“Care for the people? Preach interesting sermons? Baptize, marry and bury people?”

Can you think of anything else?

“Not really.”

How about what Paul said in Ephesians 4:12, where he outlined the principal reason for the gift of the officers of the church as equipping the saints for their work of service to build up His body?

“Somehow, that just didn‘t come to mind.”

Well, it it’s true—and you know it is, Christian—shouldn’t it be happening?

“Guess so.”

Two things stand out:

1. You are to be equipped by your pastor
2. You have a work of service to do that will benefit the church.

Are these things happening?

“Uh . . . Not sure”

Well, either your pastor is remiss, you are remiss, or both of you are remiss. Which is it?

“I’d hate to say.”

Well, it’s time you determined to be built up in your faith to the point where you contribute to the welfare of the whole church. If you aren’t aware of this important function of your pastor-teacher in equipping you, then you need to become aware of it. One way is to ask your pastor how you need to be equipped, and what you should do to enable you to become equipped to help the body. That, perhaps, is the very best way to begin. Start with yourself. Then, you can handle any other aspects of the problem that may arise. But until you have dealt with your side of the matter, it isn’t time to consider any other.

Books dealing with Preaching:

1.  Preaching with Purpose by Jay Adams
2.  A Consumer’s Guide to Preaching by Jay Adams
3. Authority in the Church by Jay Adams

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post You and Your Pastor appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Now, that’s not when they disagree with me. Over the years, I have held hundreds of pastors’ conferences. In them, there have been any number of persons who disagreed. I think that if they were objective about it, they’d tell you I treated them fairly, tried to give their viewpoint a hearing, and made an effort to answer politely. Yes, seldom—very seldom—such Q&A discussions got rather heated—but, frankly, it might be up for question as to who was the cause. Why am I going on about this matter? Just to give a bit of background for the point I wish to make. Though most people deserve a hearing—and you and I ought to see that they get it when possible, there are some people, at some times, who don’t. Let me describe the sort of person that I have in mind.

He asks you a question, these days on email. You respond briefly, and to the point, giving your viewpoint on the subject or passage. You simply don’t have the time to do more. He strongly disagrees—sometimes in several new paragraphs. You respond again, saying that you told him what you believed, hoping it might be helpful, but that it isn’t possible to go into a long discussion of the matter. You hope that this will end the conversation.

Now, if you thought the last epistle that he winged your way was long and feisty, look out for the next. In reams, it seems (note the poetry), he takes you to task. First, you are obviously uncaring because you failed to give a long, detailed argument for your position (even though you may have already done so in the book to which he was objecting in the first place—and his arguments prove he didn’t read it carefully), Secondly, if not uncaring, you are clearly unable to answer his powerful rebuttal of your views.

Now, we are all ready to hear a reasonable argument when there is time and the circumstances permit. And there is none of us who cannot learn from another brother. But this bludgeoning of others is another matter. The only answer I have found to it is either to gently say I don’t have the time to take on a correspondence (which is true), or if the writer is especially vehement in his words, to simply ignore it. Now, if you want to rebut this article—too bad! Donn doesn’t allow discussion of it on this blog.

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. The Use of Scripture in Counseling by Jay Adams
5. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
6. Critical Stages in Biblical Counseling by Jay Adams
7. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies  

Check out our online course, The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

The post When People are "Too Much" appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

He was great. Not only did he solve my problem—I wasn’t getting into email easily (had to use round-about ways of doing so)—but he had superlative patience. We could all learn something about being patient with one another from the way he treats people.

You say, “Ah, but he’s been trained that way—it’s a part of his job description.”

I wouldn’t want to deny that, of course, but let me ask you a simple question: “isn’t that a part of the believer’s job description as well?”

If he could learn to be patient with people simply to hold his job; why aren’t we concerned about being patient out of a much higher motive?

“Namely?”

Pleasing God!

And, to boot, remember how patient God is with you!

So, there is no excuse for impatience. (And if you don’t learn patience soon, I don’t know what I’ll do with you!)

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. The Use of Scripture in Counseling by Jay Adams
5. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
6. Critical Stages in Biblical Counseling by Jay Adams
7. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post Learn Patience–Now! appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

So, to be effective, you have to have all opposition removed?

“Certainly would help.”

Do you think that Paul was effective?

“Sure was. Nobody more so!”

Did you ever read what he said about being effective?

“Not sure.”

Listen to this: “A wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose” (I Corinthians 16:9).

“Hmmmm. . . . “

Looks like opposition goes with the territory, doesn’t it?

“Guess so.”

The more effective one is in the Lord’s work, the more he can expect opposition. If you’re really doing something effective, as Paul said he was, then you should count on the evil one—or one of his henchmen—to oppose. Of course, we’re not talking about ineffective people causing trouble for themselves, you understand.

“Yeaaaah. Well, thanks.”

Welcome.

Books dealing with Preaching:

1.  Preaching with Purpose by Jay Adams
2.  A Consumer’s Guide to Preaching by Jay Adams
3. Whole Counsel by Donn R. Arms, et. al.

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post Effectiveness appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

“Wait a minute. I disagree. I’m tolerant, no matter what you say. And, furthermore, I resent being called a liar.”

You’re a liar!

“Now, hold on. How can you say that? You don’t even know me. How can you call me a liar?”

Because you’re lying—that’s what liars do.

“It simply isn’t right of you to pre-judge me, your reader, when you have never met me.”

Oh? Why not? You seem to be agitated over a simple statement that I made out there in the blue. I didn’t ask you to chime in. You put yourself in the category of liars.

“I can’t have people going around calling others liars without challenging them. After all, by implication, since I’m a tolerant person, you included me.”

If you are truly tolerant of differing points of view you wouldn’t go about challenging those who say something that disagrees with yours. If you’re truly tolerant, then why don’t you cheerfully agree that I have every right to go about telling your friends and relatives that you’re a liar?

“That wouldn’t be right. I don’t like people to make unfounded judgments. And, besides it would be a nasty thing to do.”

Are you saying that you’re intolerant of such a claim? Or of anyone who makes it?

“No. I’m tolerant of views that differ from mine.”

Then, you wouldn’t mind if I talk to your friends—right?

“Wrong.”

What makes it wrong to do so?

“The fact that it’s simply untrue.”

But I say that it is true.

“Let’s stop this bickering right now. Would you be satisfied if I conceded that you have the right to be wrong?”

Ah! So, you’re so tolerant that you are ready to tolerate “error “to make it go away?

“That isn’t so. I accept only those things that are true.”

So you don’t tolerate error? It doesn’t matter to you whether others are in error or not so long as you are right? Does that mean you are tolerant of error in others and, therefore, of what you call my lies and my position of intolerance?

“I want others to know the truth too.”

Then, why don’t you accept the truth that you’re a liar?

“Because it’s not true.”

‘Tis.

“Taint.”

‘Tis.

“Prove it”

OK. You claim that you’re tolerant when we know that it’s not true. So you say/deny that you tolerate error in yourself/others.

“There you go—calling me a liar again! And, I certainly don’t know that it’s true.”

All this discussion, and you haven’t yet gotten the point? I say you’re a liar simply because you’ve already demonstrated that you are. You claim to accept truth alone, yet you won’t admit that you’re a liar or that you’re intolerant. That’s two lies right there.

“You’re impossible!”

That’s number three.

“OK, there’s one thing I can’t tolerate—you! You’re intolerable.”

Good. First thing you’ve said that’s right so far. You’re coming along. But since it’s true, that too proves you’re a liar. You said that you are tolerant, but let me ask you, are you intolerant not only of my intolerance but of intolerance in general? Seems that a tolerant person would have to be in order to be consistent.

“Well . . .”

See, that’s the reason why anyone who claims to be tolerant isn’t. You said that you resented being called a liar. That sounds like an intolerant attitude to me. You can’t tolerate intolerance or you’re tolerating what you claim to abhor. Put it the other way: you claim to abhor what you ought to tolerate—if you were truly tolerant. That position is contradictory in itself. To be intolerant of intolerance is contradictory. You can’t have it both ways. Of course, you can lie about it. Let’s move on. Why do you think that intolerance is dangerous?

“Don’t think that it is.”

Every Christian does. Are you a Christian?

“Yes.”

Jesus said that He was the way to the Father (if you remember) and that nobody can come to the Father but by Him. The apostle also said that there is no other Name under the sky by which a person may be saved—but only by Jesus’ Name.

“Yes, but . . .”

No ‘buts’ about it, so far as the Bible is concerned. No one can be saved except by Jesus Christ. All other ways are erroneous, indeed, nothing but lies. So they are dangerous, leading people astray, away from the only true way to God. Right?

“But I tolerate other people’s views.”

Why? That’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to them. The idea again is that you can tolerate error in others, but not in yourself, right? It doesn’t matter what happens to them—just so you can be tolerant. Is that it?

“That’s not fair.”

Who’s talking about fairness? By what standard do you determine whether or not something is fair? But, let’s go on rather than getting into a round of that. Do you believe in Christian missions?

“Of course.”

Then you believe in intolerance. The whole concept of missions is based on a doctrine of intolerance—intolerance of the evil religions of men that lead them to eternal damnation. Moreover, and of greater importance, these false religions dishonor the true God. Missionaries believe that false beliefs must be destroyed before they destroy those who hold them. God doesn’t tolerate false belief or unbelief. Read Romans 1.

“I have read it. But we can be polite.”

Of course, often we can. But who’s talking about politeness? And by the way, tell me, did Jesus tolerate the Pharisees and the Sadducees?

“Well . . .”

Do you remember some of the things He said to them and about them?

“Certainly.”

Was Jesus always polite when he did? Why are you tolerant when Jesus wasn’t? You’re a Christian. Follow Him!

“I give up. You’re hopeless!”

You mean intolerant?

Check out our online course, Theology and Counseling taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to dealing with problems:

1. A Theology of Christian Counseling by Jay Adams
2. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
3. A Call for Discernment by Jay Adams

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post Tolerance appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

On the other hand, suppose all goes sour—far more so than at the present—should that lead to an unhappy New Year for you?

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has given you (in the long run) only heavenly perfection and eternal bliss to look forward to, should this—despite political and financial circumstances, averse medical and work conditions, and whatever else the coming your way this year—lead to anything other than a happy New Year for as many years as you have left on earth in its present conditions?

Certainly not! Despite conditions—whatever they may be—the eternal weight of glory of which Paul speaks, outweighs everything else—good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. If you keep your eyes fixed upon that glorious future, rather than the coming year, you can only look forward to a happy new year. You will be able to look through tears to the joys of the treasures laid up in haven for you; to the time when heavenly “politics” go entirely as they should, and all pain and sorrow will have disappeared. Looking at the year this way makes every year a happy New Year, doesn’t it? Otherwise, could you ever rightly say that it could be an unhappy New Year if it is God’s kind of year for you when He has promised that all will work together for good (Romans 8:28)?

So, Christian, I want to be one of the first to wish you God’s kind of happiness during this coming year. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post Happy New Year! appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Other things go to pot. Churches, like those mentioned in the book of Revelation, of which there are no direct descendants today, went to pot. Great movements have petered out, times of awakening and revival have long since disappeared, and places when people shouted in the streets for joy at the hearing of the good news on mission fields, have long since been overrun by sects, religions and cults foreign to the faith. And just look at the mainline denominations in this country—not a one of them has survived the onslaught of Liberalism, Barthianism, Existentialism and Postmodernism intact. They have all gone to pot. Your cherished charity will last the wearing of the world from without and the wanderings of leaders from within for just so long before it loses its distinctively biblical emphasis. Paul warned about the fact that this would happen in Acts 20; Jesus warned against wolves in sheep’s clothing; Peter wrote an entire book about false teachers that would deteriorate the faith—a book that Jude indicates was not heeded. Movements, organizations, formerly “faithful” leaders—all go, or may soon go, to pot.

Is there anything in this world of sin that doesn’t go to pot? Your cherished house will eventually be torn down to make way for a new one. You may not see it happen, but others will. Your accomplishments, the world’s most outstanding inventions, will all be superseded by others that are newer, better, more efficient, or whatever. The old will be discarded—the new temporarily grasped. Where is your typewriter—even that old marvel, the IBM Selectric? There isn’t anything that will not go to pot. Indeed, if something is constructed that will last for generations, it too will go to pot. How so? Nothing—nothing, I repeat—will last the ultimate melting down of the universe prior to its remolding into the new heavens and the new earth. The totality of things will go to pot!

If so, as the Scriptures ask, “What manner of persons ought you to be, believer?” Surely, one who recognizes these facts, plans for the future, and operates day by day in the light of them. That’s true, whatever you choose to do. What should counselors think of their work? Like that of all other efforts made to honor the Lord, the efforts of counselors that have to do with getting along better with God and man in this world largely will be temporary. But Nouthetic counselors, who do not counsel principally for the short, but rather for the long term, know that they offer counsel about that which will never go to pot. Why? Because their counsel, when faithful, comes from the One Who is eternal, Who does not change, Who Himself is ever faithful to His everlasting Word. The Nouthetic counselor’s focus in counseling is on the land where neither rust, nor moth can destroy, but all is eternal in the heavens waiting to be given to his Christian counselees. He knows there is no continuing city here; but he also knows of an imperishable city foursquare. He seeks primarily to help counselees make decisions about things perishable that have eternal imperishable consequences, so that he always keeps in mind that which will never go to pot. Why not become involved in one of those activities that work for those things that last, those things that are not to be replaced, those things that will always satisfy—those things that don’t go to pot? Why not do so before the Nouthetic Counseling movement also goes to pot?

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post Everything Goes to Pot appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.