Biblical Counselling is Discipleship at Heart

 BIBLICAL COUNSELING IS DISCIPLESHIP AT HEART

It goes without saying that the core of Biblical counseling is (or should be) discipleship. The Great Commission calls us all to make disciples of all nations... Why should Biblical counseling be any different? That is why I always try to establish a counselee's standing with the Lord (their relationship in the vertical, so to speak, with their Creator) before delving into their worldly or horizontal issues and relationships

I have said this many times before and I see how important it is not to jump into a counselee's issues before jumping into their heart's position with the Lord.

I truly believe this is the huge differential between secular counseling, Christian counseling and true Biblical counseling. I also now that there are sensitivities among the three 'schools' of counselling and I am not about to get into these.

All to say, I believe that physical circumstances and/or chemical imbalances certainly do have a part to play in a person's emotional well-being. Nevertheless, it is the heart that must be the target of Biblical counseling - not the blood-pumping organ, but the center of mind (desire), emotion and will.

The Bible is rife with references to the heart in negative terms such as - it is deceitful and beyond cure, it can be hard and more. The more positive aspects of the heart are also talked about in the Bible. The heart can be pure, blameless and full of joy.

Biblical counselors do not minister into physically ill hearts, but emotionally despondent ones. Therefore our tools for 'heart cure' are not metal scalpels and synthetic sutures, but Holy Spirit and heavenly insight.

Discipleship in Biblical counseling has been identified as important and nearly all courses offered on Biblical counseling, delve into the discipleship nature of the various counseling activities.

This is a huge topic and in my opinion, we often rush to the symptom before first discerning the spirit.

In Christ's love, Ian Ridpath,

Your Biblical Counselor (YBC)

NOTE: for my non-US Biblical counsellors (Canadian like me), I have used the US spelling of the word counselor/counseling in this article for this wider audience.