Introduction
Ministry in the evangelical church is rooted in Christ’s commission to His followers to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all He has commanded (Matt. 28:18–20). Christian ministry rests on the foundation of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11), and His Word is the authoritative guide to carrying out His purposes (Ps. 119:105).
The ministry to which the church is called has both public and private dimensions. The church’s public ministry includes preaching and teaching God’s Word, corporate worship, administering baptism and the Lord’s Supper, public prayer, and discipleship within the congregation.
The church’s private ministry consists of the “one another” ministries of Scripture, including bearing one another’s burdens, personal discipleship, encouragement, hospitality, prayer, and mutual care.
I believe one of the most important expressions of the church’s private ministry is biblical counseling, in which believers, under the oversight of the local church, apply God’s sufficient Word, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to comfort the suffering, confront sin, and help one another grow in Christlikeness.
Throughout church history, this ministry has been known by various names, including pastoral care, the cure of souls, soul care, spiritual direction, spiritual friendship, one-another ministry, and discipleship. Although terminology has varied over time and across traditions, the substance has remained the same: the personal ministry of God’s people, applying God’s truth to encourage faith, address suffering and sin, and promote growth in Christlikeness.
In recent years, a significant discussion has emerged within evangelicalism about the relationship between traditional biblical counseling and what is often called clinically informed biblical counseling. At the center of the discussion is the question of whether Scripture alone provides sufficient categories for understanding and addressing the human condition, or whether insights from psychology and clinical research are also necessary tools for the care of souls in the church.
Most traditional biblical counselors readily acknowledge that empirical studies by psychiatrists and psychologists sometimes make accurate observations about behavior. The disagreement concerns something much deeper. Should those observations provide the basis for how the church understands people and their problems?
While both approaches share substantial theological commitments, this article argues that the traditional biblical counseling position offers the most faithful understanding of Scripture’s sufficiency for the church’s ministry of soul care.
The concern is not that observations about human behavior are always false or useless. The concern is whether those observations carry authority in defining the nature of the human soul, its problems, and its cure.
Areas of Agreement Between the Two Positions
Both traditional biblical counselors and clinically informed counselors affirm Scripture’s authority and inspiration, the necessity of the gospel in counseling, the importance of sanctification, and the local church’s central role in discipleship and care.
Brad Hambrick discusses additional areas of agreement between the two groups in “Conversations through 95 Theses: Areas of Agreement.” He lists the following: Counseling is not a fundamentally scientific profession; Jesus is the standard of health; optimal (holy) human functioning toward which the counselor helps the counselee progress; and effective counseling depends on the life-transforming work of the Holy Spirit, who points people to Jesus.
When reading Hambrick’s article, one can see notable agreement between the two groups. To summarize, the disagreement is not about whether Scripture is true but about whether psychological and clinical knowledge is an essential source of categories for understanding people and their problems.
The Traditional Biblical Counseling Position
Traditional biblical counselors maintain that extra-biblical resources, particularly counseling psychology, are not essential for providing pastoral care within the church.
Scripture describes mankind as embodied image-bearers whose thoughts, actions, and relationships are fundamentally shaped by their relationship with God (Gen. 1:26–28; Gen. 2:7; Rom. 1; Rom. 12:2; Phil. 2:13; James 4; Eph. 4). As a result, traditional biblical counselors maintain that any understanding of human nature and change that is God-honoring begins with God’s special revelation, rather than human reasoning.
Because Scripture explains creation, the Fall, and redemption, traditional biblical counselors are convinced that it provides the essential framework for understanding people, their thinking and behavior, and how lasting change occurs. The Bible speaks with complete authority on every matter it addresses. The words of Scripture concern issues of life and faith before God, and because counseling issues are matters of life and faith, the Bible is a sufficient resource for defining and directing all counseling ministry.
In his book Introduction to Biblical Counseling, John MacArthur reminds us that for centuries the church was regarded as the epicenter of personal care. Pastors and priests, using God’s Word, were the primary sources of wisdom, counsel, and confession for church members. Members of the early church practiced soul care by eating together, regularly praying for one another, and sharing material possessions (Acts 2:42–48). According to Scripture, the early church believed caring for one another was expected. As a result, counseling and pastoral care became a natural function of corporate spiritual life.
The modern biblical counseling movement, most prominently associated with Jay Adams, has consistently emphasized the sufficiency of Scripture for understanding people, their problems, and God’s solutions.
In Is All Truth God’s Truth?, Adams warned against allowing biblical truth to be “adulterated by anything else that may be called truth, but isn’t.” He explains that calling man’s discoveries in nature “God-revealed truth” is a serious misrepresentation of the facts. It is the Word of God, who is the truth, that sets a person free to serve and glorify God.
From this perspective, Scripture is not merely sufficient for salvation but sufficient for the full task of counseling, discipleship, and spiritual formation within the church.
Traditional biblical counselors argue that when Christians turn to psychological systems for categories and solutions that Scripture already provides, they risk undermining the doctrine of biblical sufficiency.
Clinically Informed Counseling and Common Grace
Counselors who support clinically informed approaches often appeal to common grace and general revelation to argue that useful insights into human behavior can be discovered through observation, research, and clinical study.
In their book The Integration of Psychology and Theology, John Carter and Bruce Narramore argue that because God is the Creator of all things, there is a unity of truth, so insights from psychology may be legitimately integrated into a coherent Christian understanding of the human person.
Nate Brooks of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary explains in the Southeastern Theological Review:
“While Scripture helps us evaluate all things, it does not explicitly teach us all things necessary to offer the best form of care for the counselees. A theologically robust theory of integration will go far toward establishing a solid substrate for engagement with material derived from common grace sources.”
Research Professor of Theology Kenneth Keathley writes in the Southeastern Theological Review, “Because of general revelation and common grace, non-Christians will often discover important truths and principles that provide helpful insights.” He goes on to say, “God often providentially uses non-believers to prod us to give attention to biblical themes that we heretofore overlooked or ignored.”
The Traditional Counselor Critique of Clinically Informed Counseling
Those who seek truth outside of Scripture often use the phrase, “All truth is God’s truth.”
David Powlison observed that the phrase “all truth is God’s truth” is an epistemological truism that fails to address the deeper question of how truth is identified and tested.
The issue, therefore, is not whether truth belongs to God, but how fallen human beings determine what is true in the realm of human understanding and counseling.
Cornelius Van Til argued that because of sin, human beings do not interpret reality neutrally. He writes, “It is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrines without being a disciple of Scripture.” According to Van Til, the scientist and the Christian speak of “natural law” with two different meanings. The Christian considers natural law to be how God has determined to work in the created universe. The scientist considers natural law to be a method of operation of the facts of the universe that somehow exists in its own right and power.
In response to Dr. Keathley’s earlier comment, Scripture teaches that sin has affected human behavior and thinking (Rom. 1:18–32; Eph. 4:17–18). Because all people are affected by the Fall, they do not approach life from a position of neutrality but instead interpret themselves, others, and the world through deeply held beliefs and commitments. Consequently, human beings inevitably view the world and circumstances through the lens of their relationship with God. Unbelievers do not present their observations from a God-centered perspective. As a result, even if their observations are correct, their explanations of those observations are fundamentally flawed. Furthermore, traditional biblical counselors would question whether the researcher has discovered new truths about the human condition or merely redefined what is already revealed in Scripture.
Traditional biblical counselors maintain that all human behavior should be interpreted through the lens of Scripture, which provides God’s authoritative perspective on the human condition. Scripture is the only infallible authority for interpreting human nature, sin, suffering, and change. God’s truth should permeate man’s thoughts and actions so that everything said and done should be examined by the truth of His Word (2 Cor. 10:5).
Common grace may explain how useful observations are made, but it does not grant independent authority to psychological theories or frameworks.
The Central Question At Hand
At the heart of this discussion is a single question: Does Scripture provide the necessary categories for understanding and caring for souls, or must those categories be supplemented with insights from psychology and clinical research?
Clinically informed counselors affirm that carefully evaluated clinical knowledge can be a helpful aid in understanding human experience.
Traditional biblical counselors hold that Scripture alone provides the authoritative framework for understanding the human condition, sin, suffering, and change.
Conclusion
Ultimately, this discussion is about the authority of Scripture in the ministry of the church.
While clinically informed counselors appeal to common grace and scientific observation as helpful tools for understanding aspects of human behavior, traditional biblical counseling holds that God’s Word alone provides the necessary and authoritative categories for ministry.
The question we must answer is not whether psychological observations may sometimes accurately describe human behavior. The real question is whether those observations should guide our understanding of why people think, desire, and act as they do. I would argue that Scripture already provides a clear understanding of these causes and guidance for counseling on these issues, all to the glory of God.
Traditional biblical counseling answers that question by affirming that Scripture alone provides the authoritative framework for understanding and applying all observations about human behavior in the care of the people of God (2 Tim. 3:16–17; Ps. 19:7–11).
— Scott Stephens serves as the counseling pastor at West End Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C. He also serves as the executive director of the Upcountry Biblical Counseling Training Center, a certified ACBC training center.