This video is so inspiring. Two faithful soldiers of Christ passing on their wisdom to the next generation.

I am a biblical counselor.

I love biblical counseling.

I teach biblical counseling at two seminaries.

I recommend biblical counseling blogs, books, and resources (95% of my class reading lists are by biblical counseling authors and 95% of the counseling blogs I recommend are biblical counseling blogs).

I want to see biblical counseling practiced in every local church and taught in every seminary.

I’ve seen biblical counseling transform multitudes of lives.

I have the highest hopes for the future of biblical counseling.

I detest everything that undermines the Bible’s proper role in counseling.

So why do I, from time to time, critique biblical counseling?

I do so out of a desire for accuracy, clarity, and consistency in its statements about the sufficiency of Scripture.

That’s not just an academic point. The lack of this in some quarters has damaged biblical counseling: its practice, its reputation, its effectiveness, its appeal, and its wider adoption. This is tragic and not only prevents needy people accessing what the best biblical counseling can offer, but has also damaged people in the hands of some practitioners.

Whenever I offer my critiques, the two most common responses I get from biblical counselors (apart from welcome private messages of agreement and support from other biblical counselors) is:

1. This is personal. You’re motivated by personal animosity.

2. This is ridiculous. You know we don’t believe that. How can you possibly think that? Here’s evidence of what we really believe.

There’s nothing I can do about the first one apart from keep a clear conscience before God and refuse to allow such false accusations prevent me from critiquing when it’s needed.

As for the second, I’ve been challenged in recent days to provide evidence for what I am critiquing. I’ve been surprised at this because the same critique has been made of biblical counseling since its inception by many others. I don’t think we’re all stupid or malicious.

No one is saying that biblical counselors don’t ever state the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture accurately and clearly. Many examples of that can be provided. But there have been and are still too many examples of unchecked influential statements that contradict or confuse what is said elsewhere.

When we feel we are being widely misunderstood, at some point we have to ask if perhaps we are contributing to the misunderstanding. The verbal fix is so easy that I can’t understand why it’s so resisted.

I’d much rather that the defenses come down and the courageous step up to admit: “We have a problem. How can we fix this? How can we make sure that it’s impossible to misunderstand us?”

But, in the absence of that, I have reluctantly agreed to provide the evidence on my blog in the coming weeks. I hope this will be viewed in the spirit of Proverbs 27:6.

In the interim, here’s a link to some previous articles I’ve written on the subject.

Meanwhile, I continue to long and pray for the ongoing re-formation of biblical counseling in this one vital area of how it states its position on the sufficiency of Scripture. Accuracy, clarity, and consistency here will, in the long run, draw many more to and into biblical counseling, which is what we all want.

Sean Perron is a biblical counselor who specializes in marriage and child counseling. He and I have been having a friendly online dialogue about the sufficiency of scripture and biblical counseling. With his permission I am posting the dialogue as a blog post as I think it helps clarify and advance the conversation. The conversation began when Sean responded to my article Do We Need More than the Bible for Biblical Counseling? My responses to Sean are in bold.

David,

I am always grateful to see conversations about the importance and relevance of the Bible in preaching and counseling. I have personally enjoyed your book “Jesus on Every Page” and I’m grateful for the help it offers to preachers and counselors.

I was at a regional ACBC conference talking about the sufficiency of Scripture and was asked by a man “If the Bible is sufficient for counseling, why do you have extra-biblical counseling resources in your bookstore?”

The answer is that although the Bible is sufficient, it does not mean that we are sufficient to understand everything about it. The Bible has everything we need for life and godliness, but it often takes work to see the gold it contains. A miner may use a pick axe to uncover gold, but that doesn’t mean the gold was never in the mine.

I actually think your blog post here is an argument that the Bible is the only sufficient source of wisdom for counseling and preaching. Your analogy underscores the importance of knowing the Bible and studying it carefully. Every biblical counselor committed to the sufficiency of Scripture (who believes that the wisdom of psychology is not necessary) would beg people and counselees to study the Bible as much as possible and use every available resource.

I say bring me every book I can read and find about the Bible. I have been helped by reading about how I can find Jesus on every page. This is why the Bible endorses teachers and gives the spiritual gift of teaching and preaching – to help us understand the Scripture.

If your blog post is implying that because a person uses a commentary to help with sermon prep, the wisdom of psychology is therefore necessary for biblical counseling, this is a category mistake.

Preachers and counselors use commentaries to study the Bible because they know the Bible contains the wisdom they need. Your blog post underscores that the Bible is the book that matters. We should understand everything we can about it. We should not assume that we, with our limited understanding, can grasp all that’s here.

In conclusion, I don’t think people need to repent for using a commentary to study the Bible. But if someone asserts that we need to study Freud, or Maslow, or Carl Rogers because they have necessary counseling wisdom that the Bible doesn’t contain, then I think repentance honors Christ.

Thanks for writing and I look forward to discussing more.

Sean Perron

Hi Sean, thanks for your contribution to this discussion. I’m keen to learn from others on this and hopefully we can all make some progress in our understanding of one another and of how to understand the sufficiency of Scripture. So, let me ask you a question for the sake of clarification: Are you saying that as long as another source of truth outside the Bible helps us understand the Bible more, it’s OK to use. Or are you saying that it’s only commentaries on the Bible that are OK? I’m hoping to write a few more articles, so stay tuned.

David

Thanks David. To help clarify, I’m for any resource that helps us understand the Bible more. Including, but not limited to, lexicons, grammars, etc. In the words of 2 Timothy 4:13, bring me the scrolls, especially the parchments.

But the issue at stake with the sufficiency of Scripture in counseling is what to do with wisdom from psychology. Biblical counselors say that we don’t need wisdom from psychologists.

I realize it isn’t popular right now to favorably quote Jay Adams, but in his book “What About Nouthetic Counseling?”Adams is fine with psychology as long as it remains in its proper area. Here is a lengthy quote, but one that I have found helpful (and for some reason most people haven’t read).

He answers the question: “Don’t you think that we can learn something from psychologists?” And he responds:

Yes, we can learn a lot; I certainly have. That answer surprised you, didn’t it? If it did, you have been led to believe, no doubt, that nouthetic counselors are obscurantists who see no good in psychology. Or perhaps you have been told that they are sadly self-deceived persons who, while decrying all psychology, take many of their ideas from psychologists without knowing it. Both charges are preposterous.

While I can understand how the idea that I am opposed to psychology and psychologists could have gotten abroad because of my strong statements about the failures of psychologists as counselors, a careful reading of my materials will make it clear that I do not object to psychology or to psychologists as such. My objections are directed solely to so-called clinical and counseling psychology in which most of what is done I consider not to be the work or province of psychology at all. That I deplore psychology’s venture into the realms of value, behavior and attitudinal change because it is an intrusion upon the work of the minister, in no way lessens my interest, support and encouragement of the legitimate work of psychology.

I have profited greatly, for instance, from the results of the work done at the Harvard sleep labs (and elsewhere). This sleep study I consider to be a valid and worthwhile enterprise for psychology. Indeed, I wish all psychologists would go back to such work.

But when psychologists attempt to change men, although they have no warrant from God to do so, no standard by which to determine what are proper or deviant attitudes or behavior, no concept of what man should look like, and no power by which to achieve the inner changes of the heart and though that are so necessary, I cannot help but be concerned.

I would not oppose psychiatrists either if they were doing the important medical work that it is necessary to do to help people whose behavior is adversely affected by organic causes.” (Page 31.)

While helpful information can be identified through experiments and observations, solutions for troubled souls are not possible through science. The Bible is the only resource for people to experience change that is true and eternal, and the only source of wisdom necessary to provide counseling solutions.

I’m afraid that many critiques of the use of Sola Scriptura in biblical counseling right now are not actually fair critiques. Instead, the arguments are built around straw men or an improper understanding of biblical counseling. I’m grateful for this conversation and opportunity to provide any small amount clarity.

I hope this helps. Thanks for taking the time to read such a long comment!!

Sean.

Thanks for sharing this, Sean. Yes, that’s very helpful, although difficult to square with what he says elsewhere and with statements from more recent spokesmen.

I noticed that you narrowed down the question about what sources we can use outside the Bible to this: “But the issue at stake with the sufficiency of Scripture in counseling is what to do with wisdom from psychology. Biblical counselors say that we don’t need wisdom from psychologists.”

That’s especially helpful to know as it helps to focus the discussion on psychology and limits the discussion about what is admissible in counseling to the area of psychology (all other fields of knowledge being admissible?)

David.

David, likewise about the interaction!

Research done by psychologists on sleep science, impact of digital technology, autism, etc. can certainly be incorporated into counseling. No objections at all.

All biblical counselors are happy to receive truth outside Scripture, but we need Scripture to help us know how to make sense of that information.

Most of the counseling I do personally is related to children, pre-marriage relationships, and marriage counseling.

I was talking with an engaged man yesterday about contraception and birth control. He was looking for counsel on if/when/what he and his wife should do in marriage. I am so grateful for all the science and research done on birth control and was able to discuss that with him. I needed that info in order to have the conversation, or else there wouldn’t even be a conversation to have. If he didn’t know that birth control existed, then he wouldn’t be looking for advice on the matter. That was data that needed to be gathered about life. I need to be slow to speak and quick to hear about the issues at hand.

But that scientific data wasn’t the source of wisdom or the guide for how I gave counsel on whether he and his wife should use the birth control Pill. The only source of wisdom we needed for “life and godliness” in this scenario was the Scripture. I used a lot of science, but the Scriptures were my guide and source of wisdom. He and his wife can glorify God fully and completely in this scenario because of the wisdom from the Bible on these matters.

Really thankful to be able to discuss these things. I am praying for you and your ministry and perhaps we can meet in person sometime.

Sean.

Sean, that’s another good example of the “integration” we’ve been discussing. I hadn’t thought of that one before even though it’s certainly one that my wife and I have wrestled through with the help of Scripture and science.

I agree with you that in this case the Scriptures are a necessary source of wisdom. But, in our case, we found that scientific data was also a necessary source of wisdom in helping us decide whether to use birth control and, if so, what one. For example, my wife is a medical doctor and without her medical knowledge I would never have known that certain contraceptive pills and devices prevent implantation of fertilized cells. That scientific knowledge helped us decide that whatever we did, we could never use these means if we wanted to be consistent with Scripture. In this case science was also a source of wisdom that we needed for life and godliness. Sadly, I know many faithful Christians do use these means, only because they don’t know the science. They are not glorifying God because they lack the wisdom that science gives.

If you’re ever up in Grand Rapids, give me a shout, and we can hopefully continue to discuss these matters face to face.

Most of the current research in the areas of autism, pedagogy, sleep science, and the impact of digital theology on our lives is being done by psychologists. Is it really the position of biblical counselors that such wisdom is not admissible? Adams would seem to reject that position, at least to some extent, according to your quote.

Appreciate the spirit of your interaction.

I think we are closer now than we we started!

It seems the difference is I wouldn’t call “hard” science a source of wisdom. Rather, it presents observations and data that need to be interpreted and science cannot provide wisdom on interventions for solutions.

And likewise if you are ever in the Sunshine state. Sounds good! Now that I live in Florida, I try to stay away from the cold, but I look forward to connecting. Thanks David.

Blogs

Benefits of Singing Psalms | Gentle Reformation
“Turns out you can have something that’s pretty good but not really realize and enjoy all the benefits. So it is with singing Psalms. ”

Conversations through 95 Theses – Defining “Psychology” and “Secular Therapy” | Brad Hambrick
Brad Hambrick continues to remove the nails from biblical counseling’s “95 Theses.” As a number of biblical counselors have pointed out to me privately over the past week, many, if not most, biblical counselors do not support the tone or entire content of these “95 Theses.”

“A document as significant as Dr. Lambert intends for his 95 Theses to be should have more precision and clarity on key terms like “psychology” and “secular therapy.” Based upon the level of repetition that exists between many of his other Theses, space for this precision could have been created by eliminating redundancy.”

Conversations through 95 Theses –Evidences for/against Biblical Counseling
And another in the same series:

“I am not opposed to biblical counseling becoming the kind of movement that could make the arguments that Dr. Lambert tries to appeal to in his 95 Theses. Actually, I am very much for it. But at the current time, I do not believe we are in a position to make these arguments and should display greater humility and polemical integrity until we are.”

Scripture Is Our Personal Trainer | Counseling One Another
“Scripture is our personal trainer for life and godliness. ”

5 Reasons Counselors Need to Cultivate Humility | Biblical Counseling Coalition
“If we wan t to be effective counselors, we will need to emulate Jesus by cultivating this same humility. Jesus had the impact He had, in part, because of His humility, and humility will make us better counselors. There are at least 5 ways our counseling will benefit from cultivating humility in our own lives.”

Biblical Preaching: Supernatural, Not Magical
It’s great to see Dan Phillips getting the opportunity to write at the politics and news site P J Media. You can support his voice there by clicking on the links, reading, and sharing his content. In How to Hear God’s Voice, the second in this two-part series, he gives ten ways to help us hear God’s voice in public worship.

The Upward Call – Don’t be afraid of the big bad medication
“We need more women like Shona who will share these things with us. It helps to remove the stigma of this struggle. If we’re ashamed, we might not seek help, and that can’t be good for us or our families.”

The Stupidity of Sin | TGC
“Everyone who knows the Bible, knows people, or knows his own heart, knows this to be true: sin makes us stupid.”

Kindle Deals

For your non-Kindle book buying needs please consider using Reformation Heritage Books in the USA and Reformed Book Services in Canada. Good value prices and shipping.

Comfort the Grieving: Ministering God’s Grace in Times of Loss by Paul Tautges ($1.99)

Visit the Sick: Ministering God’s Grace in Times of Illness by Brian Croft ($1.99)

The Pastor’s Family: Shepherding Your Family through the Challenges of Pastoral Ministry by Brian and Cara Croft ($3.99)

The Next Story: Faith, Friends, Family, and the Digital World by Tim Challies ($2.99)

Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciples by Michael Horton ($6.99)

I’m back in Pastor N. T Grayshon’s study with some more questions about how he integrates truth in God’s Word with truth from God’s world. 

Pastor Grayshon, although I’m really struggling to accept that we need more than the Bible for biblical preaching, I thought your example of preaching on the subject of digital technology was hard to argue against. I see how necessary science is in this area if we are to provide maximum help for people pursuing sanctification. But maybe that’s just an exception. Can you provide another example, this time to prove that we need more than the Bible for biblical counseling. And notice, I used the word “need.” I want you to prove that information from outside the Bible is not just helpful but necessary.

I don’t have all the answers here, Pastor. I admit that it’s not an easy area to navigate. But here’s an example I think might help. A few months ago, I was approached by parents who were really worried about their teenage son, James.

Over a period of time James had become really angry and bad-tempered. He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t socializing, he wasn’t talking. When he came home from school, he just went to his room and, apart from supper and family worship, he spent the whole evening there. His grades were dropping and his teachers were noticing him dozing off in class. He was a Christian, and his youth pastor initially had high hopes for him, but his Christian growth had slowed and his participation in service projects had tailed off. In the weeks before I saw him, his parents had taken him to the family doctor, but although she felt he was a bit run-down, none of the medical tests revealed anything serious.

So, let me ask you, if you were his counselor, what would you do?

Hmm, I think it’s pretty obvious. He’s watching porn on his iPad and his guilt is causing his anger, anxiety, loss of appetite, backsliding, and academic decline. He needs to repent of his sexual sin.

Yes, that’s where my mind went first too, but when I pressed James, he denied he’d ever looked at porn and offered me his iPad to prove it from his history. I noticed that he used Covenant Eyes and had blockers on other Apps to prevent accidental exposure to porn. I checked his history and noted that he mainly used the internet to visit Amazon and download Kindle books. They were all good books from Christian publishers, but I did notice that sometimes he was buying books very late at night, and sometimes very early in the morning.

What about his Bible reading and prayer? He’s probably stopped that.

I talked to him about that and he insisted he read and prayed every morning and evening. He admitted that he was finding it very hard to concentrate during these times and sometimes fell asleep on his knees.

You know, I’ve noticed a few times in the story that he’s very tired and sleeping odd hours. 

Yes, that’s where my mind was going too. I asked him about this and he admitted that he was sleeping less than six hours a night and often very irregular hours. He defended himself on the grounds that it was Christian books he was reading on his iPad, and that he was trying to prepare for Christian College and eventually even Seminary.

Oh, well, that’s probably OK then if he was doing it for a good reason like that.

Not at all. I’ve been reading a lot about sleep science the past few years and know that sleep deprivation is the cause of many physical, emotional, mental, relational, and spiritual problems.

But the Bible doesn’t say anything about sleep does it?

It does actually. The Psalmist tells us that sleep is a gift of God, that it sustains us, and that it’s pointless to deprive oneself of it (Ps. 3:5; 4:8; 127:2).

So did you counsel him with that?

Yes, I got him to read these verses, and he totally agreed with the biblical principles in them, but he wasn’t convinced that his problems were related to sleep deprivation and also argued that lots of successful people (and pastors) managed on less than six hours a night. I couldn’t think of anything else in the Bible that would convince him he was damaging himself and needed more sleep.

Did you show him the science?

Yes, I mentioned a few facts to him that I could remember. For example, I shared with him that the light that comes from an iPad is equivalent to the noonday sun behind a cloud and that sleep scientists have found exposure to it last thing at night not only makes it harder to sleep but also results in shallow and interrupted sleep. I gave him a few books from my shelf that dealt with it in more detail, most of them written by psychologists. Unfortunately, none of them were Christian books, but facts are facts and I just told him to ignore the evolutionary theories about sleep that appeared here and there.

So what happened next?

It was a few weeks before I saw him again, but I could immediately see he was a changed person. His parents came too and  said that he was back to his old self. He was talking, eating, exercising, socializing, involved in the Youth Group again, and so on.

What did he say was the clincher for him?

He admitted that he wasn’t convinced by my Bible quotations that his problems were caused by lack of sleep, and he wasn’t convinced that he needed at least seven hours of sleep a night. However, when he read the science and saw the proven impact of sleep deprivation on every part of life he got quite scared and felt convicted that he was disobeying Scripture in refusing to accept God’s good gift of sleep and in thinking that he could get more done by sleeping less.

Did he find it easy to change?

No, he said that he’d got into such bad habits that he found it really difficult to get back on track. That’s where the books came in useful again. They provided a lot of scientifically proven means to improve sleep hygiene and after a few days of trying some of these, he found himself getting into a good routine.

How’s he doing spiritually?

Well obviously now that he’s doing better in his health, in his emotions, in his thinking, and in his friendships, that’s having a beneficial impact on his spiritual life too. He’s much more alert and engaged in his private devotions and in public worship. Best of all, he told me that he no longer resents having to sleep, but embraces it as a good gift from a gracious God and thanks God every night for both the Bible’s teaching on sleep and also for the truth that psychologists have discovered.

I think I’m beginning to grasp the integration…sorry, I mean connection, between the truth of Scripture and the truth of science. What then are you saying about the sufficiency of Scripture here? Can you summarize it for me?

I haven’t thought this through fully, but as I reflect on these examples, I think the following is true:

• The Bible is sufficient in the sense that we need no further special revelation.
• The Bible is comprehensive in that it has something essential to say about every area of life (e.g. sleep) and is therefore necessary in every life situation.
• The Bible is not exhaustive in the sense that it covers every area of life exhaustively (e.g. the impact of sleep deprivation, how many hours of sleep are optimal, how to sleep better)
• The Bible is authoritative in that everything it says is true and all other knowledge is subject to it (e.g. the science of sleep is subject to the theology of sleep and nothing may be admitted from science that is contradictory to Scripture).
• The Bible is foundational, in that we must always begin there and build upon it.
• Sometimes God’s truth found outside the Bible is necessary if we want to provide maximum spiritual help to people.

So you’re basically saying, that biblical counseling needs more than the Bible if it is to be maximally effective?

I’ll let you say that. I don’t really want to get into debates about it.

Written by Shona Murray, my wife and primary author of Refresh: Embracing a Grace-Paced Life in a World of Endless Demands [RHB].

No one can anticipate the trials that God sometimes ordains. Yet when a particular trial comes our way, we are often taken completely by surprise. We may even wonder if this is indeed God’s plan or some random out-of-control event.

When I was a pastor’s wife and a mother of four children, I was T-boned by burnout and depression. As an energetic, motivated, organized, and outgoing person, I could never have anticipated the anxiety, fear, and endless despair that enveloped me. But God, in his love and wisdom, chose this very specific trial for me. Perhaps he has chosen it for you, and you too are bewildered. Let me give you some hope by sharing some of the lessons I learned from this shocking providence.

Read the rest of this article at Crossway’s blog.