Quitting Too Soon

At the same time, we have grown wiser and our marriage is easier. We live with a confidence we didn’t have in the early years. We have experienced the truthfulness of the Word and the faithfulness of our Lord. We have seen again and again that his grace is sufficient in our times of greatest weakness. We have learned that living for his glory results in our good. We have identified idol after idol and their effects on our relationship. Yet with all this change, we are still changing! And we have learned that keeping the final destination in view is the only way to solve the problems of today.

You will see the truth of this principle often in personal ministry. Seldom will you deal only with a person’s original problem; instead, you will also tackle layers of difficulty that have been created by “solutions” that addressed the need of the moment but did not keep God’s ultimate purpose in view. When you are facing difficulty, disappointment, or crisis, it is easy to be captured by the problem in front of you. It is hard to be committed to long-term goals when you are putting out fires. That is why we not only need the practical wisdom of specific application, but someone to faithfully remind us of our ultimate destination.

Paul captures this principle of “long view living” in 2 Corinthians 11:1–3.

I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

Paul understands the Christian life eschatologically. This means that today is preparation for tomorrow, and tomorrow is preparation for something else yet to come. Paul is saying, “I know I have hovered over you, but you need to understand why. I am afraid that you will forget who you are and to whom you have been promised.” To Paul, the only way to go through life properly is to understand that we are engaged. We have been betrothed to Christ, and our life now is preparation for the great wedding to come.

The difficulties now, the suffering now, the disappointments now, and the blessings now are all preparation for the wedding then. Our experiences today do not reflect God’s inattention or unfaithfulness, but his jealous love. He is exposing our wandering hearts and foolish minds and the ways we trust our passions more than the principles of his Word. He is calling us to forsake our own glory for his, and teaching us that the idols we pursue will never satisfy us. He is making us wise to temptation and aware of a lurking enemy. He is teaching us to live for treasures that moth and rust can’t destroy and that thieves can’t steal. He is teaching us what it means to live in a way that recognizes our identity as his children. He is teaching us to live open, approachable, and humble lives.

In other words, your whole life is premarital counseling! You belong to a groom whose name is Immanuel, and God is preparing you for the wedding for which you were created and redeemed. Everything you face today is premarital preparation—living now with then in view.

In contrast, sin produces in all of us a tendency toward “now-ism,” which means we forget three things: who we are (betrothed to Christ); what he is doing now (preparing us for the final wedding); and what we are supposed to be doing (remaining faithful to him). When we focus only on what we want now, we fail to solve our problems and we also cause more difficulties. A common factor in depression is self-absorbed now-ism. Anger is often fueled by a self-righteous now-ism. Fear and anxiety are strengthened by an obsession with the here and now. Maturity and perseverance are weakened by a “now” mentality.

Teaching others how to solve now problems with then in view is one of the most important things we can do, because it is not something we sinners do well on our own. We tend to be shortsighted and self-absorbed. We forget that God’s primary goal is not changing our situations and relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy. We need people who love God and us enough to come alongside and help us deal with our spiritual myopia.

This is one reason why the Bible does not present divorce as a solution to marriage problems, though it may be a result. Unrepented adultery may provide biblical grounds for release from the marriage covenant, but divorce does not solve the problems that led to it. Divorce changes relationships, situations, and locations, but it doesn’t change the heart. People who use divorce as a solution often repeat the same problems in subsequent relationships because the one thing that needed to change remained unchanged: them! They were blinded by their own now-ism. But if they see their marriage now as a training ground for their marriage then, the trials God sends their way make perfect sense. As you solve marriage problems with then in view, you won’t deal with trouble by separating from your spouse. You will learn how God wants to change you so that you can better live with him or her. Your now response will be shaped by a then perspective.

Quitting Too Soon

Most of us are tempted to think that change has taken place before it actually has. We confuse growth in knowledge and insight with genuine life change. But insight is not change and knowledge should not be confused with practical, active, biblical wisdom. In fourteen years of seminary teaching, I have met many brilliant, theologically astute students who were incredibly immature in their everyday life. There was often a huge gap between their confessional and functional theology. Students who could articulate the sovereignty of God could be overcome by worry. Students who could expound on the glory of God would dominate classroom discussions for the sake of their own egos. I have counseled students who could explain the biblical doctrine of progressive holiness while nurturing secret worlds of lust and sexual sin. I have seen many men who were months away from ministry who had not yet learned how to love people. Students who could explain the biblical teaching of God’s grace were harsh, judgmental legalists.

In short, we must not confuse insight and change. Insight is a beginning, a part of the whole, but it is not the whole. We do want people to see, know, and understand, but we also want them to apply that insight to their daily life. God opens our eyes so that, in seeing him, we would follow him more closely. This means that personal ministry should not end too soon. If holiness is God’s goal, we must be willing to help others through the process of change.

For many people, it is much easier to know what is wrong than how to change it. I may have confessed a selfish, idolatrous heart and seen its fruit in my relationship with my wife. But it will be harder for me to think clearly and creatively about how to repent and actually love her in specific ways. I may understand the major themes of Scripture, but I may not know how to use them in certain situations and relationships. We all need people to stand alongside us as we apply God’s Word to our lives.

Ingredients Needed to Encourage Change

Have you ever had personal insights that did not lead to lasting change? Has the theology you have learned always had a practical impact on you? Have you ever made commitments that somehow got lost in the frenetic pace of life? Have you ever known that certain changes needed to take place, but you didn’t know how to make them? Have you ever lost sight of your identity in Christ amid pressure, trial, or suffering? Have you ever benefited from someone holding you accountable?

The final aspect of our model, Do, teaches us how to apply truths we have learned, personal insights we have gained, and commitments we have made, to our daily lives. Here we teach people to be dissatisfied with the gap between their confessional and functional theology. We lead them to live out their identity as children of God, claiming the rights and privileges of the gospel. Do trains people in the decisions, actions, relationships, and skills of Christ-centered, biblically informed living. We have a wonderful opportunity not only to teach people how to solve their problems biblically, but to turn their lives around for the long run.

Here, as always, it is vital to keep the heart in view. People who begin to follow Christ by faith in practical ways will increasingly expose their hearts. If they are willing to examine them, they will see where they tend to doubt or don’t require themselves to think biblically. They will see where they are tempted to run after god-replacements and live for their own glory. And they will discover whether they are ready to find hope and help in Christ or if they prefer to give in to self-atoning patterns of excuse making, blame-shifting, and rewriting their own history. As the heart is revealed, people can learn how to live a “changed and being changed” life.

To help people in these areas, you pursue four objectives:

1. Establish your personal ministry agenda. This provides a sense of direction.

2. Clarify responsibility. As people apply truth to life, the issue of who is responsible for what will always arise.

3. Instill identity in Christ. Change is a hard process, and people need to be reminded of the resources that are theirs as children of God.

4. Provide accountability. Change demands patience and perseverance, so we all need the encouragement, insight, and warning that a system of oversight provides.

In this chapter, we will look at the first two objectives.

Knowing Where You’re Going

If you are driving somewhere new and you find yourself lost, you don’t want directions from someone who just moved to the community and doesn’t know the area. Nor do you want directions from a person so familiar with the area that he doesn’t provide the details you need to find your way. As we help people chart a course of change in their lives, we need to avoid the same pitfalls. We need to remember that it is impossible to lead a person to change if we don’t know where we are going, and that what is obvious to us may be anything but obvious to another.

Objective 1:

Establish Your Personal Ministry Agenda.

This is as important in informal personal ministry as it is in more formal counseling situations. An agenda is simply a plan for accomplishing a goal, a map that shows us our destination (the changes that need to take place) and how to get there (How? Where? When? With whom?). Our goal is more than denouncing sin or solving the problem of the moment. We need to know what specific changes God is calling this person to make in this situation.

What should Harry do about the job that takes him away from his family eighty hours a week, thus threatening his marriage? How will George deal with his enslavement to pornography? How will Anita confront her father for the abuse she endured at his hands? How can she learn to forgive him? What will Bob do about those deeply ingrained ways of thinking that contribute to his suicidal depression? How will Fran learn to live as a child of God, rather than a “failure and a loser”? What actions should Bill and Dorothy take to protect their rebellious son from himself? How will Andy restore the trust he has destroyed in his marriage? How will Lisa defeat the fear that has paralyzed her? How can Dick live with gospel hope after a crippling injury? What does it look like for Stephanie to love, lead, and parent three demanding toddlers?

Biblical personal ministry needs to answer questions like these. We need to apply the principles, perspectives, commands, and themes of God’s great redemptive story to the concrete realities of a person’s life. We cannot leave people to themselves or advise them from a distance. Yet all too often, our ministry is weakest here. We fail to recognize that, on their own, people often have a hard time applying biblical truths to their lives. We need to establish a biblical sense of direction (agenda) for our ministry at this stage. Otherwise, our counsel will be weakened by:

• Personal bias

• Ignorance

• Poor theology

• Misunderstanding of Scripture

• Improper application of Scripture

• Fear of man

• Emotional thinking

• Pressure of the moment.

God has chosen us to be his ambassadors in this person’s life! The Holy Spirit is enlivening the person’s heart and empowering our words. The Savior is loving and changing others through us. Nothing we can do is more important or will have more lasting results. In view of the holiness of our calling, we should not speak without preparation. We should ask questions that help us think clearly about how to accomplish God’s goals for change in this person. Here are three agenda-setting questions.

What does the Bible say about the information that has been gathered? This is not simply asking, “Where can I find a verse on _______?” We want to examine things through the lens of the great themes of Scripture, to understand how a distinctively biblical worldview shapes our response to the issues in the person’s life. We are asking, “What has God taught, promised, commanded, warned, encouraged, and done that addresses this situation?” This protects our ministry from personal bias, unbiblical thinking, and a crisis-driven impulsivity that can lead us into trouble.

Going through this process demands humility on our part. One of the most harmful errors we can make in ministry is to assume that we have “arrived” spiritually and theologically. None of us has fully grasped the grandeur and practicality of Scripture. None of us has a completely uncorrupted Christian worldview or mastered the gospel in all its applications and implications. All of us are people in process, called to minister to other people in process. We must confess our own blindness as we lead others to recognize theirs. We all need the Holy Spirit as our Teacher just as much as the day we first believed. Rich and powerful discoveries in Scripture await all of us, discoveries that are brand new even from old, familiar passages.

Moments of ministry are opportunities for us to sit at the Lord’s feet and learn new and deeper things. The needs of the people we serve drive us deeper into Scripture to discover new treasures. We should be thankful for another opportunity to use the tools God has given us more carefully, skillfully, and efficiently. We should not assume that we have arrived!

What are God’s goals for change for this person in this situation? This question applies God’s call to “put off” and “put on” (Eph. 4:22–24) to the specifics of a person’s thoughts, motives, and behavior. What does God want her to think, desire, and do? Answering these questions marks out our destination. At this point, we need to recognize that our agenda will not always be the same as the Lord’s. For example, I may not want what God wants for the child abuser I am helping. I may not want what God wants for an incredibly self-absorbed person who is bitter at the world. I may not want what God wants for the angry person whose anger has spilled over onto me. I may be a Jonah who resents God’s mercy to the modern day Ninevites he calls me to serve. Asking this question keeps me from confusing God’s agenda with my own. I cannot lead a person if I don’t know where we are going, and I must only lead people where God is calling them.

This question takes the general commands, themes, perspectives, and principles of Scripture and fashions them into specific steps of change. The goals we establish must address the What? How? When? and Where? of change. We need to present biblical goals that fit the context in which a person lives and works. You can only do this if you have processed the person’s situation through sound biblical thinking and concrete goal setting.

What are some biblical methods for accomplishing God’s goals of change? After establishing biblical goals, we need to determine the best biblical means of accomplishing them. Often people have a sense of what is wrong, but the way they seek to correct it complicates matters further. Let’s say you are ministering to a husband who confesses that he has not encouraged his wife as he should. It would not be biblical to advise him to bombard her with flattering but insincere words. To provide the how, you must know God’s Word, the situation, and the person’s heart motives well.

God will often surprise us at this point. The Bible presents a lifestyle that is radically different from anything we would concoct on our own. The Bible not only lays out a surprising picture of what is wrong with us, but a surprising agenda for correction as well. We always need to ask: How should this person put off what needs to be put off, and put on what needs to be put on? To what steps of obedience is God calling him?

Applying the Three Questions

Let’s return to the “Sharon and Ed” example in chapter 10 as a way to understand how these three questions help us set biblical goals. We saw that Sharon and Ed’s relationship was marred by abuse, infidelity, isolation, manipulation and retaliation. Though Sharon was “the most beautiful woman in the world” to Ed, and Ed was “the best thing that ever happened” to Sharon, their marriage was on the verge of collapse. There is more than one way to minister to Sharon and Ed, but whatever we do must be shaped by clear biblical thinking and concrete biblical goals. For our purposes here, we will focus the questions on Sharon.

What does the Bible say about the information gathered?

• Sharon’s marriage is her primary human relationship (Gen. 2; Eph. 5). Is she living this way?

• Relationship struggles reveal our hearts (Luke 6:43–45; Mark 7).

• It is easier to see another’s faults than to see our own (Matt. 7:3–5; Heb. 3:12–13).

• God calls us to peace (Matt. 5:9; Rom. 12:14–21).

• God calls us to be agents of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:16–21).

• Forgiveness is the way to peace and reconciliation (Luke 17:3–4; Eph. 4:29–5:2).

• God gives Sharon and Ed everything they need to work on their marriage (2 Peter 1:3–9).

• God clearly describes how a husband and wife should relate to each other (Eph. 5:22–33).

• The core issue in marriage is not what Sharon wants and the best way for her to get it, but what God wants and the best way to pursue it.

In each of these principles and themes is material that could revolutionize this marriage. Imagine the difference if Sharon and Ed quit blaming each other and humbly admitted that the things they have done reveal the true thoughts and desires of their hearts. Imagine the fundamental changes that would take place if they admitted what really is ruling their hearts and setting the agenda for their marriage. Even better, imagine what would happen if biblical attitudes became their daily personal agenda. When we actually apply biblical perspectives to people’s daily lives, they rearrange them from the inside out.

As you help Sharon and Ed, these perspectives remind you how deep the problems in this marriage are. Helping this couple to develop a few communication skills will not make things better. There is almost nothing in this marriage that does not need to be rebuilt! The problems are first vertical, then horizontal. God has been removed as the ruler of Sharon and Ed’s hearts and as the agenda setter for their marriage. Their highest commitment is to their own personal happiness, and they are angry that their mate has not delivered! As you look at this marriage biblically, you know you must begin by calling them to repent of the god-replacements that control their hearts and shape their marriage.

What are God’s goals of change for Sharon?

• To move from blind self-righteousness to humble self-awareness

• To move from bitterness to forgiveness

• To move from seeking vengeance to seeking to do good

• To move from self-protection to loving and sacrificial service

• To move from angry withdrawal to productive communication

• To move from separation to the pursuit of reconciliation

• To entrust Ed to God and quit being Ed’s “messiah”

Each of these is more a category than a goal, and each would involve many specific changes. For example, Sharon has been a willing partner in a vengeful, “Oh, yeah? I’ll show you!” marriage. God calls her to look for ways to do good even in the face of evil. This agenda will lead to a myriad of changes in the way she responds to Ed.

What are biblical methods for accomplishing God’s goals of change?

• Help Sharon to see herself in the mirror of God’s Word.

• Have Sharon keep a focused journal using the questions from chapter 10. This will help her see how the themes of her heart play out in her actions and reactions.

• Encourage Sharon to do the two circles exercise (Figure 13.1), with particular focus on her relationship with Ed. This will give Sharon a clear understanding of her God-given “job description” and a grasp of the things she must entrust to God.

• Study Psalm 73 and 1 Peter 1 with Sharon to help her escape the discouragement, anger, and fear that result not only from Ed’s failure but her own self-absorption and now-ism. Teach her how to set her eyes on what is unseen and eternal.

As we seek to encourage change in the hearts and lives of others, we want to help people not only to confess their sin but to repent as well. This is why we ask, “How can I stimulate the kind of change that needs to take place in this person?” These three questions provide a simple model that sets goals at the convergence of broad biblical themes and personal application. They help us to pay attention to the process of ministry. We are more than watchmen giving warning; we are actually tools of change in the hands of the Redeemer.

Objective 2:

Clarify Responsibility.

One of the most important questions in life is, “Who is responsible for what?” As you deal with this question in ministry, you will tend to encounter three classes of people.

The first group is made up of people who are irresponsible. They fail to recognize and shoulder their God-given responsibilities. Next, you will encounter those who are overly responsible. These people take responsibility for things that God has not assigned or equipped them to do. The third class of people is probably the largest of the three. These people are genuinely confused about which things are their God-given jobs and which things they can entrust to him. Sometime they are mini-messiahs, trying to do things that only God can do. At other times, they ask God to take care of responsibilities he has clearly placed on them. All three groups need to understand their responsibilities in order to apply change meaningfully to their daily lives.

Figure 13.1 is a simple tool for clarifying responsibility. Let’s start with the inner circle, the Circle of Responsibility. This circle represents a particular person’s biblical job description. These are the things that God, in his Word, calls this person to do in his present situation and relationships. A man, for example, needs a clear sense of what God calls him to do as a husband, father, neighbor, relative, son, worker, and member of the body of Christ. God is calling him to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Christ (Luke 9:23–25), and to no longer live for himself, but for the Lord (2 Cor. 5:14–15). The response of faith in this case is obedience. Our job is to help this man find specific ways to respond, in the obedience of faith, to this call to discipleship.

In this circle, we ask the person to list what he thinks are his God-assigned duties in each role God has given him (as a father, employee, etc.) Next, we help him examine his list in light of Scripture, to discover whether the things he listed really are what God has called him to do. Often there are discrepancies between our lists and God’s! When we see this, we can gain a better sense of what God actually expects of us—and will enable us to do by his grace.

The outer circle, the Circle of Concern, represents those things that are important to a person (the love of a spouse, a child’s salvation), yet beyond his ability to bring about. Therefore, they are not his responsibility. Here we are calling a person to recognize his limits and to remember God, who is faithful to his promises (Ps. 145:13) and sovereign over all things (Acts 17:24–28). The response of faith in this case is to entrust these matters to God in prayer.

People confuse these circles in two main ways. First, they allow the inner circle to expand into the outer circle, so that they function as mini-messiahs, trying to do what only God can do. Second, they shrink the inner circle and, under the guise of trusting God, neglect to do what God calls them to do. We want to help them avoid both pitfalls.

Imagine how helpful this exercise would be for Sharon, who has clearly been very confused about the issue of responsibility. Sometimes she has acted as if she were lord, master, and messiah, attempting to do what only God can do (expanding her Circle of Responsibility inappropriately). At other times she has been unbiblically passive, waiting for God to do the very things he has clearly assigned to her (shrinking her Circle of Responsibility inappropriately). Sharon would greatly benefit from having the issue of responsibility clarified for her.

If Sharon lives as a mini-messiah (with too large a Circle of Responsibility), there will be two negative effects. First, since she is trying to do God’s job, she will experience discouragement, frustration, and failure. After all, she is not qualified! Second, because she is focusing on God’s job, she will tend to leave undone the things that God, in his Word, has given her to carry out. Sharon has experienced both problems as she has sought to make changes in her marriage.

As another example, Alicia is concerned about her teenage son, Matt. He is increasingly rebellious, irresponsible, unkind, and selfish. He is missing more school than he is attending. Alicia has told Matt and her close friends that her goal is to “turn Matt into a responsible Christian if it is the last thing I ever do.” This is the goal of a mini-messiah, although Alicia doesn’t realize it. She has improperly expanded her Circle of Responsibility to cover things that belong in her Circle of Concern. Though she can do certain things to help, challenge, discipline, and encourage Matt (things that are within her Circle of Responsibility), she cannot control Matt’s heart (a matter that belongs in her Circle of Concern). Only God can do that. Alicia is taking God’s job as her own and she will experience failure and frustration as a result.

Having too small an inner circle—attempting to give back to God what he has called me to do—will have two negative results as well. First, I will waste time and prayer if I wait for God to do something he has assigned me to do. I will think God has failed me when, in fact, I have failed him! If overly responsible people are mini-messiahs, people who shrink their inner circle are “spiritual vacationers.” They have abandoned their God-assigned workplace and are lounging around, expecting him to do their job. God will empower me to do the things he has called me to do, but he will not do them for me! Therefore, I will be waiting for something I will not receive. And as I am waiting, the second negative result will surface: things will worsen because of what I have left undone.

What would happen, for example, if Alicia had the opposite reaction to Matt’s rebellion and made her Circle of Responsibility too small? What if Alicia said to her friends, “I’ve decided to let go and let God deal with Matt. I can’t parent him any more; God is just going to have to do a miracle.” It is true that only God can change Matt’s heart, but it is also true that God positions and uses people to accomplish his miraculous plan. He has given Matt a mother because Matt needs a mother, and because he intends to bring his truth to bear on Matt through her. Alicia should daily entrust Matt to the Lord, while she continues to do the things God has called her to do as a parent. God wants Alicia to live out an active, obedient trust, not a passive one.

A passive response may appear to be the “spiritual” thing to do, but it is just as unbiblical as living like a mini-messiah. It is the response people often make when facing a broken relationship. Let’s say that Dave knows that he has a broken relationship with his friend Alec. Alec hardly calls any more and hasn’t asked for Dave to pray for him, as he used to, in months. Dave knows that their problems go back to a public disagreement he had with Alec a year ago. Dave says that he has “dealt with it in his heart” and is now waiting for God to restore the relationship. That response reveals that Dave’s Circle of Responsibility is too small. The Bible clearly calls him to take steps to be reconciled to Alec (Matt. 5:23–24).

Many Christians also take a “passive trust” approach to seeking guidance and direction from the Lord. They think that knowing God’s will comes as God reveals his secret plan to them; then they will know what to do. But guidance is really a matter of obedient, active trust. I examine the options before me using the principles, themes, and perspectives of Scripture. Then, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I apply biblical wisdom and make a decision. My decision is not based on reading God’s mind, but on things he has clearly revealed in his Word. As I step forward, I entrust myself to the Lord, knowing that he rules over everything and will place me where he wants me. This is the biblical model of guidance. Too many people have their “Christian divining rods” out in hopes of discovering the secret will of God. Meanwhile, the Bible in their hands is unopened—the thing God has said will be a “lamp to their feet and a light to their path”!

Trust and Obey

The Christian life can really be boiled down to two words: trust and obey. I must always entrust the things that are out of my control to God (Circle of Concern), and I must always be faithful to obey his clear and specific commands (Circle of Responsibility). Romans 12:14–21 is a wonderful passage to use to explain this “trust and obey” lifestyle.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the LORD. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

What is powerful about this passage is that it lays out the “trust and obey” lifestyle in the context of mistreatment. God clearly explains our duties in the face of wrong treatment:

• Bless those who persecute you (v. 14).

• Be tender and compassionate (v. 15).

• Commit to living in harmony (v. 16).

• Do not be proud (v. 16).

• As far as you can, live at peace with everyone (v. 19).

• Meet your enemy’s need (v. 20).

• Overcome evil with good (v. 21).

In making my responsibilities under mistreatment clear, Paul also makes it clear that there are things that I must not take as my responsibility. For example, I must not retaliate or seek revenge. These are things that only God has the right and the power to do. They are, in fact, things he has promised to do. I must not load them onto my shoulders.

At the same time, it is wrong to be passive in the face of mistreatment, waiting around for God to do something. God calls us to be obediently active, looking for ways to do good, make peace, and meet needs. In the process, we continue to entrust the person who has wronged us to God’s just and merciful hands. In short, we must do what God has called us to do in a spirit of joyful submission, and, in a spirit of humble trust, let God do what he alone can do.

Few areas are more confusing to people than the area of personal responsibility. They need practical clarity to help them through the process of change. We can help them first by providing a clear sense of direction as we think biblically about God’s agenda. Second, we can help by clarifying the issue of responsibility and applying the “trust and obey” lifestyle to their daily situations and relationships.

Holding onto God’s grace and glory is the only way to deal with the disappointment and loss that is so much a part of life. As we hold these themes before people, we not only participate in God’s kingdom work of lasting change, we also introduce them to the Person who offers the highest human satisfaction that can be found.

Love

Know

Speak

‣ Do

Instilling Identity with Christ and Providing

Accountability

As we continue examining the ways God can use us to help people change, think about your own life for a moment. Aren’t you also a person in need of ministry? Whether you are an influential Christian leader or a brand new believer, if you examine your life, you will see that you too need the ministry of others.

This chapter examines the fact that encouragement and accountability are important parts of the truth application process. Scripture makes it clear that we were never created to live in isolation. God designed us to live in community, first with him and then with one another. According to the Bible, personal change is a community project. In fact, it is in the process of change that we really begin to see our need for one another. My need for others is not because I am a moral or intellectual cripple in a world of healthy people. Rather, God created us to be dependent on each other to live life righteously, just as he created us to be dependent on his revelation to interpret life accurately.

Objective 3:

Instill Identity in Christ.

The Importance of Knowing Who You Are

People need encouragement as they pursue the hard work of change. They need truths that will motivate and strengthen them. The gospel motivates us not only with the presence of Christ and the surety of his promises, but also with our brand new identity. In passages like Romans 6:15–17 and 1 John 3:1–3, Scripture lays out this new identity for us. We learn that we are not only forgiven, but have in fact been adopted into the family of God. We are children of the King of Kings! The God of the universe is our Father!

Another way the New Testament describes this dramatic new identity is to say that we are “in Christ.” This means that we have been fully united to him and received all he has promised us. This goes far beyond the fact that we have been forgiven and are going to heaven. Something more fundamental has happened. Paul describes it in Ephesians 2:6–7: “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” John 15 captures this identity with a metaphor, saying that as believers we are like branches attached to a vine. We can only bear fruit because of our union with Christ the Vine. We have life because we are “in” the Vine.

All of this is important in times of change because we always live out of some kind of identity, and the identities we assign ourselves powerfully influence our responses to life. As people pursue the process of lifelong change, they need to live out of a gospel identity. They, like us, need to be reminded of who they are again and again.

In the press of everyday life, it is easy to forget who we are. As we try to replace old behaviors with new ones, it is easy to take our eyes off our status as children of God. In fact, the longer we struggle with a problem, the more likely we are to define ourselves by that problem (divorced, addicted, depressed, co-dependent, ADD). We come to believe that our problem is who we are. But while these labels may describe particular ways we struggle as sinners in a fallen world, they are not our identity! If we allow them to define us, we will live trapped within their boundaries. This is no way for a child of God to live!

There is a radical difference between saying, “I am a depressed person,” and saying, “I am a child of God ‘in Christ’ and I tend to struggle with depression.” The second statement does not pretend that the war isn’t raging, but it is infused with hope. It says, “Yes, I wrestle with depression every day, but I am not alone. I do not rest on my own strength and wisdom. I have come to understand that my Creator and Savior is also my Father. I am beginning to grasp how rich I really am because of my place in his family, and I am learning to live out of the riches he has provided, rather than the poverty of the identities I used to assign myself.” It is never a waste of time to remind people of who they are in Christ. Doing so stimulates hope, courage, and faith.

One of the best identity passages in the New Testament is 2 Peter 1:3–9. Study it until it has mastered you! This passage should be a tool you can use wisely, practically, and well with others.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

Let’s examine the important points of this passage.

• Peter acknowledges in verse 8 that there will be people who know the Lord, but whose lives are ineffective and unproductive. Maybe their home is a war zone. Perhaps they are consumed with bitterness or are resistant to those in authority. Whatever the issue, their lives have not produced the good fruit you would expect from someone with the full rights and privileges of a child of God.

• Peter says in verses 5–8 that these people do not produce the expected fruit because they are missing essential character qualities (faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love). But Christ lived, died, and rose so that they would possess these qualities.

• When we see Christians who do not exhibit Christian character or produce good fruit, we ought to ask why. What is missing? Peter’s answer is, “These people have forgotten who they are” (v. 9). They have lost sight of their identity in Christ, so they do not realize the resources that are theirs. Because of this, they fail to live with hope, faith, and courage. Their problems worsen and new layers of difficulty are added. This heightens their potential to walk through life with a problem-based identity. There are probably more people living like this than we would ever imagine. When I work through this passage with people, I am frequently impressed by how often they respond as if they have never heard these truths before. Their sense of who they are has usually been shaped by their problems.

• Another significant aspect of our identity is that in Christ we have been given “everything we need for life and godliness” (v. 3). As children of God, we are rich! We don’t just have some things; we have all we need! God supplies his children with everything they will ever need to do what he has called them to do.

Notice the tense of the verb in verse 3. Peter says that everything “has been given.” The verb is in the perfect tense, which refers to an action in the past that has continuing results into the future. The giving has already been done; it is not something we have to wait for. As a result of the work of Christ, everything we need for “life and godliness” has been placed in our storehouse. The two words here are not redundant; Peter is making an important distinction. God has not only provided all we need for eternal life, but for godliness as well. Godliness means living a God-honoring life from the time I am accepted into God’s family until the time I join him in eternity. We have been given everything we need to think, desire, speak, and behave in a God-honoring way. What an awesome provision!

This gospel identity and its amazing resources are a powerful defense in the war for our hearts. As people step out in new obedience, the Enemy will come to them and say, “You don’t have what it takes to do this. If only you had _______ or _______, then maybe you could, but you don’t.” In these moments, the war for the heart is a war of identity. How people respond to Satan’s attacks depends on the identity they have embraced. Unfortunately, many people leave God out of the story when they talk about their troubles. They are preoccupied by the sins of others and the difficulties of the situation. But if there is no God in their story, there will be no biblical sense of identity, because biblical identity is always rooted in him. The Enemy knows that he doesn’t have to tempt us to forsake the faith to get a victory. He wins daily skirmishes with us by clouding or attacking our identity.

When you forget your identity and the riches that are yours in Christ, you live like a poor person. In Philadelphia, it has been reported that 3,500 homeless people live on the streets. Their lives are little more than finding something to eat and somewhere to sleep. At the end of the day, they are happy simply to have a place to lay their head in peace. They don’t ask for more.

Many people in the midst of a struggle live as if they were spiritually homeless. They live the same survivalist, distracted, fearful, escapist, and “for the moment” existence. They do not think about growth and change or pursue the good things that are their inheritance as children of God. They just try to get through the day. They live as if they were poor, when, in fact, they are amazingly rich.

When we live with a poverty identity, the problem is not that we ask too much of the Father, but that we settle for too little. We settle for hammering together some kind of spiritual survival with the hope that things will be better in eternity. But the Bible never presents our life on earth as a meaningless time of waiting for the good stuff that comes later. The biblical model of waiting is not simply about what you will get at the end of your wait, but about who you will become as you wait. God has promised you real, abundant life in the here and now. We have a Father. We have a home. We are rich. We struggle a great deal, but we can expect much as well.

• In verse 4, Peter tells us what to expect of the great provision God has made for us in Christ. God’s purpose is not that we would be personally happy (nice job, marriage, family, church, neighborhood, vacation, retirement), but that we would become participants in his divine nature! In doing this, God is addressing my most significant need. This need is not external or emotional, but moral. What we need most is a heart ruled by the Lord rather than by “evil desires.” We need to be progressively freed from our slavery to the god-replacements that imprison us in self-absorbed pursuit of our own glory.

Peter’s point is that if my heart is ruled by evil desires, I will participate in the “corruption of the world” rather than the work of Christ. I will not have a harvest of good fruit. Too many Christians think they do what they do because of what they have experienced. Peter reverses the order. Rather than the corrupt world causing us to have evil desires, Peter says that our evil desires cause the corruption of the world! Scripture, in all its earthy honesty about the trouble we experience in this world, always brings us back to the heart. And it comforts us with the gospel promise of the heart-transforming, life-changing grace of Jesus Christ.

A subtle monasticism still exists in the church today. The theology of the monastery taught, “It’s an evil world out there, so the way to be pure is to separate from it.” Yet history records that the monastery duplicated all the ills of the surrounding society. Why? Because they made a tragic mistake: They let people in! And as sinful people came in, they brought with them the full range of evil desires, corrupting the very environment that was their hope of purity.

Peter’s model is very different. It is an inside-out model. God has made ample provision for the progressive change of my heart, so that as I deal with the problems of life in a fallen world, I can do what is right and reap a harvest of good fruit. Peter is saying that the most significant thing God saves us from is ourselves! Because of his abundant grace, we no longer have to live enslaved to ourselves, but for “him who died for us and was raised again” (2 Cor. 5:15).

If we apply these truths to Sharon and Ed (from chapter 10), we see that they are both trapped in their own heart environment. Sharon is convinced that Ed is her greatest problem; Ed is convinced that Sharon is his. Neither one wants help for him- or herself. It’s not that they want too much from their Father; they are willing to settle for far too little! Their marriage has been corrupted by their own desires, many of which were in place before they got married. If they fail to deal with these heart issues, their marriage will either be locked into a cycle of blame and recrimination, or they will divorce and repeat their mistakes in new relationships. This is why identity issues are so important. They are not icing on the cake. They are the cake.

• Finally, Peter tells us what will happen when we start living out of our identity in Christ (vv. 5–8). It will change the way we live. We will not settle for a little bit of Christian character. We will not see our relationships and situations as dangers to be avoided, but as opportunities to experience what already belongs to us in Christ. We will be expectant and active because we have a progressive growth paradigm for life. We will not give in to patterns of avoidance, escape, or defense. We will not settle for a slightly better marriage, or marginally honest relationships. Each day we will want to experience more of the resources that are ours as children of God. This expectant, progressive model of change is critical for people applying new insights and commitments to their lives. Let me illustrate.

Imagine that I get a call one afternoon from a bank officer who informs me that I have inherited $50 million from a distant relative. I get off the phone quite excited to tell Luella of our newfound fortune. I then run down to the bank, produce the requisite documents and withdraw $10,000 to take Luella out to eat (in Paris, for the weekend of her life!). Six weeks later, Luella, who does the finances in our family, is still struggling to stretch dimes into dollars. Confused, she says to me, “Paul, I thought you said we were rich beyond anything we thought we would ever experience. Yet we are living as if we are as poor as we have ever been. Why aren’t we living out of the inheritance you were given?”

Imagine me saying to Luella, “Do you know how hard it is to get down to that bank and draw out that money? First, the bank is in the center of the city. The traffic is unbelievable and the parking is worse. When you get to the bank you have to stand in one of those long, Disney World lines, and when you finally get to the counter, they treat you more like a criminal than a customer. [The bank has a fingerprinting pad next to each teller window for those who make major withdrawals.] It’s too much of a hassle!”

If you were Luella, wouldn’t you be thinking, You’re rich! How can anything keep you from the inheritance you have been given and the life it would give us? You need to keep going to that bank until you have received everything that is rightly yours!

Peter ties our ability to persevere through difficulties to our grasp of our identity in Christ and the resources that come with it. If we really understand it, we will make every effort to obtain more and more of what is ours in Christ. He has promised to progressively conform our sinful hearts to the likeness of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

As we apply new insights and make new commitments, this is the identity we need. But just like heroes of our faith, we will tend to forget who we are. Moses said, “Who am I, that I should go?” and Gideon said, “But Lord, how can I save Israel?” We need to be continually reminded of our status as children of God and our spiritual resources in Christ.

Philippians 2:1–12 is another helpful identity passage, particularly because of its “if-then” construction. Verse 1 gives us the “ifs” by listing four redemptive realities in the life of every believer:

• If you have been encouraged by your union with Christ

• If you have experienced the comfort of Christ’s love

• If you have enjoyed fellowship with his indwelling Holy Spirit

• If you have experienced God’s tenderness and compassion

Verses 2–12 give us the “thens” by detailing how we should live in light of the grace we have been given as children of God:

• Then be one in spirit and purpose (v. 2).

• Then do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit (v. 3).

• Then consider others better than yourselves (v. 3).

• Then look not only to your own interests, but also to those of others (v. 4).

• Then make sure your attitude is the same as Christ’s (vv. 5–8).

The if-then structure of this passage provides a practical description of what it means to live in light of my identity in Christ, including the radical heart changes that God is progressively working in me by his grace. Imagine what would happen to Sharon and Ed’s marriage if they began to live this way! Think of the changes that would take place if humble, unified, loving service replaced proud, self-interested, demanding disunity. They do not have to live as they are living. They have already been given something better in Christ.

Objective 4:

Provide Accountability.

The Gift of Loving Accountability

Like the concept of confrontation, the concept of accountability tends to carry negative connotations. People can conjure up intrusive images when they hear the word. Yet the biblical picture is very loving in at least two ways. First, as we help restore people to where God wants them to be, we are called to “carry each other’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2). We are also told to fight the deceitfulness of sin by “encouraging one another daily” (Heb. 3:13). We must love people enough to do more than expose wrong, pronounce right, and walk away. Accountability requires a willingness to roll up our sleeves and get alongside people as they fight the war between sin and righteousness.

In personal ministry we call people to exercise faith in new and deeper ways—to forsake things they have done for years and do things they have never done before. We call them to new motives, purposes, and goals. We call them to make peace where there has been war, to serve where they have demanded and controlled. We call them to give up things that have been precious, and to do all these things not just once, but with long-term commitment and perseverance.

Yet as people step out in faith, they are often still confused and afraid. They have committed to a new and better way, but they are not yet ready to be on their own. The disciples provide a wonderful example of this phenomenon. They had been with Jesus for three years and seen the glory and power of his presence. They had learned much about the kingdom of God, but in many ways they were still wobbly and uncertain. In his last few moments with them before the cross, Jesus recognized that they were not ready to be on their own. (See John 16:12–16.) Their fear and confusion at his crucifixion (which Jesus had warned them was coming) reveal what spiritual babies they were. Confused and afraid, they hid together, wondering what to do next. Even after they saw the resurrected Christ, they were still asking the wrong questions (Acts 1:7–11). But Jesus didn’t leave his wobbly disciples alone. He sent the Holy Spirit to guide, teach, encourage, warn, convict, and strengthen them.

God calls us to the same ministry by the power of the same Holy Spirit. He calls us to stand with people as they step out in faith, obedience, and courage. This is the ministry of accountability. It is not about lying in wait to catch them doing wrong. The purpose of accountability is to assist people to do what is right for the long run. It provides a presence that keeps them responsible, aware, determined, and alert until they are able to be on their own. It directs eyes that have just begun to see, and strengthens weak knees and feeble arms. We seek to encourage flagging faith and to keep God’s goals before people’s eyes. We help them to understand when they need to flee from sin and when they are called to stand and fight.

Like all personal ministry, accountability is incarnational. By standing alongside people, we incarnate the presence of the Holy Spirit who is not only with them but in them. We preach the gospel of an ever-present Redeemer who doesn’t just command, but enables. He doesn’t just convict; he forgives and restores. Biblical accountability is not fearful, abusive, or intrusive. It is loving, sacrificial, ambassadorial, incarnational, and holy. How could we serve Immanuel (“God with us”) and do anything less?

By contrast, accountability is not about being a private detective, trying to do the work of the Holy Spirit, being someone else’s conscience, forcing someone to obey, chasing someone who is running, or looking for someone who is hiding. Accountability provides loving structure, guidance, encouragement, and warning to someone who is fully committed to the change God is working in his life. The person who makes accountability work is always the person being held accountable. He doesn’t see our presence and help as scary or intrusive. He doesn’t run and hide from it. Rather, he is glad to know that as others stand with him, God stands with him. Accountability works because he is a seeker, not a runner. The runner doesn’t need accountability; he needs rebuke. Accountability is help for those who are committed to change.

What Accountability Provides

Accountability provides help on a practical level in ways like these:

Accountability provides structure. Life is often messy and chaotic. Change seems easier to discuss than to actually achieve, so accountability provides an outside system of structure (“Do these things during this period of time”) that can be immensely helpful to someone attempting something for the first time.

Accountability provides guidance. Often a person will want to do what is right but won’t be sure how to do it. It is a great benefit to have someone provide practical, ongoing wisdom as to the where, when, and how of change.

Accountability provides assistance. There are times when a person is afraid to make the needed changes alone (for example, a difficult talk with a wife, friend, or child) and needs someone to help him do it.

Accountability provides encouragement. Change is hard, beating at the borders of people’s faith, courage, and hope. People are often tempted to question their commitments or even quit. They need someone they trust alongside them, who knows their inner struggle and can encourage them to continue. They need someone to incarnate the presence of the One who is their help and hope.

Accountability provides warning. Sometimes people confess their need for change, but begin to rebel against it when they realize the cost and work involved. These people need to be warned of the consequences of their disobedience and rebellion. They need to be reminded that they will reap what they sow (Gal. 6:7).

Accountability brings ongoing help to the person who is fully committed to the “put off/put on” process. Ask yourself three questions as you seek to provide such accountability:

1. What kinds of ongoing help will this person need?

2. How often will I need to be in contact with him or her for change to continue?

3. Are there other resources in the body of Christ that would be helpful during this period? How can I connect this person to these resources?

Change in a fallen world can be burdensome. As people bring new insights and commitments to their lives, they need to be reminded of their identity in Christ and the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

The Simplicity and Grandeur

of Personal Ministry

If you were to summarize this book, what would you say? Perhaps you would describe it as a book of strategies for personal change. Maybe you would say it is about counseling in the local church. Some might say it explains how to bring Scriptural principles to the problems of life. Others might say it is about the necessity of personal ministry in the body of Christ.

All of these answers would be correct, but this book is first of all a call to live a daily ministry lifestyle rooted in God’s Word. We have laid out a whole Bible, whole life, whole body lifestyle. This lifestyle doesn’t look to the Bible as an encyclopedia for problem solving, but finds in God’s great story a perspective that transforms the way we deal with the circumstances of life.

Second, this book is rooted in the belief that God has called and positioned all of his children to live as his ambassadors. His claim is on all of our time and each of our relationships as we serve as his representatives.

Finally, this lifestyle is not simply for the few who are privileged to minister as a career. God’s kingdom work involves every member of the body of Christ. Whether you are a child, a spouse, a neighbor, a relative, a pastor, an employer or employee, a teacher, a student, or a friend, all of your relationships must reflect your ambassadorial calling. You must always seek to faithfully represent his message, methods, and character. God sends unfinished people to unfinished people with the message of his grace so that he can reclaim every heart for his glory.

Core Truths of an Ambassadorial Lifestyle

We have seen that eight principles and perspectives characterize this ministry lifestyle.

Truth #1. We need God and his truth to live as we were meant to live (Gen. 1:26; 2 Tim. 3:16–17). We need to forsake any delusion of autonomy or self-sufficiency. We cannot figure life out on our own nor do what God calls us to do. Our utter dependence on the Lord is not rooted in the Fall, but in our humanity. We were created to worship the Lord and depend on him.

Truth #2. Each of us has been called by God to be his instruments of change in the lives of others, beginning with our families and the church (Eph. 4:11–16; Col. 3:15–17). Ministry is not an activity that takes place outside our primary relationships. Rather, God intends to use us in these relationships as he does his redemptive work.

Truth #3. Our behavior is rooted in the thoughts and motives of our hearts. People and situations only prompt our hearts to express themselves in words and actions (Prov. 4:23; Luke 6:43–45; Mark 7:20–23; Matt. 23:25; James 4:1–10). Without denying the sad realities of suffering and being sinned against, we must reject any view of human behavior that forgets the heart. Instead, we affirm that God changes people’s lives as his grace transforms their hearts. Thus, in personal ministry, no matter what the difficulty, the heart is always our target.

Truth #4. Christ has called us to be his ambassadors, following his message, methods, and character (2 Cor. 5:14–21). Our calling allows us to represent the Lord of the universe to people around us! God is taking lost, confused, discouraged, rebellious, and self-absorbed people and making them into people who are empowered by his grace and motivated by his glory. Nothing is more important!

Truth #5. Being an instrument of change involves incarnating the love of Christ by sharing in people’s struggles, identifying with their suffering, and extending God’s grace as we call them to change. We should seek relationships that are more than mutually fulfilling. We are to build relationships in which God’s work of personal transformation can thrive. We do this by sharing the love Christ has poured out on us. We do it by coming to those who suffer as fellow sufferers who offer God’s comfort and compassion. And we do it by coming as sinners to other sinners, extending to them the grace that has transformed our hearts—and can do the same for theirs.

Truth #6. Being an instrument of change means seeking to know people by guarding against false assumptions, asking good questions, and interpreting information in a distinctly biblical way (Prov. 20:5; Heb. 4:14–16). We cannot be content with casual relationships among God’s people. We want to really get to know people and discover where change is needed. We learn to ask questions that cannot be answered without self-disclosure. And we filter everything we learn about people through the grid of Scripture. Our goal is not only to know others biblically, but to help them know themselves in the same way.

Truth #7. Being an instrument of change means speaking the truth in love. With the gospel as our comfort and call, we can help people see themselves in God’s Word and lead them to repentance (Rom. 8:1–17; Gal. 6:1–2; James 1:22–25). When we confront people with the truth, we want to be instruments of seeing and agents of repentance. It is easier for people to see problems in people and situations than it is to see them in themselves. That’s why we lovingly hold the Word of God before them, so they can see themselves clearly and repent. Our prayer is that the words we speak will expose and change their hearts as they respond to the comfort and call of the gospel.

Truth #8. Being an instrument of change means helping people do what God calls them to do by clarifying responsibility, offering loving accountability, and reminding them of their identity in Christ (Phil. 2:1–14; 2 Peter 1:3–9; 1 John 3:1–3; Gal. 6:2). We must not confuse insight with heart and life change. Acquiring biblical insight is a necessary part of the process, but it is not, in itself, change. Change comes when people identify the specific things God is calling them to do and begin doing them by faith. We encourage this process by standing with people, offering the wisdom, guidance, and encouragement of biblical accountability. Lastly, we encourage change by helping people live out of an accurate sense of their identity as the children of God, with all the rights and privileges that this identity entails.

These are the biblical principles and perspectives that shape our ministry to others. The King has called us, and he will prepare us for his work. We have been bought with a price, and our lives do not belong to us. Receiving grace means becoming a conduit of grace to others. Suffering commissions us to comfort other sufferers. Being changed is to become an ambassador for change to others. There could be no more meaningful life this side of Glory! We should be deeply grateful to be included in the plan. But perhaps you wonder if you’ll ever be able to live the lifestyle this book describes. Maybe you are dizzy with all the details, strategies, and skills. Perhaps you are overwhelmed by what you’ve seen about your own heart.

Two things always come to my mind as I finish teaching this material. First, I am hit with the utter simplicity of biblical personal ministry. It is not a secret technology for the intervention elite, but a simple call to every one of God’s children to be part of what God is doing in the lives of others. It is living in humble, honest, redemptive community with others, loving as Christ has loved, and going beyond the casual to really know people. It is loving others enough to speak the truth to them, helping them to see themselves in the mirror of God’s Word. And it is standing with others, helping them to do what God has called them to do. It is basically just a call to biblical friendship! It is almost embarrassingly simple: Love people. Know them. Speak truth into their lives. Help them do what God has called them to do.

At the same time, there is a grandeur to personal ministry that cannot be captured with words. God is painting his grace on the canvas of human souls. One day we will stand with him in Glory and see that canvas completed, and we won’t be able to do anything but worship. What is our part in all of this? We are God’s brushes. He wants to soak us on the palette of his grace and paint more of his goodness on yet another soul. The question is, “Are we soft brushes in his hands?” A hard, dried-out brush doesn’t pick up the paint well and mars the surface it was meant to beautify. I hope this book will help you become a soft brush in the hands of a Redeemer who will continue to paint until his canvas is complete.

As we stand before him on that last day and see the awesome beauty of the universe’s most glorious canvas, God’s voice will penetrate the sounds of our worship with these wonderful and mysterious words: “Well done, good and faithful servants!” Then we will know that each moment of ministry was worth it. We will know that we have been part of the most important, lasting, and beautiful thing that has ever been done—redemption. We will experience the reality of the words of the hymn:

Who are these like stars appearing,

these before God’s throne who stand?

Each a golden crown is wearing;

who are all this glorious band?

Alleluia! Hark, they sing,

praising loud their heav’nly King.

Who are these of dazzling brightness,

these in God’s own truth arrayed,

clad in robes of purest whiteness,

robes whose luster ne’er shall fade,

ne’er be touched by time’s rude hand?

Whence come all this glorious band?

These are they who have contended

for their Savior’s honor long,

wrestling on till life was ended,

foll’wing not the sinful throng;

these, who well the fight sustained,

triumph through the Lamb have gained.

These are they whose hearts were riven,

sore with woe and anguish tried,

who in prayer full oft have striven

with the God they glorified;

now, their painful conflict o’er,

God has bid them weep no more.

These, like priests, have watched and waited,

off’ring up to Christ their will;

soul and body consecrated,

day and night to serve him still;

now in God’s most holy place

blest they stand before his face.¹

These are the rewards awaiting God’s faithful. May they encourage you in your service to the King!

Appendix 1: Opening Blind Eyes: Another Look at

Data Gathering

Celia had come to counseling to “get help with relationships.” She called herself “rejection going somewhere to happen” and tearfully described her inability to find just one “faithful friend.” God seemed far off, yet Celia plaintively maintained that she was “not such a bad person,” surely not bad enough to deserve the “punches in the stomach” that she had received.

I sympathized with Celia but also endeavored to get her to look at herself. Since rejection was a theme in her life, I suggested that we ought to ask if there was anything she was doing to contribute to the problem. Celia immediately became defensive. As a counselor, what should I do next? I needed to know more about Celia, but more importantly, Celia needed to see more about herself. There were walls of personal blindness that needed to be penetrated or Celia would never be a true counselee. Celia was hurt, frustrated, and exhausted, but because of her personal blindness, she was not yet a seeker.

One of the tragic effects of the Fall is personal blindness of heart—it is universal. It is one of the things that makes biblical counseling so difficult. It radically alters the data-gathering process.

Because sin is deceitful and fallen people are so naturally blind to issues of self, data gathering must always pursue two goals. First, the process must give the counselor the information needed to provide wise biblical counseling. But an even more fundamental purpose is that we would be the Messiah’s instruments to open eyes that have been blind for too long.

Opening blind eyes is at the heart of Christ’s messianic mission. Looking forward to the coming Messiah, Isaiah says, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped” (Isa. 35:5). God promises further, “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them” (Isa. 42:16).

The Messiah is the One who is able to open the eyes of blind sinners and make them see. Isaiah describes the sinner this way:

So justice is far from us,

and righteousness does not reach us.

We look for light, but all is darkness;

for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.

Like the blind we grope along the wall,

feeling our way like men without eyes.

At midday we stumble as if it were twilight. . . . (Isa. 59:9–10a)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ commissions us to be part of his messianic mission to shine the light of truth into the darkness of sin. This is exactly what we should be seeking to do in counseling. Our goal is not only to expose the darkness that exists in relationships and situations but the darkness of the heart, so that the gospel can be applied.

All counselees in some way “grope along . . . feeling [their] way like men without eyes.” Our data gathering needs to take this need seriously. I want to help counselees see themselves in the mirror of God’s Word. I will ask questions that they would never ask and probe in places they would not know to probe. My questions will flow out of biblical perspectives on people and their problems. Here I image the Messiah as I seek to end the groping in darkness. I am not simply announcing my conclusions but helping blind eyes to see, with biblical clarity and depth, the heart’s thoughts and motives.

This appendix focuses on the “eye-opening” function of data gathering. We will examine the nature of the blindness that all sinners experience and look at what we must bring to our role as God’s instruments.

The Masks of Spiritual Blindness

The difference between physical and spiritual blindness is that the former is blatantly obvious while the latter often goes unnoticed. A physically blind person is immediately confronted with his condition. Often, a spiritually blind person not only fails to recognize his blindness, he is convinced that he has excellent vision. A fundamental part of being spiritually blind is that you are blind to your blindness.

Spiritual blindness is the condition of every sinner, every counselee. Yet few will realize its impact on the way they view themselves, God, others, and their situations. They are like those described in Romans 1, who think that they are wise when really they are fools. They assume that they think well when the thinking of their heart is actually foolish and futile.

Spiritual blindness is deceptive. As John wrote to the church in Laodicea, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Spiritual blindness is deceptive because it masquerades as other things. If we are going to be God’s instruments to open blind eyes, we must recognize the typical masks that spiritual blindness wears. The following is a representative list.

The Mask of an Accurate Sense of Self

Celia thought she knew herself. She was offended at the suggestion that she might bear some responsibility for what was happening in her life. It is only as one looks intently into the perfect mirror of Scripture that a person will see himself as he actually is (James 1:22–25).

Most of our counselees will have distorted views of themselves because the mirrors into which they look are like carnival mirrors. They reflect the real you but with a distortion. You see yourself, but not as you really are.

So it is with many counselees. Their sense of self has been developed by looking into the carnival mirror of others’ opinions, or a cultural view of success, or pop psychology, or past experience (the list could go on). The counselee is unaware that he has a distorted sense of self. He has the Word of God, but he has used it more as an encyclopedia of religious thought or a devotional tool. Even when listening to the Word preached, he will miss the revelation of self that is there. He hears stories or principles expounded but does not see himself mirrored in the passages.

The Mask of Being Sinned Against

Celia was able to recount—in Technicolor detail—stories of constant abuse at the hands of others. Her focus was on how others behaved toward her.

There is no more powerful metaphor to describe how spiritual blindness masquerades as a sense of being sinned against than the “plank and speck” metaphor of Matthew 7. Imagine a person literally obsessed with a piece of dust in another’s eye while walking around with a plank jutting out of his own! He is gripped by a sense of being sinned against, not of being a sinner. Thus, to him, the change that is needed is change outside himself.

The Mask of Trials and Testing

Celia did not have an accurate sense of herself and her sin, so she tended to call the natural consequences of her own choices and actions trials. Paul says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:7–8).

Since most of our counselees do not have a harvest mentality, they tend to look at the things they harvest not as the result of their planting, but as painful trials they do not deserve.

Also, because sinners tend to exchange worship and service of the Creator for worship and service of the created thing (see Rom. 1:25), they tend to miss the good things that the Creator is doing in a situation. Instead, they focus on the loss of some created thing. A trial is a trial to me because it puts what is valuable to me at stake. Manna falling from heaven became a trial to the Israelites because they were not focusing on the covenant love its provision represented, but on its taste as compared to the menu of Egypt!

Counselees in their blindness will call the consequences of their own behavior “trials” and the good things from God’s hand “testings.” They will be blind to the fact that God sends trials for their redemptive good. Rather than seeing themselves as loved by God and being conformed to the image of his Son through circumstances, they see themselves as singled out for difficulty. To them, life isn’t fair. Suffering is without redemptive purpose and a sign that God does not love them.

The Mask of Needs

Celia saw herself as needy. She viewed herself as one who had spent most of her life living without. She often said, “If only I had had ______, then I would have been able to ______.” Her understanding of needs was as cloudy as the culture’s around her. Yet her interpretation of her life rested heavily on this term. Essentially she was saying that her life’s problems were the direct result of her neediness. She carried with her the classic, “If only . . .” interpretation of life.

What Celia didn’t see was that her neediness was really more about sin’s tragic effect, which turns us from worshipers of God to those who live “gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts” (Eph. 2:3). Her neediness revealed much more about who she was than what she was missing. Celia’s sense of need revealed the lusts of her heart more than it revealed the betrayal of others. And what she actually needed was the one thing she never craved—God. If you really want to understand what is important to a person, find out where he feels needy. Values become desires, desires become demands, and demands get expressed in counseling as “needs.”

Celia was blind to the fact that she was the sun in the center of her universe and that all of life was viewed from the vantage point of what it offered her. She was blind to the fact that she carried this “needs” perspective into every room she entered, and it shaped every situation and relationship. She came into situations loaded with silent demands and responded with angry criticism to anyone who seemed to ignore her needs. She thought that her neediness proved the selfishness and unwillingness of all around her when, in fact, it demonstrated the depth of her own self-centeredness.

The Mask of Wise Counsel

Like all counselees, Celia had many voices around her. Like Job, much of the counsel she received was not helpful; and it was not helpful because it was not biblical. Yet Celia found comfort in the words of her counselors, if only for a season.

Although she was coming for counseling, Celia often repeated to me the “wisdom” she had gleaned from those around her. But Celia only quoted people who agreed with her view of life and supported the decisions she made. She did not quote anyone who disagreed with her.

Another scriptural term for the spiritually blind is “fools.” Celia’s wise counsel was really foolishness. It only appeared wise to her because she was blind to the real issues in her life. Proverbs says that the fool has “no desire to get wisdom” (Prov. 17:16). Celia thought she was on a quest for wise counsel when really she was on a quest for support of her point of view.

The Mask of Personal Insight

Celia, like all human beings, was always seeking to make sense out of her life. She wanted it organized into categories that would help her understand what had gone on and what she should do about it. She spent much of her time analyzing things and felt it had been helpful. But her search was not open-ended: if I began to question Celia’s interpretations, there would soon be an air of tension in the room.

Spiritual blindness can even masquerade as wisdom! To be intellectually bright and actively analytical does not necessarily mean that you are wise. True wisdom begins with humility, the recognition that I do not have in myself all that I need. I need to be a seeker after the truth that is found only in God’s Word. Real insight does not result from being analytical but from being biblical. Listen to the words of the psalmist:

Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,

for they are ever with me.

I have more insight than all my teachers,

for I meditate on your statutes.

I have more understanding than the elders,

for I obey your precepts.

(Ps. 119:98–100)

Celia was blind to the fact that her insight revealed more about her heart than her situation. Her insight was born out of desires that distorted her interpretations of what was going on around her. It was more a desire-driven perspective than an objective analysis. Thus, it was more an expression of idolatry than an expression of faith. Yet none of this was obvious to Celia because blindness often wears the mask of insight.

The Mask of a Sense of Values

Celia thought she knew what was important, but the more I listened to her, the more I was convinced that what moved her were not the things of prime importance. Here again Celia was blind. She had evaluated her situation and acted in a way consistent with her values, yet her problems continued. This left her frustrated and confused.

The treasures that motivated Celia all had to do with human relationships. She saw friendship, respect, acceptance, and love as most important and did all she could to avoid rejection, loneliness, and the low self-image she said resulted. But the more Celia examined people and their reactions, the more she tried to please them and the angrier she got. She entered her relationships with a long list of silent demands, yet she was unaware of how judgmental and unforgiving she was when people failed to live up to them. Matthew 6 says that whatever is my treasure will control my heart, and what controls my heart will control my behavior. In other words, I will live to gain, maintain, and enjoy the things of value to me.

Celia’s problem was her values. She had put her identity in the hands of people. She kept meeting frustration and failure because the God who had called her to himself was working on something different. His focus was not so much on the relationships but on Celia, that she would be conformed to his Son’s image.

Counselees often do not recognize their blindness because it is masked by a passionate sense of right and wrong. The angry man who has hurt his family for years with his violent responses sees only what he has lost by being separated from them. To him what is important is his right to see his kids and to live in the home he pays for. He keeps saying in counseling, “This is not right, it just isn’t right!” Yet he is blind to the changes he needs to make in order for the family to be properly restored.

A wife’s focus is on the coldness and distance of her husband. She wants the counselor to turn him into a man who cherishes her, yet she is blind to the constant stream of criticism that has driven him away. She is irate when the counselor begins to focus on her as someone who needs change. She is utterly blind to the eternally valuable things God wants to work in her.

The Mask of Theological Knowledge

Celia knew a lot about Scripture and the doctrines of the faith. There were few biblical-theological terms that I could use with which she was not familiar.

Unfortunately, Celia’s theological knowledge did four things for her. First, it produced a level of confidence in her interpretations of life. She assumed that her ideas and actions flowed out of her beliefs. Second, it produced in her an assessment of maturity. Celia thought of herself as a mature believer and was offended if someone treated her as someone needing basic biblical teaching. Third, in counseling her knowledge gave Celia an “I already knew that and I already tried that” attitude. Fourth, it produced in her a sense that her problems were not her fault. She “knew what was right and did what was best.” Hence, the cause of the difficulty had to be outside of her. Her knowledge obscured personal responsibility and conviction of sin.

The fact was that Celia had not been able to apply her theology to everyday life in a way that made sense of her struggles. She was a lady without wisdom, blind to the fact that she was not spiritually mature. Spiritual maturity results from practicing truth in everyday life, not from knowing truth in one’s mind (Heb. 5:11–14). But Celia was convinced that her Christian counselors kept telling her things she already knew.

Coupled with this sense of theological adequacy was Celia’s tendency to ask the wrong questions. Celia’s questions did not lead her to a deeper understanding of her situation, a fuller hope in God, or a practical agenda for change. There is a principle here that we will consider more fully in a future article. It is this: insightful people are insightful not because they have the right answers but because they have asked the right questions. If you do not ask the right questions, you will never get to the right answers. Celia constantly found herself in an analytical cul-de-sac, leading to a loss of hope and a struggle with depression.

Here is an example of Celia’s wrong questions. She would say, “I pray and I pray. I read my Bible. Yet God isn’t helping me. He isn’t answering my prayers.” Then she would ask this question: “Why isn’t God working in my life?” This is a bad question, based on an unbiblical assumption, which cannot lead in a good direction.

Celia’s question led her to two answers. Sometimes she would conclude that God wasn’t active because he simply didn’t love her. He had better things to do than worry about her puny life. On other occasions she would conclude that God was not active in her life because she was such a miserable sinner, and his inactivity was a punishment for her iniquity. Bad answers to a bad question will produce a harvest of bad fruit. Like Job’s infamous counselors, Celia did not build the bridges from her theology to her situation that would lead to biblical interpretations of life.

To ask Celia’s question biblically, one must start with the following biblical assumption: God is ever active in my life (Ps. 46; Rom. 8:18–39). To ask why he isn’t working is to assume something that is untrue. True conclusions cannot come from false assumptions. A better way of asking the question is to say, “God is redemptively active in my life, so what is he doing and why don’t I recognize it?” This question can lead to greater insight, biblical change, and a harvest of good fruit.

The Mask of Personal Holiness

Although Celia did not speak of herself using the biblical language of holiness, that is precisely what she thought she possessed. She believed that she wanted the right things and that she did the right things; she could not figure out why things were so wrong. Her belief in her personal holiness rested on a legalistic self-righteousness that had nothing to do with God’s call to “Be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:44).

Celia was blind to the fact that she was a classic Pharisee. Like a Pharisee, she reduced God’s law to a doable human standard. The things Celia emphasized required no reliance on Christ—they were behavioral standards that made no demands on the heart. Celia saw the gospel as having to do with Heaven and Hell. She felt no need for the present redemptive power of Christ in her life because the “righteousness” she had attained was humanly attainable.

Celia consistently emphasized lesser things and prided herself in accomplishing them, yet she ignored the weightier matters of the law. She prided herself in her neat home, in her punctuality, in her memory of every friend’s birthday, the Christian books she had read, her financial vigilance, and her willingness to volunteer. Yet she was jealous, angry, judgmental, bitter, vengeful, and lacking in mercy.

Christ said to his disciples, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). To the Pharisees he said, “You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former” (Matt. 23:23). The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was not enough because it was not righteousness. It was ugly, prideful, human self-righteousness. This kind of righteousness always emphasizes what is humanly doable and ignores what can only be accomplished through the bountiful streams of the grace of Christ.

Perhaps this is the epicenter of spiritual blindness. At its core, to be spiritually blind means to think you are righteous when really you are not. This makes the grace of God and the obligation to change non-issues. If I am righteous (so I think), I do not need Christ and I do not need change. This is clearly demonstrated in Luke 18 with the story of the two men in the temple. The Pharisee stood in the temple and told God that he did not need him. He was there to announce that he was okay, distancing himself from the sinner and listing his righteous acts before the Lord.

Similarly, Celia would come to counseling and recite her list of good deeds, asking me to agree that she was okay. By missing the important issues of the heart and emphasizing doable behaviors, she saw herself as being clean, yet inside were “dead men’s bones.”

The Mask of Repentance

Celia, like many counselees, thought that being in counseling was an act of repentance. This is not always true. Many of those we counsel tend to see the talking they do as confession and their staying in the counseling process as repentance. But for Celia counseling was really more like penance. She was blind to the fact that she was really participating in an act of self-atonement. I call this “Protestant absolution.” The counselee confesses, examines issues, participates in an ongoing discussion of self and the situation and, week by week, leaves the counseling time feeling atoned, cleansed, and right. Yet all of this is happening without any substantive heart or behavioral change. The counselees see themselves as repentant, but in reality there are times when counseling becomes a way to avoid working on the issues on God’s agenda.

Celia’s life did not bear the fruit of repentance. First, she was not becoming a self-starter. She continued in sinful and destructive behaviors though we talked about them on numerous occasions. She would grudgingly admit wrong when confronted, but her confessions seldom resulted in new ways of responding. Second, Celia remained defensive. She continued to have a hard time receiving my biblical evaluation of her. She accused me of not understanding her, of not believing her, or of taking another’s side. Third, Celia did not have a teachable spirit. It was hard for her to admit her need to be instructed from Scripture and to learn to apply it to her life. She would debate my theology, my interpretation of a passage, or my application of a biblical principle to her life. Fourth, Celia completed her counseling homework in a perfunctory manner, without enthusiasm, insight, or the changes that were the goal of the assignment.

Yet Celia saw very little of that. She was blinded by her legalistic attendance at counseling, her willingness to discuss personal issues, and her study of assigned Scripture passages. Unfortunately, all of these things (which she thought indicated repentance) masked the bitterness and self-righteousness that controlled Celia’s heart.

Repentance is presented in Scripture as a radical change of heart that results in a radically different way of living. As the heart turns and moves in a different direction, the life does as well. Anything short of this is simply not repentance. Many people come to counseling with the goal of self-atonement, though they may not realize it. They want support for what they are doing. They want to feel good about themselves, and they find that they do feel better after their counseling sessions, so they continue. But they have not submitted to God’s radical call to repentance. They are not praying with the psalmist in Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

(Ps. 139:23–24)

Being “in counseling” kept Celia blind to her stubborn, unrepentant heart. She thought of herself as one who had confessed everything she needed to confess. She saw herself as repentant. “Why else would I be in counseling?” she would say. Shocking as it may seem, spiritual blindness even wears the mask of repentance!

It is vital to remember the profound effect that spiritual blindness has on every sinner and his view of life. Our data gathering needs to be motivated by the counselee’s need to see. Further, we need to remember that spiritually blind people do not think they are blind because their blindness wears many masks. We need to recognize these masks and pursue a data gathering process that opens the counselee’s eyes to who he really is. We commit ourselves to be God’s means of opening blind eyes and to see this as a necessary data-gathering function.

Appendix 2: What the

Counselor Brings to the Process of Data Gathering

In our last appendix, we looked at the problem of spiritual blindness and its power to deceive. We saw that spiritually blind people do not know that they are blind, so we as counselors must become familiar with the various masks spiritual blindness wears. Spiritual blindness is always a factor in the counseling process, so as biblical counselors, we must be prepared.

But it’s important to remember that this is not a problem that applies only to counselees. When we heed the Bible’s warning that every one of us is a sinner and by nature spiritually blind, we realize how much we as counselors need the mutual, person-to-person ministry that the New Testament depicts at the heart of church life. Because my deceitful heart easily blinds me to my own sin, I need other believers who love me enough to show me my life from God’s perspective. They need the same thing from me. Our human nature requires a redemptive agenda for every one of our relationships. Hebrews 3:12–13 summarizes it this way: “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Notice that, according to this passage, the thing that calls me to this daily personal ministry is not a situation—that is, a sin or problem requiring change that I have observed in you. Rather, what calls me to involvement is a condition—indwelling sin and its power to blind and harden the heart. As long as sin remains, spiritual blindness will exist and require us to be committed to relationships that promote honest, loving, mutual ministry.

This is especially important for Christians with a biblical counseling ministry. Counselees depend on us to enter their world with a godly perspective that will help them break through their own blindness. We will never be able to offer that to them unless we have submitted our own lives to the searchlight of Scripture, guided by Christian brothers and sisters who can help us to know our own hearts aright.

Counselors who have made that commitment will develop the following qualities essential to helping counselees.

You Can Bring Objectivity

Many counselees are blinded by their subjectivity—the way their view of life is shaped by the things they want. When their requests are selfish at root, they can’t see it. They are unaware of their tone of voice, the look on their face, the way their version of the story is subtly shaped by their desires. They don’t see the times when they criticize others for things they excuse in themselves, when they refuse to forgive others’ sins and are defensive when people confront them. If they’ve become absorbed in a victim mentality, they will not see it. Neither will they see when their acts of service become manipulative, exposing to others (not to themselves) the lack of faith that fuels their whole system.

As a counselor, don’t harden your heart against these people. There but for the grace of God go you! Your counselees need help to see themselves clearly, and this is where your biblical objectivity as a counselor is so essential.

When a counselor enters the counselee’s world, he is not blinded by the self-interest that dominates the counselee. (At least not to the extent that he has submitted himself to the discipling ministry of the Word and others.) He is able to “restore” his counselee because he is not “caught” in the counselee’s spiritual trap (Gal. 6:1). He can speak with biblical objectivity.

A spiritually blind counselee, by contrast, has lost such an objective perspective, if he ever had one. He is locked into one (unbiblical) perspective; this starting point affects the way he experiences everything else that happens to him.

For most counselees, their starting point is their own experience. They tend to view all of life through the lens of their own personal history, assumptions, and desires. The interpretation they’ve made of their lives thus far will also color all future interpretations. It will even color the way they understand Scripture. People who interpret life through the lens of their own experience will do the same with God’s Word. Personal experience, not Scripture, controls their view of the world.

Such a person needs someone whose vantage point is different, someone who starts with Scripture and moves toward life. Scripture must become the basis for interpreting life, and not vice versa. As a biblical counselor, you want to bring that biblical perspective to your counselee, because when God’s truth becomes the lens through which everything is examined, life changes. In marriage counseling, for example, the counselor can break through the perennial “He said-She said” with “What has God said?”

Ralph and Shirley had been married for fifteen years. It was almost impossible for them to discuss anything without the conversation disintegrating into a war of accusations. Shirley was convinced that the best years of her life had been spoiled by Ralph’s avoidance of issues and willingness to compromise with the world. Ralph saw Shirley as self-righteous, harsh, and judgmental. In their conversations, they lobbed the grenades of bitterness that they had warehoused in their hearts against each other. They were trapped in the polar-opposite views of their life together and therefore unable to solve their problems. Shirley and Ralph needed the radical intervention of a biblical perspective at three levels.

On the behavioral level, they needed to ask, “What has God said about the way we talk to each other?” Their communication did not promote love, understanding, hope, and solution. It was one of their major problems. The clear communication principles in Ephesians 4:25–5:2 would, if heeded, bring both new perspective to this problem and lasting change.

On the thoughts level, Shirley and Ralph needed to ask, “What has God said are his goals for who we are as his children?” The New Testament, in passages such as Romans 8:28–29, Galatians 5:16–26, Colossians 3:1–14, and 2 Peter 1:3–9, teaches that God’s goal for Ralph and Shirley is more than Shirley’s desire for personal ministry fulfillment or Ralph’s desire for a respectful wife. God’s goal is that they would increasingly become participants in his divine nature. Ralph and Shirley did not see that the way they fought about the Christian life demonstrated that they had little vision of (or commitment to) what God was really seeking to accomplish in them through all he had brought into their lives. He was seeking their conformity to the image of Christ.

Finally, on the desires level, they needed to ask, “What is it that God wants our hearts to crave?” Ralph craved “just a little bit of respect.” It was the silent demand in every encounter with Shirley. Shirley craved “a husband who wanted to serve the Lord as much as she did.” Questions flowing out of James 4:1–10, Philippians 3:1–16, and Colossians 3:1–17 exposed the “He wants-She wants” cast of their relationship. This was the source of their inability to solve their problems.

Shirley and Ralph needed the help of someone who would start from the vantage point of Scripture and interpret what was going on in their relationship. They needed someone to model how to ask the right (biblical) questions that lead to the solutions that can be found only when people examine their behavior, thoughts, and desires in light of Scripture.

When I do my data gathering, I try to frame my questions in a way that the counselee never would. The most searching questions a counselee might ask himself are still impacted by his blindness. Certain questions will never be asked, but they should be. There are other questions he will ask about others that he should ask about himself. I want my questions to deal with the same set of facts as my counselees’ questions, but in a way that helps them think about their lives biblically.

You Can Bring Wisdom

In Romans, Paul talks of sinners’ foolish hearts as being darkened. A fool is a spiritually blind person. He thinks he sees, is wise, and understands, when really he is blind, foolish, and confused. The description of the fool in Proverbs portrays a person who:

• Is convinced that he is right (12:15).

• Quickly shows his annoyance (12:16).

• Is hotheaded and reckless (14:16).

• Spurns discipline and correction (15:5).

• Wastes money (17:16).

• Delights in airing his own opinions (18:2).

• Is quick to quarrel (20:3).

• Scorns wisdom (23:9).

• Is wise in his own eyes (26:5).

• Trusts in himself (28:26).

• Rages and scoffs, and there is no peace around him (29:9).

• Gives full vent to his anger (29:11).

A fool needs the intervention of God’s Word because his choices, responses, perspectives, actions, and attitudes announce to all that he is blind. He needs the lens of biblical wisdom to help him see and understand as God does.

The biblical counselor can offer God’s wise perspective through Scripture. He brings more than just opinion, research, experience, or training. He brings a confidence in (and a submission to) the Word of God that will expose and penetrate the counselee’s blindness. The biblical wisdom he offers will be pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, full of good fruit, impartial, and sincere (James 3:17). In short, he is, by God’s grace, the fool’s exact opposite.

Many of those we counsel reveal their foolishness in a distorted sense of proportion and distorted values. They lack a biblical value system that can help them, on a practical level, to know what is really important and what is not. Only Scripture can help a counselee understand how the things in his life really interrelate.

The counselor can ask questions that require the counselee to look at life outside his subjective perspective. He can ask him what is really important, and what the true relationship is between various things in his life from God’s point of view. These questions can challenge the counselee’s old, familiar view of life by encouraging him to submit to God’s view.

Let’s look again at Ralph and Shirley. Ralph is convinced that Shirley is his problem, and all the questions he asks himself flow out of that interpretation. Shirley is convinced that Ralph is her problem, and she has done all of her diagnostic thinking from that perspective. Together they share the belief that their problem is that they are too different in their approach to life and their goals. However, the principles of Proverbs indicate that the anger, disunity, and hopelessness that Ralph and Shirley experience are not the result of being different, but the result of the foolish ways they have dealt with their differences. Scripture further tells us that these responses flow out of the desires of the heart that they bring to each of their encounters. Sameness and agreement are not the essential ingredients of unity. Rather, love (for God, above all else, and for my neighbor as myself) is what causes one to be humble, gentle, patient, and forbearing in the face of difference and provocation (Eph. 4:1–2).

If Ralph asked questions of himself that flowed out of Proverbs’ description of a fool (listed above), he would develop a new agenda for solving his marital difficulties. Here are a few examples of the questions Ralph could ask himself:

• Where have I been so convinced that I am right, that I have been unwilling to hear Shirley’s perspective or to re-examine my own viewpoints?

• How do I typically respond when Shirley challenges my thinking or decisions (Prov. 12:15)?

• When do I tend to become quickly irritated and annoyed, responding impulsively out of anger?

• What impact does this anger have on Shirley and her willingness to be open and honest in conversation (Prov. 12:6; 14:6; 15:1)?

• What do I want from Shirley that I perceive she is not giving me, thus making me angry? What “treasures” do I think Shirley is taking away (Matt. 6:19; James 4:1)?

Such questions would lead Ralph to face himself before God, to see his need for Jesus’ mercy, and to seek that mercy. He would begin to identify the many different things he can do to see concrete change take place.

A person who develops a thorough and consistent biblical view of life can escape the hopelessness of his old value system and the paralysis, confusion, or misguided enthusiasm that it often creates. When Ralph learns to see things biblically, he sees fresh, new options for change. He is no longer trapped by his own subjectivity. He no longer believes that he is stuck in an impossible, no-win marriage. He begins to see the thoughts and desires of his heart that are at the roots of his problems, and he sees how those desires have shaped his response to Shirley in every situation. He no longer insists that he is trapped or that he is right. Rather, he sees the “put offs” and “put ons” of heart and behavior that will change his marriage.

You Can Bring the Gospel’s Clarity

People by their very nature are interpreters, always seeking to make sense of life. It is not unusual for counselees to feel very confused when they are unable to understand what is happening, why it is happening, and what to do as a result.

There are also many confused counselees who do not know that they are confused! They think that their interpretations are insightful and their actions logical. They do not see themselves and their situations with clarity.

One of the most significant areas of spiritual blindness that I observe in counseling is a blindness to the realities of the gospel in a counselee’s life. The person is confused and paralyzed because he has left significant facts out of his interpretive system.

The gospel gives us three essential perspectives on the human struggle. Without an awareness of these perspectives, life will make no sense, or it will be understood unbiblically and therefore incorrectly. The gospel gives us a true sense of self, of God, and of process.

Sense of Self

Our response to any situation is always shaped by our understanding of our identity. Consequently, we need the gospel to inform and correct our definition of who we are and what our struggles are really about. What the gospel teaches me is that my struggle is deeper than the problems of my past, the difficulties in my present relationships, and the situations I face daily. Peter says that the corruption in the world is caused by evil desires of the heart. This is where change needs to take place.

Many of the people I counsel have little sense of the presence and power of indwelling sin. They have little sense of the thoughts, desires, and choices of the heart at the root of their personal difficulties. So they continue to blame people and situations, blind to the heart’s struggle that they bring to every situation of life. The gospel presents the war within (Rom. 7 and James 4) as the primary target of God’s redemptive concern (2 Peter 1:3–4).

Sense of God

Here, too, I am amazed that often my counselees have little sense of the ever-present, always active, all-powerful, promise-keeping Redeemer who is the God of the gospel. The gospel presents God as my ever-present help in trouble (Ps. 46), who is ruling over all things (even the apparently chaotic and purposeless) for my sake (Eph. 1:22–23). He is working in every situation to deliver me from bondage to sins of the heart, to help me experience the riches of the grace he has lavished on me in Christ, and to conform me to his Son’s image (Rom. 8:28–39; Eph. 1:3–7). He is the Forgiver, Reconciler, Deliverer, Comforter, and Restorer.

Because of his incessant redemptive activity, each situation in life, even those that are dark, confusing, and scary to me, is sanctified, full of meaning and purpose, and infused with hope.

Counselees often have little sense of the God of the gospel who rules his world in such a way that he is not far from each one of us. He has done this so that, at any moment, we can seek him and reach out and find him (Acts 17:26–27). They tend to have little hope when they reach the end of their own wisdom and strength. Their functional God is small, weak, uncaring, and distant—not one to whom you would entrust the fine china of your life. Their responses to life and their confusion are directly related to their sense of who God is.

Sense of Process

The gospel not only declares that God is active, it describes what he is doing and how he is doing it. This sense of redemptive process is missing in many people I counsel. They do not have a progressive sanctification model for understanding their life and problems.

God has instituted a process with the goal that my “love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that [I] may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:9–11).

His primary goal is not that I would experience present personal happiness. His goal is nothing short of my becoming a participant in his divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Further, the very relationships with which I struggle and the difficult situations from which I would like to escape are the instruments he is using to produce the heart change that will result in a life that is fruitful to his glory. Suffering should not come as a surprise and it should not be received as an indication of his distance and lack of care. It is a tool of his redemptive love. Our counselees need to cultivate their confidence in God’s active, progressive sanctification process so that they can make biblical sense of their problems.

Without an understanding of indwelling sin and the struggle within, without an understanding of the presence, character, and activity of God and his sanctifying process, life will not make sense. Counselees will be confused because they lack the wisdom, insight, and practical, agenda-setting understanding that come when we view ourselves and our situations from the vantage point of the gospel.

Sally lived for the acceptance of people, but this was not what brought her to counseling. She came because she was depressed over a series of broken relationships. However, Sally was blind to her demanding ways, fear, and manipulation of people. She was blind to the condemning and vengeful responses she had to those who failed her. She did not see that she smothered people with her neediness. Her friends were her life-giving, functional gods. As she sought counsel, she felt alone, forsaken by God and people. Confused and unable to understand why all of this was happening, she became increasingly self-absorbed and depressed. She saw no hope of lasting change taking place. From where she stood, it looked as if every good thing she had attempted to do had blown up in her face.

Sally talked of how God must hate her. She had stopped reading her Bible and praying, and her church attendance had become sporadic at best. She believed that she had been unfairly singled out for suffering. All she wanted was for it to stop.

Clearly, the gospel was not making sense out of life for Sally. She had no functional sense of the God of the gospel who is sovereign, holy, forgiving, restoring, reconciling, ever-present, and ever-active, ruling over all things for her sake and lavishing on her the glorious riches of his grace in Christ Jesus (Eph. 1:3–9).

She did not see herself as the sinner for whom the gospel is intended, so she did not see the idolatrous heart that caused her to enter situations and relationships loaded with selfish expectations and silent demands. She did not see how these idolatrous expectations set up the constant disappointment she experienced, and she had no sense of the system of covert and overt vengeance that was her response to people who caused her pain. She did not see that she was playing god as both lawgiver and judge.

Finally, Sally had no sense of the gospel process of progressive sanctification. There was no recognition of the hand of God in her circumstances. He was at work in each situation and relationship, but he was not committed to giving her the acceptance she craved. He was at work to expose her sinful heart and behavior and, through these experiences, to form in her the image of Christ. The very circumstances that served as Sally’s examples of God’s “unfaithfulness” were, in fact, administered by his loving, covenantal care for her good! Sally was confused because she left essential facts out of her appraisal of her life— the facts of the gospel.

Sally represents everyone we counsel. If their eyes are blind to the realities of who they are as sinners, the character and activity of God, their inheritance as his children, and the process of redemption (sanctification) that is going on, there is no way that our counselees will interpret what is happening correctly. There is no way that they will behave in a biblically appropriate manner.

This is a core distinctive of biblical counseling. Biblical counselors do not see the Bible as an encyclopedia of life principles that need only be followed to have a happy life. Rather, Scripture gives us a radical view of life that has its roots in the gospel; every biblical perspective and principle is rooted there.

This view of life is that we are a people chosen by a sovereign, loving God who, in Christ, has forgiven us and adopted us into his family. He is at work in each situation to conform us to the image of his Son, supplying all that we need to do what he has called us to do. Therefore, we do not buy into the false hope of becoming independently strong, “healthy,” aware, and happy individuals. All that we do and all that we hope for is rooted in the fact that we are weak vessels of clay that have been filled with the all-surpassing power of God’s presence. We look to the future with hope, preparing for a time when there will be no more sickness, sorrow, sin, or death, for we will be with Christ and like him eternally. That is why, even in the dark days of personal suffering, we do not lose heart (2 Cor. 4:7–18).

You cannot extract Christ from the principles of Scripture without doing violence to them. All that God calls us to do is rooted in what Christ is doing. If the counselee does not have the gospel at the heart of his interpretive system, the principles of the Bible will make no sense to him and he will not respond appropriately.

The clarity that we bring to the life of the counselee is the gospel itself. The gospel is what we want them to see, perhaps for the first time. Every problem can be faced through the manifold provisions of Christ. Consider Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians:

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Eph. 1:18–23)

Paul is praying that these Christians would view themselves and all of life in terms of the radical truths of the gospel. His prayer is that they would be able to see the power and riches that are their inheritance in Christ.

Our counselees will not live as God has called them to live if they are blind to the power and the presence of Christ at work in their lives. Instead, their lives will be “ineffective and unproductive” (2 Peter 1:8–9).

This gospel clarity should shape our data gathering as we too pray for “the eyes of [our counselees’] hearts to be enlightened.” So we ask questions that flow out of the gospel, causing our counselees to look at things they have not considered. As they answer these questions, the clarity of the gospel will begin to drive away the clouds of confusion.

Earlier we saw that one element in spiritual blindness is that people ask the wrong questions—which lead to wrong answers. In our data gathering, we can begin to teach our counselees how to start with biblical truths and ask questions based on those truths. For example, if the Bible says that God is redemptively active in my life “in all things” (Rom. 8:28), I do not ask questions that assume that he is not and wonder why. I may ask, “What is the good that God is doing in these painful events?” or “What keeps me from seeing the good that God is doing?” or “Where does my agenda (plan) for my life and God’s plan differ?” or “What are my treasures (the things most valuable to me)? Are these the things that God says are most valuable and that he is working to produce?” These questions flow out of biblical truths and lead to biblical self-awareness and biblical change.

A husband who is discouraged by what is happening in his family and is tempted to believe that God is absent needs to personalize these questions. What are his goals for his family? Are these God’s goals? What are the typical ways he has sought to accomplish these goals? Has he functioned as an instrument of God or as one who owns his family? Where is he not experiencing God’s “absence,” but rather harvesting what he has sown? Where is the hand of God discernible in his family? Has he, as a husband and father, been in a conflict of agenda with God? Where? What does he want most out of each of these relationships? Are these what God wants for him? Where is he trying to do God’s job, trying to produce what only God can produce? Where has he failed to recognize his own themes of weakness, temptation, and sin in his responses to his wife and children? When does he tend to get angry, lashing out with condemning, accusatory, and threatening words? Where does he tend to struggle with discouragement and hopelessness? What does this say about how he thinks about himself, God, others, and his situation? These are questions that flow out of biblical truths and lead to biblical awareness and biblical change.

You Can Bring Purpose

Everyone who comes for counsel comes for a reason. They have an agenda, something they would like to see accomplished. But as a counselor you must remember that spiritual blindness will prevent counselees from seeing when their agenda is narrow, selfish, or too temporary (“this-worldly”) in nature. They will need your help to see when their purpose for counseling reveals that they have exchanged the worship and service of the Creator for worship and service of the created thing (Rom. 1:25).

The man who is separated from his wife comes to counseling because he wants his family back. The wife comes because she wants a husband who really loves her. The teenager comes because his car has been taken away “until he gets his act together.” The depressed young man just wants a little bit of happiness. The pastor wants to understand why he is not more successful in ministry.

Each has a reason for coming to counseling, yet none of them sees the self-orientation of their purpose. In reality, they want little more than the particular piece of the created world that would make them happy. Yet they are children of a God who wants much, much more for them and who sacrificed his own Son in order to secure it!

Such a counselee comes to counseling blind to the fact that his agenda is colored by fear, self-interest, control, personal happiness, or a desire for some other aspect of creation. His problem is not that he wants too much from the Lord, but that he is willing to settle for too little. He seeks the temporary pleasures of the created world when God wants him to become nothing less than a partaker “in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

The counselee needs someone to come alongside him who is armed with purpose—but not the narrow purpose of self-interest. He needs someone who has a redemptive purpose that is not crippled by self-interest and a desire for personal gain. He needs someone to introduce him to God’s grand, redemptive agenda, which is higher, fuller, and deeper than anything he would have wanted or planned for himself.

Peter says that God is working on more than giving me a happy marriage and good kids. As Paul says at the end of Ephesians 3, he is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” In our counseling, we do not want to be shortsighted; we do not want to settle for too little. We want to be used of God to move people from being joyful because it seems as though God is fulfilling their plans to the place where they have forsaken their personal dreams for the greater joys of participating in what God has planned for them.

The biblical counselor wants what God wants for the counselee. His agenda is formed by Scripture—to help the counselee invest in things that will not fade or perish. To accomplish that, he needs to help the counselee uncover his heart’s true intentions while opening his eyes to God’s glorious purposes for him. As a counselor, I want the questions I ask to accomplish this goal. I want them to open my counselee’s eyes to what he is really living for and to create in him a hunger for more than the temporary pleasures of this life. I want to greet the counselee’s agenda with redemptive purpose.

Our data-gathering methodology must take this goal seriously. How can our questions accomplish it? This will be the focus of the next appendix.

In our counseling, we are representing the Messiah. What is his work?

To open eyes that are blind,

to free captives from prison

and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

(Isa. 42:7)

Can we as his servants be committed to anything less?

Appendix 3: Strategies for Data Gathering

Psalm 36:2–4 powerfully depicts the reality of spiritual blindness and its effect on the way a person lives his life:

For in his own eyes he flatters himself

too much to detect or hate his sin.

The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful;

he has ceased to be wise and to do good.

Even on his bed he plots evil;

he commits himself to a sinful course

and does not reject what is wrong.

This reality of the human heart moves the biblical counselor to see the data-gathering process not only as a means by which the counselor comes to know the counselee, but also as a way to help the counselee see himself with new biblical clarity. Sin is not just about willfulness; that is, a conscious stepping over God’s boundaries. Sin is also about blindness; that is, not seeing what needs to be seen to live as God has called me to live. The sinner is both willfully blind and blindly willful. Thus we as counselors are always dealing with spiritual blindness in our counseling, whether we realize it or not.

This is where Psalm 36 is so instructive. First, it gives us a sense of how spiritual blindness functions: “In his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin” (v. 2). The spiritually blind person thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think (see Rom. 12:3), and this self-righteousness blinds him to the sin in his life. He does not hate his sin because he does not see himself as capable of such things. Instead, he defends, excuses, rationalizes, recasts, and explains his sin away. A spiritually blind person will not have a biblical sensitivity to or revulsion from sin.

Psalm 36 also points out that if I am not sensitive to my own sin, actively hating it and fleeing from it, I will pursue it all the more. Spiritual blindness leaves us with no internalized system of restraint. In my blindness I will continue to lie and deceive. I will live foolishly and will not do what is good. Even in my quiet meditations, my thoughts will go toward things outside of God’s will for me. The psalmist’s summary is this: the spiritually blind person will not reject what is wrong. This is true of all sinners. All of us struggle with pockets of spiritual blindness, and in those places, none of us sees, hates, or rejects our sin.

This is the spiritual reality we have been considering in the previous two articles. Now we will learn strategies a biblical counselor can use to break through spiritual blindness.

Three Strategies in Data Gathering

Second Corinthians 10:3–5 structures the way I use the data-gathering process to expose spiritual blindness in those I counsel. As he discusses his ministry goals, Paul says:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

My purpose is not to do a thorough exegesis of this passage, which has been most often applied to spiritual warfare and apologetics, but to observe its implications for the way we think about spiritual blindness and practical strategies for change.

Locate the Strongholds

First, the metaphor of a stronghold is helpful. A stronghold is a place that has been fortified against attack. It is strongly built and actively defended. Because of this it is particularly hard to bring down. Let me give you an example of how this manifests itself in a counselee’s life.

Susan did not see herself as a sinner. She saw herself as needy and her needs as consistently unmet. Her neediness was her stronghold. It provided safety from facing the responsibilities of biblical living; it provided an excuse for the way she lived, and it allowed her to consistently place blame on others. Her neediness was a fortress to which she would regularly retreat.

Not only did Susan hide behind her neediness, she actively defended it. She became angry and defensive whenever she believed that I was attacking her view of life. She would fight back, accusing me of being like all the other insensitive men in her life. In defending her neediness, Susan was willfully blind. Every sinner has strongholds of spiritual blindness, places where the blindness is fortified to provide a place of hiding. Here the blindness structures the way the person thinks and acts.

The first thing I want to do in my data gathering is to locate the strongholds. Where is this person failing to see what God wants her to see? What effect does this have on the way she deals with God, self, others, and circumstances?

Demolish the Pretensions

Second, Paul says that he seeks to “demolish . . . every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5). What is a pretension? It is a specious allegation, something that appears to be true but is actually false. Spiritual blindness involves thinking that what is false is actually true. Spiritual blindness means believing lies.

Paul says that these pretensions set themselves up against the truth of God. When I believe a lie, I am no longer open to the truth. The lie in the Garden was not simply an alternative opinion; it set itself up against the truth that God had spoken to Adam and Eve. Lies are always against the truth. When I accept a lie, I am unable to know what I need to know as God would have me know it. My world becomes shaped by lies, rather than the life-giving, freedom-giving, and wisdom-giving knowledge of God. Paul is zealous to put an end to the rule and reign of falsehood in a person’s life. He is zealous to expose unbelief and false belief and demolish them.

We are constantly dealing with pretensions in counseling, things that look and feel as if they are true but are, in fact, false. Susan’s neediness was a pretense. It had the appearance of truth in that it seemed to be validated by her experiences of being sinned against, and it appeared to be reasonable because it was reinforced by the psychologized culture around her. But by believing unbiblically that her most basic problem was her neediness rather than her fallenness, Susan was blindly willful.

Strongholds of blindness and the self-righteousness and defensiveness that surround them rest on a foundation of plausible lies that set themselves up against the truth. That is why the second strategy in data gathering is to expose and demolish the pretensions. We work to see lies uncovered and destroyed.

Take Every Thought Captive

Thirdly, Paul says that his goal is “to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). This phrase pictures the instructive, corrective aspect of data gathering. Our goal is not only to help people to acknowledge that they are blind but also to help them to see biblically. Data gathering can be wonderfully corrective as the person hears our questions, learns to ask the right questions himself, and learns to think biblically about life. We are called to free people from the strongholds and pretensions of spiritual blindness so that we can capture them for Christ, so that their every thought is submissive to him and his truth.

Susan’s mind, once controlled by lies that she actively defended, increasingly became controlled by the truth of Christ. She became more and more sensitive to subtle pretensions and more and more sensitive to her own defensiveness and self-righteousness. Data gathering was used by God to capture Susan’s heart and mind. All sinners need this ministry.

How to Locate the Strongholds

Earlier, I listed ten ways in which people are blind. Typically they:

1. Believe they have an accurate sense of self.

2. See their primary problem as being sinned against.

3. See the difficult things in their lives as trials rather than consequences of their own choices and behavior.

4. See problems as a direct result of their neediness.

5. Think they are wise and have received much wise counsel.

6. Have analyzed their lives and believe they have insight into what is going on and why.

7. Think they have a clear sense of what is valuable and important.

8. See themselves as having a mature knowledge of Scripture and

theology.

9. See themselves as holy; that is, wanting and doing the right things.

10. Already see themselves as repentant.

In each case counselees believe their assessments to be true when, in fact, they are not. However, few counselees will have all of these fortresses of spiritual blindness in their lives at one time.

How, then, do you locate those places where spiritual blindness is particularly strong, influential over the person’s behavior, and well defended? I listen for several things.

I listen for issues in data gathering that make the counselee angry or defensive. When does the counselee feel accused by a question that is actually open-ended, that requires self-disclosure but does not attach blame? It may be that the counselee feels “set up” or accused because my question has touched a stronghold that he does not want to give up, even though he may be unaware of his defensiveness. These moments are crucial times when God is at work revealing the deceitfulness of the heart. I don’t rush on with my data gathering; I stop to help the counselee become aware of his or her anger or defensiveness. I try to help him uncover what he is seeking to protect and how it fits into his life.

Susan was prickly when I asked questions about her past. Early in the questioning process she said, “Why did I expect you to be any different from the rest of my counselors? No one takes what has happened to me seriously.” At this point I had not even commented on her past, and I certainly had not made an accusation. I knew, therefore, that Susan’s statement revealed something important.

I stopped and pointed out to Susan that I was not making an accusation. As I asked additional questions about her defensive reaction, important counseling issues began to emerge—things I needed to know and Susan needed to see. Susan explained herself as a person who was forced to live with very significant unmet needs. This perspective did a very important thing for her: it excused her from responsibility for wrong things she had done and for their consequences in other people’s lives. It was a very valuable piece of her life, and Susan actively defended herself against anyone who challenged it by saying that such a person did not love or understand her. But now, in data gathering, God began to show Susan what this stronghold really was.

As counselors, we must be good listeners and good observers as we ask questions. We need to take notice of moments of anger or defensiveness and make the counselee aware of them. Sometimes the tense and uncomfortable moments of counseling are the very best moments of change. They tend to be the moments when God is putting issues of the heart on the table where they can be seen. They are not moments to be avoided but moments of redemptive opportunity to be creatively utilized.

I look for times in data gathering when the person is closed and self-protective. Notice the questions to which you would expect a ready answer from the counselee, but instead she struggles to answer, sits in silence, tells you that she doesn’t know what to say, or gives you an answer that discloses nothing about herself or her situation.

Pay attention, too, to the way a person tells her story. One of the most subtle forms of self-protection is the way people recount what has happened to them. It’s been my observation that people are often absent from their own life story! What I mean is that their telling of the story features the behavior of others and the difficulty of the situation, but it does not disclose much about their own thoughts, desires, choices, and actions.

I often use a video analogy to highlight this for people. I’ll say, “We’ve been watching your story on video, and I’ve noticed something interesting: you’re not in it! The camera is on other people and on the tough situations, but it never seems to be on you. I would like to go back and talk about the same relationships and the same situations, only this time I want to put the camera on you. I want to focus on what you were thinking, wanting, and doing as these things were going on.”

I have learned that it is important for me not to fill the silences when people are struggling to answer. I let them know that I am willing to wait and that it is important for them to answer. I stop and help them understand why it was difficult for them to do so. God uncovers things in these moments.

I have also learned not to be satisfied with non-answers. I lovingly let people know that their answer hasn’t told me anything. I then rephrase the question and ask it again because my goal is to uncover the heart behind the self-protectiveness.

I regularly do two things when a person is not self-disclosing as he talks about his own life. First, I often give the counselee a case study to explore. I lay out a problematic situation or a difficult relationship and ask what he would be thinking if he were the person in the situation. I ask what his goals would be and how he would seek to accomplish them. I then try to build connections between the responses to the case study and the counselee’s everyday life. This exercise has often been extremely helpful in uncovering the heart.

Next, I often give homework designed to reveal heart themes to me and to the counselee. I ask the person to read Scripture passages, respond to the questions, and bring a written response the next time we meet. When we get together again, I ask the person to tell me what she has learned about herself. Have any themes come up again and again? I discuss the themes I see emerging from the answers. I have found this to be very eye-opening for counselor and counselee alike. In all these ways, the counselor is seeking ways to get the person “out of the bunker” of self-protectiveness.

I look for instances when the counselee places blame for his own behavior at the feet of others. One of the most powerful strongholds of spiritual blindness is the fortress of blame. We all find creative ways to blame others for what we have done. From the child who says, “He did it first!” to the man who says he committed adultery because his wife didn’t pay him enough attention, we sinners tend to hide in the fortress of other people’s sins. And we vigorously justify our own sin in the face of another’s mistreatment.

At these times I stop to ask, “Are you really saying that . . . ?” questions. I want the person to face the implications of his words. So I ask the adulterous man, “Are you saying that there is a direct connection between your wife’s neglect and your unfaithfulness?” Or, “Explain the connection you see between your adultery and your wife’s attitude toward you.” Or, “What other responses could you have had to the hurtfulness of your wife’s response?” I want my counselee to stop hiding behind the sins of others so he can do something constructive with his own actions and attitudes.

I listen for occasions when the counselee has clearly erected a logical defense of his viewpoint and actions. People who come to counseling aren’t always ready to submit their attitudes and actions to biblical examination. They often come asking for help without really wanting it, and seeking counsel that they turn around and reject. Many are like the Pharisee who was in the temple praying to God but whose words actually told God that he didn’t need him.

I listen carefully when a person doesn’t reveal his thoughts or actions to understand himself better but instead defends himself and actively debates when he is questioned. Often people come to counseling armed with well-rehearsed defenses. They argue from past experience; they may quote a passage of Scripture or a biblical story; they may cite a book or an article; they may refer to what an expert said; or they may just argue that they have given this a lot of thought and they are convinced they are right.

I try to accomplish three things with my response. First, I try to help the person realize that debating is not usually a help-seeking activity; it’s a way of defending what they have done. Second, I urge the person to be willing to hold up everything in his life for biblical inspection. God will use it as a means of blessing, not condemnation. Third, I ask questions to help him examine his thoughts and actions from the perspective of Scripture.

How to Expose and Demolish the Pretensions

Paul used strong language in 2 Corinthians 10:3–5 because he understood the power of the plausible lie. It is a significant part of the system of unbelief for any sinner. All of us have believed lies, and most of them tend to have a ring of truth to them. Falsehood is seductive simply because it dresses itself as truth. After all, the Enemy of our souls is called the “father of lies,” and his primary work is to seduce us with well-dressed lies.

An important clarification needs to be made here. Paul does not tell us to demolish the person to whom God has called us to minister but the system of lies that has enslaved him. Exposing plausible lies does not have to be loud, harsh, or unkind. We should always speak the truth in love. At the same time, we should have a lively hatred of falsehood and its harvest of destruction in those who believe it.

The plausible lie tends to distort a person’s view of life (his functional theology, if you will) at three key points: the person’s view of self, his view of God, and his view of the situation. If the counselee has believed a lie in any of these three areas, it will radically affect his response to the situation in which God, in his sovereignty, has placed him. I look for evidence of functional disbelief, unbelief, or falsehood in each of the three areas. As I use data gathering to locate those places where the person is blindly willful, I do the following:

I seek to uncover evidence of an inaccurate view of self. Sinners don’t tend to have an accurate view of who they are. They tend to think of themselves as better than they are in reality. Pride is much more endemic than self-loathing. So I look for those places where the counselee’s view of self simply doesn’t fit the attitudes he’s expressed and the actions he’s taken.

I seek to uncover these inaccuracies in two primary ways. First, I have found that a focused journal can be used by God to open the eyes of a person with a distorted picture of himself. I do not ask counselees to journalize everything that is going on; for most people this would be so intimidating that it would never get done. I keep the journal focused; that is, I only ask them to journal about certain important situations in their lives and respond in the journal to five specific questions:

1. What was going on in the situation?

2. What were you thinking and feeling as it was going on?

3. What did you do in response?

4. What did you want, or what were you seeking to accomplish by what you did?

5. What was the result?

I ask the counselee to keep the journal for two or three weeks. Then I take it back and read it through, looking for themes and patterns that emerge. Next, I take a highlighter and mark all the places where those themes are revealed. Then, in a session with the counselee, I return the journal and have him read it, right then, paying special attention to the places I have highlighted. I finally ask the counselee what he has learned about himself as he reread the journal. God has used this exercise repeatedly to open blind eyes. It seems to be particularly effective because the counselee is not responding to my opinions but to his own words!

Rachel was a very bitter woman who was completely blind to it. She believed that she was fundamentally kind, patient, and understanding. She lived with her elderly grandmother, whom she cared for, so she saw herself as a loving servant. Yet Rachel was very bitter that this duty had been put in her lap. She cursed her siblings, who never offered any help. She saw herself as patient and understanding because she had worked at the same job with the same people for twelve years. Yet she had regular run-ins with her boss and had testy relationships with most of her coworkers.

Rachel’s view of herself did not include bitterness, so there were many things in her life that she had not faced. The journal was the breakthrough for Rachel. After she wrote in the journal for three weeks, I took it to read. I didn’t have a highlighter with me; I had a green marker, so I underlined, in green, every instance of bitterness in Rachel’s journal. The pages were literally green with bitterness. The next time I met with her, I asked her to read her journal, explaining what I had done. About halfway through her reading, Rachel began to cry. She looked up and said, “I am a very bitter lady!” The plausible lie of her inaccurate view of self had been exposed.

“Real-time” data gathering can also expose a person’s inaccurate view of self. In the counseling session I get to experience the person as he or she really is. The controlling person will tend to be controlling in counseling. The angry person will tend to get angry at some point. The self-righteous person will be defensive and unteachable. The fearful person will struggle with trust. I find it very important to get counselees to examine the dynamics of their relationship with me. Here it is harder for them to hide because I have been on site with them. I ask them to be very honest about their struggles in relating to me, and I am very honest about my experience in relating to them. As we unpack the dynamics of our relationship and themes emerge, the plausible lies that the person has believed about self are revealed.

I seek to uncover functional distortions in the person’s view of God. People develop an experiential theology that seems plausible because it flows out of their interpretation of what has gone on in their lives. The more this interpretation—and not Scripture—shapes their view of God, the greater the gap between their confessional (official) and their functional (actual, day-to-day) theology. Yet their functional theology will seem to have a ring of logic and truth because it fits their view of life.

For example, Joe’s God was distant and uninvolved. Joe said that in his dark moments of depression, when he needed God the most, he never felt as if God were near. He said he knew that God worked miracles, but he struggled because God did not answer his prayers. Joe saw God as a harsh judge, ready to mete out consequences to anyone who “messed up.” Yet in all of this Joe called himself a believer.

How did I come to know the content of Joe’s functional theology and how did I help Joe see the gap between what he said he believed and what he really believed? I paid attention to the way Joe asked questions about God, and I helped Joe to understand the impact of those questions on the way he lived his life. For example, Joe would say, “I don’t understand why God isn’t working in my life.” (This problem has been raised by many I have counseled.) The question is based on an unbiblical assumption—that for some reason God forsakes certain of his children. Such a question will not lead the questioners to a better understanding of their situation or to a further exercise of biblical faith.

My strategy was this: as Joe asked questions about God, I helped him to see the false assumptions upon which the questions were based. Some of these were: that feelings are a reliable indicator of the presence of God; that suffering is a sign of God’s punishment; that if I don’t see the evidence of God’s hand in my life, it means he is not answering my prayers; and that God is distant rather than near. I helped Joe to see the unbiblical nature of his questions by asking the same questions, but reframing them with biblical assumptions. For example, “God declares that he is near, Joe; why does he seem so distant to you?” Or, “Joe, God is at work in your life; what are the things that keep you from seeing it?” Or, “Joe, let’s look at the things for which you have prayed and see how God has answered.” Each question dealt with Joe’s concern, but each one was reframed by biblical assumptions. They exposed the plausible lies about God that Joe had believed, and pointed instead to true biblical faith.

Listen to the God-talk of your counselees. Listen to the questions they ask about God’s person and work. Listen for plausible theological lies. Few people will suddenly reject the God of the Scriptures to become avowed atheists. However, many fall away into a cold and distant theological cynicism as the God of their functional theology becomes one who is worthy of neither worship nor respect.

I look for evidence of the person letting go of the means of grace and Christian growth, such as daily personal worship, the gatherings of the body of Christ, Christian friendship and fellowship, the teaching of the Word, and corporate worship. I seek to understand why they have withdrawn, hoping to expose and understand the lies that have led to a weakened faith in God and a loss of motivation for pursuing deeper communion with him and his people.

First Corinthians 10:13 can be the design for a helpful homework assignment to uncover lies a person has embraced about God and his work. Paul seems to address four plausible lies about God that we are tempted to believe as he makes four declarations about God and his work. I set up the homework this way:

1. Declaration: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.”

Question: Where have you been tempted to think that your situation is unique and that you have been singled out for particular suffering?

2. Declaration: “God is faithful.”

Question: Where have you tended to believe that God has been unfaithful to his promises to you?

3. Declaration: “He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”

Question: “Where have you thought that you have been given more than you can handle or that the extreme pressures of the situation have caused you to sin?

4. Declaration: “He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

Question: “Where have you tended to feel trapped, with no reasonable way to deal with your situation?”

This focused assignment will reveal to both counselor and counselee the lies the counselee has believed about the person and work of the Lord.

I seek to uncover distortions in the way the person thinks about his situation. As you do data gathering, keep in mind that the person is not providing an objective, mechanical recitation of his or her situation. He is not giving pure “people, places, and events.” Because every human being is an interpreter, every person tries to make sense out of what has gone on in his life. Everyone has a view of life, and everyone has a view of his present circumstances, whether he is aware of it or not. It is actually impossible for a person to give pure history or a pure summary of what is presently happening. He or she will always bare a personalized view of things; and because of this, I need to know the things for which I should be listening. Some of the most common indicators of a distorted perspective (again, the plausible lies) are given below.

I listen for interpretations, the times when the counselee says, “I think this means this.” No counselee stops and says, “Okay, Counselor, I am now going to share with you the sense that I made out of this event.” Interpretations come on the fly in endless variety. You have to be alert and listening. For example, if the person says, “I thought about it and decided that I should. . . .” she is giving you an interpretation. Stop and dig it out and seek to understand it. A person may say, “I know exactly why this keeps happening to me. . . .” Again, we are not being offered unadulterated fact but an interpretation that can reveal distortions in the way the person thinks about his life.

I also listen for evaluations, for all judgments of good or bad, right or wrong, true or false, important or unimportant, success or failure, possible or impossible. In fact, I constantly ask questions to draw out the person’s evaluations. I’ll ask, “What do you think would be the right thing to do here?” or “What was most important to you when that happened?” or “What did you think was true or false in what they said to you?” or “What made you think that this situation was impossible?” Each of these probes the evaluations that are the basis for the decisions and actions a person takes. These questions are meant to reveal the heart behind their responses.

Next, I listen for purposes and goals. What does the person want out of—or in the midst of—her situation? What is she really living for in the situation in which God has placed her? Listen for purpose. Listen for goals. Listen for statements that tell you what the counselee is going after. Everyone is living for something. Ask questions that get at the situational goals of the counselee. Are they the goals God has for her? For example, when a person tells us what she did or how she responded, we need to ask what she was seeking to accomplish by that behavior. Require the counselee to look at what her treasures are and how those treasures shape the way she responds. Ask questions that require her to think about motives, to answer from the heart.

I listen for doctrine or theology. I don’t mean that I check to see if the person has read L. Berkhof’s Systematic Theology recently! I listen for formal and informal statements of belief and the person’s functional theology. I listen very carefully every time the person quotes a passage. (How was he using it? What sense did it make to him?) I listen every time a person refers to a particular doctrine. (How does he understand this biblical truth, and how is he applying it to his situation?) I listen carefully every time the counselee alludes to a biblical story. (How is he identifying his situation with the biblical account? What connections is he making?) I listen when the person quotes a Christian preacher, teacher, or author. (What meaning has he drawn that has helped him make sense of his own life?)

All people theologize about their situations, though most people are not aware that they do! And most counselees will not make direct theological observations. These will come mixed in with the telling of their stories, so we need to listen carefully and ask questions that draw this material out.

I listen for emotions. I take notice of the feelings expressed as the counselee talks about his situation. Joy, anger, fear, hope, discouragement, frustration, sadness, gratitude, bitterness, despair, and contentment are all windows into the heart. All need to be unpacked as they relate to the way a person interacts with the things that God has put in his life. It is my habit to stop and comment on the emotion when it is expressed and then unpack it with the counselee so that I can understand it and so that he can see how it relates to the way he is looking at his life.

As I listen for emotion, I ask myself whether or not the emotions are appropriate. That is, do these emotions flow out of biblical thinking on the situation? For example, when the Israelites grumbled about God’s provision of manna and looked back longingly to Egypt, their emotions were inappropriate. They did not flow out of faith and trust in God and a view of life that was shaped by his Word. One of the easiest ways to expose the plausible lies a person has embraced is to pay attention to his emotions and to ask questions that reveal his feelings.

We sinners are people who are blindly willful. We tend to believe the plausible lie. There are pretensions embedded in each of our lives that need to be ferreted out and destroyed. This was one of Paul’s fundamental ministry goals, and it should be ours as well. As we seek to know the counselee through data gathering, we should also be on a mission to bring into the light all the subtle lies of the Enemy that lure people away from God’s pathway.

How to Take Every Thought Captive to Christ

This is Paul’s final summary of his ministry: “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). This should be the goal of all we do in ministry as well. When we ask good questions that flow out of a distinctly biblical view of life, we require those we counsel to think about themselves in ways that they have never thought before. In asking the questions that they have not asked, in ways they have not asked them, God can use us to break through the walls of spiritual blindness and promote biblical insight.

I remember a woman saying to me after a series of questions, “I am learning so much about myself and God and the choices I have made!” I had not gotten out my Bible to formally instruct her. Her learning was the result of data gathering. The process had confronted her spiritual blindness, and it was beginning to bring her thoughts captive to Christ.

Spiritual blindness is attempting to see without Christ, no more possible than trying to see physically without eyes. Paul says in Colossians 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” If my thoughts about myself, others, my situation, and God aren’t captive to Christ, they are captive to the hollow and deceptive philosophy of the world. When your counselees realize this and see the specific patterns in which they need a new way of thinking, they will be more receptive to teaching and confrontation. They will understand how biblical solutions truly fit the problems they face.

Notice how Paul describes the world’s philosophy: “hollow and deceptive.” It’s deceptive. It appears to be right. It appears attractive, with good arguments and tight logic. It seems to have substance with its years of study and research. Yet it is hollow. It doesn’t have substance. It doesn’t offer real answers. It doesn’t lead to true insight. It doesn’t deliver what it promises. It is empty. Why? Because it doesn’t submit to Christ. All it can ever offer is what people see—people who are sinners and struggle with spiritual blindness—and that is why it will always come up short. It will always prove in the end to be lacking.

In counseling we recognize that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ” and we seek to bring every thought captive to him. We recognize that all true seeing begins with Jesus, yet we also know that we counsel people who think they see but are blind; who think they understand but whose insights are hollow and deceptive.

For that reason we seek to expose and destroy the well fortified, actively defended strongholds of spiritual blindness. We seek to reveal and demolish pretensions, those plausible lies that delude every sinner. Yet, having done this, we are not done. Our ultimate goal is to bring the willfully blind and the blindly willful captive to Christ, so that they may see with biblical clarity and live in thankful obedience to him. As we depend upon him, God can use our questions to expose and invade spiritual darkness, capturing the thoughts of our counselees so that they would be obedient to Christ.

Helping Counselees Become Aware

of Their Life Agendas

“The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters,

but a man of understanding draws them out.” (Proverbs 20:5)

Heart-revealing questions. The Scriptures give us many windows into the heart and what rules it. Here are a few examples of questions meant to help counselees examine personal heart themes and patterns of thought, motive, and desire. Answering them can help them begin to acknowledge the true treasures of their hearts and how those treasures shape their responses to God, others, and the situations of life.

1. When does the counselee (CE) tend to experience fear, worry, or anxiety (Matt. 6:19–34)?

2. Where has the CE struggled with disappointment (Prov. 13:12, 19)?

3. In what situations does the CE struggle with anger (James 4:1–2; Prov. 11:23)?

4. Where does the CE encounter problems in relationships (James 4:1–10)?

5. What situations of life has the CE found particularly difficult (1 Cor. 10:13–14)?

6. Where are the CE’s patterns of avoidance? What things does he regularly seek to avoid?

7. Where has the CE experienced regular problems in his spiritual life or in his relationship with God (Ps. 73)?

8. Where or when has the CE tended to doubt the truths of Scripture (Rom. 1:25)?

9. What is the CE’s true agenda for others? What is his definition of a good relationship? What are his expectations for others? What silent demands does he make of the people around him (James 4:1–2)?

10. Where does the CE struggle with bitterness (Eph. 4:31; Prov. 18:19)?

11. Where has the CE struggled with regret, being tempted to say, “If only . . .”?

12. What past experiences are hard for the CE to let go?

13. When does the CE experience problems in prayer and personal worship (James 4:3–4)?

14. Where does the CE struggle with envy? What does he tend to covet (Prov. 14:30)?

Appendix 4: Doctrines that Drive Homework

One methodological distinctive of biblical counseling is the regular use of homework. Good, well-tailored homework can play a significant part in the counseling and change process. Jay Adams writes, “Biblical counselors have found homework to be one of the most vital and effective forces that they can marshal in counseling.”¹ Why the use of homework? There is certainly no “proof text” for it; Jesus didn’t tell the rich young ruler to write down a “log list” of personal failings and return next week! Is using homework, therefore, simply a matter of stumbling upon a technique that has proven itself pragmatically?

Homework has been a consistent emphasis in biblical counseling because its use is driven by cardinal biblical doctrines. For the biblical counselor, theology is not simply a matter of the content of faith and practice. Biblical, exegetically derived theology also addresses the process of changing beliefs and behaviors: both counseling methods (from the counselor’s side of the process) and progressive sanctification (from the counselee’s side). The methods of biblical counseling emerge out of Scriptural theology. What the biblical counselor does in counseling—and has counselees do—must be as biblically consistent as what he says. Homework is a method that is a logical and practical extension of the beliefs that make biblical counseling distinctive.

Five doctrines drive the use of homework. After developing the rationale for the use and design of homework, we will address particular kinds of homework appropriate to various phases of the counseling and change process.

Doctrine of Scripture

Sam has been a long-time church member. In recent years he has faced difficulties: his wife died after a lengthy illness; his pharmacy business has suffered from new competition; an old football injury has acted up and made him gimpy; and the congregation committed itself to a building program against Sam’s vocal opposition. Sam has become increasingly sour as life has not gone his way. He is bitter, disillusioned, unhappy, full of complaints, at odds with God, neighbor, and circumstances. How do you help Sam? What part might homework play?

Biblical counselors by definition are committed to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. They seek to look at human problems from the perspective of God’s Word. For example, the Bible discusses Sam’s problem at great length in many passages on the problem of “grumbling” because of what we crave or fear in situations of stress.² Biblical counselors want to help their counselees think biblically about life issues as well. Sam’s mind needs to be renewed; he needs to process his difficulties God’s way.

The biblical counselor provides much more than a listening ear and comforting words of sympathy. You listen. You sympathize with a man “tempted, tried, and sometimes failing.” But you also lead Sam to understand himself and his problem in light of who Christ is: “Even when my heart is breaking, he, my comfort, helps my soul.”³ Biblical understanding leads to actions, doing what is biblically appropriate in each part of his situation. Homework? The biblical counselor works to get the counselee into the Word of God right away so that the counselee’s agenda for counseling becomes increasingly biblical. Sam may want to unload complaints and prove to himself and you that life is hopeless. God wants Sam to repent of grumbling and live for his glory in the tough times.

Homework enables the counselee to mine the riches of Scripture for understanding, conviction, promises, and guidance. Biblically designed homework gives the counselor the delightful opportunity of surprising the counselee with the personal, practical wisdom of Scripture that speaks to the specifics of his life: “Let’s look at people in hardship and how they were tempted to respond (Num. 11–21). Let’s look at what God is up to in the midst of hardships that make people sense how fragile their lives are (Deut. 8). Let’s look at what God wants you to do as you deal with your grumbling and withdrawal by turning back to him (Phil. 2:1–16).”

Biblical homework calls for commitment. At the outset of counseling it places the counselee under the authority of God in Scripture. All of God’s ways are right and all of his words are true, so homework calls the counselee to test each question by Scripture. It calls for counselees to invest effort in study that leads to biblical wisdom about the issues of life. Homework asks the counselee to lay down his interpretation and pick up God’s. It requires him to have a life driven and shaped by the principles of the Bible rather than by emotion and personal desire.

In short, homework practically applies the doctrine of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture to the life of the counselee. It calls for thinking and acting consistent with its teaching. Our doctrine of Scripture calls for homework that gets counselees into the Bible.

Doctrine of Human Responsibility

Bill and Fran presented quite a picture when they entered my office. Bill was rigid and withdrawn while Fran was in tears before the first question was asked. I looked over their Personal Data Inventory,⁴ introduced myself, and asked my first question. “Tell me,” I said, “what has brought you here today? What is the problem as you see it?” Simultaneously, they each said one word to summarize the problem. Bill said, “Fran”; Fran said, “Bill”!

Now, as a counselor, I was in trouble! Neither Bill nor Fran had come intending to be a counselee. Each thought the other was the problem. Each was saying that if the other were fixed, everything would be fine. In this situation, a counselor doesn’t really have any counselees in the office. Neither person was taking responsibility for the problems in their relationship or for the changes that must take place. Counseling with Bill and Fran would go nowhere unless each began to accept responsibility for existing problems and needed changes. How can homework help refocus counselees?

Obviously, the issue of responsibility is of central concern to the biblical counselor. Scripture says that each one of us stands responsible before God. Each person will give an account for every word and deed. God calls us to honest self-examination, honest confession, and honest repentance. He calls us to fully participate in his work of change. The call of Scripture is to be more concerned about my log than my neighbor’s speck. God requires that people stop pointing the finger and start examining the heart.

The doctrine of Scripture calls for homework that gets counselees listening to God. This doctrine of human responsibility calls for another genre of homework: looking at oneself. Homework is designed to direct the focus of counseling. Proper self-examination takes the primary focus away from the actions of others and onto the counselee’s responses to circumstances. Homework moves the focus away from the counseling “professional” and the mystique of a weekly hour and makes Bill and Fran responsible for their day-by-day participation in the process of change. Homework also directs the focus of hope. It moves people from hopes that other people or circumstances will change and make life easier. It moves people from hopes that the counselor will do powerful things to create change. Looking at personal responsibility moves hope to God and to the power of the gospel to change the counselee himself.

In the early stages of counseling, homework requires the counselee to begin to understand himself before God, to entrust himself to God, and to walk responsibly before him. Homework helps hold the counselee responsible for the changes that need to take place in relationship to God and neighbor. He does not come to counseling to sit passively before a guru. Rather, the counselor is a guide and teacher showing the counselee his part in the process of change.

Human beings are responsible, and good homework emerges out of this fact. All of this is important because the momentum of the Fall and of our culture is in the opposite direction. Bill and Fran live in a culture that has institutionalized blame-shifting. The “Inner Child,” “co-dependent,” “dysfunctional family,” “adult-child” systems all place the blame for the counselee’s attitude and behavior at someone else’s feet. Not only that, but our fallen hearts’ natural inclinations are to excuse ourselves and blame others while we are blind to our own wrongs. You begin to understand how important homework can be in getting the counselee active and involved in examining self and making changes out of hope and dependency on God. Our doctrine of human responsibility calls for homework that helps counselees to stop and look at themselves accurately.

Doctrine of God

Jane had a tremor in her voice as she acknowledged her anxiety about “trying counseling one more time. I’m a nervous wreck. I’ve seen eight different therapists. I was hospitalized and had electroconvulsive therapy. I’ve been on more kinds of prescription meds than I can remember. I’ve tried biofeedback. I’ve tried New Year’s resolutions. I’ve tried vacations. I’ve tried getting jobs and seeing if that would help. I’ve tried support groups. I’ve gone to inner healers to see if spirituality could heal my inner wounds. I’ve burned out all my friends because I’m such a drain on them. I’ve tried. . . .” How could homework play a part in helping Jane?

Biblical counselors stand apart from all other systems in that they believe God is the One who changes people. The distinctive of biblical counseling is its trust in a redeeming God who has the power to change the human heart. The biblical counselor sees himself not as the creator of change but as an instrument in the hands of One who can create change superior to anything a counselor or counselee could ask or imagine.

The problem is that people lose sight of God in the midst of their circumstances and the self-centeredness of their flesh. This is not a new phenomenon. Israel, camped in front of the Red Sea, was terrified as she realized that the army of Egypt was in hot pursuit. Israel lost sight of God, his loving control, and his redemptive purpose. The first few verses of Exodus 14 make clear that the situation was not out of control, that Israel had not been left to herself, and that God had a purpose for the entire experience.

The people of Israel were not unlike Jane. Like Israel, she has lost sight of God, his lordship over circumstances and his power to enable her to do all he has called her to do. Often counselees fail to interpret their circumstances in light of the Fact of facts: God IS, and he maintains his loving, redemptive control over all things. Since they fail to refer their situation to God, his character, and his work, they respond as if they are alone. This lack of God-awareness shapes their thinking and behavior.

Homework offers a wonderful opportunity to put God back in sight. Homework that points to God and his work for his people gives Jane a radically different interpretation of her circumstances. Homework that gives the counselee a God-awareness helps clarify what things in the situations are her responsibility and what things she must entrust to God. God-centered homework tends to draw the counselee away from dependency on the counselor into a deeper and more confident dependence on God. The counselee who has caught sight of God can face her own failure, weakness, and inability without fear; her hope is in God. She is able to give disciplined, anxiety-free attention to the things God has called her to do while entrusting to God the things she is unable to do.

The existence and work of God should become the main interpreter of personal experience for the counselee. Scriptural studies that begin to bring God into view are vital. These studies should include:

1. Who God is: His character and attributes.

2. How God works: His sanctifying process, sovereign control, and grace and forgiveness.

3. Counselee’s relationship to God: identity in Christ and adoption as sons; how to meet God; how to serve God in the Holy Spirit.

4. Case studies from Scripture: God at work on behalf of his people; God the fulfiller of his promises.

Homework focusing on these truths about God will put the counselee’s circumstances and problems in proper perspective. Truth draws the counselee’s eyes away from the dilemmas of the moment to look with confidence and hope to the author and finisher of his or her faith. It is important to do more than speak these truths to counselees. They need to be involved in the process of searching the Scriptures so that God’s powerful presence is indelibly stamped in their hearts. Our doctrine of God calls for homework that has counselees meet God.

Doctrine of Sin

As Jim and Mary came in for marriage counseling, it was clear that their problems were not new. Their marriage had always been full of conflict. Jim was a demanding, perfectionistic workaholic who saw failure as a curse and free time as a sign of irresponsibility. His pattern was to make heavy demands on Mary and judge her harshly when her work was not a raving success. His interactions with Mary and their children were negative and cynical.

Mary was an angry woman who daily rehearsed to herself Jim’s wrongs against her. She was able to recall these incidents in elaborate detail. In her own way she made daily war with Jim, striking back at him again and again. However, Mary did not see herself as an angry person. She was quite self-righteous, viewing herself as a helpless victim of a hellish life. How do we understand Mary’s problem? How will homework contribute to her understanding and the counselor’s understanding?

The problems of counselees run deeper than behavior. They run deeper than feelings and the labels our culture pastes on problems: low self-esteem, co-dependency, compulsion, borderline personality, impulse disorder, adult-child, and the like. There are problems that are more fundamental than habits, actions, words, and self-talk. The biblical counselor is concerned with more than exchanging behavior for behavior, feeling for feeling, cognition for cognition. The biblical counselor is concerned about the problem at its roots.

Distinctive to the biblical counselor is his concern with the “heart,” as the Bible defines it. This focus is radical in a culture that doesn’t even believe that the heart exists. In modern psychology the term functions only as an anachronism. In Christianized psychologies the term is loaded with all sorts of secular baggage: we hear of “wounded hearts” or “needy hearts” or the heart as a “storehouse of repressed wounds and damaged memories.” None of these definitions is true. The cause of human problems is inevitably misdiagnosed when secular categories control.

If fundamental, lasting change is going to take place, the counselee must acquire a biblical definition of sin that includes a discussion of the heart.

Scripture declares that the roots of human problems are in the heart. It is the root system of the heart (Heb. 4:12; Gen. 6:5) that produces the fruit of a person’s words and deeds. What controls the heart shapes behavior. What rules the heart influences each part of the person’s life.

Christ put it in plain and simple language. Good comes out of good stored up in the heart and evil comes out of evil stored up in the heart. Problems of fruit are directly related to problems of root. Yet few counselees come in with an agenda to examine the heart. Most often they have an external agenda. They want the problem removed or fixed so that they can be happy again. Or their internal agenda is simply to remove unpleasant feelings.

Ezekiel 14:5 says that God has another agenda: “to recapture the hearts” of people estranged from him. He recaptures the hearts of his people so that they will serve him alone. The biblical counselor must have this heart agenda as well.

Here again homework becomes very important. Scripture functions like a mirror. As the counselee looks intently into it, he sees himself as he really is. Hebrews 4:12 says that Scripture is the great revealer of the mysteries of the heart. Scripture is able to cut through and expose the thoughts and intentions that shape the behavior of the counselee.

The counselee needs to see that his heart is interacting with all that is going on around him. If his heart is controlled by something other than God, the counselee will not respond to his circumstances in the way God has ordained. For example, James presents the cause of human conflict as the desires that battle within the heart. Because of these “encamped” desires people make war with one another. It is vital that the counselee recognizes and owns his heart’s thoughts and intentions, since these shape his response to life. How does specific homework grow out of the doctrine of sin?

I asked Mary to keep a journal of her conversations with Jim. I told her that I wanted her to journal for a few weeks and then I would keep the journal for a week to look through it. I knew that anger would be a theme in her journal, and I was right. I took the journal and marked all the places where anger was evident. As Mary was journaling, I assigned her studies in Ezekiel 14:1–5, Luke 6:43–45, and James 4. Mary began to see her heart, her anger, and the way it shaped her behavior toward Jim.

A carefully assigned and organized journal coupled with biblical homework on the heart will direct the counselee to take responsibility for root change. It will correct the false cultural assumptions about the cause of the counselee’s problem and cut through the blindness caused by the deceitfulness of sin.

Sin is identified in light of the alternatives: righteousness, peacemaking, love, obedience, and problem solving. As Mary identifies what is wrong (put off, as in Eph. 4), she also starts to see what God would have her do instead (put on) as she embraces the gospel of Christ. Homework gets specific with the skills of peacemaking: forgiveness seeking, learning to confront lovingly and humbly, and doing acts of tangible love even when our neighbor is acting like an enemy. Homework becomes the occasion for planning those “good works which God prepared in advance for us to do” in particular situations (Eph. 2:10). Our doctrine of sin calls for homework that helps counselees rethink the way they understand their problems and guides them into specific life changes.

Doctrine of Progressive Sanctification

Josh said, “But I’ve tried. I’ve done all the things God says to do to deal with lust, and nothing works. I’ve repented. I’ve prayed. I’ve yielded up control to the Lord. I’ve rebuked Satan. Sometimes I think I’ve solved the problem once for all, and then a month later I fall again.” The counselor inquired further about several things: the circumstances of Josh’s tumbles into immorality, whether Josh had ever let any mature Christian men in on his struggle, and whether Josh was looking for a once-for-all solution. The answers were predictable. Josh knew virtually nothing about the way the Christian life works and the means of grace God employs.

Berkhof describes the process of sanctification this way: “. . . sanctification is a work of which God and not man is the author. Only the advocates of the so-called free will can claim that it is a work of man. Nevertheless, it differs from regeneration in that man can, and is duty bound to, strive for ever-increasing sanctification by using the means which God has placed at his disposal. This is clearly taught in Scripture: 2 Corinthians 7:1; Colossians 3:5–14; 1 Peter 1:22.”⁵

What are the means God employs to sanctify his children? The three that are most prominent in the New Testament are the Word of God, God’s providence, and the edifying ministry of the body of Christ. These are what counseling is about. Counseling is the ministry of the Word from believer to believer in the context of what God is doing in a person’s situation. Biblical counseling at once recognizes the Word’s authority, God’s sovereignty over circumstances, and the body of Christ’s call to person-to-person ministry.

What does all of this have to do with homework? Homework provides an opportunity for the counselee to understand God’s sanctifying purpose and to participate in his sanctifying process. Homework asks the counselee to participate in the disciplines of sanctification, particularly the study of the Word, consistency of applying the Word in acts of faith and obedience, and submission to the edifying, encouraging, admonishing ministry of the body of Christ.

Homework teaches the counselee that growth in grace doesn’t come by lightning bolts and magical encounters but by humble, honest, obedient, and practical application of God’s Word to the specifics of everyday experience. In sanctification God calls his children to follow, stand fast, forsake, trust, put off and put on, run, obey, put to death, study, flee, and resist. Homework takes this call of God and applies it with specificity to the counselee’s situation. Homework takes resistance, forsaking, following, and putting on out of the abstract to make them concrete. Homework asks the counselee to do, in the context of his particular circumstance, what God has called him to do as a participant in his sanctifying mercy.

Homework also fits well with the extended process of sanctification. Metaphors of sanctification in Scripture, such as running a race, growing from infancy to adulthood, and the growth from seed to mature plant, depict sanctification as a lengthy process. In reality, it is a process that encompasses our entire lives. Homework helps nudge the counselee away from the hope for a quick fix and helps the counselee to buy into God’s step-by-step process of change. Homework charts the significance of each step made in God’s name, erecting milestones that can be looked back upon in praise to God. A homework journal or notebook will function as an encouraging record of progress as God uses counseling to continue his sanctifying work.

Finally, homework challenges the “right to privacy” attitude that many Christians retain in the Christian experience. Often sanctification is thought of as a private matter between a person and God, but it is impossible to read Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12 and conclude that sanctification is an individual concern. The nature of homework assumes accountability and submission to a fellow believer. It calls for the counselee to be honest before God and one of his instruments of redemption, the counselor. It calls for the counselee to forsake the pride and fear that make him hide from those God has provided to help him, and to step out in honesty, thanking God for his provision. Our doctrine of progressive sanctification calls for homework that encourages counselees in the process of change and connects them to other people in an ongoing way.

Summary

• Our doctrine of Scripture calls for homework that gets counselees into the Bible.

• Our doctrine of human responsibility calls for homework that has counselees stop to look at themselves accurately.

• Our doctrine of God calls for homework that has counselees meet God.

• Our doctrine of sin calls for homework that helps counselees rethink the way they understand their problems and guides them into specific life changes.

• Our doctrine of progressive sanctification calls for homework that encourages counselees in the process of change and connects them to other people in an ongoing way.

Homework is an essential part of biblical counseling. Using it is consistent with the doctrines that are the foundation for truly biblical counseling, as seen in the examples above. Homework provides a way for those doctrines to become practical operating principles in the life of each counselee.

Appendix 5: Homework and Four Phases of Counseling

Fear increasingly controlled Sue’s life. When she sought counseling, she told me that she had rid her house of knives because she was so afraid that she would sleepwalk and hurt her child or husband. She constantly worried that she had contracted some fatal disease. Sue irrationally distrusted her husband. She fretted that she had said or done something to hurt, anger, or alienate her few friends. She was afraid of counseling because “no one would understand what I’m going through” and “I’ll be put away.” How could homework penetrate this nightmare and help Sue learn to trust both God and her counselor?

Psalm 37 gives the fretful and fearful someone to trust, someone whose care runs deeper than their problems. Psalm 37 openly discusses frightening life situations. And Psalm 37 challenges fearful people to examine their own lives. At the end of our first session, I asked Sue to read this psalm several times during the next week and to ask herself, “What is God saying to me?” Over subsequent weeks Psalm 37 provided a vehicle for me to enter Sue’s world of fear and build a counseling relationship with her. Further assignments from the Psalms drew out Sue’s experiences of fear and set these next to the Lord’s promises. She faced the cause of her destructive fears: her reactions to the sins of others revealed her own sins and unbelief.

We saw earlier that neither Fran nor Bill came to counseling to be counseled. When I asked them what they thought was wrong with their marriage, they immediately said each other’s first name. Each came to counseling to tell me how to fix the other person. How could homework focus our data gathering and cut into their mutual accusations and defensiveness?

During our second session I discussed the “speck and log” principle, God’s grace, and the way of repentance (Matt. 7:1–5; Luke 6:37–42). I asked each of them to construct a personal “log list”: What are you doing that is wrong and harms the union God has ordained for your marriage? Fran and Bill did the assignment; both started to become counselees—disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ—that week. Data gathering and problem solving in subsequent sessions built on their lists and the principles of Scripture embodied in that assignment.

“You won’t believe what I discovered in my homework this week!” were Judy’s first words as our fifth session began. I had asked Judy to keep a journal of her encounters with her husband. Their marriage was a war zone, and Judy was convinced that it was caused solely by “Jim’s typical selfish response to everything.” Judy had “prayed for years, and nothing had changed.” How could homework help Judy see herself biblically?

Judy’s journal tracked each argument between herself and Jim, specifically noting what she was thinking, desiring, feeling, and doing in each encounter. Judy faithfully kept her journal for three weeks. On the fourth week her assignment was to read through her journal over and over, looking for patterns of thought, motive, and behavior. She compared what she found to biblical passages on relationships: James 4:1–6; Ephesians 4:25–32; 1 Corinthians 13. I did know what Judy had discovered that week; God’s truth had broken in. I could hear new humility and new hope in her words, and I could see in her face that the words were not just words.

Bart had been estranged from his family for many years. In the course of counseling, his bitterness and cold indifference yielded to the grace of God. How could homework “put feet” on the changes in Bart’s heart and attitude? For homework he wrote a letter of reconciliation to his mother, whom he had not contacted in more than ten years. I asked him not to send the letter, but to bring it to our next session where we would evaluate it together. We both wanted to make sure that Bart’s letter expressed God’s agenda for change in his relationship to his family, changes that flowed out of the change in Bart’s relationship to God.

You see in these stories four examples of homework, each quite different, each seeking to accomplish a different purpose. My homework with Sue was a means of breaking through her walls of self-protection and building her relationship with God and with me. For Fran and Bill, homework was a major means of focusing the data gathering process. Judy’s homework was self-revealing: it helped her to see herself in the mirror of Scripture. Bart’s homework was an instance of applying God’s agenda concretely to his everyday life.

Homework is more than guided Bible study, reinforcing the teaching aspect of counseling. Homework for the biblical counselor is not limited to a single focus and single purpose. Homework, creatively designed and appropriately used, advances each phase of counseling. Used well, homework doesn’t function as an addition to the counseling process but as an integral part of it. Each step of the counseling process continues, even when counselee and counselor are not together, because good homework keeps the movement going.

The biblical counselor should ask during every phase of counseling, “What kind of homework is appropriate and helpful? What would buttress and advance what we are presently working on?”

For the purposes of this article, I want to break the counseling process into four phases. Of course, in actual counseling these phases are never as distinct as they will appear here. The four phases of counseling that will inform my discussion are:

1. Welcome: Build a godly relationship with counselees.

2. Understand: Gather data that moves toward the heart.

3. Confront and comfort: Help counselees to see themselves biblically and embrace God’s promises.

4. Action: Apply God’s agenda for change to everyday life.

For each phase I will give a summary goal followed by sample homework that flows from each goal. These are to whet your appetite for good homework; you will need to develop a full and diverse menu for your own counseling ministry.

Welcome

Goal: Build a relationship of understanding and trust with the counselee while building the counselee’s hope in God.

Counseling is a relationship between two (or more) people. It is a relationship that God, in his sovereignty, has brought about to accomplish his sanctifying purpose.

How important is the counselor’s own life and love in counseling? Pay attention to the example of Christ, the Wonderful Counselor. He entered our world and became intimately familiar with our experience. He became a sympathetic and understanding high priest, touched by our weaknesses, temptations, and sufferings. We can approach him with confidence because we know that he will be merciful and gracious in our time of need (Heb. 4:14–5:9). Pay attention to the example of Paul. His evident love for those he ministered to and the honesty with which he lived before people gave his entire ministry of the Word integrity and persuasive force.¹

What is biblical counseling in a nutshell? “Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into . . . Christ”(Eph. 4:15). Counselees need to know that you are speaking the truth from God. Counselees also need to know that they can trust you, the truth-speaker; that you are for them. You must, like Christ, demonstrate sympathy, understanding, and humility if counselees are to place the fine china of their lives into your hands. They need confidence that the counsel they are receiving comes from someone who understands their world and has been touched by their weaknesses. This draws counselees into confident participation in the counseling process.

How does this relate to homework? One goal of homework during the initial phase of counseling is to build relationships that are channels of transforming grace. I want the counselee to know early on, “God speaks to what I’m struggling with.” I also want the counselee to know early on, “The counselor has heard me and understands what I’m struggling with.”

As I begin counseling, I look for entry gate issues that will make my initial feedback and homework count. Entry gate issues are frequently those “presenting problems” a counselee describes. They may not be the core issue(s) that ultimately must be dealt with, but they open the door into a person’s life. Entry gate issues must be dealt with if the counselee is going to commit to change and become a participant in the discipleship process. I ask, “What is this person struggling with right now? What homework can I give to address it?” Examples of entry gate issues include fear, discouragement, anger, bitterness, loneliness, and hopelessness.

If handled well by the counselor, entry gate issues often open the door to more fundamental problems. For example, Sue, whose life was disintegrating with fears, needed basic reassurance: her problems were understandable; she was not crazy; God cares; biblical counseling could help her. Subsequently, more basic problems emerged: anger, a demanding attitude, fear of man, selfishness, perfectionism, and unbelief. Early on we had created a context of trust and truth that then enabled us to deal with these things.

As I design and assign homework to address entry gate concerns, I want the assignments to offer hope. Frequently, counselees come to counseling with little or no hope. Hope-giving homework provides a natural entry into relationship with the counselee and stimulates confidence in God.

Sarah was a single woman in her late twenties. She described herself as an “introverted, overweight loner.” Sarah hated her job, felt uncomfortable and misunderstood by her church, and was alienated from her family. She said that her closest friend was her cat! She was convinced that her life was horrible, that she was “one of God’s mistakes,” and that there was no way out short of death. What homework could encourage Sarah that both God and her counselor understood? I assigned her hope homework from 1 Corinthians 10:13 (see page 349).

This assignment needs to be carefully set up by the counselor before it is given. This entails working through 1 Corinthians 10:1–14 with the counselee during the session in which the homework will be assigned. The passage speaks to people in hardship; it identifies common sinful reactions to life’s hardships; it speaks of how Christ is present to bless in the midst of temptation. What did this assignment accomplish with Sarah? First, it helped me enter Sarah’s experience. Second, it helped Sarah see that her hopelessness had an identifiable cause. It was tied to the way she thought about God, herself, and her situation. It was tied to the way she responded. And third, it helped Sarah begin to reinterpret the struggles she faced. As she looked at her problems biblically, her sense of hope grew.

Work through this study yourself. Photocopy it to use in your own counseling, or adapt it.

Here are other examples of entry gate and relationship building homework:

1. Hope grows by seeing what God is up to in your sufferings and difficulties. For example, study Romans 5:1–11; 8:18–39; James 1:2–27; 1 Peter 1:1–2:3; Deuteronomy 8.

2. Focus on your resources and identity as a child of God. For example, study Ephesians and what it means to be “in Christ.”

3. Use biblical narratives that emphasize seeing God in your situation. For example, Exodus 13–14, Numbers 11, Numbers 20, and 1 Samuel 17 all focus on whether people forget or remember the Lord. Ask the following questions of the narratives: What difficulty are they facing? What do the people in the situation think about what is going on? What are they feeling? How do they react? What do they want? What is God doing? What are the indicators of God’s involvement in the situation? How would the people in the situation have behaved differently if they had “seen God” in the situation?

4. Study people in Scripture who became discouraged, e.g., Elijah in 1 Kings 19; Samuel in 1 Samuel 8; Moses in Numbers 11. Focus on three questions: What was the cause of discouragement? What was God’s response to the person’s discouragement? What was the solution to discouragement?

5. Deal with fear and anxiety as common human experiences; e.g., Philippians 4:4–10; Psalm 37; Psalm 46. Ask the following: What causes fear? What are the results of fear in the person’s life? What are the results of fear in your life? What solutions to fear are found in these passages? How does your relationship with God affect your fearfulness? How would your life look different if you were living unafraid?

Every biblical counselor will find entry gate issues in the lives of counselees around which homework can be built. This homework says to the counselee, “I have heard your concern. I have taken it seriously. I am seeking to understand what you are dealing with. God is involved. There is hope and help to be found in him.” As Sarah left the session, she felt understood and encouraged because the homework touched her where she struggled.

Understand

Goal: Gain first-hand knowledge and refocus attention on what matters.

During the data gathering phase of counseling, it is first vital to establish a detailed understanding of the person and his/her situation. Sin and obedience are never general. They are always particular responses to the specifics of the situation in which God has placed a person. Biblical counseling aims to apply the Word of God with specificity. This is one thing that distinguishes it from public preaching. I gather data so that I understand the counselee as a person and the details of his situation well enough to make concrete application of Scripture. Data gathering is incarnational. It has to do with entering the world of the counselee, becoming familiar with the details of that world, and being touched by its realities.

Second, it is vital to focus attention on what matters. This provides me with a natural interactive teaching opportunity. As I ask questions that flow from a biblical perspective on people and their problems, counselees are required to think more biblically about themselves and their situations. My goal is to bring the counselee to a greater biblical self-awareness. As data gathering proceeds, the counselee should be learning new things before any actual instruction takes place. I am not gathering data simply to find out where change should take place; rather, data gathering done well becomes a part of the change process. Data gathering is instructional. Good questions begin to teach the counselee to organize, interpret, and explain his world biblically.

I want the homework during this phase of counseling to propel these two purposes outside of the weekly session. As previously mentioned, one of the best homework tools for data gathering is keeping a daily journal. You do not ask a counselee to write down anything and everything. That would be overwhelming and counterproductive. However, it can be useful to assign a structured, specific journal. Here is how I set it up with Judy, the counselee who thought all the problems were her husband’s fault:

1. I asked her to purchase a pocket-sized notebook that could be carried in a pocket or dropped in a purse. This notebook was for jotting quick notes for later reference. I wanted Judy to have it with her all the time. She could scribble a couple of words that would help her remember the situation later in the day when she sat down to complete her journal.

2. I asked Judy to focus her journal on situations of conflict with her husband, Jim.

3. I asked her to answer five questions about each incident:

• What happened?

• What did you feel?

• What were you thinking?

• What did you want?

• What did you do?

4. I asked her to keep the journal faithfully for three weeks. After this period of time Judy read her journal as homework, looking for themes and patterns. In the following session we compared her findings with Scripture.

Judy’s journal gave me all kinds of detailed data about her struggles. It also helped Judy to step back and think properly about her situation and how she interacted with it.

There are many other sorts of helpful data-gathering homework. For example, I often use lists and questionnaires that guide counselees into self-evaluation. These include:

• “Log List” (as mentioned earlier for Fran and Bill)

• “Ways I would like to see my marriage change”

• “Ways I have sought to deal with this problem”

• “If I could press a magic button and my life would be just the way I want it, what would it look like?”

• Wayne Mack’s Homework Manual for Biblical Counseling, Volume 2 has some very useful marriage evaluation assignments.²

An essay evaluation is often useful to get people to describe their lives:

• I am unhappy with my life because. . . .

• The most important thing to me in my life right now is. . . .

• Growing up in my home was like. . . .

• My marriage would be better if only. . . .

• The thing I am most afraid of in life is. . . .

Use these as examples and tailor your assignments to your counselee.

For some counselees, stories and pictures allow them to communicate things they would find harder to convey in words. When I am gathering historical data, I will often ask the counselee to write about his or her family of origin in story form: “My life in the _________ family.” Pictures can also be useful. For example, ask the counselee to draw a picture that depicts the relationships in his family of origin. I then ask the counselee to explain and interpret the picture for me during the next session.

One of my favorite data gathering assignments is what I call my “Big Picture” assignment (see page 350). I begin this assignment by taking counselees to Luke 6:43–45 and introducing them to the concept of “fruit and root.” I tell them that I do not want counseling to focus only on the situation and its difficulties, or on other people, or on behavior alone. I want us to step back and get the big picture: situation, fruit, and root. I ask the counselee to write a response to the four questions on the homework page (feel free to adapt it to your own counseling needs or photocopy it according to the guidelines on page iv.).

Writing a letter can be a tool to help a counselee express honestly what is going on. In this case the letter that the counselee writes is not sent to anyone. It is written for the purpose of data gathering. It is a way of getting the counselee to put down his or her agenda on paper. This assignment works well when the counselee is struggling with a particular relationship. I ask counselees to “write the letter of your dreams,” being honest about thoughts and feelings with regard to the relationship. It is obviously very important that this letter not be sent. It is for the use of counselor and counselee as a means of gathering data about the counselee’s true desires and intentions.

John, twenty, single, and angry, wrote the letter to his mother that I asked him to write. What a letter it was—ten pages long! The letter was very useful to me; I got to know what made John tick. But John also began to know himself better. John saw himself written down on paper. The letter and the questions that came out of it began to open windows of self-awareness and conviction for John. Data-gathering homework led John into the first steps of change: “I am an angry person. How can I change?”

Homework provides opportunities to keep the data gathering momentum going outside of the counseling office. It involves the counselee in an active process of self-examination. Homework keeps counselees involved, not just being known by another, but taking responsibility for self-examination and learning to think about themselves in new biblical ways.

Confront and Comfort

↑ Back to top