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 Communication appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

I have titled this posting “The Issue and the Relationship” because it sets forth the two essential factors that you will always have to consider when counseling more than one person. More often than not you will find that the husband and wife, parent and child, neighbor and neighbor, church member and church member, will present the principal problem in terms of the issue: “He wants to buy a boat when he knows that we simply can’t afford it!,” “He cheated me in a business deal,” This kid is incorrigible—she drinks, does drugs and plays around with any stud who comes along.”

The issue is always intriguing and tempts a counselor to focus on it at the outset. Usually, it is clearer than the relationship, so it protrudes in the initial description of things. And yet, you will learn that until you have dealt satisfactorily with the relationship, you will not be able to help counselees solve issue problems. In addition to the tempting nature of issue problems, counselees will often pressure you to handle them, sometimes protesting if you turn first to the relationship. In such circumstances, it will be necessary to explain why you are doing so (“You two are in no shape to consider the issue”). I want to suggest, therefore, that in most instances it is fatal to attempt to solve issue problems until relationship problems have been satisfactorily cleared up.

“How is that? I’m not sure that I fully get your point. If the husband and wife mentioned above would only come to a conclusion about the boat, the matter would be ended, wouldn’t it?”

Probably not. You see, one or the other—or possibly both—would go away from dealing with the issue with sore feelings toward his spouse. That is, if they could even discuss the issue civilly! Their problem has grown to the point that they have come for counseling—evidentially, they failed to solve it on their own. Here is the fundamental problem: most of the time until you have dealt with the relationship, no matter how simple the solution to the problem may be, the parties involved will not handle the issue sensibly (let alone biblically). Once I counseled a couple who, among other things, were fighting over the way each left the toothpaste tube after using it. One squeezed it in the middle (I think that was the husband) and the other left the cap off (I think that was the wife). Now, you would suspect that so simple a problem could be easily dispensed with. But, Oh no! Not on your life!

“Wait a minute, that’s an easy one to figure out. All they had to do is buy two tubes, and after the first use you’d know whose tube is whose.”

Very astute! Indeed, in the end, that’s exactly the way that we solved it. But it didn’t happen as readily as you might suppose. You see, they were in no mood to think rationally. Whenever she went into the bathroom and saw the squashed tube, she said to herself, “That man’s been at it again!” Whenever, he saw the cap removed and found toothpaste hardened at the end of the tube, he thought “Ugh! She doesn’t even care enough for me to put the cap back on. She knows I can’t stand it that way!”

Now, surely, you will notice that the problem wasn’t the tube. Both husband and wife were sharp enough to figure out the very solution that you suggested on their own. But if they did so, they probably wouldn’t have needed counseling. The problem wasn’t the toothpaste tube—as I said—it was a marriage so badly on the rocks that the tube had become a symbol of the other interpersonal problems that they had. And, until I was able to bring them into a proper biblical relationship with one another, they wouldn’t even try to seriously deal with the toothpaste tube issue. Having done so, at length, toothpaste tubes were no longer a symbol of larger problems between them, but symbols of those problems—solved.

So, don’t be misled into thinking that if you deal with the issue you will have helped your counselee. Ordinarily, you will soon discover that you can only deal with it after the relationship has been righted biblically, by repentance before God and reconciliation with one another. Always ask yourself, “What in the relationship has become a complicating factor?” What is keeping them from solving the issue? In response, you will find yourself confronting sinful attitudes that need changing, instructing counselees in ways of speaking to one another that honor God, unearthing long-standing grudges, clearing up misunderstandings that have led to bitterness, and so on. When these have been eliminated and proper biblical ways of relating have been learned (usually over a number of weeks), then all sorts of issues will dissolve as if they had never existed. That is not to say that some may not remain. But when they do, it will be two persons bent on pleasing God who will be resolving them; not two who are hostile, and who, in their self-centeredness, have been ignoring God. So, I urge you to think of each situation in terms of issues and relationships, and you will rarely go wrong.

Books related to Reconciliation:

1. From Forgiven to Forgiving  by Jay Adams
2. Handbook of Church Discipline by Jay Adams
3. How to Handle Trouble by Jay Adams

Check out our online course, Church Discipline/Forgiveness taught 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 The Issue and the Relationship appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Stay away from a foolish man; you will gain no knowledge from his speech. Prov. 14:7  (CSB)

One of the issues you should consider in choosing friends is what sort of truth you will gain from the choice. It may seem wise to befriend a foolish person for various other reasons (his wealth, his notoriety, etc., etc.) but here is one of the most important criteria to consider in making the choice: what will be his influence upon you?

His speech, the proverb infers, will influence you—but if he is a fool (by God’s standards) what you learn from him will not be “knowledge.”  That is to say, knowledge of what it is important, good and uplifting.  He will not be a source that you can trust to enhance your love and knowledge of God!

Check out your friends, and evaluate them according to this biblical injunction.  How do they fare? What are you learning from your associations with them?

“I’m not being influenced wrongly by them,” you say. Wrong!

All associations are influential: You either influence another or are influenced by him. If you are unaware of his influence—either positive or negative—it is probably of the latter sort.  Do some checking: has your friend led you closer to God’s holiness or away from it?  Are you more enlightened about His will because of his friendship—or not? It may be one of the most important questions you have to consider.  Failure to do so almost surely will end up badly.

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 Choosing Friends appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Don’t be misled; “Bad companions corrupt good habits.”

The interesting assertion that this statement makes is that even after a believer has learned what J.I Packer calls “habits of holiness” (See his Keep In Step With The Spirit) it is possible for him to lose them. Compare Solomon’s youth and old age. And there are contemporary preachers of the Word who in their latter days we have seen wander from the faith. If you trace it back, you’ll frequently find that it was the influence of someone else that brought about the sad result.

Influence is a very expressive term. It pictures something flowing in. There will always be something flowing into individuals who have a close relationship. The question is what will flow, in which direction? If the believer is not influencing the unbeliever to lead him to Christ, it’s likely that he will be influencing the believer in wrong ways.

It is easy to be “mislead,” as Paul observes. We may think we are influencing the non-Christian when all the while the opposite is taking place. It is probably safe to say that, in almost any long term close relationship between a Christian and one who isn’t, the believer will be wrongly influenced.

So . . . be careful not to be misled!

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 Bad Companions appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.