Think of it—in it is everything one could ever want to meet every difficulty. There is everything we could ever need to know about how to love God and our neighbor—and we could go on.

But, since this is true, why are we always searching somewhere else to find something more?

That’s of course, the problem with the eclectic; he believes in the Bible—plus. Actually, all we need is the Bible—less (in the sense that we could ever be able to know or use it all. And when we do use it, there are always so many leftovers.).

There is always something that the eclectic can’t seem to be able to find to help him or his counselee in the Scriptures, so he looks elsewhere. Then, finding a piece of “worldly wisdom,” he gets out his Gorilla Glue and attempts to make a fit that will hold together. The trouble is that either 1) the Bible gets warped in the process in order to make an unnatural union, or 2) the Bible refuses to stay fixed to the other object so in the final analysis, he junks it in favor of the extra-biblical finding..

You can’t fasten worldly wisdom together with biblical truth; something always goes wrong when you make the attempt. 1 Corinthians 2 ought to be sufficient evidence of the fact that this procedure is futile. The world doesn’t welcome the truth of God (v. 14), and even thinks that it’s foolishness. If some kind of union is effected in spite of these facts, doubtless it will be like the clay and iron of the toes of Daniel’s metallic man—the mashing together of two incompatible items. They won’t hold very long as, indeed, the Roman Empire’s “union” of provinces demonstrated when they attacked and overran the mother city!

So, since we have all we need in the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:17), why attempt to “enhance” it with man’s “wisdom?” It can’t work; it doesn’t work; it will not work. This has been demonstrated over the last generation by a host of eclectic counselors and theorists who, admittedly, have found no amalgamation of the two that does work. Why waste time doing what God has already told you can’t be done and, moreover, has told you what can? The Bible has what you need to solve all true counseling problems; in it are all things necessary for life and godliness; in it is all you need to know in order to love God and your neighbor. And then some! It’s time to toss the world’s “wisdom” aside, and get down to work learning how to use your Bible to help those in need of its guidance! You’ll find all you’ll ever need—and much more.

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 All You Need appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

When I am filled with cares, Your comfort brings me joy.  Psalm 94:16

Who has a right to claim the wonderful promise in this verse? Move back a few verses and you will find the answer:

Lord, happy is the man You discipline and teach from Your law, to give him relief from troubled times.  Psalm 94:13

God’s Word (His law) teaches and disciplines those who study, understand, and obey it. Believer, you cannot expect the promise to apply unless (and until) the conditions are met. But, Oh when they are—the riches of it are yours!

How conversant are you with the Scriptures? How frequently do you listen (and act) when they expose and rebuke you for your evil ways? Are you a person who drifts with the crowd, or one who goes in the direction that pleases Him? That is the way to receive His comfort and relief. When necessary, to please God, you must to walk against it. It isn’t easy to head in the opposite direction from other Christians when they are part of that crowd—is it? That makes it especially difficult. Yet, it isn’t what others do that matters; it’s what God says will bring comfort and relief in troubled times that counts. There are many such times in all of our lives; there may be even greater ones in the near future. Take heed to God’s truth!

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 Heeding God’s Truth appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

1. At this point in my ministry I needed to devote a concentrated period of time to a close study of the Scriptures. Nothing I could think of would demand a more intensive effort from me. So the first motive was personal—I wanted to be confronted with every book, every passage, and every word of the New Testament in a vital, life-changing way. Few things that I have ever done have taken so much out of me, while at the same time putting so much into me. But to make a translation for one’s personal interests alone seemed selfish. So for whatever blessing and benefit it may have, I send it forth to others.
2. I was not fully satisfied with the translations that were available. Either they were too wooden, stilted, and awkward, or they were too free and paraphrased. I have tried to steer a mid-course between these extremes. I have used everyday English throughout. I have spent over twenty years listening to spoken English, trying to analyze and understand what the koine (Greek word meaning “common” or “everyday”) speech of the American public is like. This I have tried to mirror in the translation. I think the Christian counselor will find that the contractions used in the negatives (e.g., “don’t for “do not”) especially help in communicating to modern Americans. I have omitted many of the Hebraic “ands” with which sentences begin (especially in the gospels), or have translated them “but, so, now, then.” This accords more fully with modern American usage. Moreover, the use of “for” has been brought into conformity with modern English by translating it “since,” or (frequently) treating it, according to its actual use, as a semicolon. Now that’s what a counselor needs—the Bible in a speech that communicates while it endeavors to be true to the original. Counselees don’t need difficulties with the English; there is enough in the Scriptures themselves for them to struggle with.
3. Many important counseling nuances have been missed by other translators who didn’t have a counseling (or often even pastoral) orientation when translating. Translations typically have been the product of scholars (who have done great service for us), not pastors. As a result, something of the pastoral concern inherent in the original writings has been lost. I have tried to restore this wherever I could, constantly keeping in mind the danger of reading into passages things not there to begin with. Usage alone will determine whether I have succeeded.

Now let me say a few more things about this translation to help you evaluate and utilize it most effectively.

A translation isn’t merely a scientific effort; it also involves art and a basic understanding of people. And an essential quality of a good translator is his ability to sense the spirit of the writer in each book. It is not enough to translate his words faithfully in a purely lexical manner. The writer, together with his style and vocabulary, must be known and understood. Again, the circumstances under which he wrote and to which he addresses himself, as well as his total stance toward life and his work, are of great significance. Therefore, any translation in which there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the styles of Luke and John, or Paul and Peter, is unfaithful to the original. A smooth sameness, in which the whole New Testament comes across as the work of one writer, may please the reader; but as a translation, it is a failure. It may be grammatically precise, but it is a poor translation because it focuses upon grammar and syntax while masking much that is conveyed by the differences—in some places we may even say roughness—of the original.

Moreover, just as there are differences between Luke and Mark, so too there are differences between Galatians and Romans, or I John and Revelation. These differences must show in the translation as they do in the original text. If the large capacity for making a great variety of literary responses that Paul and John possessed is not apparent, it fails.

There is yet another sense in which the translator must be able to extend himself beyond the limits of scholarship: he must be thoroughly in touch with the spirit and language of the people for whom he translates. Men, sequestered in ivy-covered halls, who find their closest friends among the formless and faceless authors of stuffy tomes, who rarely mix with the common man in the supermarket, often will find it difficult to locate the everyday idiom that approximates the fish-market Greek in which the New Testament was written. They must be in touch with the reader.

There is also a tendency for the modern translator to usurp the place of the reader and the preacher. Without retreating to the woodenness of overly literal translation, the translator must be willing to disclose the obvious ambiguities of the original and let the expositor decide between them. He has no right to make all of the decisions himself. There will be times when, because of the nature of the translation process, he is forced into making certain decisions of this sort; but where he is free to be ambiguous or not, he must try to be as ambiguous as the text itself. In all such decisions, the governing factor should be the Greek text—what does it dictate, and how can I, in good English, come as close to it as possible? The impelling factor for making decisions about translations that must go one way or another is the nature of the language that the translator must employ. When he is forced to decide in order to translate at all, he may consider himself warranted in doing so.

“Ah,” you say, “But a one-man translation couldn’t possibly measure up to a translation by a committee, could it?” Certainly there are advantages to committees, such as the pooling of knowledge, etc. But there are disadvantages too—the need to compromise, a sort of leveling off of freshness, etc. A one-man translator also has the results of translations by committees available, so he is not altogether on his own. Moreover, he is able to hold an integration of personal conviction about the text that can never be achieved by a committee.

In making this translation of the New Testament, I have tried to keep all of these factors in mind. I trust that you will discover many of the differences of style and spirit of the New Testament books. I hope that you will be pleased with the middle course, taken between wooden literalness and too much freedom with the text. Above all, I want the deep riches of our many-faceted salvation to leap from its pages to help the reader personally and in his efforts to counsel others.

To those ends I send forth this edition of the New Testament with the prayer that God will use it to bring His blessings to many. That He will bless His Word I can be sure; that He will help Christian counselors to become more adept in the use of that Word in counseling through the other portions of this volume I most earnestly hope.

Jay E. Adams, Ph.D.

The post Translator’s Forward to the CCNT/P appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

1. Many counselors use too much Scripture.  They throw verse after verse at counselees, piling them up for him, presumably to take home. A person can digest only so much material in a counseling session or during the week following. He needs to drive home one or two verses, plainly explained, if he wants to see biblical results.
2. Not any verse will do.  Not only must a verse be explained as to its meaning, but also counselors must show how it is appropriate to the counselee, and how he may apply it to his situation. These are key factors at which one must not fail!

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

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:3).

Here is an important injunction given to those who know Christ as Savior. Obviously, an unbeliever not only rejects the very concept expressed, but finds it impossible even to approach the fulfillment of any such command.
Believer, do you keep such injunctions with you as you go about life’s activities? If you fail to do so, it may be time to reconsider how you approach these activities—don’t you think?
Today, you will make decisions a-plenty. Most of them will be small, though some may be life-changing.  It doesn’t matter—this verse applies to all. Do you turn to the Bible to discover what the Lord would have you do? Or do you simply go about doing what you think is right? Well, re-read the verse!
How about at work? At home? At school?  It doesn’t matter where you apply it, the verse covers all choices in life—will you trust God’s ways or you own?
Of course, to trust His ways means that you must know them. That is where many otherwise well-intentioned Christians go wrong: because they are unfamiliar with God’s  ways, they can’t trust them. And they are unfamiliar because they don’t study their Bibles in order to discover His ways. There is no excuse for not knowing His ways—they are spelled out explicitly in the Bible; how familiar are you with them?  When there are various options before you, do you know how to go about selecting those that please God?  It’s time for you to begin doing so—don’t you think? It’s also time to know His ways—don’t you think?
The question in brief is a matter of how you think, don’t you think?  How will you answer that question: I think biblically” or “I think my own thoughts?” Which will it be?

The post Trusting God's Ways appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

”But what does it mean?”

The verse also compares it to silver that is purified that often.

“Does that mean the Word was impure and had to be purified?”

Certainly not.

“Well then, why does it go on to compare it to silver that has to be purified that many times to rid it of all impurities?”

It is not the process of purification that is under comparison.

“What then is?”

The product of the process!

“What do you mean?”

Simply this: as silver that is refined seven times over is said to be totally free from all impurities, so too are the Scriptures totally free from all error and harmful teaching.

“Oh.”

The verse means that the Bible is wholly free from error and, therefore, is pure truth! When you turn to its pages, you must have this thought in mind and be willing to accept whatever it says as absolute truth!

“You might say that it is a sterling book then . . . ?”

You might.

The post God’s Word—purified seven times over appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

What do you mean? The stores are filled with food!

Ah, but listen to Amos 9:11, where he speaks of this famine:

The days are coming . . . when I will send a famine throughout the land. Not a famine of bread or of a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

He goes on to tell how people would stagger from sea to sea . . . seeking the Word of the Lord, but they will not find it (v.12).

What a tragedy when the Lord withdraws His Word from a people!  They will come to recognize that what they failed to appreciate is now what they can no longer obtain. It is like not recognizing the need for air—which normally is taken for granted—until you are submerged in a submarine.

Now is the time to turn to the Bible—before it is too late! There, and there alone, can the Word of God be found. How frequently do you read it? Do you know its major message—salvation through Jesus Christ? There is nothing more valuable than a message from the living Creator! Don’t wait until it is too late and you can no longer obtain it.

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