There are a number of different ways to approach a definition of Biblical Counseling (also called Nouthetic Counseling). It can be described in relationship to Psychology or Integrationist Counseling in that it rejects at a fundamental level the principles of Psychology as totally incompatible with the message of the gospel. A truly Biblical approach to counseling denies that Psychotherapy has any intrinsic value in the process of sanctification because it does not address the ultimate root of most if not all so-called Psychopathologies. Rather, for the Christian, it is the Bible alone that will be a sure guide to the process of sanctification in the life of a believer. As the author of Hebrews says in Heb 4:12-13,
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
So it is God’s Word[1] that has the power to look deep inside a person and discern the true heart dynamics involved in sin and outward sinful behavior. In addition, this approach to counseling is radically Biblical because it recognizes Scriptures own claims for itself that it is sufficient to deal with all matters of life and sanctification. Just one example of this is Paul’s claim in 2 Time 3:16-17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for ever good work.”
In addition, further description is needed in terms of just how exactly Biblical Counseling can be described as “counseling”. Counseling as it is used in everyday discourse tends to denote a clinical atmosphere. Indeed most counseling, even most Christian counseling, tends to be a clinical affair in which a counselee comes to see a counselor in an office or clinic for regularly scheduled visits. While Biblical Counseling does not neglect the value of regularly scheduled meetings in which a trained counselor assists someone with issues that they face, it regards counseling as so much more than a merely clinical process. It recognizes that sanctification happens in community and that clinical counseling should be the exception rather than the rule in the Christian life. Again, the author of Hebrews exhorts the Church on this point in Heb 3:12-13, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” He also exhorts us in Heb 9:24-26,
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”
So, the Christian community is essential for the process of sanctification. This exhortation or counseling that is to be done in the community of faith is something that happens in the midst of daily life. When friends gather for dinner, at a small group, at a lunch after Sunday morning worship services, at coffee shops, in people’s living rooms, all of life becomes a venue for Christians to exhort one another on towards holiness and sanctification.
Lastly, by way of description, it should be mentioned that Biblical Counseling should be centered on what the Bible itself centers on. Rather than a morbid and reactionary preoccupation with sin in the life of a believer, Biblical Counseling should be primarily focused on helping people see that which is truly most satisfying and most valuable, the glory of God in the face of Christ. This focus on God’s glory will help people to be irresistibly drawn towards Him so that they can be transformed from one degree of glory to another. To be sure, there will be times when friends or pastors will need to assist people in combating particular sins in a concentrated way for a period of time. However, the main focus needs to be on helping people be allured by Jesus in all His glory so that they no longer are allured by the idols that their heart and the world has set up for them.
How should we then define Biblical Counseling? We should understand Biblical Counseling as the application of the redeeming message of the gospel from the Word of God to people’s lives in genuine Christian community so that they increasingly come to recognize the dynamics of sinful idolatry in their hearts and increasingly have that idolatry replaced by the worship and adoration of God because of the all-satisfying nature of His glory in the person of Jesus Christ.
This kind of counseling is absolutely imperative for the Church because it is the means by which God uses to sanctify His people. The entire Epistle to the Hebrews is a letter counseling that Church to persevere in their faith because of the weighty consequences if they fail to persevere and the glorious rewards if they do persevere. As we’ve already seen, in the dead earnest instructions that Hebrews gives, Christians encouraging and exhorting each other in faith and perseverance is absolutely essential if they are going to persevere. So, not only the author of Hebrews Himself exhorts the Church, he tells everyone else in the Church to also exhort and encourage everyone else. This does not take away any of the necessity for God’s Spirit to continue the keep faith alive and growing but it recognizes that He uses the Church body as His means of accomplishing this in the lives of individual Christians.
It is this kind of exhortation in the community of Christ’s body that is the means by which Paul’s glorious vision of the Church in Eph 4 will be accomplished. In Ephesians 4, it is the Pastors and Elders of the Church that are called to equip the body for the work of ministry. That is, they must be faithful to teach the glories of Christ from the Word so that members of the body understand and are increasingly saturated by the gospel and are gripped with that reality. Once the body is equipped by having been taught, they then are ready for the work of ministry in which they proclaim the glories of gospel outside the Church and encourage each other with the realities and implications of the gospel inside the Church. As this radically gospel-centered community continually points each other towards the gospel, helps each other repent from sin and turn to God in His glory, the Church will be growing and fulfilling the cosmic purpose that God has for Her. In Ephesians, the growth of the Church is the growth of the new humanity that is centered around Jesus Christ. The goal for human history is for Jesus to subsume all things under His rule so that the entire cosmos will be remade to fulfill God’s original intent for it. At this stage of redemptive history, the Church is the foretaste and the sign that God will be faithful in this cosmic purpose because the reality of Christ’s rule is here in the sphere of the Church. So we see that Biblical Counseling practiced in community is the means by which God fulfills that purpose for the Church in this age.
[1] God’s Word should not be conceived of merely as a book but the Bible as God’s Written Word corresponding to His Living Word, Jesus Christ.
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