Biblical Counseling

 

Finau Siale

Weekend 1 Session Reflection

CNSLN 1003-A Intro to Biblical Counseling

 

830-930: Introduction

This section was critical for me. My thought has always focused on the outreach by taking the Gospel to the displaced at East Lancaster; however, I never thought of them as “My People.” In fact, we call them many titles and names: Homeless, Houseless, Displaced, Poor, & many other derogatory names. This keeps me at distant from them. However, this introduction unveiled a sense of responsibility, not so much taking the Gospel, but seeing these folks as “My People” and seeing them as my story. Hence, their stories are my story. They are my responsibility; I am accountable to them as much as I am accountable to my Lord. Matthew 25:40, “The King will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” My heart dropped as I came to the realization of what this means: I’ve been seeing Jesus at East Lancaster, in fact, many of them. 

  

945-1045: Introduction to Biblical Counseling

Fundamentally, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) The reality of my existence is defined by the bible and no matter how much I can sugar code it, simply, it won’t go away because I am a sinner in need of a Savior. Therefore, I must first look inward; the demands of this responsible is to ensure that I am fully always walking with Christ as a new person in Him. Matthew 7:5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” The goals of Biblical Counseling are: 1. Glorify and honor God. 2. Show God’s Love. 3. Be Salt and Light. Moreover, these are the goals of every Christians; hence, anyone that goes through Biblical Counseling must be evangelized and be transformed “in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). If the person does not come to Christ and be transformed, the attempt is futile. How can someone sincerely accept instructions from a bible that he/she does not believe in? The bible is the ultimate source of truth. If the counselee does not accept the principles derived from the bible, it will be very difficult for the counselee to live a Christ-centered life.

 

11-12: Counseling and the Church

One of the main functions of the church as a community is to support one another, Act 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to breaking bread and the prayers.” This is necessary for the spiritual growth of the counselee. The counselee can be equipped by Church members as they fulfilled their own callings. The Church take on many roles: 1. teacher, 2. equipping the new believer, 3. accountability partnership, 4. practicing and demonstrating compassion, 5. building community of believers, and 6. many more biblical principles. The growth of a counselee will depend on how and where it is fed. In secular counseling, this is often call “support group;” however, in a church community, it is a community that will do life with the counselee. This is a community that will love the counselee as Christ does. This is a community that is committed to ensure that the counselee, not only, heals but secure his/her eternal salvation. Thus, Biblical Counseling is more than just counselling, it is a community that is committed to demonstrate Christ’s Gospel of grace to the lives of other peoples—this is the demonstration of how God’s has worked in their lives.    

 

130-230: Culture

Our cultural norm has progressed through some sort of fluid evolution as it has shaped and reshaped itself by molding societal behaviors away from a biblical foundation. Some may call these cultural evolutions as improvement for humankinds while others see these as the deterioration of Judeo-Christian values. Perhaps we can all agree, as follower of Christ, that the behaviors that were once consider sinful from yesteryear are now common everyday occurrences. Mass media via radio, social media, and television has desensitized our senses; consequently, we have learned to accept these trends as normal behaviors. As we witness throughout decades, many television shows went from two parents’ household to single parent and at times, three adult living together is accepted. Television Shows like “Morden Family” demonstrated the shift away from the Christian ideal of a family. These trends have brought distractions to our journey. In fact, turned many of our lives to accepting things that are detrimental to our Christian lives. These things lead us to idolatry as we always seeking after more and more things. Prayers has been removed from the schools; Ten Commandments has been banned from public places; hence, anything that resemble Christianity seems to have been pushed aside. We now say “Happy Holiday” instead of “Merry Christmas” because we may offend the other person. The bottom line is our cultures are not very supportive of Christian values. Perhaps Romans 12:2 said it best, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

 

245-345: History of Soul Care

Perhaps the critical question is: When does soul care begin? From the very beginning of our creation, God was a counselor: And the Lord God commanded the man saying: “you may eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17. God counsel has 5 critical qualities: 1. True 2. Loving 3. Protective 4. Sufficient 5. Fitting. These qualities should be the model of our biblical counseling. However, we must be mindful of the existing alternative counseling. The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Gensis 3:2-5. As we witness from the event at the Garden, God’s counsel has opposition from the very beginning. These oppositions to God counsel are characterized by: 1. Insufficient 2. Promote Sin 3. Ungodly living 4. Sees themselves as God. Historically, God has always provided counsel for His people through the Prophets, Priests, Judges, and Kings and today, the Holy Spirit through the Church.

 

4-5: Critique of Secular Theories

Secular alternative to Biblical Counseling rooted in the discipline that was developed by Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner which mainly focus on the learning behaviors of their subjects. Some of their founding ideas included the concept, that all we are as human is a “Highly Developed Animal.” Freud developed principles that were considered by some as scientific based method derived from Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism, and Humanistic. These methods asserted that the problems of the counselees were developed early during their childhood, stored in the unconscious mind which was driven by their environment. The problem with the “Environment,” there is a high tendency to blame the environment for the problems and not take responsibility. Contrary to the biblical description of man as sinner, Romans 3:23-24 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus,” with the psychology, we have an out. Hence, the secular theories aimed at changing behaviors, contrary to biblical counseling which aimed at changing lives for the salvation of their soul.