Following the previous two posts (here and here) about chapter one of A Theology of Biblical Counseling, The Doctrinal Foundations of Counseling Ministry by Heath Lambert, we now move into chapter two on the doctrine of Scripture as it relates to biblical counseling.
This chapter is framed around a beautiful and encouraging story about Heath’s successful counseling of a young woman, Trenyan, who was cutting herself. His aim with this story is to answer the question “whether the Bible has anything to say, or enough to say, to address problems like this” (36). But then in an important sentence he says:
“In this chapter I want to look at the Christian doctrine of Scripture and show that the Bible is relevant and useful in addressing the kinds of difficult counseling issues that Trenyan’s story exemplifies” (36).
That’s a significant shift in language. We’ve gone from Scripture being “enough” to Scripture being “relevant” and “useful.” There’s certainly debate about whether in a situation like this Scripture is enough, claims to be enough, and in what ways it claims to be enough. But surely there’s no Christian who debates that the Bible is relevant and useful in addressing counseling issues like these. Perhaps a further clarifying question will provide an answer that will help us understand what the disagreement is.
Question 8: What is the issue of debate here? Scripture’s usefulness and relevance or Scripture’s enoughness?
I think it’s the latter that Heath intends, but then why not frame it like that rather than in words that no one disagrees with?
FOUR CHARACTERISTICS OF SCRIPTURE
In the next section, Heath says that the most important characteristics of Scripture are its authority, clarity, necessity, and sufficiency. It’s the latter that he seeks to unpack in this chapter because it has been the most debated in the recent history of the biblical counseling movement.
Going back to Trenyan, he describes the sacred moment when a counselor begins to speak into a person’s life and says:
These moments are very telling because what we say in them reveals where our trust is. Whatever we say demonstrates a reliance on some source of authority…the words that fill the silence show what counseling resources you believe to be the most informative, helpful, and trustworthy. The “wisdom” that comes out of your mouth demonstrates where your trust is – whether it is the “wisdom” of the world, the “wisdom” of secular psychology, your own personal brand of “wisdom,” or the wisdom of God in the Bible (38).
I agree with Heath that our words in this moment prove “what counseling resources [we] believe to be the most informative, helpful, and trustworthy.” That’s a healthy challenge that I hope every counselor who professes Christ takes to heart to ensure that it’s the Scriptures that take this place. However, I note that Heath is here describing a relative contrast (most informative, etc.) which seems to allow a secondary place for resources other than Scripture that may be informative, helpful, and trustworthy to some degree.
Unfortunately, as you perhaps noticed, the next sentence slides into an absolute contrast. The wisdom of the world is contrasted with the wisdom of secular psychology. One is right, the other is wrong. This takes us back to the first part of chapter one again, where the Bible was the only source of knowledge and truth on any given topic (13), rather than in the second part of chapter one where secular sources like psychology were described as sometimes “true,” “helpful,” and “welcome” for various purposes (26, 27, 30).
The relative/absolute slide is repeated in the next paragraph.
“The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is a promise that God himself will give you something from him to say in those sacred moments” (38).
Again, I don’t know of anyone who disagrees with this. Yes, God will give us something to say. That’s not up for debate. It’s whether he gives us everything to say or whether that everything will be only from the Bible.
The debate is stated much more clearly in the next sentence where Heath returns to an absolute contrast between biblical and secular counseling.
It is a great comfort to me to know that I do not have to make up my own “wisdom” and I do not have to rip off the “wisdom” of secular therapy. I can go to the Scripture and find something to say to people like Trenyan, and that will be God’s sufficient word for them” (38).
Heath seems to be saying that we only need Scripture for helping self-harmers like Trenyan, an exclusivity which seems to contradict what Heath wrote earlier, and therefore raises another clarifying question:
Question 9: Is the debate about whether Scripture has something to say or whether the Scriptures have everything to say?
Tomorrow we will look at what Heath says is the greatest threat to the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture today, a threat that he says comes from one of his colleagues in Southern Seminary.