LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
The Foundation of Biblical Counseling
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
10/2022
Imagine a worst fear realized. Consider a woman going about her daily life yet with the
unsettling feeling that something is wrong. She’s experiencing headaches, blurry vision, and
memory lapses. At first, she ignores the symptoms, but as the symptoms increase in intensity,
she makes an appointment with her doctor. Before her appointment, she goes to visit with a
friend who has experienced similar symptoms and has helped counsel others who have battled
this dreaded illness. She sits with the friend who prays with her, reads the Bible with her, and
asks some basic questions in order to get a better understanding of what the woman is
experiencing. The woman begins to open up about the emotions and feelings of fear as the
tears pool in her eyes.
“No,” replies the friend. “We can’t talk about emotions. Emotions are unbiblical and,
therefore, unreliable. We must focus on your biblical response to what God has placed in your
life.” And so a woman, already weighed down with great burdens, sinks further down. Her
friend isn’t wrong. Our emotions can get the best of us. God does call us to rejoice in all things.
And yet….“Well, I will pray more often. I’m nervous about seeing the doctor, but surely the
doctor will help me. God is good in all things,” she replied to her friend, stifling down the pain
and fear. How weak she was to feel such things.
“You have to be careful with the doctor. He doesn’t adhere to the word of God, so he must
be of the darkness and Belial. Likely, he will not pray with you. One will wonder if you’re really
getting the help that you need.” Again, she couldn’t deny what her friend said. She had seen
this doctor before. She knew that he believed in evolution. She was torn. In order to get
treatment for her ailment, she had to see a doctor for medicine. But didn’t God provide all the
answers in scripture? “But I’m not telling you to not see him. Go. Take the medicine. But
remember, you must consider what sin you have committed and to repent from that. The
scriptures are all you really need. They are sufficient for all things. Only the scriptures can truly
heal you.” The woman nodded in reply. “Yes,” she thought, “the scriptures are all-sufficient. I
will try harder. I will be a better Christian. I will trust in God more. I will confess my sin. I will
repent. I will try to live more godly. I will…I will…”
Yet even as she thought this, her spiritual feet dragged through the mud and mire of her
burdens. She would try, yet in the deepest region of her conscious was a seed that
whispered into the darkness of her fears...but in and of myself, I can’t. While such an encounter
seems outlandish when battling physical afflictions, it is not so outlandish in the realm of
mental illnesses under a discipline of Christian counseling called nouthetic counseling.
Developed during the 1960s by Jay Adams, a Presbyterian minister, nouthetic counseling is a
movement that rejects secular psychology and teaches that counseling exclusively belongs to
the church.
In his day, Adams saw the world of psychology growing in power: Freud, Skinner, and
Maslow were becoming household names, and Adams knew it would eventually impact the
church world. To further his understanding of mental illness, Adams visited two mental
institutions in Illinois. There he and a psychologist worked with a schizophrenic named Steve,
who, through admonishing with tough love and a no-nonsense attitude, confessed that he was
not schizophrenic, but actually fearful to face his problems due to being behind in his classes at
college (Adams Competent 31–32). Similarly, they worked with Mary, a manic-depressive. Once
again through admonishment and “getting to the heart of the matter” (34), Adams discovered,
not a woman suffering with depression, but rather an adulteress who needed to confess her
sins. Thus, by “call[ing] a spade a spade,” Adams realized that there was no such thing as
“mental illness.” In fact, mental illness was really a “misnomer,” an incorrect label for the real
problem: “people with personal problems often us[ing] camouflage” (28–29).
To Adams, a Christian could not speak of mental illness because the Bible did not mention
or use such a term. In his book, Competent to Counsel, Adams writes, “But where, in all of God’s
word, is there so much as a trace of any third source of problems which might approximate the
modern concept of ‘mental illness’?” (29). Therefore, the root of all problems was sin, whether
because of the actions of the individual or because of living in a fallen, sinful world (Adams A
Theology 139–40). The only approach to counseling was through “nouthetic confrontation”
(Adams Competent 41). The Greek word nouthetic appears often in the Bible, especially in the
writings of Paul (e.g. Rom. 15:14, Col. 1:28; 3:16), and often has the connotation of
“admonishing with blame” in order to do what is necessary to restore the heart (41–46).
Adams was clear on the end goal of his counseling model: “the fundamental purpose of
nouthetic confrontation, then, is to effect personality and behavior change” (45). Based on his
exegesis of nouthetic as it appeared throughout the Bible, Adams determined all psychology to
be unbiblical, and the scriptures sufficient.
To Adams, the rewards of nouthetic counseling were great. By using the Bible to counsel
nouthetically, “not only will many of the present problems encountered in counseling sessions
be diminished, but a new day of preventive counseling will dawn” (Adams A Theology 277). Any
Christian would be lured by such an attractive promise.
To speak of nouthetic counseling is to speak of biblical counseling because the biblical
counseling movement had its birth in nouthetics. When I refer to biblical counseling, I am not
referring to the simple practice of any individual using the Bible to counsel another, but I am
referring to a specific approach to counseling and psychology as originally developed by Jay
Adams and used in many evangelical churches. The world of biblical counseling is the world of
Paul David Tripp, Ed Welch, John Macarthur, David Powlison, Ed Bulkley, the Christian
Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF), and the Biblical Counseling Coalition (BCC). It is
a world connected to the Bob Jones University, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and
Independent Fundamental Baptists. It is a world that has connections to the Patriarchy
movement, the Purity movement, the Quiverfull movement, and the ongoing problems of
Sovereign Grace Ministries. It’s a movement to which every reader should ask himself: What is
this?
Adams’ teaching ignited a fire in the evangelical world. Ministers and Christians followed
after Adams’ teachings and developed more philosophies, practices, and beliefs creating a
second generation of nouthetic counselors who renamed the movement as biblical counseling
in order to avoid negative connotations that had arisen out of nouthetics (Lambert). While
nouthetic counselors are more likely to adhere to the teachings of Jay Adams, biblical
counselors are more likely to follow the teachings of Paul David Tripp, the late David Powlison,
and Ed Welch, second generation counselors or integrationists, who have, to varying degrees,
taken the teachings of Adams and soften it with some use of psychology for the sake of peace
(Lambert). Although some claim a difference between nouthetic counseling and biblical
counseling, there are enough similarities between the two movements to label them nouthetic-
biblical counseling (Lambert).
Another important aspect of biblical counseling is its reliance upon The Christian’s Guide to
Psychological Terms by Marshall and Mary Asher. Published by Focus Publishing, an
independent company that publishes material on biblical counseling, The Christian’s Guide
attempts to be a manual for Christians to better understand the world of psychology by listing
psychological terms and descriptions alongside the biblical description or interpretation.
Marshall Asher, a dentist, and Mary Asher, a psychologist, are both biblical counselors who
wanted to help Christians navigate the psychology world. According to the Ashers, “A
psychological diagnosis is unnecessary and may not be correct, but the ability to translate
psychological labels into specific attitudes and behaviors helps the counselor to know what
questions to ask during the data gathering process” (Asher and Asher The Christian’s Guide).
This, for many biblical counselors, is the solution to the unreliability and ever-changing nature
of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
Each disorder then is listed with its corresponding sin. Thus, depression is given a clinical
description, while the biblical description column encourages counselors to investigate
“symptoms of… wrong thinking and spiritual problems” such as hopelessness or guilt and to
help the individual “structure his life to overcome laziness, disorganization, and a lack of self-
control” (Asher and Asher 56). Although nothing is mentioned regarding medication for
individuals, Asher and Asher do recommend medical treatment for people suffering from
conditions such as dementia or narcolepsy (52, 109). However, The Christian’s Guide proves
problematic for some descriptions. For children suffering from elimination disorders
(bedwetting), the goal is clear: counselors are instructed to “focus on the spiritual condition of
the child” and “pray for their salvation” while helping the child to possibly “overcome the fear
of man” (66). An individual with Asperger’s disorder, due to “no evidence of brain damage or
disease,” must be admonished when “fail[ing] to establish mutually supportive interpersonal
relationships with other believers” because “his behavior is sin” and he must be “challenged to
repent” (14). Because of “evidence of brain damage,” autistic individuals are not subjected to
this severe admonishment although they too must be “taught what the Bible commands
regarding our relationships to one another [and that] to neglect these commands is sin”
because “the goal of both parents and counselors must be the salvation of the child” which is
possible because “there are no limits to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit” (19). Some
of the harshest critique is reserved for anorexics: “the counselor should carefully investigate the
possibility that she is not saved” (10).
Much is as stake here in affiliating with the biblical counseling movement, and much that
requires further study and discussion. What of the biblical counseling movement led to
accusations of abuse and cover-up that continue to plague Sovereign Grace Ministries (Galli)?
What of the biblical counseling movement led to the lawsuit against John MacArthur’s church
for their “inept” counseling of one man who eventually died by suicide (Joyce)? Has biblical
counseling delivered on the promise that Adams offered so many years ago? Have churches
that adopted this movement seen a “diminishing” in problems and a dawn of preventive
counseling? And if churches and denominations claim such, what of the growing trend of
“Christian blogs and websites” where “complaints of biblical counseling are beginning to
accumulate” (Joyce) by victims, predominantly women and children, who claim to have been
bullied into forgiving their abuser or left in the ashes or their suffering?
Much is inexplicable in the realm of biblical counseling. By claiming scripture to be all-
sufficient in the fight against the world of psychology, the scriptures have been twisted to fit
the model of that very world filled with heresies. Biblical counseling is really psychology dressed
in the clothes of Christianity. It then no longer holds to the sufficiency of scripture: in order to
truly counsel, one needs to cut a check for $300 and take a class in order to help people who
are suffering.
But then biblical counselors become the very people that Adams railed against in his
speech at a school of psychology: people who have chased after a “life-calling” and based it on
“free-lance” work (Adams A Theology 276). People who are trained in biblical counseling are
not truly trained in psychology: they are trained in biblical counseling’s view of psychology, a
stark difference that must be acknowledged and addressed lest the most vulnerable members
of the denomination are subjected to potential carelessness that leads to further damage and
suffering.
The church has always had the authority to admonish through the preaching, the
sacraments, and church discipline. By occupying the office of prophet, priest, and king, the
people in the pews have the power to encourage and admonish one another because they have
the Spirit. No special class is required to equip them. What Jay Adams alighted upon was not
revolutionary or enlightening, but messy and problematic. The danger came when he
declared authority over the world of psychology by dragging the church world to cover its vast,
heaping pile of terms, philosophies, and practices. So ministers, elders, deacons, and ordinary
laymen became counselors and therapists, fearful of the people getting professional help, not
trusting that the Spirit would lead these people to discern and discover his path for them.
Using admonishment as a platform to counsel is to lay the whole process on a cracked
foundation. Yes, we all need admonishment. But Adams was wrong to use it as a springboard
for the suffering and those battling mental afflictions. We only have to look at the book of Job
to see why. Job’s friends came with admonishment. What sin did you commit, Job that would
cause God to bring you so low? Repent. Submit. And it seemed like good advice. His suffering
was so great, surely he had somehow incurred God’s wrath. Yet, God was not pleased with their
counsel. He admonished them for not speaking the truth about him. It was Job who found the
counsel he needed: “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” The counsel needed was the cross. Job’s
suffering was more admonishment than any man could place upon him.
It can be argued that there is value in biblical counseling, and of course there is. There is
always beautiful, inherent value in a sympathetic ear of a fellow believer and counseling that is
given in the light of scriptures. But we must be careful to say that biblical counseling is
necessary because the inherent value is not the counselor or the counseling center; it is the
Holy Spirit who applies the scriptures to the heart of the believer and transforms them
according to his grace. Yes, the suffering people of God need help. They need the word of God
undoubtedly. But is this biblical counseling movement, with its pseudo-science and
transformation of church roles, the answer for our churches?
Works Cited
Adams, Jay E, Competent to Counsel: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1970).
Adams, Jay E, A Theology of Christian Counseling: More Than Redemption (Phillipsburg, NJ:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1979).
Asher, Marshall and Mary, The Christian’s Guide to Psychological Terms (Bemidjii, MN: Focus
Publishing, 2004).
Galli, Mark, “We Need an Independent Investigation of Sovereign Grace Ministries.” Christianity
Today, March 22, 2018, accessed July 8, 2019,
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/march-web-only/sovereign-grace-need-
investigation-sgm-mahaney-denhollander.html.
Joyce, Kathryn, “The Rise of Biblical Counseling.” Pacific Standard, The Social Justice
Foundation, September 2, 2014, accessed July 8, 2019,
https://psmag.com/social-justice/evangelical-prayer-bible-religion-born-again-christianity-rise-
biblical-counseling-89464.
Lambert, Heath, “Two Sides of the Counseling Coin.” The Gospel Coalition, October 8, 2012,
accessed July 8, 2019, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/two-sides-of-the-counseling-
coin.
