Why Biblical Counseling?

When it comes to counseling, there’s a lot of options out there; a myriad a secular humanistic models, the Biblical model of counseling, and then the integrationist method that makes use of both the biblical and the secular models in one. So, let’s ask, “Why Biblical Counseling?” To answer this question, we are going to look at Genesis 1 and observe at three aspects of God that undergird biblical counseling and make it supreme as a method. 

Moses writes Genesis 1, introducing Yahweh, the true God, to Israel. For four centuries, the Hebrews lived in the pagan darkness of Egypt where an abundance of different gods were adored, idols, statues made by man. So in other words, man first; then God. Man creates his deity. In the first words of the Bible, Moses turns that notion totally on its head. “In the beginning, man? No. “In the beginning, God…” God is primary. And what does God do in the first moments of Genesis? Well, in the second part of Genesis 1:1, he “created the heaven and the Earth.” The unchecked might of God mixed with His perfect wisdom creates impeccable symmetry and stunning beauty in the vast Creation. God, the uncaused Cause of all things, not out of need, not by the advice of another, but out of His own sheer pleasure and through His perfect wisdom, makes the Universe and sets us His creatures as His guests in it. God is primary.  God, as the Creator of the Universe, is therefore the ultimate Determiner of what is truth, justice, beauty, love, gender, marriage, sexuality, family, and goodness. What we observe in Genesis 2,  is that God charged Adam with the authority and responsibility of being administrator over the cosmos, but He did not delegate to Adam the decision to determine what was truth, justice, beauty, love, gender, marriage, sexuality, family, and goodness. God had already done that. 

He is primary. And what we understand from the rest of Scripture and from our own experience is that all of human problems stem from our vain attempt at impeaching Yahweh from His rightful throne and in His place celebrating our self-autonomy. Humanity has lent its ear to the Genesis 3 satanic counsel, that “ye shall be as gods”, and for that lie of self-sufficiency we have paid the ultimate price. We have made ourselves and our ways primary, and made God and His truth dispensable, and for it, the world, the family, and people individually live in sin and chaos. So what does a biblical counselor do? He recognizes the Genesis 1 primacy of God as the backdrop for the rest of Scripture, and uses Gospel truth in the whole of the Bible to steer men back to God, rather than using manmade self-exalting, self-help methods that turn men only unto themselves.    

The question we ask as we open the first pages of the Bible is, “What is God’s disposition toward us?” And the answer the resounds from Creation, is that God is wonderfully good to man. In Genesis 1, having created all nature so that humans might flourish within it, on the 6th day, He makes a unique being; one marked with His very image; a man. Without a wrinkle on his face, a pain in his chest, or a gray hair on his head, Adam was healthy, wealthy, and wise by glorious grace of the Father. And Yahweh did not set him in a vast desert to threaten him with weariness and thirst, or in a jungle with traps set for his feet, but fixed for Adam a Paradise, a green garden full of ripe fruits that were acquainting to the eye, delicious to the taste, and nutritious for his body. In goodness, God didn’t conceal it from Adam, but led him fast into the middle of it. He is good.

This genuine goodness of God is the backdrop for the rest of Scripture that whatever He says, if you and I read it and heed it, it will only be to our benefit.

Genesis 1 assumes the existence of God, and in counseling this is vital because if there is no God, and we are all simply the product of an arbitrary explosion billions of years ago, then nothing means anything. The random does not and cannot produce the meaningful. But also, if there is a God, but He is aloof from us, as the god of deism, then nobody, no conversation, no decision or event, not even life or death means anything. However, if He does exist, and He is interested in us as Genesis reveals, then everybody, every conversation, every decision and event, every life and every death is packed with meaning. Why? Because God is the true owner of it, and unto Him we are accountable. That’s what we see in Genesis 3, that when our first parents Adam and Eve rebelled against the primacy and goodness of God, He did not ignore it, but noticed it and judged it, and then announced hope unto them (and us). 

And the whole of Scripture comes down to one Gospel truth, that God is angry with the wicked, but that He involved Himself in human history, wrapped Himself in the smallness and weakness of humanity, and that Jesus lived the perfect life that you and I the sons of Adam could never live even if we had a thousand opportunities. And that Jesus took His impeccable righteousness to the Cross, and there exchanged it for our horrendous sin. He conquered sin and death, and is so involved in humanity that one day personally He will return to to Earth to reign and set all things aright.  What grace and what hope from the God who is PRIMARY, GOOD, AND INVOLVED!