Continuing from Part 1. CLICK HERE if you haven’t read Part 1 yet.

#3. “RTV” Counsleing often devolves into bad hermeneutics on two levels. On the first level, there is often bad hermeneutics (process of interpretation) of the Bible. For example, a common RTV passage for counseling is Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This seems like a great verse for people who feel unable to do something. And yet it really isn’t. The passage is about Paul lacking the ability to do some things. But in Christ, he has the ability to endure all things. That is often quite encouraging… for me I find it greatly encouraging… but very much in a different way than it is often used. But of course this passage is not the sum total of what the Bible says about enduring challenges, any more than Matthew 18 is the sum total of what to do about church conflict, or Matthew 5:32 is the sum total of the Biblical message on divorce. Even if the right verse is used for the right situation, it will almost always be sub-biblical because the guidance in the Bible is much broader than what is contained in one passage. On the other side, there is often bad hermeneutics of the client. Anton Boisen describes people as “Living Human Documents.” As such, they must be “read” and interpreted. Until one has carefully listened and clarified, one has not truly read the person. Cutting out this process just deals with the superficial.

I bring this up because we have a Christian Counseling center. I have heard people say things like, “Oh… I heard that you don’t use the Bible when you do counseling.” Frankly, that is far far away from the truth. For a long time I was curious as to why people would say that. Of course, even in Christian counseling there can be competition, and one way to make a charge that is almost completely unverifiable is to say, “They are unbiblical.” What would be their basis for saying this? I think it is because when they are thinking of Biblical Counseling, they are really meaning RTV Counseling. Unfortunately, the Biblical Counseling movement, going right back to Jay Adams and at least some of his followers embraced a certain superficial and limited use of Scripture with a bit of Job’s friend methodology.

If one wants to call one’s counseling Biblical, it should have the following qualities:

1. It should utilize a thoughtful use of the whole of Scripture, not a list of encouraging or challenging verses. This is not easy, and such an integration probably should be described as “Theological” rather than “Biblical” to avoid the temptation to verse-drop or verse-bomb.
2. It should be modeled after Jesus Christ (I am assuming this is Christian counseling rather than something else) in character and practice, and demonstrate the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
3. It should come from a position of humility and mutuality. The counselor is, at best, a wounded healer (drawing from Henri Nouwen and his source for the term, Carl Jung, before him). The counselor is never an expert or perfect model.

For me, I like, somewhat at least, the fact that people in my denomination are gravitating toward the use of the term “Biblical Counseling” rather than “Spiritual Counseling.” I think their avoidance of the second term is because of its new-age connections. That wouldn’t necessarily be my concern. Still, “Spiritual” is a word that can mean anything… or nothing. Even though people misuse the term “Biblical,” in my opinion, at least it is a word that means something. Spiritual means, almost nothing… or at least nothing that we can all agree upon. On the other hand, I don’t like the term “Biblical Counseling” as it is used in my denomination— as a weaponized term. Just a week ago, a person from my denomination came over to the Philippines to promote Biblical Counseling, and the first thing she did was to put it in conflict with Psychology. There is much wrong with Psychology. However, Psychology is wrong when it does not correspond with truth— not simply when it does not correspond with the presumptions of one (of many) forms of Biblical Counseling.

The same is true of (so-called) Biblical Counseling. A lot of what is called Biblical Counseling needs to be challenged by Psychology (and, frankly, the Bible) because a lot of Biblical Counseling is far less than Biblical (far less than good theology). Psychology needs to be challenged by Biblical Counseling… but both must be challenged by truth (God’s truth).

I fear that another problem with the use of the term “Biblical Counseling” in my denomination is because of its reluctance to attach itself to the historical church. My denomination likes to link itself to the primitive church. I like the term “Pastoral Counseling” because it links the Bible to the Historical church in terms of counseling. We like to say that we embrace “Sola Scriptura.” The term suggests that we base our faith and practice. In reality, what it often ends up meaning is that we are “pretty skeptical about some chunks of church history” (while uncritically defending other parts of it).

I prefer Pastoral Counseling as a term because it accepts that we should take the history of the church seriously— even when we ultimately decide that some parts may not be particularly helpful. But if we don’t use the term Pastoral Counseling, I am okay with Christian Counseling. For those who want to use Biblical Counseling as their label… well that is fine. Just understand that there are an awful lot of stakeholders already using that term. Many of those stakeholders use that term as a weapon.

Regardless— don’t verse drop or verse bomb. Try your best to understand Scripture. Try your best to understand your client/patient/member. Enter in their life with humility and reliance on the Spirit of God. If you got it all figured out and are ready to hit them hard with an awesome verse— wait. You are most likely listening to yourself, not to the patient or to God.