Ep 1261 ｜ Lies Your Therapist Tells You ｜ Greg Gifford
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per Minute
171.74094
Summary
In this episode, Dr. Greg Gifford, author of the book, Lies My Therapist Told Me, discusses the difference between a biblical counselor and a secular psychologist, and why Christians should not go to a therapist who doesn't believe in the soul.
Transcript
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Your therapist is lying to you, and they might actually be making you feel worse.
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Today, we are going to discuss the difference between an actual biblical counselor and what
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God's Word says about mental illness, and secular psychology, which tells you to focus
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on the self and actually may enlarge the problems in your life.
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This is a fascinating and super encouraging discussion with a licensed biblical counselor
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and the author of the book, Lies My Therapist Told Me.
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Dr. Gifford is an incredible resource when it comes to the biblical understanding of the
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Dr. Gifford, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
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Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?
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My name is Greg Gifford, and I'm a professor at the Master's University in Southern California.
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I teach primarily in the School of Biblical Studies, but we do languages, theology, biblical
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studies, and biblical counseling is my specific emphasis.
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So it's like a field where we use the Bible to try to help people in the counseling process,
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I also am a pastor at Faith Community Church in Santa Clarita.
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And I think probably the best thing, like the personal stuff, is I married my high school
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sweetheart, and we've been together 20 years with three boys.
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Okay, so Dr. John MacArthur was on this show a couple times, and he made waves a few years
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ago, and he probably said this multiple times, whenever he would talk about psychology or
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psychiatry, and he would talk about things like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and all of
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And of course, he believed that there were spiritual applications and spiritual remedies
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that could be given to someone, and also really criticize secular psychology, since
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psychologists typically, in general, deny the existence of a soul.
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They don't have the fullness of understanding of what a person made in the image of God
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What is your take on that, as someone who is an expert in biblical counseling?
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You've also talked and written a lot about things like PTSD.
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Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of categories in that.
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First of all is the reality of what's being called mental illness, and you have to think
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through, can your mind get ill, and the ubiquitous nature, so it's everywhere.
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What we're facing right now is an epidemic of one out of five people are diagnosed with
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So as a Christian, to be discerning, we have to say, what really goes into that?
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Like, what is depression, biblically speaking, or what is anxiety, biblically speaking?
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Are they diseases of your mind, and what is your mind?
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So that, for the listener and for us, like, we just have to start to say, okay, so is
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depression a medical issue, or is there something else that could be contributing to it?
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Is anxiety a medical issue, a disease that needs treatment, or is there something else
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And that's the first category of that conversation, and that's where I've tried to speak truth
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There are people that are suffering, and we want them to hear the truth of Scripture that
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The second is the category of psychologists that you mentioned.
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And this should be really weird to a believer, that I would go to an unbelieving therapist
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who doesn't believe in the soul, doesn't believe in the gospel, doesn't believe in redemption,
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forgiveness, and I would go to them with the most personal details of my life.
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How am I going to be truly helped, like, helped at the root level?
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So Dr. MacArthur did, at times, he critiqued that whole ball of wax.
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And what I've tried to do is to parse out, okay, which category do you want to talk about?
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So trying to point people back to what does the Scripture say, and for a lot of believers,
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we're kind of fed up with the secular therapeutic, like, wedging its way into my life and then
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So we're wanting better answers right now, and I think the Bible has those answers.
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Do you distinguish between the mind and the brain?
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Like, that is my mantra, and I appreciate you asking the question.
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So absolutely, as the mind and the brain go, as your understanding of the mind and brain go,
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so goes your treatment of all the mental illness and mental health issues.
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So biblically, it's really easy to settle, and most Christians are familiar with Romans 12, verse 2.
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I brought the word that I spilled coffee on yesterday.
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I love this verse because most Christians are familiar with it.
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Like, take us back to our Awana days, and here it is.
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Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
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that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
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Okay, so God is actually transforming Christians presently, and that is the work of sanctification.
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Here it says, by the renewal of your mind, the reconformity back, the restoration.
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It is the seat of your intellect and cognition.
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What is God actually doing when you were saved and when I was saved?
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God is capacitating us and our minds to be renewed and transformed.
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We can study them like any other organ, but your brain and your mind are not the same thing.
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And when we think of the way that the outer man can waste away, my brain can deteriorate and my mind can be renewed, even though I may have an organ of my brain issue.
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So Christians have to start to think through brain versus mind.
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And then you can start to connect the dots to chemical imbalances, mental illnesses or diseases.
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Is this an issue of my brain or is this probably more an issue of my mind?
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If we were to think of the brain and the mind as two circles, like in a Venn diagram,
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there's a lot of overlap between the brain and the mind too, right?
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And you can tell me if this is not how you would organize it or not how you would think of it.
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But a lot of what is in our mind is housed in the brain, right?
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What would you say is a component of the brain that's just the brain?
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What would you say is a component of the mind that's just the mind?
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And what is in that middle part that the brain and the mind share?
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Your mind will continue to exist after your brain has deceased.
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So when I am brain dead, there are diagnosable criteria to establish that.
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My mind will continue to exist until the resurrection.
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So then practically we know my brain is not the source of my thinking.
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I almost wish it were because you could like medicate it or you could treat it.
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So just consider the implications of that for a second.
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It's like your reason, your intellect, all of that comes from your mind.
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But we do have the science of the brain that tells us how thoughts are formed
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Or does the brain respond to what the mind is doing, chicken or the egg?
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I remember as a child thinking about the people who don't believe in a soul
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And I remember having this just like, it just hit me.
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And I kind of had forgotten about that, but it almost seems like that's what you're saying.
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Are you saying that the mind and the spirit are two very similar things, if not the same thing?
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Because that's, first of all, it doesn't matter what I say, but that's what the Bible says.
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The Bible's going to say your soul, your spirit, your mind, and your heart are all part of your
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And the most used term is heart, especially in the Old Testament.
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So your entirety of your immaterial person uses those terms interchangeably.
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And I am not a person who thinks you can divide them out.
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I know some people it's dichotomy or trichotomy or something like that.
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But it seems like the Bible is more talking about your inner man versus your outer man.
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So your inner man is the source of those things.
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So like if I died right now, my brain would cease to work, but my mind would still be functioning
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in my soul, in my immaterial soul as I'm in the presence of the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5.
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Well, I do my best not to dabble in medical science.
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So I'll try to stay at like the 30,000 foot category, but it is that organ that is responding
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It is more like a filter biblically of what is happening in my thinking.
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I was talking with a guy after an ACBC conference and he had to use sign language.
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There's a translator in between us and I didn't do a good job of articulating what does the
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And he said, but what about Alzheimer's, dementia, traumatic brain injuries?
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And I was like, well, what those are is those are your brain is damaged and it is affecting
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or influencing the way that your mind expresses itself, but it's not causing it.
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So can you experience a concussion or a TBI or something and it influences the way that
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Or maybe we've kind of met that person in Alzheimer's where they start to become kind of mean or agitated.
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And what Alzheimer's is doing is removing the filter.
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What dementia is doing is removing that filter of your brain.
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Your physical body is healthy, prepared, unhealthy.
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And I don't have as much expertise as you do, but different things like dementia and Alzheimer's,
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I mean, things that happen in our brain can affect the things, I think, can affect the things that we say.
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I know that hormones can affect our moods and can even affect our perception of things
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so that we react in a particular way that might not be in alignment with the Bible
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So when you say the person who with Alzheimer's becomes irritable and that was who they were all along,
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it's hard for me to believe that that is necessarily true.
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Maybe it is true in some cases, but is there not something about Alzheimer's
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that would make a very typically sweet and kind person just that it would irritate something in them
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that would actually make them seem more bitter than they actually are?
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Does that necessarily mean that their mind is...
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Let me share a couple of thoughts with you, then answer that directly.
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So we guard it, we keep it from it for the wellsprings of life.
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But to your point, can those physiological things be an extreme encouragement?
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Can Alzheimer's, dementia, hormones, even sleeplessness, poor nutrition, pain,
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But those things are never the determiner because my actions, my emotions, or think of my words,
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those are all an overflow of what's coming from my heart and my inner person.
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So I want to make sure that we give a space and say, yeah, totally.
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A person can be really, really, really, really encouraged to be irritable.
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But not caused if we're using anger in the biblical, if we're using irritability as anger
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in the biblical context, a Christian cannot be caused to sin by their body.
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Why is this differentiation between the mind and the brain so important for how Christians
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Because in 20, whatever we're in now, 2025, we can thank Darwin for naturalism becoming
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the dominant Western worldview and everything has a medical explanation and we default to
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body must have an issue and we don't always default to what's happening in my inner person
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So we have medical sounding terminology that is starting to be used of an immaterial entity,
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which is our mind, mental illness or mental disease.
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But think of it this way, Allie, and those watching, when you go to a psychiatrist, what
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Just like, don't trust me, Google it, go to a psychiatrist.
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Seriously, they're going to have you verbally describe what's taking place and they are not
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empirically diagnosing you based off of vitamin deficiencies, brain scans.
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So you can leave a medical doctor's office with a medically sounding label about your mind
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and there was no medicine that was practiced to diagnose you for that.
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And I've had a lot of people on who are skeptical about this whole chemical imbalance thing that
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we hear like a serotonin deficiency, but they're never measuring that.
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Like they're not doing blood work to say, oh, yep, you're low on serotonin.
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And like, what other form of illness do we have where the doctor is like, oh, I can just
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But for mental illness, they just, I don't know, feel it in your aura, which is superstitious.
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So if you were like, hey, doctor, I think I have thyroid issues.
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Then they would be like, okay, well, let's look.
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But when you go to a psychiatrist and you say, hey, I think I'm depressed, they're going
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So we're, how did, the real question is like, how did we become okay with that?
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Like, why don't we just laugh at that person doing that?
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And that gets back to the naturalistic worldview that we start with, that we think in terms
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This medically trained doctor is telling me that I have an illness of my mind or a disease
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And it's actually a lot more dangerous to give someone potentially psychosis inducing
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drugs than it is to give someone thyroid medication that they don't need.
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And yet we accept that it's totally scientifically a viable option.
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School psychologist says, I think they have this thing.
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And then now all of a sudden, like we have no medical evidence, no medical testing, no
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And now I'm putting my kids on psychotropics and I haven't just paused to think like, wait
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And how do they know this is a problem of the body and not the immaterial self?
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How could we not have children being diagnosed as early as three, four years old with mental
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Because you have no objective criteria by which you can diagnose mental illnesses.
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And another consequence of the psychology world in general, just not believing in the
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soul and not believing in at least a higher power and objective morality is that everything
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Like everything goes back to like, you are both the problem and the solution at the same
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I saw this quote in East of Eden, the John Steinbeck book for those out there who don't
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And he was talking to someone who was very depressed after they had a loved one die.
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And he said, I'm paraphrasing, but basically you have to go about your life as if it is
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You don't feel it, but you have to do what you have to do.
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And I just thought how different that is from most of psychology, which tells you that the
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most important thing is to like be authentic, to feel what you really feel, and then to
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tell people how you really feel and to constantly focus on your emotion.
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It's all about empowering the self, knowing the self, discovering the self, and like presenting
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And East of Eden is not the Bible, but I just thought maybe that does just go to show how
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wrong we've been when it comes to healing and dealing with the brokenness inside ourselves
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Maybe the self can't be both the problem and the solution.
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Yeah, we can definitely be the problem for sure.
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And so now, okay, so unbelieving psychologist doesn't believe in God, doesn't believe in
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Jesus, doesn't believe in the gospel, what is it that they're going to help a believer
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Now, iatrogenesis, think of iatrogenic, I can create my own problems unintentionally.
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So instead of saying self-love is the remedy, think of it as the problem that I'm trying
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So the days are going to get worse, Timothy, you be faithful, hold fast to the word, people
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If my therapist counselor is telling me to love myself more and they're trying to make
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me the solution here, I'm going to be more miserable.
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The generation under 25 have never had so much depression and anxiety.
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So it's like a self, we are creating the problem and then we're trying to come up with solutions
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And the solutions themselves are making the problem worse.
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So from a Christian angle, we are here to glorify God and make much of him.
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In fact, the call to discipleship is to deny yourself, to take up your cross and to follow
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Self-denial is an integral part of being faithful.
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And if I focus on self, of course, it's going to get worse.
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And then now I'm going to someone with a naturalistic worldview and they're using medical
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sounding labels when it's not really a medical issue in the first place.
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I think Christians buy a lot of that stuff too, because we hear a lot, especially in
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the women's Bible study world, and this is what I wrote my first book on, we hear things
00:26:37.220
that sound almost biblically true, like you're enough, you're perfect the way you are, give
00:26:43.980
yourself grace, all of these things that almost sound good.
00:26:48.280
Well, Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, so that's a command to love yourself
00:26:54.760
And of course, it feels good, but you end up at the same place where the secular world
00:27:00.620
ends up, which is the self, and believing that this path of self-discovery and self-fulfillment
00:27:20.440
Is the emphasis God's glory and you being restored through the work of Christ to glorify God,
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or that God couldn't live without you, and that is why he sent Jesus?
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So it's like, who's being exalted in the narrative of the gospel?
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It is the glory of God in the name of Jesus Christ.
00:27:39.140
So then I can Christianize self-love and say, God loves me.
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And if I'm not careful, then it starts to be an exaltation of me again.
00:27:50.320
And it's so seductive because it's like legitimized, you're seemingly legitimized with
00:27:54.420
So if you're going to love your neighbor, you have to first love yourself.
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If I'm going to love my neighbor like I love myself, I have to love myself.
00:28:01.240
But the inherent problem is that who is getting the glory?
00:28:10.300
And it's not really a command to love ourselves.
00:28:15.240
We're born loving ourselves in the same way that we're born seeking our own interests.
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From the very first moment, we are interested in what we need.
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I think God created us with a survival instinct.
00:28:31.960
It seems to me that Jesus is saying in the same way that you naturally seek to meet your
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own interests and needs, seek to meet the interests and the needs of other people, not
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as high as your self-esteem is, make sure that other people's self-esteem is just as high.
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And that, I think, is how we're interpreting it.
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And if that's the case, you're going to be waiting a really long time until you love someone
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It's like, oh, I hated what I looked like in my outfit this morning.
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Like it's just, we, like you said, I think the point of glory is so important because
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I can say, okay, I woke up this morning not feeling great about myself and maybe I'm not
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But because Christ is in me and because his love never changes and because he died on
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the cross and his sacrifice like is fixed, like that gives me the power to love other
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That's actually a lot more freeing than thinking that my love for other people is dependent
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First of all, I don't want to sound like just a curmudgeon that's like, you know, stop
00:29:38.220
focusing on yourself because we're, we're raised in a culture that has exalted our feelings.
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And you're, you know, you best and who am I to judge you?
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So then that starts to be kind of the solution as well.
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It's like, well, I want to feel better and I want to feel better about myself.
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That's, that's the singular next step for me to thrive.
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But we know according to the scripture that God's word is the truth, not what's going
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on in my inner person and my feelings matter, but they're not authoritative.
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In fact, I can have wayward emotions and feelings.
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So then you turn that corner and you say, God sets me free from myself to worship him.
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And when I do that, I am the most satisfied person I can be.
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Like Psalm 16, 11, like the pleasures are not at my right hand.
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And when you think of contentment as a Christian, it is not where you've learned to be true to
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You learn contentment by being obedient to the Lord.
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And then he changes your will, Philippians 2, 13.
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I'm grumpy, you know, like everything has to make me happy.
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But whenever I'm living for the glory of God, I'm free because it's not about me.
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And all those inconveniences to my life can actually help me better glorify the Lord than
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if I lived at perfect ease with no problems at all.
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I mean, that's the, that's the beauty of the gospel and the Christian worldview.
00:31:32.600
And it is so counter to what modern psychology tells us.
00:31:35.920
And by the way, people are accessing modern psychology, not necessarily by going into a
00:31:41.120
psychologist's office and paying them a hundred dollars an hour, but on Instagram,
00:31:49.760
But there's a lot of psychology influencers out there too, or memes or whatever.
00:31:54.500
And people are imbibing this idea that, you know, there are two things that you can do
00:32:00.840
And one is to lean more on your own understanding and to lean more into how you feel about yourself,
00:32:07.360
but then also cut out all of the things that are making you sad.
00:32:12.060
Oh, this person, you know, is asking too much of you.
00:32:15.420
Your boss expects you to work hard and come into the office while all of these toxic things,
00:32:20.900
or it's the patriarchy, or it's capitalism, or it's advertising, or it's this system,
00:32:26.440
And it makes sense when you think that it's an anti-Christian worldview.
00:32:29.940
For Christian, the sanctification is not necessarily asking God to remove all the hard
00:32:35.260
It's asking God to help us endure them with grace and perseverance in a way that makes us
00:32:41.720
We're denying ourselves, as you said earlier, whereas modern psychology is asking us to deny
00:32:48.320
And just to make sure my position is clear, and I'm very open to your thoughts on this,
00:32:54.700
my reading of the scripture is that it is God-centered, and our life is about glorifying Him.
00:33:01.540
And God can even use my emotional struggles to help me depend on Him more.
00:33:07.500
Whenever I'm anxious, I have to fight to trust Him.
00:33:11.260
Whenever my mood is depressed or melancholic, like I have to cling to the promises of scripture
00:33:16.520
and hold to them, to use Bridges, Jerry Bridges' words.
00:33:20.100
So I am not saying be miserable, but just grind in glorifying God.
00:33:25.480
But me being free of depression and anxiety is a secondary goal.
00:33:35.940
And then I have to think through, what does the Bible say about those issues?
00:33:39.380
And how can I respond to anxiety or depression or ADHD according to the scripture?
00:33:47.140
I don't want anyone to hear this or listen to this, but like, you know, Gifford just
00:33:49.500
believes that you should be miserable and glorify the Lord.
00:33:52.460
No, I'm saying that glorifying God is number one, and then addressing whatever emotional
00:34:02.160
Well, let's talk about what that looks like specifically.
00:34:04.800
And if we can start with ADHD, because I think that's the most interesting one.
00:34:09.880
The Bible has a lot to say about being sad and distressed and fearful and anxious, but
00:34:16.440
I'd be interested to hear, like, how would you work through with someone with ADHD using
00:34:23.700
So first of all, think of what we're calling ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
00:34:34.780
Seriously, it's like kids that get up and they're kind of rambunctious.
00:34:38.260
You have girls, I have boys, and boys are just different.
00:34:42.860
Like I've never, my boys are a little maybe rambunctious.
00:34:46.220
This is like, I don't walk in on them playing house and like neatly building a Lego set.
00:34:51.220
Like they're wrestling, they're bouncing the ball in the house.
00:34:55.440
And those that are most diagnosed with ADHD are boys and it's junior high.
00:35:01.680
So then you think through that, it's like, oh, that's an interesting thing to consider.
00:35:12.320
Sitting in one place for six, seven hours a day.
00:35:17.980
Then you think through the girls that are their age.
00:35:23.520
They're like a foot taller, as weird as that may seem.
00:35:26.960
You pick up your son in fifth grade and you're like, you guys are in the same class?
00:35:32.140
So then you have these boys that are rambunctious, wily, not sitting still.
00:35:36.040
And the immediate leap is, well, they must have a disorder.
00:35:40.080
Let's have them talk to the school psychologist.
00:35:44.160
I don't fault school psychologist and I don't fault trying to find resources for boys that
00:35:48.200
are rambunctious, but do they have a medically verifiable problem?
00:35:58.200
And there will be some watching this that says, yes, there's brain chemistry that corresponds
00:36:05.160
So let's diagnose based off of brain scans and not symptoms.
00:36:28.120
Everyone in the body of Christ is given gifts, strengths, weaknesses that we have.
00:36:32.820
There are some that are just not the school type.
00:36:47.000
Looking back, I see a lot of CEOs or executive directors.
00:36:51.000
And it's like, man, if they had ADHD whenever you were a kid, you would have been diagnosed
00:36:54.320
with it because you're bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
00:36:57.040
I've definitely seen that in some very successful people.
00:37:01.740
They can hardly even look you in the eye sometimes because they're thinking about a million things.
00:37:07.580
So is that something that has to be labeled and treated?
00:37:11.760
Or do you find the area to set your giftedness free?
00:37:15.620
It's like, you're probably not going to be a librarian.
00:37:21.840
Would you be miserable if we made you go to a cubicle and type in Excel all day?
00:37:29.040
So go be a park ranger, go be an entrepreneur, go work with your hands, go build your own
00:37:39.160
I think for a lot of the diagnoses, give them time to mature, give them a time to grow up,
00:37:46.620
encourage them to do things that are hard and to persevere.
00:37:50.440
And you can't always do the things that you love and eschew the things you hate.
00:38:02.400
It's a Christian liberty, you know, and I'm not going to say you absolutely cannot.
00:38:07.500
But I am going to say you want your sons and some daughters, you want them to learn the
00:38:14.140
life skills that go into denying yourself and not depending on a medication that's going
00:38:23.000
You can use it in a God-honoring way when you've obtained those meds legally, you could
00:38:27.900
But help them mature first and help them grow and then steer them towards somewhere where
00:38:32.200
they can really thrive with their giftedness instead of the librarian, the accountant,
00:38:38.000
the very sedentary positions that will just probably make them crazy, seriously.
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I think just like with everything that we do, we have to assess our motives behind it.
00:39:51.160
When it is an area of Christian liberty, in this case, obviously, the Bible doesn't say
00:39:56.460
you shall not do a brain scan and treat with medication something that is actual diagnosed
00:40:03.060
But I think all of us need to ask, and as a parent, I can understand this.
00:40:08.460
If you have a child that is having a really hard time in school, your other kids aren't,
00:40:13.760
You're watching them up on stage, everyone else in the Christmas recital is doing their
00:40:20.540
job and doing the motions and singing, your child is running around on stage.
00:40:25.160
Like I can understand as a parent, oh, that's difficult.
00:40:28.560
And you might feel like, well, I'm helping them by giving them this medication.
00:40:38.280
Is it because they are actually having a hard time or do you just feel awkward and uncomfortable?
00:40:44.820
And is it also just making your job as a parent harder?
00:40:48.380
Is it because maybe you don't want to homeschool?
00:40:50.620
Is it because it takes longer to discipline and talk to your child, longer to get out the
00:40:55.880
And those might all be real difficulties, but they also may be opportunities for sanctification,
00:41:09.340
And sometimes I think that's just, that's the most difficult part is the patience that's
00:41:15.880
And yes, it might make it easier for your child to sit through seven hours of school.
00:41:28.220
Yeah, and I don't fault schools because schools actually have to get a diagnosis to get them
00:41:32.820
private tutors and more resources or an educational assistant.
00:41:37.080
So the school's not trying to, you know, we could paint public schools as being evil and
00:41:41.560
some are, but there's also a legal requirement to get tested and diagnosed with ADHD to get
00:41:47.740
you a smaller room and less students in the class and an educational assistant or specialist
00:41:53.260
So then the school's saying, well, we got to get you tested to get you out of 30 person
00:41:58.380
size classes and get you the attention and resources that you need.
00:42:02.280
So they need that diagnosis to unlock all these resources.
00:42:06.600
But as a parent, you should still be discerning and say, hmm, but I don't know if that is the
00:42:16.640
It's hard to assess how you're doing as a parent and all of the things that like you might
00:42:21.820
need to change in order to like better accommodate the personality and the strengths of your kids.
00:42:26.880
I love what you said about thinking about those differences as strengths and not something
00:42:31.880
that needs to be stifled or medicated necessarily.
00:42:35.800
I don't think that a lot of us probably think that way even about our own selves.
00:42:40.880
But I had pretty, probably every teacher, my parents would say, tell my parents that I had ADD
00:42:51.020
And so, yeah, I'm really glad that I look back and I'm really glad that my parents said no to that.
00:43:01.200
The Lord's obviously blessing your work and you have this huge impact through your words,
00:43:07.140
But what if at your earliest of years, you self-conceptualized as having a disorder, ADHD?
00:43:14.660
So what if your parents said, okay, like if you want to get her tested, let's get her tested.
00:43:21.200
And then now you start to hear what you can't do because you have ADHD.
00:43:26.440
So that's a very, that's an extremely detrimental side effect of the mental illness movement over
00:43:33.320
diagnosing is kids self-conceptualizing as their diagnosis from very, so you, you would have learned
00:43:42.800
So your parents gave you that sweet gift of saying, nope, we're going to protect her and
00:43:47.580
we're going to help her thrive in what she's good at.
00:43:51.400
And I never did get an A in math and that's okay.
00:43:59.720
So we talked through ADHD for those who are like, look, Dr. Gifford, I hear you, but they're
00:44:08.940
You're telling me this is a problem of the mind.
00:44:10.560
I don't know how to pray more and read the Bible more than I already have.
00:44:14.680
No one should hear this, watch this, listen to this and think I'm saying depression doesn't
00:44:22.840
And no one should hear this, watch this, listen to this and think I'm saying anxiety doesn't
00:44:36.300
What I'm saying is let's start to, to uncover what's going on in depression.
00:44:43.380
If there are physiological issues, vitamin deficiencies, thyroid issues, there's something
00:44:50.000
going on with my brain, maybe there's actually a cyst or something growing on the organ and
00:44:58.680
You would say affecting your mind in a way that encourages you to sin, but doesn't cause
00:45:05.000
Because we know Romans 6, we're set free and we have God's spirit indwelling us, 1 Corinthians
00:45:10.780
So I can't, I can never once say my body made me sin.
00:45:14.220
And yeah, it does get murky in terms of what is, was that a true sin or was it not a true
00:45:19.760
sin, you know, but, but we know that line is clear.
00:45:23.620
So if I don't have any known physiological problems, doctors can't find anything.
00:45:29.080
There's nothing going on in the organ of my brain.
00:45:32.820
All my blood work comes back and it looks nice.
00:45:36.840
Then maybe just maybe I should be open to what's happening in my mind.
00:45:50.480
Did something change in my life recently that was not physiological, but was circumstantial?
00:45:58.060
Then you're not talking about a biological problem at all.
00:46:00.340
You're actually talking about a spiritual problem.
00:46:03.680
So here it's like, okay, well, Gifford like kick people while they're down, man.
00:46:09.140
I am saying you can be hopeless and that's not a body problem.
00:46:16.320
We want to take you back to the nature and the character of God and his promises.
00:46:24.380
Second Corinthians one, he's the God of all comfort, that his mercy is unending for you.
00:46:30.080
That even in the low point, if someone's watching this in bed right now, even in that low point, God draws people out of the mud and the muck and the mire, and he sets them on a firm rock, which is himself.
00:46:50.500
We need to behold the glory of God, not behold the glory of our problems, not behold the glory of ourselves, not behold the glory of psychotropics.
00:46:59.560
So if there is no physical issue, would we at least be open, at least open, at least consider what may be happening in our inner person that's contributing to things like depression in that way?
00:47:15.480
Abigail Schreier, I don't know if you've read her book, Bad Therapy.
00:47:19.740
She came on this show to talk about it, but she also went on Joe Rogan and she talked about one of the key features of depression is often just a constant dwelling on your own problems, which to me would be one of the problems of psychology because what I hear from popular psychology is that that's how you heal your problems, is constantly talking about them and thinking about them.
00:47:42.380
That's one problem I have with SEL in school, because especially for kids, this focus on the feelings and the problems and the concerns that you have, I just don't know if that's healthy.
00:47:55.980
She says, start class every day by asking your students how they feel and you're actually going to make them feel worse.
00:48:03.300
And it's like, Schreier's not arguing for a biblical worldview, but there is something correct about that, which is a self-centered,
00:48:12.380
worldview makes me more miserable, like we were saying a few minutes ago.
00:48:21.940
And that's where some of our teachers are totally out of line by asking our students the wrong kind of questions.
00:48:28.680
It's almost like you're leading the witness to a degree.
00:48:39.780
Let's use the term that comes from the scripture, but then I do think there's a cultural term that younger people will use that's more like stress.
00:48:50.900
The term from the scripture, anxiety, Philippians 4, 6, Matthew 6, Jesus says, do not be anxious.
00:48:58.720
Okay, so it's pretty clear that Jesus is focusing on anxiety as a matter of having little faith.
00:49:27.280
Some of you fear interchangeably, but worry seems to be a better modern-day English equivalent.
00:49:32.020
If that's what you're saying anxiety is, then the Bible would say that is a sin to repent of.
00:49:39.120
Because we're not placing our faith and trust in the Lord and practical things like food and clothing.
00:49:44.880
So the solution is turn from that like we would any other distrust of the Lord.
00:49:50.560
And then now behold God as your provider who's good and wise and loving.
00:49:56.420
And the grass of the field reminds us God's a provider.
00:49:59.340
Seriously, the birds remind us that God doesn't forget us.
00:50:04.180
So there's another category that I find younger people use, which is they'll say they're anxious in a way that older generations would say they're stressed.
00:50:14.820
It's like, oh, just so anxious, so much going on.
00:50:17.760
But they don't really mean like I'm failing to trust the Lord.
00:50:20.700
They mean something like I'm kind of overwhelmed.
00:50:26.060
The first time I said in class that anxiety is a sin, like you could feel the breath of my students like gasp.
00:50:39.400
And we did, and I learned that they were using anxiety like overwhelmed.
00:50:50.740
2 Corinthians 4, struck down, perplexed, all those things, and not be anxious?
00:50:56.260
But if we're talking about anxiety, the solution to anxiety is to learn to trust the Lord in the practical things you're struggling with.
00:51:15.480
When we talk about anxiety, anxiety is a mild form of atheism.
00:51:21.380
Kevin Carson, undergraduate prof, told me that.
00:51:27.940
Because I'm not seeing that God's in total control, and he's good and wise.
00:51:32.960
And when I know that God's in control, he's sovereign, and I know that he's good, meaning he's not this evil dictator, then I trust him and I'm not anxious.
00:51:45.140
He's in total control, and he's good, and he's wise, and he knows.
00:51:48.520
So your anxiety and my anxiety, and I could be a man who is prone toward anxiety.
00:51:54.060
It's actually crushed by a big view, a transformative view of who the Lord is.
00:52:01.620
And then I learned to practically trust him in the areas that I'm struggling with.
00:52:09.740
I remember there's a quote, I'm going to paraphrase it, by C.S. Lewis, who said something along the lines of worrying about the future is like picturing the future without God's grace in it.
00:52:21.520
Because if God's grace is in the here and the now with us, everyone hears about those moments where some Christian goes through awful tragedy, and everyone around them is like, how are you so at peace?
00:52:32.960
Like, obviously, you're sad, but you don't seem distraught.
00:52:36.360
You don't seem, you know, completely destitute.
00:52:39.100
And obviously, the grace of God met them exactly where they were.
00:52:42.580
But when we picture some future event, some catastrophe, our spouse dying, our child getting diagnosed with cancer, one, we can't control that.
00:52:52.760
So that is, I think, a large part of where the anxiety comes from.
00:52:55.920
Not only that it's going to happen, but that we can't do anything to stop it.
00:53:00.140
But then also, we're picturing that moment without God's grace there, because we're thinking about a hypothetical, and God's grace is only real.
00:53:06.320
And so I think that also just stirs in us a lot of unnecessary worry, which I think Satan, you know, he likes that.
00:53:15.220
Because, of course, he likes to imagine a world without God's grace in it.
00:53:24.280
So when I'm tempted to be anxious, I want to know.
00:53:30.800
And then I co-mingle that with the Lord blesses the plans that I establish.
00:53:39.240
And then before long, I am trying to control things that are not mine to control.
00:53:44.340
So the worship of control becomes really who you functionally are living for, and it's not the worship of God.
00:53:53.360
And then when I can't control it, I'm anxious or fearful.
00:53:55.900
Last sponsor for the day is Concerned Women for America.
00:54:04.640
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00:55:23.500
Medicalizing the mind is the next lie that we want to cut straight as Christians.
00:55:30.020
We are doing our best to then dissect what is it that we're facing with God's Word.
00:55:37.080
So if it's depression, anxiety, ADHD, take each of those seriously.
00:55:42.520
Run them through what the Bible says about what you're experiencing.
00:55:46.260
And if there's no physiological problem, then start to develop a worldview that the solutions are coming from the Scripture, not from the secular therapeutic.
00:55:55.300
And even if you do have a physiological problem, that doesn't mean it's only physiological, right?
00:56:03.320
Because it can intersect with the mind, which means God's Word has an answer for that.
00:56:12.300
Like there are those that respond to stress by sleeplessness, losing hair, can't eat.
00:56:17.940
And you're like, is that a gastrointestinal problem?
00:56:24.000
I would love to think I could eat sweet potatoes and I trust the Lord and my body's completely restored.
00:56:28.840
But I have to learn that, no, I must grow in trusting Him so I'm at peace.
00:56:39.860
So we want to emphasize, yeah, your body can encourage things, but your inner person can also encourage things within your body.
00:56:47.480
So as Christians, we're not neglecting one or the other.
00:56:49.860
But the current tendency, and this is the lie we have to face in the church, is it's not all a body problem.
00:56:59.820
It's not all, if there's no evidence that it's a body problem, then let's just be open to the fact that there's a soul problem here.
00:57:08.280
I think that it goes back so perfectly to the beginning of this conversation, because I'm thinking of some examples in my own life.
00:57:14.660
Like, there might be a particular set of circumstances that actually makes you stressed.
00:57:21.480
It makes your mind or brain start racing, whatever it is.
00:57:26.300
You have butterflies in your stomach, all of this stuff.
00:57:34.280
It might encourage me to snap at my family or to be rude to someone or to cut someone off in traffic because I want to get where I'm going.
00:57:43.260
And from the outside perspective, it's totally understandable for me to act that way.
00:57:49.340
But it is not making me sin, and I'm so responsible for that sin.
00:57:53.820
Because, of course, one of the fruit of the Spirit is not self-love but self-control.
00:57:58.660
And the Holy Spirit, it, you know, indwells us and can direct the mind no matter what's happening in our physiology.
00:58:07.620
And like you said, it doesn't mean that our physical circumstances and body doesn't matter and that it can't affect the mind.
00:58:13.940
But Christians have to be thoughtful enough to remember the presence of the Holy Spirit, right?
00:58:22.060
And we are not, you know, we're not dominated by the Prince of the Power of the Air anymore.
00:58:26.560
So, Ali, some listeners are going to hear them be like, are you serious?
00:58:35.640
And I think we have to say, yeah, you should feel responsibility, but change can happen.
00:58:44.400
So, instead of me saying, I'm controlled by my anger, and as men, we can feel legitimized in our anger.
00:58:52.480
Instead of me saying, like, I just have to be an angry dad, an angry husband, I can say, you know what?
00:58:56.980
God calls me to bear responsibility for it, but then he promises that he will forgive me if I confess, 1 John 8 and 9,
00:59:05.840
and that he will give me the resources I need to change.
00:59:12.000
So, don't feel the burden of, like, oh, man, that's a lot.
00:59:21.800
Transformation is the idea that you are completely new.
00:59:28.140
Not managing the symptoms of, you don't have to be that anymore.
00:59:32.640
So, don't hear, like, own your sin as this heavy guilt.
00:59:36.120
Hear, like, own your sin, yes, but you behold the glory of Jesus, not the glory of your sin.
00:59:45.200
In your fight against sin, you don't focus on your sin, you focus on Jesus, and that brings you freedom from those things.
00:59:57.180
Lies that therapists are, Christians, just think this through.
01:00:12.360
If you're unrepentant, Romans 128, you have a calloused mind.
01:00:17.020
Or you have a defiled mind, Titus 115, that's said of false teachers.
01:00:26.080
Scary thought, but your mind can actually be hardened.
01:00:35.580
Christians, let's just think this through carefully.
01:00:37.920
If you're going to an unbelieving therapist for help about the most personal matters of your life,
01:00:45.040
you could literally be sitting across the desk from someone with a hardened, calloused, defiled mind,
01:00:52.440
trying to help you with your most personal, intimate problems.
01:01:04.240
But plan A is that I could find somebody who would use God's word as the source and authority
01:01:11.160
to really help me with the root of what's going on here.
01:01:17.080
Well, I was going to ask, for those who don't know,
01:01:18.980
what is the difference between a licensed biblical counselor and someone who is just a Christian therapist?
01:01:31.100
The difference between biblical counseling and Christian therapy or Christian counseling
01:01:39.340
So I host a podcast called Transformed, and listeners will write in and say,
01:01:44.040
does that mean anyone that uses the Bible is a biblical counselor?
01:01:47.820
And the answer is, the difference comes down to what's the source and the authority.
01:01:54.060
Love Dave Ramsey, I've used his plan, but he'll typically grab a proverb
01:01:58.060
and then use that one proverb to develop a whole structure of debt and managing your personal finances.
01:02:03.960
In the counseling world, it's like that as well.
01:02:06.060
It's like we have 99% Rogers, 99% Freud, and then a proverb that's kind of dropped in there somewhere.
01:02:13.260
And you're like, wait a minute, that's Freud's anthropology, what he believes about people,
01:02:16.860
that's his soteriology about salvation and sanctification.
01:02:22.320
That's Christian counseling, because the counseling is not coming from the Bible.
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Whereas biblical counseling is attempting to take God's word as both the source and the authority.
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You interpret people through the lens of scripture.
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You interpret their problems through the lens of scripture or the solutions through the lens
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That is an outworking of our commitment to the sufficiency of scripture, which is the Bible
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And will someone who is a biblical counselor have a licensed biblical counselor under their
01:02:58.140
If there's someone out there that's looking for that, how do they find that person?
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I think you do need to be discerning about that, because some people will just kind of
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hang a shingle out and say, biblical counselor, I got a Bible.
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We appreciate well-intended, compassionate people.
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I teach at the Master's University, where we have bachelors all the way up to doctoral degrees
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So training, education that corresponds to being equipped for that.
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And then there is a certification process called the Association of Certified Biblical
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And they actually train you, test you, observe you in counseling to ensure that you can implement
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So it is very possible to get a degree, but never have actually counseled people or met
01:03:45.180
So you have all the knowledge, but not the skill.
01:03:48.480
So look for someone that has education, yes, Master's University, or I'm looking for someone
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And if there's listeners that are interested, email me, and I'll point you to the, there's
01:04:01.380
a different, it's like a map, an interactive map that can show you biblical counselors in
01:04:08.420
I think for people, I'm just thinking through this myself.
01:04:12.060
Like if I were sitting across from a therapist, and maybe this can only be deduced over time,
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but someone who doesn't believe that we are born simple and that we are sinners, or that
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we don't need a savior, or doesn't acknowledge the need for salvation or sanctification, like
01:04:28.700
once you start to see that, that a lot of psychologists believe that you are inherently
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good inside, that's when you'll see like the big difference in the wisdom that they're
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And that's when you should walk out if you haven't already.
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And then the therapist psychologist says, yeah, you deserve better.
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You know, like they shouldn't treat me like this.
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I just thought about something else and we don't have time to do it, but we don't have
01:05:03.080
So maybe you'll have to come back and I'll leave everyone on a cliffhanger.
01:05:05.860
But you're talking about how like, okay, depression, anxiety, we were talking about how that's
01:05:11.760
not typically diagnosed using blood work or brain scan.
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And yet they'll tell you, you know, unequivocally that you have low serotonin or something.
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And the only other thing I can think of that we do that with is like transgenderism is that
01:05:24.640
you hear someone talk and you're like, yes, your brain is a female brain.
01:05:31.960
Not that that would indicate that they're born in the wrong body.
01:05:34.800
But again, they are being given something to change their body based on like a totally
01:05:44.680
And I just am thinking now how much of the psychotropics that are given are based on that
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kind of politicized, psychologized, totally subjective reasoning.
01:05:55.880
And it actually is changing people's brain in a way that can affect their mind in very dangerous
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There's also a group of people that have food allergies that do not have a medical proof.
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If we talk about food allergies, a self-diagnosed food allergy, I'm gluten free.
01:06:22.700
That's interesting because I'm now describing my own health.
01:06:26.360
I'm describing my own gastrointestinal problems.
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And yet there's not necessarily medical evidence for that.
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Like it's a fascinating concept of, is that true or is that not true?
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We could have a whole other conversation about that.
01:06:49.100
That when, like it does seem that nowadays when like the patient walks in, like we're able
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to self-diagnose and then they can just give us the medication that we're asking for because
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we are directly advertised to by the pharmaceutical companies.
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And I'm pretty sure we are the only country, if not one of the only countries in the world
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where we get that direct to consumer advertising of.
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We just need the doctor to write the prescription.
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Or I Well, WebMD'd it, you know, and this is what I have.
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And if the doctor disagrees with me, then I reject that.
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But all the more need for actual biblical counsel that comes from the word of God, that comes
01:07:35.920
And that is a comfort when it seems like everything else is giving way.
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Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
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Everyone can buy your book, Lies My Therapist Told Me, wherever books are sold.
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And you have a podcast that's called Transforming.
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It's part of Fortis Institute where I'm a fellow.