Objections will come. You should become prepared to meet them. Most objections will take the form of “Who do you think you are to be doing counseling?” Your answer, of course, is that you are a child of God; that He has commanded to do so. The Galatians 1 passage, along with Colossians 3:16, along with Romans 15:14 are warrant enough for you to respond to a fellow believer. Learn all you can about those passages in order to be able to satisfy those who want a reason for the ministry you’re engaged in. Of course there are other passages such as 2 Timothy 3:15ff, and 1 Thessalonians 5:14 to which you might also wish to turn as well. But don’t confuse the discussion by citing too many passages. Know a few well, and indelibly impress them upon your listener’s thinking. Remember, in all of those passages the noun “nouthesia” or the verb “noutheteo” is used. And don’t forget that the word has the three elements: loving Confrontation, out of familial Concern, in order to bring about God-pleasing Change.

The object isn’t always to win the objector. Rarely, will you “convert” anyone to biblical counseling on the spot. But get them thinking biblically. Urge them to study the passages you’ve mentioned. Try to set up another time for further discussion. That, of course, is what you do with believers. So far as unbelievers are concerned, you will want to explain that you don’t knowingly counsel unbelievers, so he has nothing to worry about! But you might tell also him that you do pre-counsel [evangelize] people like him. Then, go ahead and do so. In all cases, you need to be able to give a thorough, reasoned response to objectors. Remember II Peter 3:15, 16.

As you do more and more counseling, you will eventually have people who can testify to the effectiveness of God’s word in their lives. Many of the people you have counseled will be willing to testify to the facts should you need them to do so. But never appeal to their testimony as the fundamental reason for doing Nouthetic Counseling. Always rest your case on Scriptural authority. Their testimony is merely illustrative; God’s Word needs no corroboration. And never ask anyone to testify unless he has agreed to do so beforehand.

My hope is that many people will object to your counseling. Not because I wish for difficulty to come your way. But because I hope you will make such an impact upon those around you that they can’t keep still about it. When people object, it’s usually because something is happening. Actually, many object because they are interested and want to understand. “There’s no better way to find out whether there’s anything to this Nouthetic stuff,” they assume, than to put some hard questions to its adherents. That’s good. And when you’re prepared to meet all of their objections, that’s very good!

Nouthetic counselors ought to be savvy about what they are doing, and why they do it. But they will not get that wisdom and knowledge apart from study. There are plenty of books to help. And that’s one reason why the Institute for Nouthetic Studies exists. If we can help you to be able to give a reasoned response to objectors by offering training in Nouthetic Counseling, please let us do so. Blessings!

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But notice what Malachi had to say earlier on

I will curse your blessings (2:2; HCSB)

What an amazing statement! Think about it—all the wonderful things that God had done for His people would be cursed. That is to say, in the end, they would turn out to be a curse upon the sinning, unrepentant people, rather than the blessing they were intended to be.

Think about this statement—how much God has blessed America—but how those blessings have become a curse upon us since we misused them (focusing on the blessings rather than the One who gave them to us). Think about how the statement could be true of some of the blessings you personally have that, if misused, will also become a curse to you and your family rather than a blessing.

Learn, instead, to thank God for every blessing that is yours and take no glory for yourself. Use your blessings for His honor and serve Him faithfully using every blessing as a means for doing so. If you fail to do this, these blessings may end up cursing you!

I have heard what the prophets who prophesy a lie in my name have said: I had a dream! I had a dream! How long will this continue . . . the prophets prophesying lies, prophets of deceit of their own minds? . . . The prophet who has only a dream should recount the dream, but the one who has My word should speak My word truthfully, for what is straw compared to grain?                      Jeremiah 23: 25ff.

Of course we have no prophets today—there is no need for further revelation (since the apostles received all additional revelation that God would give us [John 16: 13])—which is what true prophets brought to Israel. But there were also an abundance of false prophets as well. If a supposed prophet arises, claiming God is revealing truth through his dreams, be careful—you are listening to a false prophet. Of that you can be sure. Notice the standard by which to determine whether a message is from God or not is to determine whether it is straw or grain—a prophetic dream or God’s Word!

Which of the two would you trust? Read the rest of the passage in Jeremiah to learn more about this important matter of dreaming false prophets.

Is it right for preachers to always be urging people on to greater heights? Would it be wise for them to take a rest now and then from doing so?

Well, Paul wrote to the Thessalonian church and told them how great they were doing. So, it certainly isn’t wrong to note progress when one sees it. But to this church—doing as well as they were—he also had this to say:

Finally, brothers, we ask and urge you . . . as you learned from us how you ought to walk and please God (even as you are walking), that you continue to do more and more.
1 Thessalonians 4:1

It wasn’t enough! Paul commended them (as we should when there is something to genuinely commend), but used that very commendation to urge “more and more” of the same.

No, it wouldn’t be good for preachers to stop urging, exhorting and encouraging. People need it; it is the task of a faithful preacher to provide it for them. So, don’t complain when the preacher starts digging under your toenails—that’s his job. Yours is to listen, to profit and to do what God says. And, to do it “more and more.” Be glad that your preacher is always asking for more—he’s one with Paul in doing that!

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I suppose he meant well—trying to motivate us to study by that approach— but it was clearly not the Christian approach to teaching.

The original terms for teaching and learning found in the Old Testament are so closely aligned that to remove the one from the other is to destroy both. In Scripture, the teacher is one who facilitates learning; not one who merely lectures, leaving the learning entirely up to the student.

If you teach, you will want to remember this fact. God holds you responsible to so work at the way you communicate His truth that there is no reason (short of his own resistance) why a student doesn’t learn what you have to say. It is your task to teach people; not lecture about subjects.

That means you must work hard at becoming a good teacher—one who has spent time not only gathering facts, but also discovering how best to present them so that those who hear cannot mistake what God says in His Word. Too often, in Christian higher educational institutions there is much of the same attitude that the “teacher” at Hopkins had. Too often the goal is for accuracy in presenting truth—and that’s all!

We train youth who need help learning God’s truth (while unlearning error)—especially when they come to us from the watered-down, secularized, paganized, “education” that they receive in our public schools. This is a double task that requires extra effort on your part. To teach such persons well requires knowledge not only of data, but also of those persons to whom we communicate it. It requires special concern, extraordinary effort, and meticulous care to see that our students truly “get it.” If you consider yourself a “lecturer,” then consider again.

Students will come with minds that have been marinated in continuum thinking—nothing is right or wrong, true or false—ideas are on a continuum somewhere between such poles (if, indeed, they are even recognized). In contrast, you must attempt to inculcate an antithetical mindset in which they will be taught absolutes such as saved/lost, true/false, right/wrong, heaven/hell, etc. This biblical approach to life will clash with theirs, and it will take extra effort on your part to help them make the paradigm shift involved.

Because of such matters, Christian teachers carry an additional burden. We must not glean our teaching methods from the world. Rather, each must develop those approaches to teaching God’s truth that neither add nor subtract from it, and in such a manner that they rejoice in it! That, indeed, is a great responsibility. Are you prepared, and ready to bear it?

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Sometimes it may seem that we spend too much time refuting falsehood. All of us are chagrined at the preponderance of error both within and without the Church. We may write off those who attempt to combat it and set forth the truth in clarity over against it as “heresy hunters.” The term is used pejoratively; but should it be? Take a quick look at the Books of the New Testament, merely scratching the surface, and see what you think.

• In the Gospels Jesus warns against false teachers, speaks of wolves in sheep’s clothing and the “leaven of the Pharisees.” The record of His ministry is one of conflict with those who refused to accept the teaching He set forth.
• Acts contains the record of the church’s first major controversy over whether or not a person must become a Jew before he could qualify as a Christian. A church council was called to settle the matter. Paul goes to lengths to warn the Ephesian elders about wolves who would devour the flock and schismatically draw away disciples to themselves.
• Romans is an entire doctrinal treatise about justification by faith alone in contrast to salvation by works, and how sanctification follows thereafter. In it, Paul also takes up the rejection of the Jewish church.
• I Corinthians is loaded with problems; schism, misuse of gifts, church discipline, marriage and divorce, and on, and on, on.
• II Corinthians takes on false apostles who had invaded the church and charged him with pretending to be an apostle. The place of apostolic authority is set forth, along with the qualifications of an apostle.
• Galatians is a sterling defense of Justification by faith alone over against those who taught otherwise, and were upsetting the church by Judaistic legalism.
• Ephesians is less controversial, being a universal epistle rather than directed to the adverse circumstances of an individual or a congregation
• Philippians deals with a split in an otherwise good church. But it has to do with self-centeredness and sets forth a key Christological passage.
• Colossians is consumed with fighting Judaistic Gnosticism.
• I & II Thessalonians take up false teaching about the Lord’s coming and eschatology.
• I & II Timothy & Titus teach “healthy” doctrine over against many false ideas. And, in them, Paul doesn’t hesitate to name specific heretical individuals.
• Philemon is a welcome exception.
• Hebrews, in its entirety, combats all influences that would cause Jewish Christians to revert to Judaism.
• James utterly destroys the idea that one can have genuine faith that does not result in good works.
• I Peter explains how the New Testament church is no longer a physical political entity, but that the church is now the spiritual people of God, the new Israel.
• II Peter warns against scoffers and libertines unsettling the church and reveals the true picture of final things.
• I John argues quite effectively throughout the book against Gnosticism of a Cerenthian sort.
• II John warns against hospitality for heretics.
• III John deals with church discipline gone so far astray as to virtually destroy a church.
• Jude throughout its entirety is an exhortation to contend against the libertines who invaded the church that failed to listen to the warnings in II Peter.
• Revelation speaks of the warfare of God against apostate Judaism, the first persecutor of the church, and Rome, the second persecutor, and predicts the fall. It also mentions cults like the Nicolatians.

Now, in light of the above, if you can, tell me, why we should not be prepared to detect and refute falsehood in the Church?

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A man with valuable possessions,
But without understanding,
Is like the animals that perish.     (Psalm 49:20)

In other words, when he dies, his death amounts to little more than road-kill.

There is no blessed future for him.  The promises under the magnificent features listed in Revelation 21, 22 are not for him.

Indeed, in some ways, he is in a worse condition than those animals—there awaits him the lake of fire with its eternal suffering. That is far worse than the annihilation of an animal!

What makes the difference? The psalmist says “understanding”—or the lack thereof. Understanding of what? Of God’s redemptive work in His Son Jesus Christ who died for the sins of those who would trust in Him,. For details, see our Archives under “salvation.” Don’t go on in life without ever coming to an understanding of it.

Do you understand this?

Justification must not be confused with sanctification: the former is solely the act of God, the latter the work of the Spirit, enabling the believer to obey.  As Jesus said,

If you love Me, keep My commandments.

One does not become sanctified by “contemplating” the cross. He grows by grace as he does the will of the One Who called him. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise—the Bible is clear:

Turn away from evil and do what is good;
Seek peace and pursue it     (Psalm 34: 14).

Those commands all call for action. Sanctification is the fruit of the Spirit!

Of course, He does so—interestingly—not apart from but, through the Word itself.

It is, therefore, crucial when dealing with pig-headed Christians, who think they are accomplished exegetes, but can’t tell the difference between the meaning of a verse from a child’s jingle, to remember this and to do what you can do.

“What’s that?”

The first profitable thing to do is to refrain from argument, reason or trying to beat the truth into his head by pure repetition.

“I understand that—but what can I do?”

The thing to do—at all costs—is to get him to read (rather, study) the Bible.

“How will that help, if his mind is made up?”

Since, as Paul said, the truth is “spiritually discerned,” that is where your hope lies. When he gets serious about learning what God says from the Bible, you can expect things to happen. For truth to be spiritually discerned means, to have the Spirit working in him to enable him to understand His Word.

And that’s exactly what you want—isn’t it? Not what you think, but what the Spirit teaches from His Book.

So, don’t argue. Instead give him helps that will encourage him to study the Scriptures—concordances, Bible dictionaries, commentaries—whatever it takes to get him into serious study of the Bible.

If you succeed in persuading him do so, you’ve won twice over: in time he may soon come to see the truth about what you said, and—of greater importance—he will become a student the Word of God. Even if it takes time, humility, or even repentance for the former to occur, in the meantime you can rejoice in the latter.

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From now on the Son of man will be seated on the right hand of God’s power.                                         (Luke 22:69)

When Jesus said this, He was making an incredibly strong statement about the place in the world that He would assume in the very near future as the God-man. When He stated this fact to the elders of the people, assembled as the Sanhedrin, He was officially declaring to them what they fully understood, that He was the One Who was about to fulfill the long-awaited prophecy of Daniel 7. That He was the Messiah.

To Him would be turned over “all authority in heaven and in the earth,” as He later explained to the Twelve when He charged them to disciple all nations. This reception of authority happened when He came with clouds to the Ancient of days to receive power and glory and authority to rule.

This was a stupendous claim—the Son of Man, a human being—raised to the ultimate place of power at the Father’s right hand! If false, He should have been convicted; if true He should have been worshiped. It is true, and means, therefore, that a human being-one of us—is at the right hand of God. Think of that astounding fact!

Jesus began reigning as the God-man upon His ascension and is reigning still. Indeed, He will continue to do so until He puts down all of His enemies-the last of which is death. If you have trusted in Him as Savior (see other blogs in the archives to understand the way of salvation), you have taken your place along with Him as a fellow heir to all the promises of God, one whom He is not ashamed to call His brother (Hebrews 3; 11).

He is the firstfuits of those who will be raised from the dead to eternal life. He is the One in Whom all that we were incapable of doing as sinners was accomplished perfectly so that, being “in Him,” we are counted (reckoned) to be just before the Judge of the universe since His righteousness is reckoned to us.
You have much to rejoice about, Christian. Sure things go wrong here-very much so. But in His time, all will be set straight. And, at that time, you will enter into all of the joys, privileges and love that will be realized when you shall see Him as He is. There is much to look forward to. Remember that fact when things get tough here.

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