WHAT MAKES COUNSELING BIBLICAL?

By WILLIAM T. CRABB

Seeking a Christian counselor who can offer help from a biblical perspective can be a bewildering experience. Some Christian counselors base their approaches on psychological theory - a counselor who is a believer is not necessarily a biblical counselor.

Many counselors do attempt to build their models of helping on biblical principles. But among those who study, teach, and practice biblical counseling, there is no uniformly accepted definition of what makes counseling biblical.

Bob, a single man in his mid-twenties, is seeking help for a problem that seems beyond his control. He claims that he fails at everything, including dating, schoolwork, his career, and pleasing his parents, especially his father. He achieved some success in high school activities, and now, as a seminary student, has been told he has a gift for preaching. But his father, a retired military officer, never supported or approved of these accomplishments and openly ridicules his seminary education.

At seminary Bob was taught that he is fully accepted by God and that God can use him in mighty ways. Nevertheless, a nagging sense of despair continually hangs over his life. He deeply longs for his father's approval and is disturbed about the anger that is growing within him. How can Bob and countless thousands like him be helped?

Day after day I hear similar stories: Men and women struggle with internal rage that won't go away; young men commit themselves to Christ but find no relief from their battles with pornography; young women binge and purge several times a week, continually promising God they will stop, but continually failing. Where should they turn for help?

Many believers who are overwhelmed by serious problems seek help offered from a Christian perspective. But with all the different views on what makes counseling Christian, whom should they seek for biblical answers? What should they look for in a counselor and expect in the counseling process?

To answer these questions, we need to look at a biblical perspective of life in a fallen world and then discuss a philosophy of counseling that will help Bob and others like him move toward maturity.

WHY PROBLEMS BEGIN

According to GEN 1:26, God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness." The image and likeness of God in man and how sin affected it is a complex subject. Yet, I'm convinced that a core aspect of that image is relationship and intimacy. Even before He created, God was a relational Being living in community with Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Chapter 2 of Genesis details the creation of man and woman. Verse eighteen contains a profound statement about which I have found very little written: God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone." The implications of that statement are immense. Even before sin separated Adam from God, he felt alone and incomplete! Though there was intimacy between Adam and his Creator, God had given him a longing that He chose not to satisfy directly. Having only God, Adam was alone!

Much counsel in evangelical Christianity implies that we can resolve all of our problems with God only, that getting our act together with Him will satisfy every longing. Adam had perfect, sinless intimacy with God, yet something was missing! God had designed him for intimacy with people as well as with Himself. The image of god as a relational being was not fully complete until He created the woman. Man was then relational-vertically, with God, and hori-zontally, with another human being.

Sin destroyed the vertical and horizontal relationships in the Garden of Eden and has produced battles in every subsequent relationship of life. When Adam and Eve fell, they hid from God. When He confronted them, they blamed something other than themselves, refusing to accept personal responsibility. Driven by fear, they adopted a strategy of hiding and avoidance to deal with conflict (Gen. 3:10).

We still hide today. To keep others from seeing our fear, inadequacy, and pain, Christians put on masks of victory and define spirituality by the rigidity of the mask. Rugged individualism and a performance mentality rather than risking the relational intimacy we long for with its potential for pain - become the solution to coping with life.

When we follow this corrupt pattern of relating, several things happen. We do not love and minister to others as God intended. And not only do our relationships break down, but our whole perspective on life degenerates and our emotional lives begin to malfunction. How can Christian counseling begin the process of reversing these patterns?

Jesus, uncorrupted by sin, is the only One who has modeled God's ideal for human relationships and behavior. Clearly, the goal of truly biblical counseling is to help the counselee become more and more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. More specifically, for counseling to be truly biblical it must help people, by faith, to face the reality of relational pain as they move toward Christlike behavior.

FACING LIFE IN A FALLEN WORLD

Moving toward Christian maturity means learning to respond in a supernatural way to the pain and disappointment of living in a fallen world. Christian counseling that holds out false hope that pain can be avoided deceives the counselee.

The Lord Jesus Christ, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross" (HEB 12:2), did not escape the reality of life in a fallen world. For Him, the road to restore broken relationships did not bypass the horror of mans's sin. The Apostle Paul, modeling Jesus Christ, was shipwrecked, imprisoned, persecuted, and ultimately executed. Life in a fallen world is painful.

We may want to find a biblical formula to avoid pain, but the Bible does not offer that hope this side of eternity. Faith took Jesus Christ and Paul through, not around, pain as they pursued God's will, and God blessed their faithfulness.

When the important people in our lives hurt us, our natural reaction is often to want them to change or to retreat from them. Instead, the process of healing - of becoming more Christlike - begins when we stop hiding, when we stop protecting ourselves.

Bob's goal in life has been to avoid feeling the consequences of sin - in this case, his father's rejection of him. No matter how many great sermons he preaches, this is still his goal. Having a congregation of admiring members may temporarily meet a felt need for approval, but it is ultimately a coverup for his refusal to risk more rejection by pursuing deep involvement with others, especially his father.

A biblical counselor will, in love, help him see the pain and the rage within. From there, he can begin to understand how his sinful strategies to avoid more pain are destroying him and pre-venting him from loving in a Christlike way.

MOVING TOWARD UNITY

For our sake, Jesus endured relational pain infinitely beyond any that we can imagine. Knowing that the cross lay ahead of Him, He cried out three times of This Father to come up with an alternative. There was none. While on the cross, He again cried out to His Father, saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (MAT 27:46).

I don't think the physical pain that Jesus suffered was in any way comparable to the relational pain implied in that cry of agony. The sin of a fallen race was laid on Him, and intimacy with His Father, it seems, was momentarily broken. Jesus accepted the ultimate in relational pain to restore unity with fallen man. There was no other way.

As a testimony to who Jesus Christ is, we must learn to shed the behavior that we have developed in order to protect ourselves. He calls us to reach out to sinful people - people who have and will hurt us - in our families, churches, and other environments.

Christ's movement toward the restoration of unity between God and man took Him through the center of relational pain as an example for us. Biblical counseling will challenge the counselee to accept the risk of moving toward deep involvement with others. The first step toward maturity is for Bob to acknowledge the root of his problem. John 17:22-23 summarizes where Bob must then go to find victory and freedom.

"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

For Bob, pursuing unity means asking his earthly father's forgiveness for the bitterness he has harbored for years and for his stubborn refusal to reach out to his father with the supernatural love of Christ. A counselor would help him see that he is using his theological education and preaching to give him an excuse to avoid the most painful reality in his life: the need to selflessly love the one who rejected him the most.

TOWARD A LIFE OF FAITH

Moving to restore unity in relationships requires taking risks. Loving someone who doesn't appreciate your love and who may even respond in a hostile way hurts. Yet it is in risking rejection in order to move toward reconciliation that we have the greatest opportunity to become like Christ.

Biblical counseling helps a counselee learn to respond to suffering as Christ would - by learning to place his or her life into God's hands as Jesus placed His life into His Father's hands. In other words, biblical counseling helps people develop a life of faith.

Our Lord was rejected and crucified, yet "when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to Him who judges justly" (1PE 2:23).

Moving toward others, especially those who have harmed us, and letting them taste in us the love of Christ requires a step of faith. It involves risk. Following Christ got many of Paul's contemporaries killed, yet Paul said that in death, "We are more than conquerors" (ROM 8:37). Why? because they lived by faith believing that "to live is Christ and to die is gain" (PHI 1:21). Romans 5:3-5 says God will not disappoint us as we learn to face pain and develop character. Are we willing to trust "Him who judges justly"?

Many people describe situations to me and ask, "What should I do?" What they're really asking me is, "Please give me a series of 'biblical' behaviors to gain control of my world." If I were able to do that, I would be capable of getting God to come through on my terms.

That is not faith! Compliance with biblical rules or behaviors can, in reality, be an attempt to place God in our debt, and thereby manipulate Him to provide us the desires of our hearts - by our definition. Biblical counseling will expose the fallacy of such attempts and teach Christlike attitudes.

For Christ to cast Himself totally into the hands of His Father was to give over control. Our Lord said, "Into your hands I commit my Spirit" (LUKE 23:46), and died. He had full confidence in His Father. Real faith is biblical abandonment to God.

Bob will begin the process of abandoning himself to God as, in obedience, he apologizes to his father for the bitterness he has built up for years.

For Bob to love his father means facing the risk of being hurt again. But this step of faith will be the beginning of peace and freedom, and of a witness to the reality of Jesus Christ.

Bob's strategy of avoiding pain has prevented him from taking risks in other major areas of his life: dating, education, ministry. Ironically, his fear of failure has caused the failures that plague him. As Bob learns, by faith, to stop protecting himself and to minister lovingly to his father, his perspective on other aspects of life will also begin to be transformed.

Bob may never be reconciled to his father in the way that he longs to be. That is not the issue. The goal of a biblical counselor would be to expose his sinful patterns of self-protection and to help him begin, by faith, to respond in Christlike ways to the people around him.

Truth acted upon will set us free from a lifestyle of fear and hiding. That is God's radical way to face life in a fallen world, and that is the direction and goal of biblical counseling.

A LOOK AT THE PROCESS

Biblical counselors must understand what God says, not what we want to hear. They must have the courage and insight to confront and console as they help a person move from self - protection to ministry. But there is no series of stages or techniques to guarantee that this process will take place. How, then, does biblical counseling work?

To understand what is involved in the process, consider Pat, a single woman in her mid-twenties. "Pat experienced at least five years of sexual molestation by her stepfather beginning at around age six. She was fairly promiscuous before she became a Christian, but she is no longer sexually active. Now, however, she has begun to withdraw from church activities and social relationships in general. How can Pat be helped?

When this woman was a little girl, she was clearly a helpless victim. During this period she developed an understandable pattern of self-protection. But now, as an adult, she must be held accountable for her present behavior. How can a counselor balance the painful effects of her past with the responsibility of the present, help her face her withdrawal, and then encourage her to move on to ministry?

THE AFFIRMERS.

In general, much of Christian counseling leans in one of two directions. One side says, "We must learn to love ourselves before we can love others." I will call this group "the affirmers." The concept of the need to develop a good self-image is central to this position. The affirmers would say that Pat must first learn to love herself before she can function as God designed her.

The affirmers correctly believe that exhorting women like Pat to go out and get meaningfully involved with people would fall on deaf ears. They say that this type of problem involves more than merely behavioral change - something deeper must be faced to bring about true change. This "self-image, self-love" perspective stresses that loving affirmation of the victim is the route to developing a healthy self-image and freedom from the bondage of the past.

THE CONFRONTERS.

Those on the other side of this issue stress responsibility, commitment, and volitional choice. I will call them "the confronters." They criticize introspection, saying, "we must not wallow in the past. We must make tough choices, always looking forward and outward to Christ." A counselor in this camp might say, "Pat, get busy. Get to know God by reading the psalms, praying, and becoming active again in your church. The past is under the blood of Christ."

A HEALTHY TENSION.

Is biblical counseling exhorting and encouraging people toward compliance with an accepted code of conduct, like the confronters? Or is it bringing about healing through loving affirmation, helping people to love themselves so that they will be able to love others, as the affirmers do?

The affirmers take the statement "Love your neighbor as yourself" (LEV 19:18) and see a command to love ourselves as a precondition of the selfless love Scripture commands. I find that position very hard to reconcile with 2TI 3:2, which includes self-love in a lengthy list of destructive, sinful conditions.

While counselors who hold this position legitimately attempt to show perfect love to others, they can stress acceptance to the exclusion of confession, repentance, and choice. Pat's self-protective behavior is sinful because it keeps her from living in a Christlike way. It must be exposed, faced, and confessed. That involves confrontation.

However, there are also real problems when, like the confronters, counseling primarily consists of giving advice on how to honor God through correct behavior. I have talked with dozens of men and women who have tried to comply with biblical behaviors and did so very well, or so it seemed from outward appearances. They were busy "behaving biblically" and trying to numb the pain of the past, but it wouldn't go away.

Depression, incapacitating fear, ulcers, frequent and severe headaches, and a host of other psychological and physiological problems only grew worse as they tried to "do the right things."

Often, underneath external compliance is a preoccupation with self, as people desperately attempt to bring their words under their control, on their terms. Such an attitude needs to be confronted, but only in a spirit of love and compassion. That involves time and affirmation.

Sometimes the weak, like Pat, need to be picked up and carried. Pat and many others have never experienced the love of Christ. A counselor can tell her about it, but for her to believe, he must model it as well (1JN 4:18-20). Perhaps she needs to experience real love horizontally, from another person, before she can understand and accept it vertically, from an invisible God.

Both the affirmers and the confronters have picked up a major biblical theme, but in order to eliminate tension each has majored on only one side of the issue. As J.R. McQuilkin, President of Columbia Bible College and Seminary, points out, "It is much easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension."

Some troubled people do need to taste the love of Christ as it is modeled in affirming acceptance. Some need to be jarred out of their complacency with a strong confrontation. A biblical counselor must know when and how to minister at all points on the continuum between confrontation and affirmation.

To be a biblical counselor requires God's wisdom, which only comes from an in-depth knowledge of Scripture as it relates to life. Such wisdom must be acquired over the years by knowing and obeying God's guidance through life's severe trials (1PE 4:12-19). Only through experience and a deep sensitivity to God can a counselor avoid comfortable extremes and work in the center of biblical tension.

SEEKING HELP ON GOD'S TERMS

What is biblical counseling, and how do we choose where to go for help? These are not easy questions to answer. We can be swayed by promises of happiness, formulas for success, dynamic personalities, or other appealing perspectives.

Seeking help on God's terms will not eliminate the pain of living in a fallen world. But it will give us the freedom to learn to respond like Jesus Christ and develop Christian character. Then we can say with Paul, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (PHI 1:2).

Jesus said in MAT 16:25 that "whoever loses his life for me will find it." Bob and Pat must lose their sinful coping strategies) and, by faith, place their lives in God's hands as they show Jesus' love to others, especially those who have hurts them. Only then will they find a purpose for life that no circumstance can prevent and a peace that can't be experienced by the world. That was Paul's experience. That is God's promise.

WILLIAM T. CRABB is a faculty member at South Carolina. He completed his doctorate in counseling at Auburn University concurrent with his retirement from the U.S. Air Force in 1981. He plans to move his counseling and teaching ministry to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the summer of 1989.