Is It Biblical?
Posted on March 28, 2010
[by Leslie Vernick, DCSW, LCSW. Leslie is in private practice, Director of Christ-Centered Counseling www.leslievernick.com, and is our blogger for the month of March. This is her fifth blog]
Recently my husband and I were heading to Florida for a much needed vacation. Right after we dragged ourselves through airport security we sat down to reassemble ourselves. Glancing up at the airport information center, we observed a troubling and odd scene going on behind the desk.
“Inappropriate!” “Weird” were the words my husband and I muttered to one another as we watched a uniformed male employee repeatedly stroke a female employee’s face sitting in front of him.
What is he doing?” I asked.
“Is he giving her a facial massage?”my husband queried.
“No. I think he’s putting some sort of cream on her face.” I said.
We continued to stare. “There must be some rules against employees publically touching one another like that,” I said. So taken with this inappropriate display of public affection by these employees I encouraged him to snap a picture with his cell phone. Then as I stood up to leave I saw things from a totally new perspective.
The woman was confined to a wheelchair. Her arms and hands curled tightly at her sides, useless. Her friend and fellow employee was tenderly rubbing moisturizer or makeup in to her parched skin. My heart sank. How quick I was to jump to conclusions and to judge his actions as wrong. How naturally and automatically I made up a story about what I saw when in fact, I did not see clearly at all.
At first glance this man’s behavior appeared unquestionably wrong and inappropriate. It was only when I saw things from a different vantage point did I discern that his actions were actually the opposite. They were loving, kind and gracious.
In the same way, Jesus repeatedly attempted to show the Pharisees of his day that everything wasn’t so easily explained in terms of what they thought was lawful or right and wrong.
For example, Rahab the prostitute was spared by Joshua because she protected the spies from being captured (by lying about which way they went) even though one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to bear false witness (see Joshua 6:25). Jesus did not follow the Jewish law when the woman was caught in adultery as the crowd expected. Instead of sentencing her to death by stoning, he said “Whoever is without sin cast the first stone.” (Luke 14:3-6)
The Pharisees condemned Jesus as a lawbreaker when he healed on the Sabbath yet he challenged their deeply held beliefs by asking them, “Which one of you wouldn’t rescue a son or an ox on the Sabbath if they had fallen into a deep well?” (Luke 14:3-6). Jesus taught that doing good, helping others, and loving well was more important to God than legalistic adherence to biblical law.
What does that mean to us as Christian counselors? Each session our clients invite us to peer into a small section of their life story. At times they actually give us the power to judge what they’re doing (thinking, or feeling) as right or wrong, biblical or sinful, godly or not.
On my weekly blog (www.leslievernick.blogspot.com) I’m often asked questions about whether or not something is biblical. In other words, does God approve or disapprove of what I’m about to do? Here are a few recent examples I’ve blogged about.
“Am I disobeying God or dishonoring my mother when I put boundaries around her contact with my children?” Or “Is it biblical for my daughter to get a legal annulment from her new husband because she’s discovered he lied to her about who he really was? Had she known these things before hand, she would not have married him.” Or “Is it lawful for me to separate from an emotionally abusive husband? My church tells me that God hates divorce and I’m not allowed to leave under any circumstances.”
Sometimes when I read these tragic situations with their final question asking me what I think God says is right and what’s wrong I imagine how Jesus must have felt when the Pharisees tried to trap him. Is there only one right biblical answer for every situation?
At times I see Christians, including some biblical counselors, use the bible as a rule book to find what God says is permissible and/or unacceptable. But even Jesus had exceptions to his laws and the higher law of love always triumphed. Biblical love never implies that we always do what the other person wants or prefers, but loving means we actively seek the other person’s long term best interest, including setting boundaries, implementing consequences, or initiating separation when those actions are done to help bring a sinful person to their senses and change.
How we answer these types of questions (or don’t answer), has great implications for our counselees. It may shape our client’s picture of God as well as whether or not she learns to discern God’s voice for herself (John 10:4, 27).
In closing, I try to ask myself some crucial questions when facing these kinds of dilemmas.
- 1. What is the whole counsel of God on this matter, not just one or two verses?
- 2. What is the context? Not just the biblical context but also the client’s life story context. We can’t just take a single observation and make a judgment upon it. Just as I was very wrong in my initial assessment at the airport about what was truly happening, sometimes we can’t always discern what’s right and what’s wrong. Changing our vantage point might open our eyes to an entirely different perspective.
- 3. What are the biblical exceptions? When were they permitted, or even sometimes commended? When the woman poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ head, the disciples judged it to be a waste of a valuable resource. Jesus thought otherwise and through this example, taught us that what seems right or even logical isn’t the only biblical way to make a good decision. Although what she did was extravagant Jesus said she’d always be remembered for her great love (Matthew 26:6-13).
In striving to be Christ-centered in my counseling, I am learning more and more that there is often more than one biblical answer. My job isn’t to judge or decide for my client what’s biblical. Part of my job is to help my client see his or her situation from different vantage points, (for example, temporal, eternal, short term, long term), talk about what God might be up to in her particular situation and how to listen to the Holy Spirit so that she can walk by faith, not by sight.
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Using Scripture in Christian Counseling
Posted on February 21, 2010
In my mind, Christian psychology’s value comes from being able to develop a solid foundation and praxis of Christian care of souls-something that grows out of careful biblical/theological work as well as the study of human behavior. Those of us who have been talking about and doing Christian counseling for some time must admit that much of what passes as Christian counseling is either superficial Christianity (verses pasted on a theory that exists just fine without the verses) or superficial psychology (a model based on some tidbit of pop psychology research and then morphed in an exquisite but completely fictional science).
Instead of Sunday school applications (where Jesus is the answer to every question) counselors need solid examples of how to engage the Scriptures in therapeutic settings. In a recent issue of our journal, Edification (2:2), I’ve attempted to introduce some practical steps in using the bible in the therapy office. But, truth be told, many have not had good experience in seeing how one might engage the Bible in real life settings. We’re wary of the Band-Aid use of verses, the bible bullets, the superficial applications. So, it makes sense we don’t know how to engage both counseling and Scripture well.
In stark contrast to biblical superficiality, Dr. Mike Emlet has recently published CrossTalk: Where Life & Scripture Meet (2009, New Growth Press). I would encourage every Christian in the counseling world to read it. Mike’s book provides a great introduction to connecting (more of) the bible to real-life human trials and tribulations (e.g., beyond the Psalms!). Though he is a seminary professor and biblical counselor you won’t get bogged down into esoteric discussions of exegesis or genre (though you can see he understands the concepts) or finding a verse for every problem (though you can see he believes that everyone finds themselves in the pages of the bible). Rather, Mike focuses on “redemptive dialogue” (vs. mere instruction) and how the Gospel is more than belief but the repetitive, transformative meeting with God.
Here are three gems from the book to whet your appetite.
- 1. Chapter 1: Mike goes right at the problem of connecting the bible with life. Sometimes it is easy and other times it seems impossible. He calls this a ditch vs. canyon problem. A ditch (e.g., Psalm 51 for repentance) is fairly easy to cross whereas a canyon (e.g., Numbers 5 for suspicions about adultery?) seems impossible. The problem? “Our tendency, of course, is to gravitate toward the “ditch” passages because they seem easier to apply…In practical terms, we end up ministering with an embarrassingly thinner but supposedly more relevant Bible” (p. 16). “The challenge is not just in moving from the Bible to everyday life but also in moving from present-day problems to the Scriptures” (p. 17). He goes on to challenge us to be less quick to apply “ditch” passages. To do so would be to ignore the complexity of human life. Nor should we avoid the “canyon” passages as no life experience stands outside of God’s care.
- 2. Chapter 2 and 3: Here Mike addresses what the bible is not and what it is. Among his list he concludes that the bible is not a list of do’s and don’ts. To limit the bible to a set of commands fails to capture the clear picture of a God who pursues, in love, broken people. The bible is not merely a list of timeless ethics nor a nice historical biography illustrating the people we ought to emulate. Rather it is a story (not a fiction) with Jesus as the central figure. And this story shapes our self-understanding as we play a role in the epic drama.
- 3. Chapter 5: The previous chapters describe the necessity of reading life and Scripture through the lens of a redemptive Christocentric drama. Trouble is we live by other scripts. In this chapter Mike looks at how Scripture tells our story through the lenses of saint (identity), sufferer (external threats), and sinner (internal threats). Mike goes on in later chapters to provide examples of how biblical texts can be used to connect with each of these facets of our experience. His goal is to connect with the counselee and to connect them with the larger picture of God’s unfolding story. To keep it real, he presents “Tom” and “Natalie” and illustrates how to use Scripture to connect with both (ch. 8), how to help them connect to Old (ch. 9)and New Testament passages (ch. 10).
If you think your counseling training lacked clear teaching on how to think about Scripture and its application to everyday life (beyond timeless maxims and warnings); if you avoid using Scripture in counseling because doing so sounds trite, then I recommend you take up this book and consider how the narrative use of Scripture might enrich your counseling work.
