The unique thing that Christians have to offer in pastoral counselling is not our experience or wisdom, nor is it the latest methodology or theories in psychology and therapy. I don’t want to downplay those things. We have much to learn from what we may refer to as God’s common grace and general revelation. However, the main thing that we can do is go together with the person to God’s Word.
First of all, we go to God’s Word together because we are not setting ourselves up as the authority for them to become dependent on. Saying “let’s open God’s Word” reminds us that both of us together need to hear the Lord speak to us.
Secondly we go to God’s Word because often at root a person is struggling because of what they believe. The tagline for Faithroots is that “what we believe affects how we live.” Indeed, this is a point to a certain degree, some secular therapy methods get (for example CBT). We either believe truth or lies about four questions:
- Who is God?
- Where did we come from (Creation)?
- Who am I/are we (humanity)?
- Where are we gping (New Creation)?
This means that the Christian seeking to counsel others well will want to be properly equipped and this will mean that they have a good understanding of the whole of Scripture, its big themes and how it all fits together. It isn’t about simply offering a few proof texts.
It’s important to distinguish counselling that is Biblical from the biblical Counselling Movement. First, there is nowadays a diversity within the biblical Counselling movement in any case but secondly because there are specific methodologies and theories within Biblical Counselling that we may not all agree with or where we might not agree with it all. Personally I am sympathetic to Biblical Counselling but I do not believe that it is at the expense of other approaches or that as a methodology it works in every circumstance. I also think that it is important for movements like this to be subject to challenge, critique and correction.
Thirdly and most importantly we go to God’s Word because this is where God speaks to us. If we believe that it really is God’s Word, then we need to be ready for God to disagree with us through his Word. Again, this means that we are not worried about the counselee disagreeing with us because if they have a problem with the advice, it’s God that they need to sort that out with.
Faithroots 