What is Biblical Counseling (according to Tim)
Recently The Resurgence has been having a series of articles on counseling. There are many technical definitions of what Biblical counseling is. This is my non-technical, experiential definition. Biblical counseling is dialoguing (usually to an individual) and speaking the Bible to expose sin and help them love and follow Jesus more closely.
Biblical counseling isn’t anything new or unique. It has sort of cropped up in the last 40 years with the introduction of Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams. However, it has it’s roots in other classic Christian disciplines.
Biblical counseling is much like custom tailored preaching. I believe all preaching should be tailored to the congregation. Biblical counseling is preaching tailored to the individual or group. Biblical counseling is speaking the Word of God to speak truth into their lives. It is to give them a foundation for life and a course of plan to follow Jesus. This means that the counselor must be schooled in the knowledge of the Bible. As a preacher exegetes and applies the Word of God to his congregation, so does the counselor exegete the Word of God to his counselee. In some ways Biblical counseling can be harder than preaching. Biblical counseling requires a complete knowledge of the whole text so as to know which parts address which issues. (This is in no way to say that preaching is easy nor requires this depth of knowledge.) The counselor must be able to fly around the Scriptures systematically linking it to the counselee’s life. The counselor must be fully prepared not just on a small portion of text to preach to the individual but the whole of Scripture.
Biblical counseling is also related to discipleship. The counselor not only exposes the problems and solutions but also must help the counselee walk the straight and narrow. Habits and sins sometimes are not so easily conquered. The counselor is called on to walk and work w/ the counselee until such sin is overcame. This is no different from any godly discipleship. An older brother or sister walks with a younger helping him or her to grow less in love with this world and more in love and obedience to follow Jesus. Counseling could perhaps be seen as professionalized discipleship without much of the person relationship aspect.
What can set the Biblical counselor apart is the training in exposing the sins of the heart. In order for the counselor to know how and what to address in the counselee, the counselor must uncover the sins that lie beneath. I think it’s a mix of gifting as well as training. It can be something that God gives as well as something that can be developed and learned.
Perhaps some may say that there’s something special to counselors. I think everyone can learn to counsel. All it takes is knowledge of the Bible, a willingness to listen, and the right questions to ask.