffering). That’s why the New Testament uses the word parakaletic over 100 times!

Christ’s Cross defeated our deprivations—the evils we suffer, and our depravity—the sins we commit. Frank Lake explains Christ’s victory over both:

“The very powers of evil, standing in the shadows behind ‘the mystery of iniquity’ and ‘the mystery of suffering,’ were dethroned by Christ’s active, obedient submission to their onslaught. Therefore, He reconciles to God by His Cross not only sinners, but sufferers. Not only memories of culpable sin which condemn the conscience, but the memories of intolerable affliction which condemn faith as a delusion, these too are confronted by the fact of Christ’s Cross. These passive evils, which are not of the soul’s own making, are not accessible to a pastoral care which can talk only in terms of the forgiveness of sins. Such sufferers are usually not insensitive to their status as sinners. They have sought God’s forgiveness. But, like Job, they complain of the comforters whose one-track minds have considered only the seriousness of sin, and not the gravity of grinding affliction” (Lake, Clinical Theology, pp. 24-25, emphasis added).

Lake makes several astute points.

1. Academic Theology: As we have said, Christ’s died to defeat sin and sins’ effect—death and suffering, depravity and deprivation.

2. Spiritual Theology: “Passive evils” are what some today called “innocent suffering.” Not that anyone is innocent (or sinless), but that some suffering is not directly due to our own personal sin: the woman who is raped, the child who is abused, the cancer patient, the parents of a dying child, the victim of a drunk-driving accident, etc.

3. Pastoral Theology: Counseling such individuals, they typically understand that they are sinners. They want to know if their pastors, counselors, and spiritual friends understand that they are sufferers! If we do not, if we preach them a sermon on sin, then we are like Job’s miserable counselors with their false theology that God is a tit-for-tat God and that every incident of suffering is directly related to one’s personal sin. (See John 9:1-3 for Jesus’ theology of innocent suffering/sufferers.)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be known as a miserable counselor. I want to be known as a comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counselor!

Frank Lake again explains what that looks like.

“Clinical pastoral care has, as its introduction, the task of listening to a story of human conflict and need. To the extent that our listening uncovers a situation which borders the abyss or lies broken within it, we are nearer to the place where the Cross of Christ is the only adequate interpretative concept” (Frank Lake, Clinical Theology, pp. 18-19).

Sin and suffering—they both offer us the opportunity to provide wisdom found only in the Gospel. When we skirt our biblical counseling responsibility to minister to the suffering, we limit the limitless power and infinite relevancy of the Cross of Christ.

When we talk about the sufficiency of Scripture but in practice deny the relevancy of Scripture to address human suffering, then we have watered down sin and we have diminished the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ!

When we understand the Cross of Christ, then we practice biblical counseling that combines the sufficiency and the relevancy of Scripture and that unites counseling for the sufferer and for the sinner.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Tomorrow we’ll start addressing the following vital questions.

*So, has anyone else in Church history ever said we must focus on both sin and suffering?

*So, what would it look like to focus on both sin and suffering?

*So, what’s your definition/description of truly biblical counseling?

*Note: Why I Am Addressing This Topic

All who have followed my ministry know that I am about bridge-building and not about wall-building. You might wonder then, “Bob, why blog about something that is surely to be controversial?”

Those who follow my ministry also know that I am about equipping God’s people to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth through comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

Biblical counseling that fails to deal with suffering, fails the test of comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling. I would be a hypocrite to my calling if I remained silent.

Others might wonder, “Are you talking about a particular ‘model’ of modern biblical counseling, or about a particular person or persons who are writing today?”

No. I am not. This is not an attack against. These blogs are not directed toward any one person or group.

These blogs are directed to all of us—myself included—who love biblical counseling. They are for all of us—myself included—who need good Bereans to help us to assess how biblical or unbiblical our approaches to biblical counseling truly are.

I write to help, not to hurt. I write to equip, not to attack. I write to start a conversation, not to finish one.

Please join the conversation.

Change Lives with Christ's Changeless Truth

More Praise for Soul Physicians

To Order Your Copy at 40% Off, Please Visit: http://tinyurl.com/d96hc6

“Soul Physicians is no naїve verse-to-issue, sin-to-solution, mix-and-match biblical counseling reference. This is rich theology relayed in readable terms for grace-based care as shared by a stellar scholar-teacher. Soul care worthy of the title ‘Christian’ must address the core of shalom, the cancer of shame, and the destiny of the sacred. Soul Physicians passionately brings that holistic biblical redemptive story line to bear on the everyday life stories common in the practice of discipleship, Christian counseling, and spiritual formation.”
—Stephen P. Greggo, PhD., Professor of Counseling, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“Dr. Kellemen’s book came as a great refreshment to me. It was both clear and comprehensive, elucidating a theological foundation for counseling ministry based on a solid biblical hermeneutic. This book is beneficial for a multitude of audiences: from the lay counselor, to the pastor, to the licensed clinician. Its impact is to clarify the need, mandate, and roots of personal ministry taken from the Word of the One who created all. Soul Physicians addresses all the imperative issues of our fallen and redeemed state without trying to simplify the complexities of sanctification. It should not be considered merely a textbook contribution to the literature on biblical counseling, but instead a foundation for a curriculum. I require it for all my biblical counseling students.”
—Lynelle Buchanan, Professor of Counseling, Baptist Bible College

“Soul Physicians swaps shop-worn theology for biblically sound, compassionate soul care. Dr. Bob Kellemen skillfully invites readers into the huddle where academic theology is spelled out and onto the field where practical theology is lived out. It’s a privilege to endorse such a fine work.”
—Tammy Schultz, Ph.D., LMHC; Department Chair, Graduate School in Counseling, Grace College

“Soul Physicians is an excellent resource for counselors, pastors and students who believe that knowing and loving people in our world begins with knowing and loving God and His Word. The confluence of Dr. Kellemen’s comprehensive grasp of the story of redemption in Scripture and his practical wisdom about people with problems makes this book a unique and important contribution for those that want to counsel from a distinctively Christian perspective.”
—Sam R. Williams, Ph.D., Professor of Counseling, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“The tremendous issues that people face today call for a work that skillfully guides those who labor in helping Christians reach maturity in Christ. Soul Physicians meets that need and will be of great value to pastors, professional Christian counselors, students, and lay people. Dr. Kellemen’s credentials both in the theological world and the world of counseling make him uniquely qualified to produce a work like Soul Physicians. His work will prove to be invaluable in the field of Christian counseling.”
—Dr. Homer Heater, Jr., President Emeritus, Washington Bible College

“Soul Physicians is a ‘theological breath of fresh air.’ This comprehensive guide offers a wealth of knowledge that translates theology into everyday human relationships. It catapults the reader into confidently connecting with people soul-to-soul. My life and ministry will never be the same after reading Soul Physicians.”
—Pastor Dwayne Bond, Senior Pastor, Wellsprings Church

“Soul Physicians captures the essence of Christian soul care and spiritual direction. A unique balance of biblical theology and compassionate spiritual friendship makes Soul Physicians vital for the pastor, Christian counselor, or student of counseling. Soul Physicians will revolutionize the study of counseling at higher learning institutions that embrace the Christian worldview in their counseling programs.”
—Douglas McCracken, Professional Christian Counselor, Safe Harbor Counseling

“Personally, I can attest to the challenge of facing deep hurts and overcoming them through the use and application of Soul Physicians’ principles. Professionally, as a biblical counselor, pastor’s wife, and teacher, God has allowed me to use Soul Physicians as an equipping tool to mentor women. My classes using these concepts have now included over 500 women who testify that Soul Physicians deepened their personal maturity and equipped them to more powerfully minister to others.”
—Sister Ellen Barney, Women’s Ministry Director, New Antioch Baptist Church

“Soul Physicians revives the timeless tradition of soul care in the Christian community. If you are longing for a deeper relationship with the Lord and others, read on. If you desire to see others as God sees them, keep reading. If you want to relate God’s Word to suffering and sinning as you interact with image bearers, Soul Physicians is for you. If you’re willing to allow God to pierce your heart with His holiness and grace, then Soul Physicians will transform you and those you encounter.”
—Susan Ellis, Author of Sacred Friendships

“Soul Physicians offers theological depth leading to personal maturity. It unlocks a systematic, exhilarating understanding of how God created us to relate, think, choose, and feel in an imperfect world as redeemed Christians. Providing a myriad of scriptural tools, Soul Physicians equipped me to understand suffering and sin, enabling me to connect with people who are impacted by the evils of suffering and with those who are dealing with personal sin issues. In Soul Physicians, Dr. Kellemen shares his years of experience, diligent research, and dependence on the Spirit to endow counselors, pastors, students, and lay people with a scriptural blueprint to become more soul aware and, in turn, empower others with God’s profound grace.”
—Robin Shell, Graduate Counseling Student

“As a pastor and a church planter, I resonate with the major theme found in Soul Physicians—how to change lives with God’s changeless truth. The principles found in Soul Physicians are so practical and life-giving that I am using them in the foundation of our church plant. Solidly biblical and refreshingly relational, Bob combines his wealth of experience as a pastor, shepherd, coach, and counselor with his strong exegetical skills to outline an easily understandable theology of counseling that masterfully addresses the human soul’s need for healing from both suffering and sin.”
—Pastor Tom Gill, Church Planter, Life in the Balance Ministries

“Not only is Soul Physicians based upon solid exegesis and deep theological convictions, it is also presented creatively and insightfully. God will use these truths to transform readers into greater lovers of God and better lovers of God’s people. Personally, I ‘understood’ truth before I was introduced to these concepts, but now God is giving me His heart through Soul Physicians. Undoubtedly, I am more like Jesus and better equipped to minister for Jesus because of Soul Physicians.”
—Chris Boucher, Counseling Professor, Capital Bible Seminary

To Order Your Copy at 40% Off, Please Visit: http://tinyurl.com/d96hc6

Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction

Understand People, Diagnose Problems, and Prescribe Solutions—Biblically!

Join the growing number of lay people, pastors, professional counselors, and students who are using Soul Physicians as the twenty-first-century theology manual for Christian counseling. Learn our Great Physician’s authoritative truth about:

Nourishing the Hunger of the Soul: Preventative Medicine—God’s Word

Knowing the Creator of the Soul: The Great Physician—The Trinity

Examining the Spiritual Anatomy of the Soul: People—Creation

Diagnosing the Fallen Condition of the Soul: Problems—Fall

Prescribing God’s Cure for the Soul: Solutions—Redemption

Envisioning the Final Healing of the Soul: Home—Glorification

Dispensing God’s Care for the Soul: Spiritual Friends—Sanctification

Robert W. Kellemen, Ph.D. LCPC, is Chairman of the Master of Arts in Christian Counseling and Discipleship Department at Capital Bible Seminary where he has field-tested Soul Physicians for a decade. In his three pastoral ministries, Bob has trained hundreds of lay people as soul physicians. As a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, he brings a practitioner’s sensitivity to his writing. Bob is also the author of Spiritual Friends, Beyond the Suffering, and Sacred Friendships.

Soul Physicians, Part I

Praise for Soul Physicians

To Order Your Copy at 40% Off, Please Visit: http://tinyurl.com/d96hc6

“Soul Physicians is a great and unique book: deeply shaped by Scripture; promoting of a personal engagement with biblical teaching and with Christ; challenging and focused against sin; but practical, gentle in spirit, and discerning in method and counseling skill. The book itself exemplifies what a biblical counselor should be like. Its use of a redemptive-historical structure (creation-fall-redemption-consummation) alone is worth the price of the book, since the value of this framework has not yet been fully realized in Christian counseling. It should be widely used in counseling programs and local churches that value the Bible.”
—Eric Johnson, Ph.D., Professor of Pastoral Theology and Biblical Psychology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“The Puritan writers were excellent counselors because they were also excellent theologians. Dr. Kellemen follows in that rich tradition; his quality leadership in counselor education flows from the depth of his theological underpinnings. Few books on counseling today are true to biblical hermeneutics; Soul Physicians is one significant exception, which is why I am using it as a required text for our course exploring Methods of Biblical Change.”
—Dr. Dow Pursley, Director of Counseling Programs, Baptist Bible College Graduate School

“Soul Physicians is an outstanding contribution to the fields of counseling and pastoral theology. It has succeeded remarkably in uniting counseling theory and the authority of Scripture. I know of no other work that is so insightful and equally practical. I strongly recommend Soul Physicians to pastors, educators, and everyone who is interested in intensifying practical sanctification.”

—Dr. Don Fowler, Professor of Biblical Studies, Liberty University

“Unlike many other books currently available, Soul Physicians can easily serve as a primary and comprehensive resource for those studying the theology of soul care. Dr. Kellemen’s innovative approach places the theology of soul care in the appropriate context of the Christian’s spiritual formation and discipleship. The text provides the vital addition of significant questions for the reader’s study and reflection, thus providing further options for classroom use in plenary or small group discussion.”

—Dr. Mara Crabtree, Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation and Christian Spirituality, Regent University School of Divinity

“Soul Physicians is a truly meaningful and valuable treatment of the theological, spiritual, and psychological dimensions of counseling, soul care, spiritual formation, and the relationships between them. It can serve as a textbook, a personal study guide, or a resource handbook for those desiring to approach people-helping from a thoroughly Christian and biblical viewpoint.”

—Dr. Richard Averbeck, Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; Director of the Spiritual Formation Forum

“In Soul Physicians, Robert W. Kellemen explores seven key biblical categories for developing a theology of soul care and spiritual direction. The result is a thoroughly biblical systematic theology written with the insights and illustrations of a mental health professional—appropriately constructed against the backdrop of a relational emphasis. I highly recommend this book as an important reference for evangelical pastors, counselors (both professional and lay), and other soul care providers.”
—Gary W. Moon, M.Div., Ph.D., Vice President and Chair of Integration, Psychological Studies Institute, Author of Falling for God

“In Soul Physicians, Dr. Kellemen captures the essence of delivering practical ministry in the real world. His teachings are applicable to the ‘every member a minister’ approach to caring for others, as well as being foundational for the professional Christian counselor. This material has enabled me to incorporate solid biblical principles into my counseling practice.”
—Melvin Pride, Director of Strategic Planning, Southern Baptist Convention of Maryland and Delaware

“The information in Soul Physicians, the perspective it gives on life, and the passion with which it is written has been the catalyst for my walk with Christ soaring to an entirely new level. The framework for life it presents has deepened my understanding of who Jesus is and provided me a clearer picture of God’s plan for my personal life and pastoral ministry. It has greatly enhanced my understanding of people and equipped me to powerfully minister to them.”
—Pastor John Heater, Youth Pastor, Forcey Memorial Church

“I read Soul Physicians expecting to learn many facts that I would need to become an excellent Christian counselor. God’s plans were that and so much more. He used Soul Physicians to speak truth into the deepest regions of my heart. It is naїve of us to plan to make an impact on those who are hurting, and hurting others, without first dealing with those parts of ourselves. Soul Physicians gave me a thorough knowledge of the subject, an increased self-awareness, and a realization of the many sensitive areas I face as I minister to God’s people. Soul Physicians is an apt title for a work that so eloquently presents the application of the Word of God to human suffering and sin.”
—Terri Polm, Lay Counselor

To Order Your Copy at 40% Off, Please Visit:

http://tinyurl.com/d96hc6

Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction

Understand People, Diagnose Problems, and Prescribe Solutions—Biblically!

Join the growing number of lay people, pastors, professional counselors, and students who are using Soul Physicians as the twenty-first-century theology manual for Christian counseling. Learn our Great Physician’s authoritative truth about:

Nourishing the Hunger of the Soul: Preventative Medicine—God’s Word

Knowing the Creator of the Soul: The Great Physician—The Trinity

Examining the Spiritual Anatomy of the Soul: People—Creation

Diagnosing the Fallen Condition of the Soul: Problems—Fall

Prescribing God’s Cure for the Soul: Solutions—Redemption

Envisioning the Final Healing of the Soul: Home—Glorification

Dispensing God’s Care for the Soul: Spiritual Friends—Sanctification

Robert W. Kellemen, Ph.D. LCPC, is Chairman of the Master of Arts in Christian Counseling and Discipleship Department at Capital Bible Seminary where he has field-tested Soul Physicians for a decade. In his three pastoral ministries, Bob has trained hundreds of lay people as soul physicians. As a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, he brings a practitioner’s sensitivity to his writing. Bob is also the author of Spiritual Friends, Beyond the Suffering, and Sacred Friendships.

Learn How to Change Lives

Are You Ready to Learn How to Change Lives

with Christ's Changeless Truth?

Do you sometimes struggle to know how to use God's Word powerfully, effectively, and lovingly to change lives?

Change that with:

Changing Lives: What to Do After the Hug.

In fifty pages, I have creatively condensed a lifetime of ministry equipping.

Learn how to care like Christ through comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

For just $7.50 you can order your E-Document as a Word document at:

http://www.rpmbooks.org/credit_card_orders.html#hug

You will learn how to view the Bible as the foundation for one another ministry through six practical spiritual life principles from God's Word.

You will learn how to use the Bible in your personal ministry through four practical relational competencies for biblical counseling.

Twelve built-in application sections make this the ideal equipping manual.

Be equipped to care like Christ and to change lives with Christ's changeless truth through comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

The Future of Biblical Counseling, Part Three

The Future of Biblical Counseling
Dreaming a Dozen Dreams

Part 3: Dream Number Three
Biblical Counseling Will Be Theological

Welcome to a multi-part Blog on The Future of Biblical Counseling. We need clarity on the issue of what makes biblical counseling biblical. I invite you to join the conversation.

Dream Number Two: Biblical Counseling Will Be Theological

Perhaps we should say, as we do in later “dreams,” that biblical counseling will be holistically theological. The “modern” biblical counseling “movement” has at times been limited in it’s theological focus, emphasizing humanity’s Fall into sin and the effects of depravity, while tending to neglect our Creation in God’s image and our Redemption in Christ.

The CFR Narrative

I was introduced to the “CFR Narrative” as an eighteen-year-old freshman at Baptist Bible College in Old Testament survey. Dr. Lawlor’s reputation as a exacting professor preceded him into the classroom. So when he stepped to the lectern the first day to address a room full of over 100 intimidated students and said, “Repeat after me,” we would have said most anything.

“Creation. Fall. Redemption,” he said.

“Creation. Fall. Redemption,” we repeated.

“Remember those three terms and you will remember everything you need to know about biblical theology.”

I’ve never forgotten Dr. Lawlor’s lesson. Nor should any biblical counselor.

Creation, Fall, Redemption: People, Problems, Solutions, Psychology, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy

As already stated, too often, current models of biblical counseling start and end at the Fall—focusing almost exclusively on human depravity. As a result, they often counsel Christians as if they are still unsaved—apart from the justifying, redeeming, regenerating, and reconciling work of Christ.

Biblical counseling will unite Creation, Fall, and Redemption.

In studying a biblical theology of Creation, biblical counseling will examine people—God’s original design for the soul (anthropology).

In probing the Fall, biblical counseling will examine problems—how sin brought personal depravity and suffering (hamartiology).

In investigating the Bible’s teaching on Redemption, biblical counseling will examine solutions—the gospel of Christ’s grace which offers eternal salvation and provides us with daily victory in our ongoing battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil (soteriology).

Creation, Fall, and Redemption also have psychological correlates. Creation is biblical psychology—the biblical study of the soul. The Fall is biblical psychopathology—the biblical study of the sickness of sin. Redemption is biblical psychotherapy—the biblical study of God’s healing of the soul through Christ.

Reclaiming What Is Rightfully Ours

In the minds of some, the use of these psychological terms is invalid. How sad that we have allowed the world to steal these solidly biblical, theological, and historical terms. It is time that we took back our heritage and redefined these terms. Franz Delitzsch, writing in 1861 (before the advent of modern secular psychology), noted that “biblical psychology is no science of yesterday. It is one of the oldest sciences of the church.”[i]

Psychology is native to our faith. Not secular psychology, but biblical psychology—understanding and ministering to the soul designed by God, disordered by sin, and redeemed by grace.[ii]


[i]Franz Delitzsch, A System of Biblical Psychology. Second edition. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1861, p. 3.
[ii]See Eric Johnson, “Christ: The Lord of Psychology,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 25(1), 1997, pp. 11-27. See also, Robert Kellemen, Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 2007, pp. 131-141.

The Future of Biblical Counseling, Part I

The Future of Biblical Counseling:

Dreaming a Dozen Dreams

Part I
Introduction: What Makes Biblical Counseling Biblical?

Six months ago I blogged on the future of biblical counseling in a four-part blog. I want to expand that initial blog with what will become a thirteen-part blog. The more I speak around the country, the more I become aware that we need clarity on this issue of what makes biblical counseling biblical. I invite you to join the conversation.

Part I
Introduction: What Makes Biblical Counseling Biblical?

As I speak around the country on biblical counseling and spiritual formation, I’m frequently asked the question. “When you say ‘biblical counseling,’ you don’t mean ___________ do you?” Various people fill in that blank with different labels—all negative to them. What a shame that placing the word “biblical” in front of “counseling” causes so many in the church to recoil in fear. Something has gone terribly wrong.

But there’s good news—the tide is turning. Warped caricatures of biblical counseling are being replaced by scripturally and historically accurate portraits of counseling that are truly biblical—and attractive (Titus 2:10). While no one can provide the final, authoritative definition of biblical counseling, I offer for your consideration this summary understanding.

Biblical counseling depends upon the Holy Spirit to relate God’s inspired truth about people, problems, and solutions to human suffering (through the Christian soul care arts of sustaining and healing) and sin (through the Christian spiritual direction arts of reconciling and guiding) to empower people to exalt and enjoy God and to love others (Matthew 22:35-40) by cultivating conformity to Christ and communion with Christ and the Body of Christ.

Given this working definition, over the next twelve blogs, envision with me the nature and shape of the future of biblical counseling—twelve dreams of one possible future for biblical counseling as practiced by lay spiritual friends, pastors, and professional Christian counselors.

Susanna Wesley: Spiritual Guide Par Excellence, Part I

Susanna Wesley: Spiritual Guide Par Excellence, Part I

We know of Susanna Wesley (1669-1742) because of her famous sons, John and Charles. Yet she is a spiritual guide in her own right. Susanna was the youngest daughter of twenty-five children of Dr. Samuel Annesley. A minister living in London, he trained his daughter in biblical and classical languages as well as other arts and sciences. A man ahead of his times, he notes that, “I have often thought it as one of the most barbarous of customs in the world, considering us a civilized and Christian Country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women.[i]

Susanna married Samuel Wesley, a minister in the Church of England, and moved to his rural parish at Epworth. She bore nineteen children, only nine of whom lived to adulthood. Her husband was known to be difficult to get along with because he ruled with an iron hand. As a result, parishioners and townspeople alike disliked the family. At one point he was sent to prison for failure to pay a debt owed to one of his parishioners.[ii]

Of her marriage, Susanna ruefully records, “Since I’m willing to let him quietly enjoy his opinions, he ought not to deprive me of my little liberty of conscience. . . . I think we are not likely to live happily together. . . . It is a misfortune peculiar to our family that he and I seldom think alike”[iii]

Motherly Spiritual Direction: Theological Depth and Relational Focus

Like many such marriages, their distance resulted in her focusing her feminine gifts on her children. John Wesley requested, in adulthood, a letter from his mother detailing her methodical system of child rearing. On July 24, 1732, she penned such a letter. In it she describes not only her method, but her theology behind her practice. “As self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after wretchedness and irreligion; whatever checks and modifies it promotes their future happiness and piety.”[iv]

Therefore, “in order to form the minds of children, the first thing to do is to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient temper. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must with children proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it; but the subjecting the will is a thing which must be done at once, and the sooner the better; for by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever after conquered, and never without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child.”[v] According to Susanna, parental spiritual discipline eschews the world’s esteem which they grant for indulgence. To her, it is only the cruelest parents who permit their children to develop habits they know must be afterward broken.

Though strong in disciplining the will, Susanna equally offers forgiveness and encouragement. “If they amended, they should never be upbraided with it afterward. . . . Every single act of obedience . . . should always be commended, and frequently rewarded. . . . That if ever any child performed an act of obedience, or did anything with an intention to please, though the performance was not well, yet the obedience and intention should be kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to do better for the future.”[vi]

Additionally, her focus on the will in no way suggests that Susanna’s parental spiritual guidance minimized the life of the mind. She, rare in her era, taught all of her children to read by age five. More than that, in a letter to her daughter, Susan, Susanna produced a lengthy treatise on parental spiritual instruction. “My tenderest regard is for your immortal soul, and for its spiritual happiness; which regard I cannot better express, than by endeavoring to instill into your mind those principles of knowledge and virtue that are absolutely necessary in order to your leading a good life here, which is the only thing that can infallibly secure your happiness hereafter.”[vii]

For Susanna, we should never derive these principles from some amalgamation of self-help tenets. Instead, for her we base all spiritual training on the chief articles of the Christian faith, taking for her ground-work, the Apostles Creed. Having introduced the necessity of laying a solid theological foundation, Susanna then exegetes each phrase of the Creed. Page after page with theological precision, she models the depth of theological training, biblical teaching, and spiritual direction that every Christian mother ought to pass on to her children.[viii] When Christians today question the relevance of theological depth, they need to ask and answer the question, “What factors produced the two great church leaders John and Charles Wesley?”

While the first factor was theologically precise teaching, this should not cause us to think that Susanna was content with “head knowledge.” She taught her children that the Creed “briefly comprehended your duty to God, yourself, and your neighbor.”[ix] The purpose of biblical truth is to provide us with a renewed mind that leads to loving God and loving others. As a minister, John wrote to his mother about the definition of love. On May 14, 1727, she responds. “Suffer now a word of advice. However curious you may be in searching into the nature, or in distinguishing the properties, of the passions or virtues of human kind, for your own private satisfaction, be very cautious in giving nice distinctions in public assemblies; for it does not answer the true end of preaching, which is to mend men’s lives, and not fill their heads with unprofitable speculations.”[x] Clearly, we need truth—theological truth, but never truth for truth’s sake, but truth for love’s sake.

The first two factors that produced the two great church leaders John and Charles Wesley are theologically precise teaching and truth related to daily life relationships. To these, Susanna models two more parental discipleship methods: spiritual conversations and spiritual narratives. After a fire destroyed their home and dispersed the family until a new home could be found, Susanna wrote to her daughter Sukey on January 13, 1710. “Since our misfortunes have separated us from each other, and we can no longer enjoy the opportunities we once had of conversing together, I can no other way discharge the duty of a parent, or comply with my inclination of doing you all the good I can, but by writing. You know very well how I love you.”[xi] What is the duty of a mother? To do all the good for a child she can. How does a mother fulfill her duty? By lovingly conversing about life in light of God’s Word (the content of the rest of her letter).

To spiritual conversations Susanna adds spiritual narratives. On October 11, 1709, she wrote to her son Samuel, saying, “There is nothing I now desire to live for but to do some small service to my children; that as I have brought them into the world, I may, if it please God, be an instrument of doing good to their souls.” And how would she provide her soul care ministry? “I had been several years collecting from my little reading, but chiefly from my own observation and experience, some things which I hoped might be useful to you all. I had begun to collect and form all into a little manual, wherein I designed you should have seen what were the particular reasons which prevailed on me to believe the being of a God, and the grounds of natural religion, together with the motives that induced me to embrace the faith of Jesus Christ, under which was comprehended my own private reasons for the truth of revealed religion.”[xii]

What if every mother did the same? What if every mother maintained Susanna’s high view of her high calling? A mother can make a great difference if her confidence in God’s work in her life leads her to “dare” to produce for her family her “faith history,” her “spiritual narrative.”

[i]Wallace, “Susanna Wesley’s Spirituality,” 163.
[ii]Tucker, Private Lives of Pastors’ Wives, 53.
[iii]Peterson, 25 Surprising Marriages, 253.
[iv]Clarke, Memoirs of the Wesley Family, 327.
[v]Ibid., 326.
[vi]Ibid., 329.
[vii]Ibid., 347.
[viii]Ibid., 347-376
[ix]Ibid., 347.
[x]Ibid., 337.
[xi]Ibid., 347.
[xii]Ibid., 343.