The Bible is sufficient for counseling. We are thankful for the Biblical Counseling Movement, which emerged in the late 1960s. It was one of the blessed moves of God where the church turned away from the language and principles of secular psychology to the use of the Word of God to understand human problems. In this podcast, we give thanks for the movement and the good that has come from it. We also examine some of the problems that have emerged.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And today, Jason, we have Matt Holst with us. Hey Matt. Hey Boz, how are you?

Good to see you. We're here to talk with Matt who's the pastor at Shiloh Presbyterian Church in Raleigh about biblical counseling, particularly the biblical counseling movement that really rose up in the 60s and 70s. And we're here to give thanks for that movement, but also offer some cautions about some of the things that have happened as a result of a very good movement. So we want to first of all give thanks. This was a movement toward the sufficiency of Scripture in the 60s and 70s and there were various other movements like this that began at that time the church and and pastoral care was profoundly affected by a psychoanalysis and the current moves in psychology through Freud and Carl Rogers and those who really shaped modern psychology.

It was a reaction. People in the church, particularly J. Adams, stood up and said, let's use the Bible to describe human problems. Let's don't use all this terminology, all this gobbledygook from the pagans. Let's use our Bibles.

And his book, Competent to Council, which was published in 1970, a book I read in my early 20s, really shook pastoral care in terms of the way that counseling took place. So there are some really wonderful things that happened. Lots of people were trained to think biblically about human problems and pastors actually began to use their Bibles like never before. So there were so many good things that happened as a result of this movement. Any comments from your guys' perspectives?

Well, I'd just like to start with the Sufficiency of Scripture core text and then just apply it to the whole category. And it's 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So I think the logic is really simple. Is the Lord's people getting counsel a good work?

If it isn't, then let's throw it overboard. If it is, then what this text is saying is that the man of God can be made thoroughly complete for this good work. So, actually, the most valuable counseling book in the world is the Scripture. And we ought to be drawing primarily from it, and the things from Scripture should actually be governing how we go about it as well. Yeah, I think I'd certainly echo that the return to Scripture is of paramount importance.

I'm thinking of Romans 12, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God. And The return in the 60s with Jay Adams, CCEF, to the foundations of scripture, I think is a huge moment in the progress of the biblical counseling movement. And as a result of that, One doctrine that I have seen, I've detected in counseling, especially CCF-type counseling, I rejoice that it's been reestablished in the church, is the doctrine of union with Christ. I think there are problems with that later on in the process, but the recapturing of that blessed doctrine that Christianity is in Christ, the in Christness of the Christian life is the place to situate ourselves when we're dealing with sin issues. Who are we as Christians?

What are we as Christians? We're united to our blessed Savior. And that's a really good foundation. It's the only foundation, in fact, upon which we can really begin to build a counseling movement. So I rejoice that the counseling movement as is has really emphasized the doctrine of union with Christ.

Yeah, and so with any good thing, there are dangers, there are results, there are ditches on both sides of a road, and I think we've experienced some of those over the years. So let's just talk about some of those. Again, we're not here to slander the biblical counseling movement. I think we're very, very grateful. But there are things that happen, and there are ways that people use it that might not be as helpful as others.

So we're just going to try to itemize some of those things to help people think through the proposition. So, I would like to start with what the Bible does give us in terms of shepherding, because really, we're talking about a shepherding function here, the guiding of people in good, healthy ways. So the Bible would give us in the New Testament shepherding at the local church level by a plurality of qualified men who are elders or pastors or shepherds. Those are words that are used interchangeably in the New Testament. And the Bible would give us spiritual fathers and mothers, meaning greyheads, greyheads in the church who have walked with the Lord for a long period of time.

I see those gray hairs there, Matt. And who can help us because they've actually been through the wars that we're fighting right now. And then Christian friends, people who walk with you every day, talk with you, correspond with you all the time, but who are spiritually minded and who are able to bring the Word of God to bear. So it sort of gives us these three levels. Church leaders whose qualifications are actually wrapped up in knowledge of Scripture and in living out what the Scriptures say, and then experience saints, and then your friends who are spiritually minded who can bring the Word of God to bear.

So I think we start with those things. That gives you a baseline for good counsel in your life that lines up with the Bible. Right, and I think one of the things that we've been concerned about is there, over the years, there seems to be a sort of a new invention, a new kind of minister. And in some ways it can operate as sort of a new authoritative priesthood apart from pastoral care where you have responsibility and accountability and authority. So let's talk about that.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm very concerned about this area of, of the movement. And it's a concern born out of not, not theoretical assumptions, but, but practical working with, with people who are being counseled in my church and other churches. And what I've detected is that, you know, can two walk together unless they're united? If you have one counselor saying one thing, another counselor saying another thing, generally people will choose the counselor that suits them the best, that they like the most. That counselor might not be telling them the truth, might not be giving them righteous advice and counsel, but that's what they'll gravitate to.

And my experience is there can be a crisis of authority with the counselee, the individual church member, because they're not just counselees, they're church members. And we do have now a new class, unordained. Often it seems to me unaccountable, as you mentioned, Scott, a kind of priestly class operating alongside of and in some place instead of the authorities of the church. Right, you have certification programs where people go through the certification program and now they're qualified to be counselors. And frankly, if you think about the way that pastors are minted, you wouldn't want to ordain every person coming out of a seminary as a pastor.

Just because you got a degree doesn't qualify you at all. But what has happened is the deputization of masses of people who sort of carry counseling authority, and that counseling authority is often the displacement of shepherds in a church. I think the analogy would be, and in the medical realm you would call it doctor shopping. What is doctor shopping? Well, you have the family doctor who's always known you, grown up, has all your medical records, but because you want a certain prescription and you're beyond what your first doctor will give you, you go to a second doctor and then a third doctor and a fourth doctor, and if the fourth doctor had any idea of what the first, second, and third doctor knew, they would never give you the advice they're giving you and They would never give you the advice they're giving you and they would never give you the prescriptions they're giving you.

But they're insulated from that family history, that medical history. And so they're saying things that don't even make sense because they—and they don't know it, because the person has sought out people who don't really know them, live with them. I think following on from that, I'd say two things. I think the church is to blame in some respects for this problem being created. I know a lot of churches where shepherding and council is scarce.

The pastor might be there for a birth or a death, but not much in between. So people are crying out for counsel and they'll find it where they can. And as we've already said, the biblical counseling movement does have a lot to offer in that area. So I think the church needs to look at itself over this. If we're complaining or critiquing a movement outside the church, well, let's take an opportunity to look at ourselves, perhaps, and reflect upon, are we providing the kind of care that God requires us as undershetters to provide?

– Matt, it's interesting you should say that. Just in the lead up to doing this podcast, it's had me thinking, oh, when's the last time I read a really good biblical counseling book? Because I mean, I'm tasked with doing biblical counselor just simply by the virtue that I'm an elder in a local church. And hey, there are people who are thinking deeply about real problems that people are experiencing and have actually sent it through the biblical grid and written good books, and that ought to be on our reading list from time to time to be always upgrading our skills in doing that. Let's talk about the whole issue of the way that it often works out, where you have a host of people who have been certified as a biblical counselor and so you know in a church you have a list of your biblical counselors somebody has a problem you connect them with that person and you have you have two issues one the counselor doesn't really know the person and the person, the counselee, doesn't even know the counselor.

And I've encountered situations where You have counselors who I know their lives are a mess in different ways Maybe their marriages aren't functioning very well, maybe They they really haven't You know paid attention to godly child raising practices and they're now giving counsel and But but the the counselee doesn't know anything about that at all. So you have this issue of who should you go to for counselling. So just to pile on to what you just said, Matt, Scott and I were talking about this earlier. We have so much shared history that I knew the examples he was talking about, and then He mentioned a couple of examples, and they weren't the examples that I thought I was thinking about other examples in our shared history, but they fall into the same category. You have counselors who have a pedigree where you wouldn't want to go to them for marriage counseling because their marriages are not...

If you had their marriage, you would be disappointed, not thrilled. So I think that is a potential risk, and it's not unusual. I think I completely agree with you and I would argue again that perhaps the church is to blame for some of this. When was the last time we saw a pastor removed from office because his marriage was not good or his relationships were not sound. I mean, it happens, but perhaps not as much as it ought.

And we've tolerated things in the church, which are now being tolerated in the counseling movement. I think of the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3. And then also in Titus 2, older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith in love and in steadfastness. And then he goes on to say what older women should be, that they're to teach the younger women, but they're to be reverent in behavior, not slanderous slaves, teach what is good and so on. And he's clearly laying out qualifications for an ordained office.

This is just a council that Jason mentioned at the beginning, the kind of parental counsel, an older brother to a younger brother, older sister to a younger sister, the people who hand out counsel are to be conformed to these kinds of standards. And we wouldn't dream of going to a doctor with a long list of, of failures on the operating table. We just wouldn't do it, but we seem to do it with counselors. You know, let's talk a little bit more about this matter of the replacement, the replacement of a biblical counselor for a pastor. One of the things that I think we're all aware of, pastors think differently than the average person on the street.

And the reason is they have, they've actually been charged by God to be accountable for souls. There's actually an accountability. Hebrews 13 17 makes us very clear that a counselor though doesn't really have that same explicit charge from Almighty God. But a pastor recognizes he has some accountability for that person. A pastor also is under divine orders to not only comfort, but to reprove, rebuke, and exhort.

So pastors actually can't do whatever they want. They're under divine obligation to deal with sin, and I'm not saying that biblical counselors don't deal with sin, they do, but it just occurs to me that a pastor is a different kind of cat, and a biblical counselor doesn't really find themselves under those kind of divine obligations. Yeah, I would say not only is he a different kind of person, he operates with different structures. Biblical churches have a plurality of elders, at least when they're established, and it is the elder's responsibility to ultimately oversee the relationships of the church, the counseling of the church. There is a built-in accountability structure within a biblical church whereby one man is not able to take a task unto himself without accountability to others or without input from others.

And that is a fear of mine with counseling that not only is the divine mandate very different for a pastor than it is an accredited counselor, So too is the spiritual infrastructure around that person, which might prevent—and it doesn't always, we know that—but it might prevent some of the abuses that we see in counseling situations, both in the church and in counseling? Years ago, I encountered a really unusual situation. I've never heard of it before or since, but we had a couple in our church that was having significant difficulties in their marriage, and they felt like as a young pastor, I was over my head. And honestly, with the problems they were struggling with, I was feeling a little over my head. And the man that had married them was a certified biblical counselor, but also a local pastor, and they had relationship with him, and they invited me.

They engaged him for counsel, but said, please come if you'd like to come. And so, they weren't running from me, they weren't running from the church, they wanted this additional input from an older man, an older pastor that they loved and respected, but they weren't trying to make a complete parallel path or alternate universe that I wasn't even aware of, and I really appreciated that. And actually, I found that this was a very seasoned pastor and counselor, and I got tremendous benefit from sitting in on those sessions? Scott, another thing I might add to this discussion is what I'm seeing in some circles now is the assertion that elders and ministers or pastors are not qualified to either counsel or make judgments in certain circumstances. Right.

And like Jason just said, I think we've all been in counseling situations where we're thinking, I've got no idea where to go next. And we would acknowledge our weakness, our frailty in such circumstances. But I think Paul's very clear, not only in Timothy and Titus and our Lord in giving the exercise of discipline principally to elders. Also in 1 Corinthians 6, he makes it quite clear that the saints, if the saints are gonna do this, how much more of the elders of the church now are going to judge even angels. I'm very concerned the assertion that elders or the church, the church cannot make these kinds of judgments on abuse cases or marital cases.

That's very concerning to me because that's doing more than coming alongside the church to say, we might be able to help you with our expertise. It's saying, actually, the church can't make a judgment or adjudication in these matters. That's highly problematic to me. Yeah, and so you have this kind of replacement priesthood. I think that's probably the heart of my biggest concern.

And there are several categories of replacement that seem to take place. One is, it's the replacement of husbands or parents to find a better alternative. It may be a replacement of the Titus II women in the church, not regarding that category of the Word of God. And then finally, really, the replacement or the diminishing of the ordinary means of grace. Now, I've encountered lots of situations where someone is really struggling with an area and the thought comes to my mind, Well, if you had listened and taken to heart the preaching and the singing and the praying that we've been doing at our church over the last year, I mean, did you not, Did not God counsel you on these matters many, many times already?

You actually know these things because they've been sung about and preached about and prayed about for a long time. So part of the and so now no you now you want to counsel the ordinary means of grace aren't that helpful to you? And I don't want to say that every problem can be Resolved by the preaching and the praying but there's a there's a sort of a diminishing of the value of the things that God actually has provided. What are your thoughts about those kinds of categories? I think wasn't it Lloyd-Jones who said that the preaching of the word was the first form of counsel?

Something along those lines anyway. You're absolutely right. I think another thing it diminishes is the, it can diminish, is the language of Scripture, where we have to call sin, sin. And there might be various causes that lead to a sin, but we can't redefine sin. We can't replace sin with some sort of behavioral deficiency.

That's also what this is doing, it seems to me at times. And that concerns me that there's a move away from biblical definitions, and they're replaced with perhaps psychological, you know, that kind of avenue of definition. Amen. Amen. Okay, so there you have it.

You have this wonderful, providential move of God called the biblical counseling movement where many people have been trained and deployed in a very helpful way. Really the turning of a ship that needed to turn around. And you have more people in the church today who have at least been taught how to think biblically about human problems. And I think our only concern is just that it can be a replacement and alternative priesthood to the things that God has already provided. It shouldn't be a replacement.

And we want people in our churches to be counseling one another biblically. We want them to function according to their gifts and to comfort one another and exhort one another with the Word of God. And so I think we can be very thankful for that in the biblical counseling movement But to just highlight the dangers of going to people who you don't know going to people who don't know you Disregarding the council of the actual authorities that God has put in your life, dismissing parents, dismissing the ordinary means of grace, and just thinking that you, the help that you really need can't be found by what God has already given you. So I think that's the heart of it. Amen.

Okay, so thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast, and thank you, Matt, for coming in from Wales, as we can see. I think that's a province just in the south of Raleigh. So thank you for joining us. We hope you'll join us next time, next Monday on the Church and Family Life podcast. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast.

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