Bringing Counseling Back to where it Belongs-the Church<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
Paul Tautges

 
Recent comments in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal testify to the church's growing confidence in Christian psychology as the answer to the church's need for the ministry of counseling. In this brief article entitled "Growing Christian Shrinks,"[1] Cara Marcano states, "Psychology is one of the 10 largest majors at the more than 100 schools that are members of the Council for <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Christian Colleges & Universities," according to the council's vice president. The Christian interest in embracing psychology and religiously mixing it into a crock of therapeutic stew continues to rise. Hence, there is a need for a study of the type of counseling ministry that will benefit believers the most.
 
In 1991, John MacArthur published a book entitled Our Sufficiency in Christ, in which he exposed three deadly influences within Christianity, one of which is "the infusion of psychology into the teaching of the church." He observes,
 
There may be no more serious threat to the life of the church today than the stampede to embrace the doctrines of secular psychology. They are a mass of human ideas that Satan has placed in the church as if they were powerful, life-changing truths from God … The result is that pastors, biblical scholars, teachers of Scripture, and caring believers using the Word of God are disdained as naïve, simplistic, and altogether inadequate counselors. Bible reading and prayer are commonly belittled as "pat answers," incomplete solutions for someone struggling with depression or anxiety. Scripture, the Holy Spirit, Christ, prayer, and grace-those are the traditional solutions Christian counselors have pointed people to. But the average Christian today has come to believe that none of them really offers the cure for people's woes.[2]
 
These words of a modern-day preacher echo the stern warning that God gave long ago through His prophet Jeremiah: "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord" (Jer. 17:5). Clearly, a man-centered philosophy of life is not the way to God's blessing. The widespread acceptance of integrationism in the ministry of counseling, therefore, is a major problem. This book, Counsel One Another, counters the problem by replacing it with a biblical theology of discipleship that is truly God-centered.
 
The solution to the problem Jeremiah not only warns against trust in man, because it leads away from God, but he also testifies concerning the blessing that is showered upon those who trust in God: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord" (Jer. 17:7). This warning and promise raise important questions related to counseling: If a man-centered, psychological approach to behavioral change is not the way God intended for believers to be helped to conquer their personal problems, what, then, is the way? If the clinical counselor, trained in all the latest ever-changing theories of human motivation, cannot offer anything that is ultimately life-transforming, how are people to receive the help they so desperately desire? The solution remains the same now as it was in the days of the apostles: biblical counseling as a normal part of biblical discipleship.
 
[This brief article is an excerpt from the Introduction of Counsel One Another: A Theology of Personal Discipleship, released in February 2009]
 
 
ENDORSEMENTS for the book: Counsel One Another
 
Dr. John MacArthur: "This book gets it right! Comprehensive and convincing, Counsel One Another shows how true biblical counseling and preaching fit hand-in-glove. Those who preach, teach, or counsel regularly are sure to benefit greatly from this helpful resource."
 
Dr. Steven Lawson: "A gathering storm surrounds the day in which we live, a dark hour in which the absolute sufficiency of the Scripture has come under attack. But how refreshing-and rare-to see a book like this that asserts the irresistible power of God's Word to develop true discipleship by the sovereign working of His Spirit. This is not a 'trendy book' like so many, blown about by the prevailing evangelical winds. Rather, here is an anchor for authentic ministry that will stimulate real spiritual growth in God's people."
 
Dr. Ron Allchin, Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Center near Chicago:  "The ministry of counseling has for too long been relegated to the professional counselor. Paul Tautges brings the biblical command for discipleship right back to the local church and to all believers. He takes the word "counseling," a word often perceived as being for professionals only (and threatening to average church laymen), and helps to reduce that fear, encouraging believers to fulfill their responsibility by uniquely redefining this ministry biblically as intensely focused and personal discipleship. Counsel One Another is a must-read for all believers."
 
Dr. John D. Street, Chair, Graduate Program in Biblical Counseling, The Master's College and Seminary, Santa Clarita, California: "Like their pastors, most Christians have adopted a professionalized or psychologized view of counseling that naturally excludes uneducated laity. This is why I believe that this book, Counsel One Another, addresses a serious deficiency in the discipleship ministry of Christians within the church. It advocates a radical departure from the status quo and a return to an authentic personal ministry of the Word among Christians through discipleship counseling. It effectively lays the theological foundation for Christians regaining the New Testament priority of addressing personal soul troubles with biblical counsel."
 
 
 
 
 

[1] Cara Marcano, "Growing Christian Shrinks," in The Wall Street Journal, 30 March 2007; www.opinionjournal.com, accessed 30 March 2007.

[2] John F. MacArthur, Jr., Our Sufficiency in Christ (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991), pp. 59-60.