Response to Student Discussion Post (2)

Student Name: Rachel Elkins

In order to assess Powlison’s six crucial issues facing biblical counseling, we must provide them:

· The “same old issues” still face us.

· The questions touching on human motivation must be explored and integrated more firmly within both our theory and practice.

· The relationship between human responsibility and human suffering needs a great deal of clarification.

· We need to press further in understanding the biblical data about the counselor-counselee relationship.

· Biblical counseling must be contextualized to new audiences.

· The relationship of biblical counseling to secular psychology needs to be publicly clarified.

(Powlison, 2010, p. 241-258)

When examining these six issues, all are very important and require attention by Biblical counselors in order to provide the best services moving forward in the practice. However, I believe that the most crucial would be the first one; the “same old issues” still face us (Powlison, 2010). Within this issue, Powlison (2010) urges the counselor to examine what practices they are already using and any future practices in order to ensure that everything being used is founded on Biblical principles, not worldly ideologies. I find this one to be the most important, because it should be the basis in which every counselor operates. As Powlison (2010) says, “whatever changes and development need to occur within the biblical counseling movement must occur only on the foundation already laid: biblical categories of thought generating biblical methods of ministry” (p. 243). A counselor can address all the other concerns in this six issues, but if she moves off the path of a biblical foundation; everything has already been corrupted and distorted by worldly practices. Powlison (2010) demonstrates that a Biblical counselor should constantly allow biblical classifications to lead her understanding. It is through this lens that all other concerns will filter out of. So, if a counselor has a dysfunctional foundation, it will affect all other areas of counseling. McMinn (2011) points out that for a counselor to be as effective as possible, one can add secular counseling techniques to Scripture. Scripture must come first, secular techniques come second. This also is supported by Crabb (1977) who says that as long as the secular tools fall under the authority of scripture, they can be used. Several point out here that God’s word must come first and everything else must fall under that authority. In order to see the other issues addressed, God’s Word must take the lead for further understanding.

Student Name: Katherine Wands

David Powlison underscores and explores what he believes to be the six crucial issues facing modern biblical counseling, which are listed as follows:

1. The “same old issues” still face us.

2. The questions touching human motivation must be explored and integrated more firmly within both our theory and practice.

3. The relationship between human responsibility and human suffering needs a great deal of clarification

4. We need to press much further in understanding the biblical data about the counselor-counselee relationship

5. Biblical counseling must be contextualized to new audiences

6. The relationship of biblical counseling to secular psychology needs to be publicy clarified

I am not sure that I have correctly understood the instructions or purpose of this assignment. Is the urgent issue that I select urgent in its specificity to Nouthetic Counseling, or to counseling in general? I am also fairly certain that I have not perfectly understood the divisibility of Powlison’s six critical issues, as they seem, insofar as they have been presented, somewhat conditional upon, if not one another, then at least the first issue. The first three issues and their explanations were particularly significant, and I do not believe that a separation of the three is possible. The latter three, however, seemed to me to be less crucial than the former.

That being said, I would consider Powlison’s first issue to be most urgent, only because he describes it as being foundational to contemporary biblical counseling. It seems obvious to me that any foundational issue would “devalue” other issues, however significant. Powlison describes his first issue as that which reaffirms biblical counseling’s epistemological and practical foundation (Powlison, 2010; p. 249). The “same old issues” are further described as secular influences and alternatives, which may be either passively or militantly anti-biblical. Biblical counseling operates within the worldview of the Bible, is centered on God, and is intent upon conviction of sin, reception of Christ, and renewal of life (Powlison, 2010; p. 242). The first crucial issue requires the reaffirmation and fine tuning of biblical counseling’s distinctive intellectual content (Powlison, 2010) through continued proper recognition of the Bible as the primary, if not exclusive source for Nouthetic counseling. Without proper recognition of and faithfulness to the authority and centrality of Scripture in biblical counseling, addressing the remaining five issues becomes subject to individual preference.

To cling to the authority of Scripture and to keep from diluting, modifying, or adding to its precepts would seem to resolve the subsequent issues. Through the proper study of Scripture, we find the answer to what motivates man, the multifaceted nature of human behavior (e.g. interior and exterior), man’s relation and responsibility to God and to others, man’s need to acknowledge and repent of sin, and his need for grace, forgiveness, compassion, healing in light of and in spite of individual motives, behavior, and situation (Powlison, 2010; p. 249).

In our modern era where objective truth (is there any other kind?) has been reduced to personal preference, and the popularity of virtually anything is contingent, not upon its ability to effectuate lasting, meaningful change, but rather upon whether it is trending on social media, it is vital that biblical counselors cling to proclaim the truth of God to those who are perishing. Indeed, the Gospel is perceived as superstitious, mythological, foolishness more now than ever. As Christians who believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, we have a duty to be bold, to be diligent, to be faithful, and to know what we are made of! Every word spoken, whether it is to comfort or convict, must be based in biblical truth. In order to speak biblical truth, we must know what the Bible says. The Bible tells us what we are (e.g. sinners, sufferers, mortal, created, spiritual, designed to commune with and worship God), and so an understanding of Scripture’s authority and sufficiency will help to resolve issues 2 and 3. Even Issue 4 can be addressed biblically through an examination of Christ’s role as Wonderful Counselor, and Paul’s prescriptions for Christian behavior. As for issues 5 and 6, I suppose I must consider myself obtuse and implacable in my resistance to “changing with the times”. Christians in general must certainly be familiar with the “winds of doctrine” that blow in today’s environment, but then again, I am also convinced that through the faithful and proper study of Scripture, we may identify counterfeits better than by studying the counterfeits. Can secular schools of thought contribute to the discipline of biblical counseling? Is “all truth God’s truth”? I am not intelligent or experienced enough to answer one way or another with certainty, but it seems that we cannot afford to automatically dismiss developments. We must be wise, uncompromising, humble, and discerning.

I apologize for my shortcomings on this assignment. I don’t think that I understood the text or instructions properly.