INTRODUCTION: BIBLICAL COUNSELING

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I was preaching/teaching years ago, and I said, "God doesn’t need any philosophy, or secular psychology to accomplish His purposes for Believers. Scripture is sufficient for every emotional, spiritual need that Christians have." Of course that sounded pastoral. And I truly believed the statement was true. Any emotional stress or depression that one would have, can be dealt with by the Word of God. Okay!

That general statement came back to cause me to prove that statement. Usually a preacher will say, "Well, go read your Bible and you will be transformed, or find a remedy to all your problems in life." Or they will say, "My counsel is in my preaching and teaching, listen." We say all these things because we really don’t have a clue how to deal with people’s problems.

Christians don’t need to go to a secular Psychologist. Well, that might be true, but if we say that, then we need to be able to take a person to the Scripture and show them how Christ wants us to deal with life’s problems.

After I preached that message, I had the occasion to have a person in our church who asked me to counsel them biblically. Now up to that point, I had no real idea how to do that.
TRAINING: 80 and 90's

My early seminary training never really addressed biblical counseling, but while I was in Hyles-Anderson, Dr. Joe Combs taught a course on Pastoral Counseling and he used "Competent to Counsel" by Jay E. Adams.

I can’t remember how I was introduced to NANC. I knew NASCAR, but not NANC.

I couldn’t Google in the 80's and 90's, but doing so would have been good.

I can’t remember how I was introduce to "Lifetime Guarantee" Bill Gillham. Charity was most impressed with the Gillham’s. They have the most simple approach to Biblical counseling. Their set of tapes, and books were very practical and biblical.

Grace Fellowship International with Charles R. Solomon, also is good and a very simple approach to helping people understand their need for God’s grace. One of his books is "Counseling With The Mind of Christ." The Dynamics of Spirtuotherapy.

Gary R. Collins is general editor for the series of resources for Christian Counseling. There were thirty two volumes that I studied in the Christian Counselor’s Library

Larry Crabb’s books and material are good. He has the biblical approach to healing the deep wounds of the soul.

Then I enrolled in the Liberty University Life-Long Learning Master’s Program on Biblical Counseling, Dr. Ronald E. Hawkins, teacher.

I enrolled in the NANC , The National Association of Nouthetic Counselors. Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette, IN . For over six months I traveled to Kansas City, KS for training.

Also, I had been going to Bill Gothard’s Seminars for years and his approach to counseling good as well. The root causes, the root symptom and the root solutions to problems were addressed.

And I had enrolled in John MacArthur’s expository Biblical preaching ministry in 1983.

Charity and I went to several seminars where Jay E. Adams was speaking on the subject of biblical counseling. Another book of Adams. "The Language of Counseling" was very helpful.

I also appreciate the Master’s College, John MacArthur, Jr. and Wayne A. Mack’s material on Biblical Counseling. "Theological Foundations of Biblical Counseling and "Biblical Counseling and the Local Church." The volume "Introduction to Biblical Counseling" is great.

NEWSLETTERS, PUBLICATIONS, AND JOURNALS

Before I had Internet, I had Newsletter’s, Publications, and Journals sent to me via the US Mail, think of that. In the 90's:

• The Biblical Counselor: from NANC
• Christian Counseling Newsletter: Gary Collins
• Christian Mental Health For The Professional Therapist:
• Lifetime Guarantee: Bill and Anabel Gillham
• The Menninger Letter: Topeka, KS
• Minirth-Meier Christian Psychology For Today Publication. Paul Meier and Frank Minirth
• The Christian Journal of Psychology and Counseling AACC Gary Collins
• And the Journal’s Psychology and Theology
  

Now what is interesting here, the above list of works of study were done in a period while I was pastor/teacher at First Baptist Church in Altoona, Kansas from 1980-1996. I don’t think I had heard a lot, if any, about Christian or Biblical Counseling prior to the 1980's. In my youth, I didn’t know what counseling was by that term. But in the 60's and 70's I spent a lot of time one on one talking to teenagers and adults about their lives as Christians. The Bible was generally my only textbook. I believe for the most part the Bible does work in giving a lot of good advice and solutions, and principles for living life free from depression, and a lot of worry and a lot of hurtful stress. Some depression, discouragement, worry and stress is normal for all Christians. I remember saying, "I schedule worry for thirty minutes a week."

PART TWO:
PREFACE: THE OBJECTIVE OF BIBLICAL COUNSELING: Wednesday