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The Institute for Nouthetic Studies is pleased to make available once again one of the seminal essays of the Nouthetic counseling movement. The Big Umbrella was first presented in lecture form to the student body of the Reformed Episcopal Seminary and then presented in numerous ministerial gatherings. It was ultimately presented in this written form and published in a volume by the same name along with a number of other lectures and essays by Dr. Adams in 1972. The Institute for Nouthetic Studies has made this essay available again (it is now out of print) because of the many questions that have come to us about the nature and characteristics of Nouthetic counseling. This essay answers most of those questions and addresses the great need for a truly biblical model and approach to counseling. Please remember it is still under copyright and is not to be reproduced.
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During the last generation a big umbrella was opened. Beneath its huge, over-arching expanse you now find people with the most diverse problems and difficulties. Under its shadow they have been gathered together according to the novel idea that nearly everybody who is having problems, regardless of what his difficulties may be, is sick. The name of this umbrella is Mental Illness. This umbrella was designed and opened by Charcot and Freud and others who worked with them. Until their time, "illness" meant physical illness. But they stretched the concept of illness until it pertained to nearly any and every sort of difficulty in life. I cannot review the historical reasons for this radical change, but if you want to learn more about how it came about, borrow Thomas Szasz's book, The Myth of Mental Illness, and read the first two chapters. You will find that he explains very plainly how this happened. What is of importance is that Szasz shows how Charcot and Freud used the medical model (illness) to declare those who previously had been called malingerers, to be sick. You will find this history most enlightening.
Regardless of the historical background, we are all aware that the umbrella is wide open today. Huddled together under it are people with organic problems and people with non-organic problems; people with perceptual difficulties and people with behavioral difficulties; people whose brains have been damaged and people who, to put it simply, have never learned how to get along in life. Those who are criminal or guilty or lazy have found shelter beneath the umbrella together with those who are senile and those who have glandular problems. This is truly a most motley mob.
All sorts of people, then, have been labeled mentally ill. My thesis is that you who are ministers of the gospel must not be content with these current conditions. You may not condone the practice of confusing illness with behavioral deviation; such a position is clearly contrary to the Word of God. Instead, you must do something to alter this serious situation. You must take out of the rack an entirely different umbrella, a much smaller one, for that big umbrella is the product of a wholly wrong concept. It was manufactured according to non-Christian specifications and has been used for humanistic purposes. You must do all that you can do to reduce the big umbrella to its proper size.
There is a much smaller umbrella that legitimately might be labeled mental illness; but it is very small, almost minute, in comparison to the Freudian umbrella. Many of those people who are now hiding under the shelter of the large umbrella will not fit under the smaller one. God makes no provision for them there. There are, of course, people who are mentally ill. If I were to raise a crowbar and bring it down squarely across your head, you would have-literally-mental illness; there would be no question about it. You would have an illness caused by physical, organic brain damage. Quite legitimately you could be declared "ill." In every genuine sense of the term you would be mentally ill. Some people whose brains have been injured by toxic substances have mental illness. But by comparison with the crowd under the umbrella, the number of people who have that kind of true illness or sickness due to some sort of organic mental malfunction is miniscule.
Under the big umbrella are people who have difficulty keeping a job, who do not get along with their husbands or wives or children or parents, and are irresponsible and undependable. In short, they are people who have learned all sorts of sinful behavior patterns that, in God's world, eventually get them into a peck of trouble. Although they are not, they have been erroneously declared mentally ill.
Now let me punch a few holes in the big umbrella. The new sort of Mental Illness, naturally, required a new sort of practitioner. Consequently, the profession of psychiatry was developed to work with these supposedly non-organically "sick" persons. In order to chalk out an area for his newly-spawned discipline, the psychiatrist moved into territory that once was inhabited by Christian ministers and by physicians. The larger amount of territory, by far, was usurped from the minister. The psychiatrist drove out pastors from the land of their forefathers, a land originally given to them by God. Pastors, you must recognize the fact that they moved onto your inheritance and stole your birthright. They now are situated firmly on that land as squatters. Asserting squatters' rights, they now have the audacity to defy ministers to move back. Yes, the umbrella has grown too large and its dimensions must be reduced.
To put it another way, I find it necessary to question seriously whether there is any legitimate place for the psychiatrist. Is there any territory allotted to him in the economy of God? Physicians, psychologists, ministers of the gospel, all have legitimate separate functions-but psychiatrists? Where is there room for a third person to stand midway between the physician and the pastor? Does some kind of mid-ground belong exclusively to him upon which neither a physician nor a minister can tread? What territory, what discipline is rightfully his, and his alone? Is there anything that he does that no one else has any right to do? I think not. My point is that in order to justify his very existence he has had to take a little bit of land from the physician and a great deal from the minister. Subsequently he fenced off this land and called it his own. And it is on this stolen property that he has posted "No Trespassing" signs!
One way to determine whether this is true is by asking the question, "What does a psychiatrist do?" The more that you think about it, the more difficult it is to discover any function that he performs that gives him the right to claim that his work is a specialty of his own. For instance, a psychiatrist is not necessarily a medical man. In other countries (Europe, for example) the psychiatrist is not required to have a medical degree. Freud himself was very plain about this matter. He did not believe that a psychotherapist had to be a physician. He knew that his work was not really medical, and at times he was quite open about the fact. In this country, because of a prestigious alliance with the A.M.A., a psychiatrist is required to have an M.D. But you will soon agree that Freud was right if you read the articles written by some psychiatrists complaining about the necessity to take medical training that they never use in their work and soon forget. The point is this: there is nothing that the psychiatrist does with his medical training that a physician couldn't do just as well, or better. And the physician could do it in conjunction with a pastoral counselor. The psychiatrist may write prescriptions for tranquilizers or other pills now and then, but a physician does that all the time. There is no need for a specialty in order to prescribe pills. So his medical training and work, you see, is not a specialty but merely an exact duplication of a portion of the physician's training and work.
What is it then that a psychiatrist mainly does if he does not do medical work, if he is not really a medical specialist? He talks; that is what he does. He spends most of his time talking to people about their problems (although some psychiatrists spend most of their time listening[1]). What does he talk about? People go to a psychiatrist because something is wrong: they don't feel right, other people say they don't behave properly, or they themselves recognize that they are not making it in life for some similar reason. They go to a psychiatrist hoping that he will be able to get them out of trouble. They want him to show them the way to eliminate the pressures, the tensions, the difficulties and the terrible tangles into which their lives have been raveled. They want relief. And this he tries to do, presumably by talking. Now that is not medical practice; there is nothing peculiarly medical about solving problems by talk. Indeed, if these people were really sick, it would seem to be a strange means of dealing with sickness and disease.
Preachers once were known as the people who talked to other people about their problems. They used to direct people to God's solutions as they are found in the Scriptures. But it is strange how modern preachers have learned to keep their mouths shut when listening to people's troubles. They have been willing to learn not to talk. They have been brain-washed by floods of propaganda into refusing to talk to these people. They have been taught, instead, to refer them to psychiatrists so that they may talk to them. But talk hardly makes the psychiatrist's discipline unique. It has always been the providence of the minister to speak to men collectively and individually about the welfare of their souls (cf. Col. 1:28; Acts 20:31). Unless you pastors are willing to continue to close your mouths, when God has bid you open them, you will be in conflict over the territory of talk.
"But perhaps the content or end of psychiatric talk is unique," you may protest. Fair enough; let us ask, what is it that psychiatrists talk about and what is it that they want to accomplish by means of this talk? Psychiatrists wish to change feelings and behavior; that is the end that they have in view. They are concerned to change attitudes and feelings, character and behavior; in short, they want to change the client's way of life in some fundamental way. They seek to alter behavior, attitudes, values, etc. But in accordance with what standard? According to their own goals and beliefs? According to those that the counselee may suggest? You see, this poses a fundamental problem that we must consider before we are through; obviously, the ends and goals envisioned in this purpose should be matters of great concern to us as pastors. They also constitute another area where you can see that conflict over territorial rights are inevitable.
Gentlemen, behavior modification and the discussion of values and attitudes is something that preachers have been doing ever since the beginning. As a matter of fact, that is a large part of what a minister's activity is all about. God has commanded us to talk to men about their sinful lives and their need for a Savior. We are commissioned by Him to be concerned with the way He regenerates and changes (sanctifies) them by the power of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, God has told us that it is the Spirit's work in their lives that changes sinful human character. He brings men to repentance and makes their lives fruitful in all the good attitudes and behavior mentioned in Galatians 5. Sanctification, the process of putting off the old man and putting on the new man (Eph. 4, Col. 3) involves just the sort of attitudinal and behavioral change that the psychiatrist also seeks to bring about. The two will be in conflict unless the Word and the Spirit are involved in both. But if they are, of what need is the psychiatrist?
So, I say that the psychiatrist has usurped the work of the physician, but mostly the work of the preacher. And he engages in this work without warrant from God, without the aid of the Scriptures (in almost every case), and without regard to the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus he seeks to change the behavior and the values of people in an ungodly manner.[2] Insofar as he succeeds, the results may be feared.
The work of changing men's lives belongs to the Christian ministry in particular and to Christian people in general; not to some self-appointed caste of humanistic priests that has moved into the Church's territory, and, by declaring hosts of people mentally ill, has said, "We who are mental specialists alone can deal with these people." At every point the Word of God challenges this claim. Can you not see that there is something radically wrong when, after collecting a crowd under the umbrella of mental illness, the psychiatrist quickly throws aside all medical pretenses and instead starts talking about values and behavior change?
Szasz has shown that the whole thing began as a tragic fraud. Now, because so many well meaning persons have been caught up in this fraud, it needs to be understood and exposed. That cannot be done here, since I do not have the time to punch any more holes in the psychiatric umbrella. But in the light of what has been said, let us consider five facts that are important for you as ministers of the gospel.
I. You have greater opportunities than you may think
There is a host of people who have been declared sick who are not sick at all. They may be sick as a result of their poor behavior, of course, but I am talking about the cause, not the result, of their problem. The cause is not sickness. The cause of their problem is, to put it generally, that they have not been living as God says they should. They are people with personal problems; that is what is wrong with them. They have not been making it in life because they are not doing what God says they must do in one or more life situations. Therefore, there is a great opportunity for you to help those people. They are not getting much help through psychiatry. The rate of recovery for psychoanalysis, Eysenck showed, is precisely the same as the spontaneous remission rate, i.e., the rate of recovery for those who did nothing about their problem. That is a pretty poor record, especially when people have spent millions of dollars on psychoanalysis. Can you, a minister of the gospel, do any worse?
But more than that, let me remind you of the biblical commission to deal even with those people who are sick physically. They are not even within the physician's province. In James 5, God put you and me squarely in the business of helping people who are sick because of sin. He required the elders of the church to minister to such people. They must help bring such people to the confession of sin. The acknowledgment of violations of the Word of God, followed by repentance, leads to changes that are in accordance with the Word and subsequent healing from God.[3]
Throughout the Scriptures, pastoral work is consistently described in terms of helping people who are in trouble. It is true that all Christians are encouraged to participate in this kind of work, but, par excellence, this is pastoral work. For example, in Colossians 1:28, Paul says when he is summing up his whole ministry: "We proclaim him" (speaking of Christ) "nouthetically confronting every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ." There are two sides to the work of the ministry. A minister must (1) teach every man and he must (2) confront every man nouthetically.
Paul was a great teacher. We rightly think of him as such. But he taught publicly and from house to house (Acts 20:20). Everywhere he went and all of the time he taught. He taught by means of letters; he taught out on the streets, he taught in the synagogues; he taught wherever he had the opportunity, and when there was no opportunity, he made one. He preached the gospel and taught the Word of God. Yes, he was a teacher, but he did other things too; teaching, he himself says, was only half of his work.
The work that he mentions first is "nouthetically confronting every man." The coin of teaching has another side. On the flip side, according to Paul, is nouthetic confrontation (whatever that might mean). But before I explain the term, let's look at another passage in which Paul again speaks about this question. In Acts 20 is Paul's famous address to the Ephesian elders, where he says goodbye to them in that touching scene by the seashore. He urged the Ephesian elders to "be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to nouthetically confront each of you with tears" (vs. 31). Note carefully these words: "night and day." That involves a large slice of time. "For a period of three years"; that represents the whole period that he remained at Ephesus. According to the New Testament record, Paul spent more time in Ephesus than in any other city. He may have stayed elsewhere for a longer time, but as far as the record goes, he was at Ephesus longer than anywhere else. Consequently, at Ephesus his work was more pastoral than at other places.
We usually think of Paul as a missionary, always on the move from one place to another. We picture his moving through Crete, stopping at this spot and that, leaving behind small groups of people as unorganized congregations. We read of his sending word back to Titus to appoint elders and organize the churches. Here is truly a man on the move. We may think of Paul on the move all of the time, and generally speaking, that is an accurate picture. But we must also take into account these three years where he labored as pastor. That he could do an intensive pastoral work during a three-year stay is easy for us to understand, since in many circles today a three-year pastorate is not at all uncommon.
He says also, "I did not cease," adding these words to indicate that the nouthetic activity was not confined merely to the first or second or third year. He did not do this work only part of the time or at certain seasons; he did not engage in nouthetic confrontation only in fall and spring campaigns; he did it continually throughout the whole length of the three-year ministry. Paul's words indicate that he might be engaged in such activities at almost any period of time on a given day of any year. Every day, night and day, then, he "did not cease to confront each one nouthetically with tears." So you can see that nouthetic confrontation was a large part of Paul's ministry.[4]
Now I suppose I must tell you something about the biblical idea of nouthetic confrontation. Fundamentally it means this: God using one man to confront another verbally about something that God wants changed out of concern for the individual who is confronted. Many of the persons that Paul confronted doubtless would be labeled mentally ill today. Christian ministers must learn again to confront members of their congregations about the sin that lies at the root of many of their problems. They must learn again from the Scriptures how to use direct verbal confrontation. They, of course, must not do so apart form the power of the Spirit working by His Word and in a loving manner. Let us then see what God has said about nouthetic confrontation.
The first element in the word nouthesia involves the idea that there is something wrong in the counselee's life that God wants changed. That means that known sin in the lives of the members of the church must not be winked at. It is a responsibility of those who have the rule over the flock to lead the sheep in the paths of righteousness as the Great Shepherd has directed. That will often involve confronting them when they wander into the paths of unrighteousness.
The second element in the word is that the change is attempted by use of appropriate verbal means in personal confrontation. The idea of personal counseling is clear. The counselor does not attempt to change the person he is confronting by manipulating him in some behavioristic fashion, but he does so by personal counseling, by a verbal confrontation and a verbal methodology; that is to say, a counseling methodology. Talk, the psychiatrist's methodology, was not given to him but was ordained by God for the work of the ministry. Yet it is talk of a specific sort. Nouthesia is plainly directive counseling; it involves the application of biblical principles to concrete life situations.
There is also a third element in that word: the confrontation takes place in order to change the man out of loving concern; for his own welfare. The connotation of loving concern in this word emerges where the term is used in familial contexts. For example, this element is prominent when Paul told the Corinthians, "I do not write these things to shame you but to confront you nouthetically as my beloved children" (1 Cor. 4:14). When he talks about the disciplining of a brother, he urges, "Do not look on him as an enemy, but confront him nouthetically as a brother," or, "as you would confront a brother" (2 Thess. 3:15). And in that family context in Ephesians after he has instructed children to obey their parents, he addresses their fathers with these words: "Bring them up in the nurture (‘discipline,' or ‘training,' as the word paideia means) and the nouthetic confrontation of the Lord" Eph. 6:4). Parents must confront their children in the same way that the Lord confronts them as His children. And so the word occurs in these warm contexts, showing that it carries the idea of concern for the other person. Even in Acts 20:31 that note is sounded strongly when Paul says, "I did not cease to nouthetically confront each one with tears." The deep involvement of Paul with each one of these believers, the personal attention and the "weeping with those who weep" is apparent. The words "each one" occur not only in Acts, but also in Colossians (cf. Col. 1:28). This personalized concern and the tears that it brought to his eyes show his love. Counseling must be done in love, and love must be "in the truth" (2 John 1; 3 John 1).
Now the reason I have brought the word nouthesia over into English from the Greek New Testament instead of simply translating it "admonish" or "counsel" or "warn" or "instruct" or by some other word, is because none of these other words in English has the depth and the fullness of meaning that is inherent in the Greek term. So far as I know, there is no English word that adequately expresses the three elements in nouthesia. It seems important to note that whenever you do not have a word for the thing, you usually do not have the thing itself. Where you do not have a word to describe an activity adequately, it is because you are not engaged in pursuing it. Indeed, that seems to be the fact in this instance. We do not have a word in English because the concept of nouthesia has not been explored fully in English literature and, therefore, not adequately worked out in the life of the church. We rarely see this kind of confrontation of church members; overwhelming concern for people that compels us to go to them and talk to them in order to change their lives is virtually nonexistent. We know little about nouthetic confrontation in our society. Everything else has been substituted for it, but true biblical nouthetic counseling rarely exists.
And so, what I'm saying is that you have greater opportunities than you may think. You may open up the New Testament idea of nouthesia to your congregation. The very concept, put into practice, could make your ministry flower. The possibilities and opportunities that nouthetic activities offer for the edification of the saints are as unlimited as the need is great. As evangelical pastors who believe the Word of God, who want to follow it, and who want for your flocks all of the blessings of God, you cannot avoid this matter. So, to begin with, I want to urge you to consider the great potential for good that is wrapped up in nouthesia. Great change in the Church of Christ for good can be brought about by developing fully all that God says about this aspect of the work of the ministry. Let us not fall short of it.
But you might say,
"Perhaps so, but I'm not qualified; I can't handle people in all sorts of difficulties that you are saying that I ought to be handling. That psychiatric umbrella isn't too big for me. I'm glad to see most of those people are under it. I'm glad to have someone to whom I may refer them, I'm glad I don't have to handle the people I send on to them. And not only that, think of the damage that I might do if I tried to counsel such persons. Why, I might injure them for the rest of their lives! Excuse me; I'm simply not qualified."
I want to assure you (secondly) that
II. You have greater qualifications than you may realize
Not only do you have greater opportunities than you may think, but you have far greater qualifications than you even may begin to recognize. We have seen that changing the lives of your people is not a psychiatrist's work. Rather, behavior and value change is the work of God's servants. You and I cannot escape our responsibilities so easily.
Look once again at your qualifications for the work. What training, for instance, is really best for the task of changing men's lives? Medical training? Psychiatric training? Training in some clinic or theoretical school of psychotherapy in New York or Washington? University training in psychology? What about a solid seminary training in the Word of God? Think-what is the best training and background for the work of changing the lives of other people? I maintain that a good seminary background is the best education for the work of changing lives. If that training is truly biblical, it will as a matter of course provide experience in biblical counseling. I insist that a seminary background (of the right sort) is the proper, and by far the best, means for training a person for that work. When you begin to think seriously about this matter, you also will begin to realize that this is a seminary's task. When we give a man the tools (Greek, Hebrew, hermeneutics, exegesis) so that he can study the Word of God for the rest of his life and find out what this Book has to say, we are giving him the background that he needs for counseling as well as for preaching. He must learn how to share the results of his studies with his people both in his preaching and in his counseling. His ministerial training should give him a basic foundation in the Scriptures so that he comes to understand the fundamental ideas, concepts, and principles of God's Word. It is these that are needed to help people with personal problems. And in seminaries we must-though often we have failed to do so-teach prospective ministers how to communicate the Word of God concretely from the pulpit and in the counseling room. A good seminary training, in principle at least, ought to raise all of the matters that a minister and his people must face in life. It should show him how to use the Scriptures to help them find practical solutions to these problems. That is what seminary training is all about-or ought to be about -equipping future ministers with the tools and methods necessary to develop among the people of God a standard of living that is acceptable to God and a witness to the world.
People whose marriages are all mixed up need to know how to live before God. Parents and children at odds need to be brought together in the Lord. Apart from the Word of God (and the God of the Word) such goals can never be attained.
What are the fundamental qualifications for such work? Well, if you look at the passages that talk about nouthetic confrontation, you will discover what those qualifications are. In Romans 15:14, for example, Paul, speaking to the laymen in the church at Rome, says that they are "competent to counsel," or "capable of nouthetically confronting one another." He says he believes this because he is "convinced" that they you are "full of goodness and filled with all knowledge." In Colossians 3:16, where he talks about "nouthetically confronting one another" as well as "teaching one another," he speaks again of being filled with the knowledge of Jesus Christ: "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly." There he adds a third element: "with all wisdom." These verses mention three things that qualify one for nouthetic activity: goodness, knowledge, and wisdom. These are the three fundamental qualifications of a man who is going to confront others in order to change their lives.
He needs (first of all) to know God's Word well: the Word of Christ must "dwell within him richly." He needs to be "filled" with a knowledge of the Scriptures. I do not know of any university training in clinical psychology, or of any psychiatric institute that attempts to fill a man with such knowledge. I do not know of any psychoanalytical schools that prepare counselors so that they are richly endued with the knowledge of the Word of Christ. But theological education attempts to qualify you for this work.
Knowledge has an experiential side that must not be missed; it is to "dwell within him"; i.e., become a living, vital part of the fabric of his being. Unfortunately, seminaries have not always stressed this fact.[5]
Secondly, the nouthetic counselor needs to be full of wisdom. Wisdom means (among other things) the practical application of that knowledge; the ability to apply a truth found in the Scriptures to a man's life at the place where he lives. Wisdom brings the Word of God to bear upon the problems in pertinent and relevant ways. Again, it has an experiential side that says something about the man who possesses it (cf. James 3:13-18).
Thirdly, there is the essential quality of goodness. The word goodness probably does not refer so much to the goodness of the life of the counselor (though that certainly is involved in it and behind it) as it does to his goodness of attitude toward others. It is this quality that in loving concern motivates a pastor to take the time and make the effort to seek out God's answers to the problems of another. Such goodness toward others continually gets him involved in another person's life for his good.
Those are three basic qualifications that the Scriptures require of a counselor. Those are also basic requirements for a good minister of the Word. Certainly no man should be in the ministry unless he has those qualifications; which is to say that if a minister is not qualified to counsel, he is not qualified to be a minister-and vice versa.
To summarize: it is essential to have a knowledge of the Scriptures in order to evaluate man's problems and to discover God's solutions to them; to become wise in the ability to deal with counselees in personal confrontation (note use of "wisdom" in a similar connection in Colossians 4:5-6); to have goodness of heart to motivate one to engage in the difficult task of confronting another.
There is a fourth qualification that must be mentioned because it is the most basic of all and stands as bedrock beneath the first three. In Galatians 6:1 Paul says that if any brother sees another caught (or possibly catches another) in sin, he must restore him. This commandment is directed to those "who are spiritual." Picture a brother whose life is badly messed up. For all practical purposes he has ceased to function vitally as a member of the Church. Paul does not say that he may be referred to an unsaved psychiatrist or to an unbelieving marriage counselor for help. Indeed, he explicitly forbids Christians to obtain help from those who know nothing about Jesus Christ; the brother must be helped by another Christian: "You who are spiritual." When he wrote those words Paul was not referring to two kinds of Christians, spiritual Christians and carnal Christians. That is not the point of the distinction; such a consideration did not even pass through his mind. Throughout the book of Galatians (as also in his other letters) Paul clearly identifies men as belonging to two, not three, categories. For him the two kinds of men are the "spiritual man" and the "natural man" (cf. 1 Corinthians 2). The former is a man who has the Spirit, the later a person who does not have the Spirit. All men are born natural men. But those who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit thereby have become spiritual men. The Spirit dwells in those whom He has regenerated. So what Paul is saying in Galatians 6:1 is, "You in whom the Spirit dwells must be the ones to restore your brother." This prerequisite is a fundamental factor that disqualifies all but Christians.
Looking at these biblical standards then, may I ask who is qualified to do nouthetic confrontation if it is not Christian ministers? So, you have greater opportunities than you may have thought and greater qualifications than you may have realized. But let me also encourage you further by asserting that
III. You have greater knowledge than you may recognize
You say,
"I do not. I wouldn't know what to do if I had to confront somebody who is severely depressed. I don't know how to help a homosexual. Suppose somebody starts running down the street naked with a meat cleaver; I wouldn't know how to handle that!"
Well, maybe you should think further about what to do in such specific cases. But I believe that basically you do know what to do, even though you may not realize it. What I am trying to say is that I think you know a lot more about how to handle theses and other kinds of situations than others do, or than you yourself may recognize.
First of all, you have inside information about man's fundamental problem. Others may pull books off the shelves by the dozens that theorize about what is wrong with man, but you know that the answer lies in the third chapter of the Book on your study desk. That chapter shows how, as a result of man's sin, all sorts of tragic problems began to complicate his life. The dynamics of sin were exposed at the very beginning. Reconstruct that scene. Adam and Eve have sinned. God comes as usual in the cool of the day, the time when He used to walk with Adam. But instead of a joyful response to the presence of God, Adam runs in fear. It is apparent that something has come between them. Sin has driven a wedge between Adam and God. God comes and Adam hides; he has to be ferreted out of the trees. He finally emerges, still trying to cover his nakedness in the presence of the God before whom all is "naked and open." Adam tries to hide because he realizes now that the openness and frankness that he once enjoyed in God's presence no longer exist. They were once so close that nothing-not even clothing-came between them. But now he feels ashamed in the presence of God; there is a great gulf between them. He is a guilty sinner who has offended the holy God.
Notice what happens when God begins to deal with Adam in a nouthetic fashion. Adam makes excuses. What does Adam do? Does he say in repentance, "Lord, I have sinned, forgive me"? No. Not only do the basic problems that have come snow-balling down through history already appear, but along with them can be seen the fundamental sinful response patterns that cause additional confusion and complicate the situation. They all began back there in the garden. In seed form, at least, every major problem that a counselor must handle today is found there at the beginning. The hundred different counseling problems that you encounter from day to day are merely variations on these basic themes. It was all there in the sin and the sinful responses of Adam at the beginning.
God confronts Adam with his sin: "Adam, did you eat of that tree?" Notice how Adam replies. In effect he says,
"Now wait a minute, Lord. That woman that you gave me, she was the one who did wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I mean, after all, I ate, sure. But look, you gave her to me. It's really your fault; after all, you gave me someone like that to live with. So, don't blame me."
There is no repentance in his reply. There is no feeling of personal sorrow about what he did. He does not assume responsibility for his sin. Instead, we see only blame-shifting, excuse-making, and even complaining; Adam attempts to throw the responsibility for his sin back upon God. Men have not changed. The Lord turns to Eve: "What about it, Eve?" She replies, "It was the serpent's fault, not mine." Again the buck gets passed. Not only has a wedge been driven between God and man, but you can imagine how Adam's blame-shifting also drove a wedge between himself and his wife. It all began right there, and every problem that you and your counselees have to face today is there in seed form.
In Genesis 3, sin leads to hiding, for instance. This hiding by Adam is the archetype of every avoidance pattern (no mater how sophisticated) that you will run into in counseling today. People still run from this and from that, but reflection upon the fact leads to this conclusion: just as all blame-shifting (ultimately) is blaming God, so all running is (in the end) nothing less than man running from God. You know that; as Christian ministers you already know that fact. You know, basically, what is wrong with man. He is a sinner who needs to be changed by the grace of God. Most of the hypothesizing, theorizing, and speculating on the part of the psychiatric schools about what is wrong with man and how he got that way is useless chatter. There is only one right answer. And you already know the answer. You are way ahead.
"But," you say, "I still don't know what to do to help people." Yes you do. You know more than those writers who fill libraries with the products of their speculation; you know a lot more (read again Psalm 119:99). What you need to do is to recognize how much you already know. You already hold to some basic biblical presuppositions just as every other counselor does. Every psychiatrist, every clinical psychologist, and every marriage counselor has his presuppositions. No one is neutral. You have yours (which, hopefully, are not yours but God's). Every person thinks and acts according to his presuppositions, whether he knows it or not, and whether he can articulate them or not.
`What are your presuppositions? Well, to begin with, because you believe the Bible you know much about the counselee before he walks into the room. You have a great advantage in the fact that your presuppositions are founded not upon speculation, but upon the revelation of God. There is a sign in the Detroit airport that says something like this: "When you see a man reading the Wall Street Journal, you already know a lot about him." That is an interesting sign; it implies that there are a number of questions that you do not need to bother to ask a man if you see him reading the Wall Street Journal; that fact alone already tells you the answers to those questions. How many of you read the Wall Street Journal? You see, even the fact that we don't tells a lot about you and me. By means of the basic biblical presuppositions to which you are committed, you know a lot about any counselee before he walks through the door. The one fact that you need to know in order to answer dozens of questions is that he is a sinful son of Adam.
I was speaking to a woman in a counseling session recently whom I had never seen before when twenty minutes into the first session she sat upright in her seat, looked at me aghast and said, "You know me; how do you know me?" The answer to that was, "God told me about you in the Bible." It is that simple (and profound); really it is. You do know a lot about people before they enter the counseling room, far more than do those who speculate apart from God's revelation. The Bible is plain about man's sin and how it has affected his life. You must recognize that, gentlemen. You need a new confidence that the Word of God is sufficient and true. You need to meet man's needs.
You also know, for example, that according to the Scriptures, sinners, simply because they are sinners, develop sinful life patterns. These patterns, the Bible says, are hard to break. They are called the "old man" by Paul. These old ways of living need to be "put off" (abandoned) after a person becomes a Christian, and new patterns of living must be "put on" (developed). The news life styles that are according to the law of God, Paul called the "new man." The new man and the old man are not some kind of entities within the person (as if he possessed separate natures) but they are simply Paul's graphic way of describing two ways of life. The "old man" is called the "former manner of life" in the New American Standard Version (Eph. 4:22). By the way they respond to life's problems in difficult situations, sinners develop sinful patterns from the beginning of their lives. We should expect this because that is all that unconverted sinners can do. Those patterns may pay off for a while, but they will not continue to do so forever. The Scriptures speak of the temporary pleasures of sin (Heb. 11:25). Eventually, however, sinful living gets people into trouble. Sinful responses to life's problems begin to pile up and complicate the original problems. Problems grow, sometimes so much so that people don't know which way to turn next, and they give up, or blow up, or crack up. Now you know that; you know that! You are not so ignorant about people and their problems as you may pretend. You are far more conversant with all of this than the psychiatrist might like you to believe. By studying the Word of God carefully and observing how the biblical principles describe the people you counsel (not to speak of measuring your own heart and life by the yardstick of the Scriptures), you can gain all of the information and experience that you need to become a competent, confident Christian counselor. It will take time and study and prayer, but it is possible.
You know even more before that counselee walks through the door. In addition to what I have already mentioned, let me point out also that you know the goals for human life. You should read the conflicting suggestions in the books by the "experts" about the goals of counseling! The psychiatrists, the clinical psychologists, and the pagan marriage counselors are having a hard time deciding what those goals should be. They can't agree upon what the final product should look like. They don't know what to do with the fellow who comes through the door. They ask each other, "What is it we want to make out of him?" Take a clinician like Skinner who believes that he can manipulate people with a carrot out in front and zap from behind. He says that he has the power to make just about whatever you might want to make out of a man by conditioning his responses to various stimuli. But the problem is, what do you want? It is Walden II? That is a real problem for him and his followers. Indeed, Carl Rogers attacked him at this very point. But Rogers cannot avoid the problem either; he must opt for client-centered goals. Skinner may well ask him, "Why?" What do psychiatrists want to do to a "patient"? What are their goals? Where shall they get them? How can they agree upon them? They must ask,
"Should my goals for another man be the same as the goals that I have adopted for myself? These goals are the goals that I think are best. Or should they be his goals?"
Who can answer their questions? It is a very subjective problem; no wonder that they get into hassles and debates over this matter. They do not even know where they want to go. The psychiatrist is like a man with a brand new automobile, but no place to go. He lacks the divine Road Map.
But before that man walks through the door, you know what you want to do with him (or you should) because God's goals are set forth in the Scriptures. You have the Ten Commandments that spell out the whole of God's will for man's life. You have the characterological goals that are described as the "fruit of the Spirit" in the fifth chapter of Galatians, which, incidentally (N.B.), are the fruit of the Spirit. (That is one reason why only a spiritual man, somebody who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, can help a brother to produce and gather more of the fruit of the Spirit.)
His fruit must be produced by the Spirit himself; it cannot be produced by any other person. You cannot whomp up the fruit of the Sprit by human effort or techniques. That is why it is called fruit, rather than works. In contrast, Paul also refers to the works of the flesh. We can all produce works, but who else but the Spirit can produce His fruit? Fruit has to grow naturally in accordance with proper growing conditions. There are many conditions necessary for the growth of fruit. But the fundamental condition that is essential for the fruit of the Spirit is the Spirit's presence. How can we hope for love, joy, or peace, for instance, in either the counselee or in the counselor, apart from the Spirit? Listed as part of the fruit is "self-control," one of the crucial elements that nearly every counselee so desperately needs. But how do we expect him to learn self-control in a Spiritless counseling session? Can you therefore justify referring a husband and wife who are having marital difficulties to a pagan marriage counseling center? How do you expect them to learn self-control or develop love apart from the Spirit of God?
I do not intend to limit the Spirit. I know that the Spirit of God may work in spite of our follies. If this is a Christian couple, the Spirit of God may bless them in spite of a godless counseling situation. But He who works when and where and how He pleases ordinarily does His work in conjunction with the Word which He has given. His means of working is through His Word. So if counseling ignores the Word of God, there is no reason to expect the Spirit to work through it.
The Scriptures must be the basis for all that is said and done in counseling. The Scriptures must strongly influence the content of all counseling. They must be the source of every goal, the authority for every purpose, and they must contain the principles behind every procedure. If the Scriptures do not permeate counseling, and if the Christ of the Scriptures does not emerge at the center of the counseling sessions, then you cannot expect the Spirit to do His sanctifying work. It would be extraordinary if He did work where His Word was neglected, because this is the means of grace by which He Himself has chosen to carry on such work. It was He who "moved" men to write the Scriptures for this very purpose. Why should we expect Him to abandon the means He took pains to perfect? In all nouthetic confrontation, then, the "Word of Christ" must be used "richly."
So then you know (1) what God's goals for counseling are, (2) how He effects changes by His Word, and (3) what kind of man the Spirit uses in the ministry of His Word. You do not need to study the answers to these questions in other books; you have all that you need to know about these fundamental aspects of counseling in God's Book. These matters have been plainly settled for you by God, and there is not need for confusion. Let me say again, therefore, that you have greater knowledge than you may recognize.
But you know still more; you also know the solutions to man's problems. You know that the basic solution lies in the redemption of Jesus Christ. You know that to enjoy the fruit of the Spirit a man must be saved. He needs to repent and believe the Gospel; he must have his sins forgiven. He needs to come to terms with God, recognizing that he has offended Him by breaking His law. He must depend upon the death of Jesus Christ on the cross to find this forgiveness. He must trust in Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead. Once a man is saved, the Spirit of God who gave him the life to believe, will continue to work in him. He works His sanctifying changes from the time He regenerates a believer and enables him to believe in Christ to the point where He makes him perfect at death. Those are the conditions for changing a man: regeneration (the new birth) and sanctification (growth by grace). Men grow by the grace of God toward perfection. God's grace, in part, comes to His children through the counseling ministry of the Word.
Brethren, you know all of these things. But that pagan marriage counselor knows none of them. This is the basic dynamic of change according to the God has called us to minister to the needs of men. How dare we refer the sheep to, or adopt the goals and methods of, unbelievers who know nothing of the biblical dynamic? Should we call ourselves Rogerians or Freudians, or eclectic? Why be something else when God has told us what to be and what to do? How can pastors who believe the Word of God preach it from the pulpit, go in to the study, hang up their preaching hat (together with its authority) and put on a different (permissive) counseling one? How can they close their Bibles and lay them aside as they close the counseling door? Can they say, in effect, "Now tell me your problems, and I'll ‘ahum' and uhuh'? No longer will I tell you authoritatively (directively) what God says about your life."
How can conservative pastors do that? They can do so only (against conscience) because they have been brainwashed into thinking that this is what they should do. It is only because of a tremendous propaganda campaign that they have been sold on the idea that they have nothing to offer their people. It is only because of the big umbrella!
Evangelical pastors, you must awaken to the fact that Freudianism and Rogerianism are getting you and your congregations nowhere. Open the Scriptures and freely minister to your flocks out of the goodness of your heart. Help your people to abandon those sinful life patterns that are ruining their lives, and things will happen quickly; which leads to the next point.
IV. You can offer greater resources than you suppose
Think for a moment of the resources that you have by comparison to the greatest resources of a psychiatrist. What does he have? He has Freud, Adler, Jung, and a half a dozen others. If he buys the newer behavioristic schools, he has Skinner, Krumboltz, and Wolpe. (Incidentally, behaviorism is catching on rapidly and now looks as if it will be the new fad and threat of the future.[6] The reason why I have mainly stressed Rogers and Freud is not because I fail to realize the tremendous influence of the behaviorist school, but because the Church as usual is behind the times and is still thinking largely in Rogerian and Freudian categories. Of course, many psychiatrists are just as far behind.) But give all of these to the psychiatrist, and what does he have? He has a grand mass of contradiction and confusion; the ideas of one cancel out those of another. He has very, very little; and most psychiatrists know it.
But what resources do you have? The Holy Spirit, who is called the "Comforter" (but better translated, the "Counselor") is at work in your ministry. He is the One who counsels through you, and by you, and with you. You never need to counsel alone. He is also there at work in the counselee. He works through His Word, His church, and His sacraments. Don't undersell the Word of God and the Spirit working through that Word. Don't underrate the potential of a counselor rightly using the Scriptures, or the fellowship of the church, as imperfect and meager as that fellowship often may be. Even so, that body of redeemed people is a growing, learning group of people with whom one can find real fellowship on a level of depth and loving truth. As John put it in his second and third letters, "Whom I love in the truth," i.e., in the sphere and the realm of the truth that all Christians hold in common.
And don't forget that the Spirit of God is at work in you. He not only works in the counselee; He works also in you to make you a better counselor and to give you better insights into His Word (1 Cor. 2). He gives you the wisdom that you need (James 1:5). You must be willing therefore, to step out by faith upon the promises of His Word. Tackle all of the problems that you can. Humbly admit it when you don't have the answers or can't handle a case. But instead of despairing, seek harder for the answers in the Word of God so that the next time that you meet a similar problem you will know what to do. Talk to other pastors; counsel together with them; compare cases. Read every book on counseling that is published-if it is truly biblical. In short, work hard to become as competent as possible. All the while, move ahead with prayerful confidence in the Word and the Spirit. God will watch over you and mold you and make you a more effective counselor. He will. Not only do you have greater opportunities, greater qualifications, greater knowledge, and greater resources, but
V. You should have greater hope than perhaps you have
Indeed, you should have much hope. First of all, you should have hope for yourself. After all, you are empowered by the Spirit of God (think of that-God is at work in and through you!). But take another fact, for example-you are concerned about being men of God; you want to grow into the full stature of Jesus Christ. You believe in taking heed to your ministry and to yourself. You want to become the right kind of person. I wonder how many non-Christian counselors work very hard at self-growth. Yet one's personality and example (not to speak of his values and beliefs) are universally acknowledged as of crucial importance in counseling.[7] And the more you grow into the right kind of person, and the more this concern permeates your life and thought, the more capable you will become.
You could have hope for yourself also because of the great truth that Paul revealed in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "There is no test (trial, problem, temptation) that has overtaken you but such as is common to man." There is ground for enormous hope in that promise. Have you ever thought about it? Paul is saying that there is really no new problem; there is no problem that you will have to face in a counselee that you or some other Christian counselor hasn't had to face previously. That is what I was saying earlier when I mentioned the fact that it is all-in seed form, at least-in Genesis 3. No one is going to present to you a unique problem tomorrow or next week. Of course, the specific features of each problem are unique; the way that it comes, the configuration that it takes, the intensity with which it appears, the rapidity with which it grows, naturally all of these things vary. And there are hundreds of subtle little details that differ, so that no two cases are ever exactly the same. But at bottom, when you boil off all of the fat, when you get down to the bones and meat, the problem is precisely the same as the problems that you must face or that anybody else has to face, or anybody in the future will ever have to face.
That is what Paul explains in the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians. He was writing to Corinthians who lived in a cosmopolitan setting. The Corinthians thought of themselves as living at a late date in history. He alluded to this when he wrote, "You upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (vs. 11). Writing to people in that historical situation, at the very end of the Old Testament era, he wanted them to know that all of the things that happened to the Israelites in the desert long ago when they were living a nomadic existence under entirely different outward circumstances than those in Corinth were nevertheless relevant. He said, in effect:
You may find yourselves in cosmopolitan Corinth, the double seaport city of the Mediterranean, the place where both the North and South traffic moves across the Isthmus of Corinth, the city into which also much East and West traffic flows. Yes, you may live in such a city; a city into which every new idea and every new vice is sure to come. But your situation is not unique. You may live in a town where the Corinthian games are held and the famous Corinthian bronzes are manufactured. You may live in a cosmopolitan city, a world city, and a wicked city. (If you wanted to insult someone, you might call him a "Corinthian.") But what happened to the Israelites is also pertinent to you (vss. 6, 11).
What he meant was:
Although you live at this late date in history, in those kinds of circumstances; even though you are so culturally removed from the Israelites, and despite the fact that you are so many generations removed from them, I want you to know that the things that happened to that nomadic group of people wandering through the desert on their way toward Palestine are written for your example.
That is why he stresses the point that, "There is not test that has overtaken you (in Corinth) except what is common to men." What happened to the Israelites is the same as that which is happening to you.
That is also one reason why the Bible has relevance to us today. This ageless relevancy is a reality even in this fast-moving age of the generation lap (there is no generation gap; what we are experiencing is a generation lap or overlap. The generations are being compressed; they overlap. Longevity, modern communication, mobility, etc. have all had a hand in speeding up the process of change. There is no longer gradual change spanning several generations. For millennia each generation gently took the place of the preceding. As they did so, it was with a tender nudge. Now, they slam hard against one another! As a result, several generations worth of change must now be handled by a single generation. That is the problem. Changes take place so rapidly that we can't know what to hold onto and what to let go of. It is like an accordion full of generations that have been squeezed together.) But whether there is a generation lap or lag doesn't really matter. The rapidity with which problems come may differ but, at base, the problems are the same today as they were back in the time of Corinth or Israel, or Adam. A thousand years hence, if this world endures, this verse will still hold true. God is the same, sinful man is the same, the basic problems of human relations between God and man and man and man are the same. The Christ who was in the wilderness is still the same; in the wilderness of Sinai, Corinth, or Manhattan. So take heart. There is hope for you as a counselor. The problems and trials that you have been overcoming in your life by the Word of God that have qualified you to be a minister of Jesus Christ, are at bottom the same as those of your counselee. You, therefore, know what you need to know and to teach another who has a problem.
But notice that there is hope for him, too. Paul's words should encourage him to hope. He doesn't have some kind of strange disease. There would be little hope then. When we try to be gentle and kind by euphemistically labeling sinners "sick," we really do them a cruel disservice. Labels tend only to categorize one for life; a counselee gets a label on his file and that is the end of it (and him). He is one of those for the rest of his life. He may come to half believe it too. He may think that he has some incurable illness and lose all hope. He is stuck with it for life. There is little hope in that approach. But there is great hope in calling sin "sin." Every Christian knows that God sent Christ to deal with sin. It is not an unkindness, then, to be clear about sin; the most kindly thing you can do is to tell the truth. It is not only unkind, but even cruel to label sin something else, because there is no hope for sin apart from the acknowledgment of it before God in true repentance.
A psychiatrist's openers through the years have sounded something like this, "Now you know we can't guarantee anything, and you know that this may take a long time-two, three, four, five, or more years." Freud, in fact, said that psychoanalysis is never over. (I think on the basis of its presuppositions that he was right) The counselee meekly replies, "Yes," as all hope vanishes. What a way to start counseling-"I can't guarantee anything"; "It may take a long while"! What a discouraging way to begin; what little hope! Obviously here is one factor that accounts for the failure of psychiatry; when you see how poorly such sessions begin, you should not wonder why so little is accomplished. When a counselee comes with little or no hope to begin with, and then hears that, his worst fears are confirmed. Hope is destroyed. Yet, to be honest, institutionalized psychiatry has had to confess its failure in such terms. Why should the counselee put forth any genuine effort? And when he comes back session after session, and nothing ever happens, except talk and more talk, when no change takes place and none of his problems are solved, hopelessness turns into despair. And if by some chance the psychiatrist thinks that now after months (or Years) of talk something might be done about a problem, it is far too late to suggest this. If the revolutionary idea of taking action at the end of a long inactive period should happen to occur to the psychiatrist, he will hardly be able to achieve anything now after spending months convincing the counselee by session after session of inaction that he must expect no change.
In contrast, what should happen when someone goes to a Christian counselor? We say to him, "You know, this may take a long time; it may take as long as ten or twelve weeks."[8] When he looks dubious, we respond, "Now don't get excited. Most people leave in eight weeks, but many leave sooner." Then we say,
"We can guarantee you everything, everything that God promises. You can have it all if you are willing to do what God requires. We can guarantee that your problem can be solved, God's way. Indeed, if you don't go out of here changed to some extent tonight, then it is your own fault. You can be different today to some extent. Not every problem can be solved today, but you can at least take the first step in the right direction."
We expect to see change from the first week. We build into our pattern of counseling the biblical idea that change is not only demanded by God, but also possible. When counselees come each week, they don't know what is going to happen next; but they come expecting change (sometimes with fear and trepidation). One thing they know: something is going to happen. When they are ready for it, in the providence of God it usually does.
A missionary and his wife who had come back from the mission field because of her problems, for a year and a half went to see a psychiatrist-who-is-a Christian (that's the best way I know how to say it). He dealt with each one separately. Each time they went they just talked and nothing happened, except that the problem grew worse. Eventually they were directed to us. The first thing they said was, "We've come here because we understand that this is the place where you get things done quickly." I replied, "Sit down, let's get started." Things did get done quickly. In the very first session the real problem came out, that during the previous year or more had not even been mentioned to the psychiatrist. She said, "I have never told anyone before, but the problem is that I do not love my husband." I think the main reason that she told us was that, in contrast to the psychiatrist, she had hope. Yes, there is reason for much greater hope than you may now have. And that hope can be realized.
I have tried to challenge and encourage you. I haven't told you about many cases or explained principles concretely, or suggested techniques.[9] We could talk for hours on those subjects, but what is the use unless you are convinced that you can and should do the full work of counseling?
Let me say in conclusion, if you do have greater opportunities than you may have thought, if you do have greater qualifications than you may have realized, if you do have greater knowledge than you have recognized, and greater resources than you may have supposed, you can offer greater hope to your people than can anyone else. I challenge you to assume the responsibility of this great task which truly is yours. Open your own umbrella like a banner raised in the name of Jesus Christ, and invite suffering men and women to find shelter and help beneath its crimson protection. Ever widen that umbrella until you embrace all of those to whom your ministry should extend. Be sure your umbrella is fashioned according to biblical patterns and dimensions. A man who owns an umbrella and is too frightened to open it in a storm to help another for fear that it may be blown inside out will himself be drenched.
[1] But see Competent to Counsel for a fuller discussion of Rogerian "listening," which I have shown is not listening at all.
[2] Psalm 1:1, "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly."
[3] See Competent to Counsel p. 107 ff. for a fuller discussion of this passage
[4] We must not think dichotomistically about the pastoral and evangelistic (missionary) ministry. The great com-mission (Mt. 28) is plainly pastoral, "teaching them to observe all things." That Paul did pastoral work not only at Ephesus but everywhere, seems plain. (Cf. 1 Thess. 2:11,12 where it is clear that he worked nouthetically even in Thessalonica where he stayed so briefly.)
[5] Before ordination a man's qualifications for the ministry should be determined by the presbytery not only on the basis of his academic record or intellectual abilities, but also on the basis of these three factors.
[6] Nouthetic counseling is not simply biblical behaviorism. While it is concerned with behavior and deals with it biblically, it must be distinguished from behavioristic views that start with the non-Christian premise that man is only another animal and, therefore, may be manipulated as any other animal might in training him to do the tricks that his master wishes. Behaviorism involves such things as the denial of man's special creation in the image of God, a rejection of human responsibility (since environmental conditioning is thought to be at the base of every-thing), and a propensity to use manipulation rather than biblical persuasion. It by-passes personal conviction and cares nothing about one's relationship to the holy God of creation and redemption. It is plainly based upon a utilitarian or pragmatic and evolutionary philosophy. Meyer and Chesser wrote: "Behavior treatments...have as their primary aim the modification of behavior rather than an understanding of it." V. Meyer and Edward Chesser, Behavior Therapy in Clinical Psychiatry, Science House, N.Y.: 1970, p.25.
[7] Even behaviorists admit to the importance of what Meyer and Chesser call "therapist potency." Op cit., p. 208.
[8] Of one hour sessions each week.
[9] This was later done in The Christian Counselor's Manual and other books as well as in lectures available from the Institute for Nouthetic Studies at www.nouthetic.org.
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