The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Biblical Counseling 101： The Sufficiency Of Scripture

00:00:00.000 Hi, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin with

00:00:04.680 Right Response Ministries. On this episode, I was privileged to have as a special guest,

00:00:09.540 Dr. John Street, to discuss the topic of biblical counseling. Hope you enjoy.

00:00:15.460 Applying God's Word to Every Aspect of Life. This is Theology Applied.

00:00:20.920 All right, so I'm privileged to be joined by Dr. Street with our episode today.

00:00:31.600 Dr. John Street, would you go ahead and just take a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners?

00:00:35.520 Sure. I'm just a sinner saved by grace and by God's infinite grace.

00:00:41.120 He has placed me into a ministry whereby I have the opportunity to teach,

00:00:46.780 especially on a graduate level, biblical counseling. I do that to guys that are going

00:00:53.220 through seminary, and then we have a graduate program at the Master's University called the

00:00:58.440 Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling. We are coming close to getting approval for a doctoral

00:01:04.680 level program there at the university, so we're really excited about that in the area of biblical

00:01:09.960 counseling. I'm really a former pastor. That's what I have done for the majority of my ministry

00:01:16.040 life, but for the last 22 years since then, I've been a teacher and a professor, so that's what I

00:01:23.480 do. I also function as an elder at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where Dr. John

00:01:29.720 MacArthur is the pastor, and then I also serve as the president of the board of the Association of

00:01:36.560 Certified Biblical Counselors, ACBC, which is a growing organization of around pretty close to

00:01:43.440 2,500 people nationally and internationally that are fully certified and around the world it's a

00:01:51.080 really tight network people that have been certified in the area of biblical counseling so

00:01:56.700 that gives you a little bit of an idea of some of the things that I do but I'm really grateful for

00:02:01.680 the fact that I have a wonderful wife who by the way in a day or two of our anniversary we turn

00:02:07.840 we see it'll be our 44th anniversary we have four wonderful kids they all love the lord they're all

00:02:14.320 grown they're all adults three of those four are married and we have six grandchildren and

00:02:20.980 I didn't realize how good I was at spoiling until I had grandkids and but I'm especially

00:02:29.080 gifted at it with grandkids. I love spoiling the grandkids.

00:02:34.920 Yeah. Well, I mean, as I told you before we started recording, we moved from California

00:02:39.720 to Texas. That's where I was born and raised. And my wife, she was born and raised in San

00:02:43.520 Diego, California, but her parents got wise about seven years prior and moved to Texas.

00:02:49.620 And so we picked the North Austin area because that's where her parents settled. And I was

00:02:54.580 raised in Bay City, Texas, but my parents, they went ahead and retired early and relocated to

00:02:59.960 this area as well. So we've got, our kids are super spoiled because they've got both sides of

00:03:04.700 the grandparents. And it's just, I love being a dad, but I'm a little bit envious. I can't wait

00:03:10.920 to be a grandparent because it's just, you just get to hang out, have fun, and then drop them off

00:03:14.840 with mom and dad for all the discipline and training. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's

00:03:19.620 kind of nice. Okay, great. Well, let's just go ahead and dive into it. Our topic is biblical

00:03:24.400 counseling. And man, I've, I've had some struggles with this, you know, just in, uh, being a pastor

00:03:30.860 when I, when I was a pastor in San Diego, and I haven't really encountered any of this thus far

00:03:35.940 with the new church plant here in Texas, but I remember in San Diego, you know, a lot of young

00:03:40.640 people, I was young myself. And so attracted people who were kind of in that same demographic

00:03:44.880 20s and early 30s. And, um, yeah, people just felt like, uh, it's not real counseling. Biblical

00:03:52.840 counseling is not real counseling. You need a trained professional license, you know, it's got

00:03:57.600 to be secular counseling. And, um, and they always kind of, you know, which it was, I always thought

00:04:03.780 of Samuel, you know, when, you know, the people ask for a King and God says, you know, Hey Samuel,

00:04:08.480 it's okay. You know, and kind of soothes his ego a bit, you know, they're not rejecting you as

00:04:12.420 prophet. They're rejecting me as God. They're rejecting me as King. And, um, you know, but

00:04:16.880 people, you know, they always make it about the pastor. Cause what are they going to say? If

00:04:19.600 they're professing Christians, they're going to say the Bible is not sufficient. It's not enough. 0.98

00:04:23.600 Now I'm convinced that I think a lot of professing Christians, uh, that's what they actually believe,

00:04:28.300 but they'll pin it on the pastor. And instead they'll say the pastor is not sufficient,

00:04:31.940 right? He doesn't have enough education experience. And, uh, and so they opt for

00:04:36.520 these other forms of counseling. And so can you help us with that is, is, are there, are there

00:04:41.460 valid other forms of counseling or does it need to be biblical counseling? And if so,

00:04:45.740 what's the distinction between biblical counseling and secular counseling? 0.95

00:04:50.640 Well, obviously this is a, you start off with a good one because we get this all the time

00:04:55.560 in the area of biblical counseling and people questioning what's really going on here. And

00:05:00.400 don't we need someone that has a advanced degree in therapy or psychotherapy or psychiatry in

00:05:09.300 order to be able to deal with the serious problems that people have and right from the outset I think

00:05:15.760 it's vitally important to start off and talk about the fact that counseling itself was an endeavor

00:05:24.340 that was a part of the very fabric of the New Testament church in fact there's far more counsel

00:05:29.180 given in the New Testament than there is sermons there's lots and lots of personal counsel lots of

00:05:35.520 corporate counsel that's given throughout the new testament and if the bible is your authority

00:05:41.940 and your final authority and i think the resurrection of counseling in our contemporary

00:05:48.680 world today in biblical counseling that is is a direct result a natural result of the reformation

00:05:56.000 because the emphasis was upon the sufficiency and the superiority of the word of god over

00:06:02.700 churches and church councils and so on and especially church organization like the roman

00:06:08.180 catholic church and so the word of god becomes paramount and and this is something that

00:06:15.360 we believe was practiced um and and have come to the conclusion was practiced by the early church

00:06:23.360 in the first few centuries of the church and then um and then um somehow as time went on

00:06:33.060 into the middle ages then it was eventually lost and a lot of this could be attributed to key

00:06:39.280 people like thomas aquinas and his whole view of the fact that um there's still enough goodness

00:06:45.820 in man for man to to reason towards god and choose god rather than god choosing him and

00:06:51.540 And and there's and and of course, the observation, empirical observations that are made by Thomas Aquinas and several theologians since then set the stage then later on for psychology.

00:07:04.520 Then when you get in the Enlightenment, obviously, the Bible and God is thrown out now as authority, especially in the secular domain.

00:07:13.520 And now there is no authority except for man. And so you still have man with problems.

00:07:20.060 So now psychology becomes a natural humanistic way to deal with man's problems.

00:07:27.440 It's a natural historical result of atheism.

00:07:32.180 It's a historical result of naturalism and especially relativism as well.

00:07:38.740 So the problem is nowadays is that what has really destroyed counseling is the professionalization.

00:07:50.060 of it where now only a professor professional with a high degree can can counsel people and

00:07:58.740 for christians who have listened to that in the world and become a part of that kind of thinking

00:08:04.300 that's in the world then it's a natural question to say well wait a minute if you don't have a

00:08:09.960 professional degree in counseling then you're not qualified to do counseling right and we would argue

00:08:14.240 that if a person is not well schooled in good biblical theology and good solid doctrine you're

00:08:23.220 not qualified to counsel it's just the opposite in fact doctrine qualifies you to counsel when

00:08:30.840 you sink your soul into doctrine that qualifies you to counsel so that is a commitment to the

00:08:37.980 sufficiency of the Word of God. Would you agree that part of the reason why, you know, being your

00:08:46.680 soul rooted in good, sound biblical doctrine qualifies you to counsel is because the point

00:08:51.780 of counseling is the improvement of the person, which means you have to have a correct

00:08:58.280 anthropology. You have to actually know who man is in his fallenness, and you also need to know

00:09:03.280 who man is meant to be, which means that you recognize the truest, the God man. And so you

00:09:09.560 have to know who man was meant to be by God and know who the person of Jesus Christ, who is truly

00:09:16.620 God, but he's also the truest man, that this is what humanity was supposed to be. And then you

00:09:22.340 also have to understand sin, the doctrine of sin and total depravity and fallenness and all these

00:09:27.760 kinds of things and temptation. And so you have to have anthropology, you have to have theology,

00:09:32.040 theology being able to say this is particularly in in our doctrine of god so not so much the

00:09:37.600 father and the spirit but the son this is who the son is and he's he's the perfect adam this is who

00:09:43.260 man is meant to be and and then our anthropology this is who man is in light of sin so i know i

00:09:49.300 know the starting place and i know the finishing place whereas the secular counselor they don't

00:09:54.180 know who man is they don't even know who you currently are much less who you should be what

00:09:59.380 do they do why are christians going to them for counsel right exactly in other words christians

00:10:05.280 are basically going to people who are essentially trained in atheism and psychology is essentially

00:10:13.140 atheistic every counseling system that i'm familiar with and just in the united states alone there are

00:10:19.260 350 different counseling systems that you could separately identify every counseling system is

00:10:25.760 atheistic at its core in the sense that there is no God. It's very anthrocentric rather than

00:10:32.420 theocentric or Christocentric. It's radically different than what we would do in terms of

00:10:40.240 biblical counseling because we're focused on helping a person to be God's kind of man,

00:10:45.920 God's kind of woman, first and foremost, whether you feel better or not. Our goal is not to help

00:10:52.820 people feel better our goal is to help them be god's kind of man god's kind of woman to honor

00:10:57.460 christ even through the difficult circumstances in their life and by the way when you start doing

00:11:02.600 that then generally you will feel better you god will bless your life you do bible's full of

00:11:10.600 promises that when you follow the way of wisdom then your your life will be extended you'll have

00:11:17.060 a more peaceful life and a more blessed life it doesn't it just doesn't guarantee that doesn't

00:11:22.120 guarantee that sometimes when you do all the right things life actually gets harder it gets worse

00:11:27.180 suffering becomes greater so our goal is not just our goal is not just to help people get through

00:11:34.280 their problems our goal is to teach them to be how how to be god's kind of man god's kind of woman in

00:11:39.920 the midst of their problems we want them to bring glory to god and learn how to do that and so that

00:11:46.740 goes back to a fundamental belief in the sufficiency of scripture now if you ask the

00:11:51.680 evangelical conservative christian anywhere in america today do you believe in the sufficiency

00:11:56.780 of scripture i would say that 99 of them would say absolutely i believe in that but what they

00:12:01.140 mean by that is they mean that the bible is sufficient to get us to heaven in other words

00:12:06.740 it has all the information i need in order to show me how to get to heaven and certainly i don't

00:12:12.400 to disagree with that part of it but the bible is far more than that um i remember years ago j adams

00:12:19.580 used to say people talk about pie in the sky by and by all right well the scripture was given to

00:12:26.280 us so that we can begin to slice the pie now and enjoy our life in christ now not just somewhere

00:12:33.900 eventually in heaven so we believe that the scripture is sufficient to deal with the serious

00:12:40.800 soul problems of life now. It's sufficient to be able to do that. And in fact, it is not just

00:12:46.820 sufficient. It's superior to anything that the world has to offer in terms of psychotherapy

00:12:52.880 or psychology. Now, does psychology have any value at all? Yeah, I think on some levels it

00:12:59.720 has a descriptive value. Oftentimes it describes problems well, but it doesn't have a prescriptive

00:13:05.860 value it doesn't teach you how to deal with those problems from a biblical point of view

00:13:11.360 or from a christian point of view it's going to always provide worldly answers so we can diagnose

00:13:19.600 it can diagnose but it can't cure exactly exactly it can sometimes it can identify where problems

00:13:27.960 are and even describe some of those problems well but even when they do that then they clump those

00:13:34.680 symptoms together and then put a label on them like schizophrenia or like bipolar problems or

00:13:42.420 manic depression or and you'll look those up in your bible and you're not going to find that

00:13:47.480 terminology you'll say well the bible doesn't deal with that issue no no all of those psychological

00:13:52.900 labels that are part of the diagnostic and the statistical manual the apa volume five all of

00:13:58.800 those are just labels put on clusters of symptoms. When you look underneath that at the clusters of

00:14:07.440 symptoms, all of a sudden the Bible starts to jump out at you because it starts to deal with

00:14:12.500 all the symptomology that those particular groupings deal with. It doesn't use the secular

00:14:20.820 terminology. And this is the reason why in my counseling, I want my counselee, the person I'm

00:14:26.240 working with to think in biblical terms, not in contemporary psychological terms without the

00:14:31.720 problem. As a person will come in and do a presentation problem of, you know, I have

00:14:35.940 bipolar depression, or I have paranoid schizophrenia, or, and you're not going to

00:14:43.480 find those particular terms in scripture, but I want them to use biblical terms. And when you

00:14:48.920 start to think of your problems in biblical ways, all of a sudden, the Bible becomes no longer a

00:14:54.960 question book it's an answer book it opens up it puts handles on your bible when that happens

00:15:01.380 and this is what we want for people so what is counseling biblical counseling essentially is a

00:15:07.820 form of discipleship that's what it is when you're discipling someone some oftentimes that's new in

00:15:15.660 the faith or haven't been discipled before you're teaching them who god is who jesus christ is who

00:15:21.060 the holy spirit is you're teaching them about the scriptures the importance of the study of

00:15:25.800 scriptures and good hermeneutics and you're teaching them about the church and the importance

00:15:30.100 of the church and all of this stuff but as you're doing that you keep will keep bumping into personal

00:15:35.740 problems those same people you're working with has marriage problems or they struggle with fears or

00:15:40.460 anxieties or depression you keep bumping in those personal problems well we don't ignore those in

00:15:47.980 our discipleship. Instead, counseling becomes a targeted form of discipleship. It's where you

00:15:54.060 zero in on those particular problems and bring the word of God to bear on those specific

00:15:59.680 problems in that person's life. And actually, biblical counseling is what the world would call

00:16:06.860 depth therapy. It's the deepest thing you can do because it is the only thing, the only thing

00:16:13.320 that changes the heart of man it's the only thing that changes and that's the core issue of what

00:16:19.520 we're dealing with it's the heart how the heart operates that kind of thing that's really helpful

00:16:25.860 i like what you said just just a little while ago you said you know that um biblical counseling

00:16:31.380 that provides answers to man's problems and i think i think that's one of the hang-ups that

00:16:35.680 i've i've witnessed that professing christians will experience as well is um they're underneath

00:16:40.360 this illusion that counseling doesn't tell them what to do. It doesn't give them answers. And it's

00:16:46.180 not supposed to, that it's supposed to just listen, you know, the person lays back in the couch,

00:16:53.380 you know, and tell me about your childhood. And then it mainly just ask questions, ask questions,

00:16:58.360 ask questions, never really prescribes anything, never really gives any answers. And the only thing

00:17:03.680 that really ever is said definitively is some form of affirmation. And I think that's a lot

00:17:09.280 of people's view of counseling is that counseling, uh, ask questions, which I know in biblical

00:17:13.400 counseling, you, you need to ask questions. Um, and there is a physical component to biblical

00:17:17.780 counseling. We're not Gnostics. And so we recognize that, you know, there's the soul,

00:17:21.420 there's also the body and it's, are you exercising? Are you sleeping? You know,

00:17:24.580 those things matter. God, you know, we, we have a physical existence. And so biblical counseling

00:17:28.720 isn't this pie in the skies over spiritualized, you know, so it asks questions. It wants to

00:17:34.420 diagnose the problem, wants to understand things correctly, wants to assess the physical as well

00:17:38.880 the spiritual, all those things. But then it also gives an answer. It also says something.

00:17:44.620 And it says it with courage and with authority and gives people something to do. And I think

00:17:50.340 that's one of the big hangups that people are like, wait, I wanted counseling. And you're

00:17:55.880 telling me that this is what the word of God says. And you're even telling me the word of God says

00:18:00.280 that I'm wrong. And this isn't counseling. It's like the picture of counseling that people have

00:18:07.820 developed today is counseling just it listens it never tells me it just listens and affirms

00:18:13.920 listens and affirms would you agree with that yeah have you experienced that hang up well

00:18:18.340 especially non-directive therapies all right and these non-directive therapies think it's

00:18:23.640 it's actually a criminal to to give them any kind of direction because they believe that

00:18:27.880 basically in contemporary psychology that the answer is found within the person so you don't

00:18:34.280 want to direct them because you direct them from outside of them you're going to steer them away

00:18:37.580 from the answer within them and we would say from a biblical standpoint that when you get your life

00:18:42.820 into trouble your answer is not within because that's going to lead you down a destructive

00:18:47.160 into a destructive lifestyle we would say the answer is in the truth of the word of god

00:18:53.240 trusting that following what the word of god says so god and his word is the focus of all of

00:19:01.000 counseling for us and we would add this that the primary context for counseling is the local church

00:19:09.640 our goal here in our graduate program at the master's university and what we train pastors in

00:19:17.240 is not to set up counseling clinics we're not interested in setting up any counseling clinics

00:19:22.180 if you're in the program and you want to set up a go and set up a counseling clinic then you're in

00:19:26.700 the wrong program there every other program in the world does that especially secular models

00:19:32.940 do that we want to return that person down to the local church under the authority of the local

00:19:39.700 church with hopefully godly appointed elders who oversee what's being dispensed in terms of

00:19:47.500 counseling they oversee the doctrine they oversee the truth and the life of the person who's the

00:19:52.940 counselor as well as the counselee and that's where counseling is the most effective where that

00:19:58.480 person is attending and worshiping the lord on a regular basis under the preaching and the truth

00:20:04.620 of the word of god and so where you have powerful preaching and you have powerful counseling

00:20:11.380 together those are the two most powerful change conduits in a person's life that that the holy

00:20:21.140 Spirit can use. The Holy Spirit is the one who ultimately brings the change. But those two

00:20:25.500 conduits are what God uses. Right. The Spirit of God working in conjunction with the Word of God,

00:20:31.440 the Word of God preached, and the Word of God counseled, and both. So I completely agree.

00:20:35.960 Another piece that I've noticed is, I think also, you know, so the preaching of the Word,

00:20:40.320 the counseling of the Word, and being surrounded by the people of the Word, which you already kind

00:20:44.720 of alluded to, but I think again, secular counseling by contrast, um, again, there's

00:20:50.160 this, this, this stigma of, you know, that counseling should be very, very, very, very

00:20:57.160 private, right?

00:20:58.740 So I go to this therapist that I pay $150 an hour or whatever, whatever it may be.

00:21:02.780 Maybe that's cheap these days.

00:21:03.760 I don't know.

00:21:04.140 But, and, and the key is that, you know, I get my 45 minutes to an hour and I never see

00:21:09.800 them outside of that context.

00:21:12.220 There's no real accountability.

00:21:15.100 And so I don't see them.

00:21:16.740 If I ever do see them, I'm not supposed to approach them or talk to, you know.

00:21:19.960 And so it's just I go on living my life with no surveillance, no accountability, no watchful eye.

00:21:27.460 And then just, you know, I just have it in my calendar that pops up, you know, once every couple weeks.

00:21:32.260 And I go into this room with some nice, you know, waterfall sounds in the background.

00:21:36.460 and I sit down with someone who really does not know anything about me

00:21:40.560 except what I choose to tell them.

00:21:42.600 Whereas, you know, when a pastor counsels or another, a fellow Christian,

00:21:46.420 because it's really just discipleship,

00:21:47.960 so a team or an individual of biblical counselors

00:21:50.240 underneath the guidance of the elders in a local church,

00:21:53.460 chances are they're going to know something about the individual

00:21:55.880 and not just what the individual tells them,

00:21:57.860 but they're living in a community.

00:22:01.320 It's the preaching of the word, the counseling of the word,

00:22:03.240 but then they're living in a community of the people of the word

00:22:06.700 And so they're going to see if their marriage is on the rocks.

00:22:10.380 Or they're going to hear from some, you know, it's, there's just that accountability.

00:22:15.700 There's a visibility.

00:22:16.720 And I think people don't like that either.

00:22:18.120 They don't, they want to go to church for the preaching of the word and some community

00:22:21.940 and friendships.

00:22:23.340 But when it comes to real problems in their life, because there's often, you know, people

00:22:27.600 instinctively know that those problems, they bear some responsibility for that.

00:22:31.840 So there's a shame attached.

00:22:33.160 So they want to go outside of their community of friends to this very private place where they can share only what they want to share and where there's really – there's no consequence, relational consequence.

00:22:46.680 Would you agree with that assessment?

00:22:48.900 Yeah, I think a lot of people believe that.

00:22:50.740 They really want the seclusion of being in a private situation where in that type of situation, you're no longer accountable.

00:23:04.560 But if I'm in a local church and I'm being counseled by a qualified pastor or someone in that church that's been well-trained in scripture and in good doctrine,

00:23:16.020 and I'm being counseled by them, then they can see you on Sundays.

00:23:20.280 They can see you at other times during the week. They can see your spouse. It's immensely helpful for me, even serving as an elder, if I know the woman that I'm counseling and I know her husband, all right, because and other people know that and I have a chance.

00:23:40.280 I'm always up front with them. Listen, I know so-and-so is your best friend. I'll say to them,

00:23:45.380 I'm going to, I want to be able to go and talk to your best friend about their perspective

00:23:51.120 on your problem. Now, people get scared of that because they have this false view that they think

00:23:57.960 there is such a thing as a super Christian, that there are people out there that don't have any

00:24:03.800 problems. We're the only people who have problems. That's not true. If the truth are known from

00:24:08.940 pastoral staff down through all the congregation everybody struggles with there is no super

00:24:13.800 christians doesn't exist and this is what the body of christ was intended to do galatians 6 1

00:24:20.360 we're supposed to bear the burdens of one another help one another first we have to bear our own

00:24:26.120 burdens but we have to bear one another's burdens and that's part of living within the dynamic

00:24:32.980 framework of um of a church that's what should be happening where christians are counseling one

00:24:40.240 another they're helping one another there are no super christians it doesn't exist um and that's

00:24:47.140 what i think leads that isolation type of idea and that's the world has contributed that again

00:24:52.400 the professionalization of counseling has done that it's led to that and um and the individualization

00:25:00.420 of of the the focus of a lot of christianity today has led to that too because a lot of

00:25:09.100 you can see this especially in roman catholic church it's about me going in with the priest

00:25:14.660 into a little private closet and sharing all of my sins privately and that kind of thing

00:25:19.700 that's the individualization when the new testament is all about the the corporate

00:25:24.980 relationships that the believers have. There's a high value set on reconciliation. That's why

00:25:32.880 we don't teach conflict resolution. That's a worldly idea. We teach biblical reconciliation.

00:25:41.320 Resolving conflict is only one small step in the broader process of biblical reconciliation.

00:25:47.840 It's much more comprehensive where that relationship between those people that formerly

00:25:53.140 were in conflict with one another now is fully and completely reconciled and better than it was

00:25:59.520 before better than it was before um uh totally and fully reconciled where now they're a blessing

00:26:06.880 to each other there's a deep abiding friendship a brotherhood sisterhood that's going to be there

00:26:13.500 that that's got to be there that's part of the dynamic body life of the fellowship of the church

00:26:19.460 Amen. It's interesting that you mentioned the Catholic priest and the confessional booth kind

00:26:25.620 of analogy. With that, do you think, because I think that's another thing that I've noticed in

00:26:31.660 my pastoral ministry when it comes to counseling. I think sometimes individuals, they say they want

00:26:38.920 counseling, but I think what they're really looking for is confession, a context for them

00:26:44.440 to confess with his little visibility, accountability, and shame attached to that

00:26:52.560 confession. And so I think it seems as though a lot of people who want counsel, what they really

00:26:58.480 want is they want to unburden themselves. They want to confess their sins to someone

00:27:06.260 where they just won't be a whole lot of consequences, which is very different than

00:27:14.060 I want counsel because counsel says, I'm going to confess some things. Confession is going to

00:27:18.620 have to be involved. Um, but, but it's not just, I want to confess my sin. It's I want to change.

00:27:24.380 I actually want to change. I want to be a different person. And, uh, whereas it seems

00:27:29.040 like a lot of individuals, it's, they're not really interested in change. They're interested

00:27:33.380 in, um, alleviating their conscience momentarily, uh, by confessing. And I think confession and

00:27:40.420 confessing and changing are two different things you have anything you'd like to add to that

00:27:46.120 yeah uh sometimes in my and i give numerous illustrations we don't have time to go into

00:27:52.680 them here but um over the past 45 years that i've been involved in pastoral counseling i'm

00:28:00.100 absolutely convinced 60 at least 60 of the counseling that i've done of people who are

00:28:04.640 depressed the real issue was guilt all right the real issue and now that's not true of everybody

00:28:10.460 uh that's depressed but vast majority of them once you start dealing with guilt issues and

00:28:16.920 handling guilt properly from a biblical perspective then it's amazing how the

00:28:22.680 depression or the moodiness or the sorrow or sadness

00:28:28.560 begins to dissipate once their conscience is clear um helping them to deal with that

00:28:37.620 now and we live in a world where guilt today is um the enemy it's like a it's toxic um they treat

00:28:47.320 guilt as if it's the enemy in the bible guilt's not our enemy guilt's our friend now if you have

00:28:53.940 a red light come on to turn on a dashboard of your car, you don't pick up a hammer and smash

00:29:00.300 that red light. You don't do that. You pull the car over, you open the hood and see what's going

00:29:04.800 on. That's what the world does with guilt. They smash the red light. They try to get rid of the

00:29:13.420 guilt. And a lot of people that are on SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or

00:29:19.100 antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications a lot of them have unresolved guilt issues that go way

00:29:27.240 back in their life nobody's ever helped them to deal with those particular issues it's something

00:29:32.200 that has gone on for years and years and they anesthetized themselves with antidepressants

00:29:37.660 when you're not really getting at the core issue you're covering over the the real issue

00:29:45.160 with an anesthesia it's like giving an anesthetic to somebody who's um sitting on a cat tack you

00:29:54.200 know they feel better for a while but once that anesthetic wears off then guess what the tack

00:29:58.740 comes back once the antidepressants wear off guess what the guilt comes back and all of a sudden it's

00:30:04.160 still there um and i could just cite last 45 years just example after example of that in counseling

00:30:11.400 where that's the case so we live in a world that treats guilt like it's toxic like it's

00:30:17.760 horrible it's not it's a friend it's like a it's like the smoke alarm that goes off in your house

00:30:23.220 you don't destroy the alarm when it goes off you go find out what the problem is why why is this

00:30:29.100 going on in my life and the bible helps you to find that and dig that out yeah it's the grace

00:30:36.040 of shame. And I completely agree with you. I've been fond of, in my preaching, I always tell

00:30:41.780 people that the gospel does not create a guilt immunity. The gospel, for those who believe it

00:30:49.780 and are born again by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, I would say that in being

00:30:55.460 a Christian, I experienced guilt exponentially more than I ever did as an unbeliever. Guilt

00:31:02.700 has actually increased because I have so much more of a sensitivity to sin and anything that

00:31:09.700 offends the Lord. And so the gospel doesn't create people who are immune to guilt or a guilt-free

00:31:15.540 zone, shame-free zone, safe zone with trigger warnings and all that. The gospel doesn't do that.

00:31:21.440 If anything, it intensifies guilt because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit and giving us

00:31:26.260 eyes to see our sin for what it is in light of the holiness of God. But the gospel then provides

00:31:32.680 a place where we can run with our guilt that ultimately is able to deal with that, not

00:31:39.320 cover, merely cover.

00:31:40.960 We are covered in the robes of righteousness of Christ through faith, but ultimately the

00:31:45.220 stain is removed.

00:31:47.140 It's the double imputation.

00:31:48.600 So it's not just that our sinful bodies are covered with Christ's robes of righteousness,

00:31:53.300 but no, our sin was imputed to him.

00:31:57.320 He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf, and his righteousness imputed to us.

00:32:02.040 So it's that the great exchange, the double imputation, so that the stain is actually not merely covered, not just rubbed into the carpet, you know, so you can't see it quite as clearly, but it's actually extracted, it's removed.

00:32:15.080 And it's not just bringing us back to a state of innocence, but as you said, like with reconciliation, it's actually taking us to a place we've never even been before because it's not just removing guilt, but it's imputing righteousness.

00:32:29.120 So in the same instance, the same experience, the same memory that used to scream our guilt now screams the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus and the righteousness that we have in him.

00:32:39.280 Right, right.

00:32:40.380 And so, but people, you know, you said earlier, you know, that, you know, we think that guilt is our enemy, but guilt is our friend. 0.66

00:32:46.180 And you think of the world, and I can't help but think that, you know, the reason why those who are not, you know, maybe they are Christians, but they're perhaps immature in the faith or whatever it is.

00:32:58.960 or the rebellion in a particular instance, but for the world, certainly, 0.77

00:33:02.640 and then for some Christians who are not walking in the truth,

00:33:05.640 keeping step in the truth of the gospel, guilt looks like an enemy.

00:33:10.300 We would call it an enemy.

00:33:11.820 But for the Christian who is walking in maturity, 1.00

00:33:15.200 they're going to say guilt is my friend.

00:33:17.360 And I think the reason why is because truth is our friend.

00:33:21.260 And I think that's kind of the key thing.

00:33:22.920 And the world would claim that too.

00:33:24.440 The world would say we love truth.

00:33:26.140 Speak your truth.

00:33:27.060 We're all about the truth.

00:33:27.800 We're just seeking truth.

00:33:28.640 You know, the truth of our nation and when it was founded, you know, the 1619 project at every level, it's always truth, truth, truth.

00:33:34.700 So the world doesn't say we hate truth.

00:33:36.260 Nobody's nobody's that obvious and just come out and admit that they hate truth.

00:33:40.180 Everyone claims everyone's making a truth claim and everyone claims to be a friend of the truth.

00:33:45.520 And so the reason why the world views guilt as an enemy is because guilt is not in line with their view of the truth, because in their view of the truth, they're not guilty. 0.74

00:33:55.520 But for the Christian, the reason why we're a friend of guilt is because guilt is true, because we recognize, yeah, that's true. 0.70

00:34:03.800 I am guilty. 0.98

00:34:05.160 I am guilty.

00:34:06.400 And we never call the truth an enemy.

00:34:08.540 We never run from the truth.

00:34:11.160 But the world, the reason they're running from guilt is because they're running from the truth.

00:34:16.540 Would you agree with that?

00:34:17.820 Anything you'd like to add to that?

00:34:18.820 Yeah, well, and a biblical good biblical definition for guilt is culpability or liability of truth. That's what it is. And, and we have an absolute standard where the world talks about truth, but their truth is constantly changing. And their truth is very, very subjective from individual to individual. That's a truth for me. Maybe it's not a truth for you.

00:34:41.320 But for us, there's a truth independent of us. There's an absolute truth that we follow, we're committed to. Once you're committed to that absolute truth, then you have something beyond yourself that you can point to that is a reliable guide because it's rooted in the very character of who God is.

00:35:00.140 that's so key and by the way that's the reason why we're so committed to the sufficiency of

00:35:05.800 scripture because God it's rooted in the very character of God God does not do things

00:35:12.340 incompletely all right for example what did God what did Christians do I should ask what did 0.83

00:35:19.280 christians do for almost 1800 years until a jewish um man by then that was a god hater

00:35:31.220 by the name of sigmund freud come along and develop what we understand to be modern psychology

00:35:36.380 today you know did somehow god leave out truth for all of those christians for almost 2000 years

00:35:45.340 until Freud came along, and now we've got answers to the deeper issues of life? I don't think so.

00:35:51.700 I don't think that's a very character of what we know God to be, is he never does things

00:35:57.260 incompletely. There is this comprehensiveness to what God does, and when he does it, he does it

00:36:05.620 completely, and it is sufficient for us in the time in which we live. That's so key.

00:36:12.380 That's really good. All right. So let me play the devil's advocate here and tee you up. I'll give you a, I'll give you a, a tee ball here for you to knock out of the park. All right. So let's say you're my pastor and, um, pastor street. Uh, so I, I don't have a biblical counselor, but I've been seeing this great Christian counselor.

00:36:30.140 Yeah.

00:36:31.380 What would you say?

00:36:31.940 Well, I would talk with them a little bit about what their problem is at this particular point. And I would say to them that any time you attempt, usually a Christian counselor is a person who tries to take some tenets from secular psychology and blend them or integrate them together with what the Bible has to say.

00:36:55.280 Anytime you do that, then the Bible gets watered down. Every time that happens, the Bible gets watered down. You're not getting pure doctrine limit. You know, I know that sometimes it's referred to as spoiling the Egyptians or that kind of thing, which is a cute way to refer to it.

00:37:10.380 But it's interesting that the first, quote unquote, and I'm speaking historically, Christians to advocate integrationism was around the 1880s with Roman Catholicism. 0.99

00:37:25.120 Roman Catholic priests were the ones who did it. Why?

00:37:27.740 Especially in the Western world, because Roman Catholicism, wherever it's gone, has tried to, in a sense, blend in with whatever the cultural values were.

00:37:38.020 You can go all around the world, to Africa, to Brazil, and you can see all the different shades of Roman Catholicism as they blended in with it.

00:37:47.420 Well, for the Western world, science was really big.

00:37:50.100 Psychology was really big.

00:37:51.760 And so Roman Catholicism developed a way by which they could try to blend contemporary psychology and what psychology had discovered with the Bible.

00:38:04.020 And they were the very first to call it integrationism.

00:38:09.900 All right. Well, later on, Christians picked up on that. 0.68

00:38:14.520 And there's a historic reason why that happened.

00:38:18.200 And it's primarily because from the 1850s to the 1950s, 60s, conservative evangelical churches were primarily evangelistic centers.

00:38:30.760 They were revival centers.

00:38:31.900 Part of this was the moody, sankey revivalism in the 1800s that turned churches from being genuine New Testament churches to being revival centers.

00:38:43.280 So you heard John 3, 16 from the pulpit every Sunday, but you didn't hear how to, you know, anything deeper or more serious than that.

00:38:53.940 Yeah, exactly. You didn't hear that at all.

00:38:56.100 It's John 3, 16 from every passage in the Bible.

00:38:59.240 and and so but people during that time still had problems they had problems in their marriage

00:39:04.960 had problems with depression they had problems with severe anxiety and fears so they had nowhere

00:39:10.380 to turn they weren't getting into church so modern evangelical um christianity turned towards

00:39:21.300 psychology and integration psychology they've actually borrowed from the roman catholic church

00:39:29.080 that can be easily traced by the way that that integrational idea and tried to blend these

00:39:36.900 things together well there there are so many things that are at odds i mean so directly at odds

00:39:43.560 psychology doesn't believe in god we believe in god psychology doesn't believe that there's

00:39:49.480 absolute truth we believe that there's absolute truth psychology doesn't believe in the power of

00:39:54.840 the Holy Spirit. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. Psychology trusts in and aims at

00:40:04.380 trying to help man be a better man. We aim at and trust in the word of God changing people

00:40:15.840 in order for them to bring greater glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ and to their God.

00:40:21.960 That those are diametrically opposed epistemologies. They're going in opposite directions. And so to pretend that you can blend that, that atheism with a serious theism is ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous.

00:40:43.720 So anybody that's going to a Christian counselor is that kind of person who that counselor is trying to blend those kind of things. 0.93

00:40:55.160 And it's interesting. A lot of integrationism started with an Arminian and semi-Pelagian churches.

00:41:03.660 That's where it started. A lot of Nazarene churches, those kind of things.

00:41:07.080 and and you think about it semi-plagianism and arminianism and psychology have a lot in common

00:41:13.480 because both are very man-centered right all right that's it and then only later on in the

00:41:21.940 more reformed faith did others in the reformed faith go the psychology route which i believe is

00:41:28.500 the opposite of their reformed faith you know it's going the opposite way they they're they're

00:41:36.060 less reformed when they do that why do i say that because again they're they're going back to

00:41:42.960 um in a sense roma catholicism when they do that kind of thing because it's trusting in man it's

00:41:49.540 making man the center of the universe man the object of everything rather than having christ

00:41:55.340 and god himself being the center of counseling and bringing everything under the understanding

00:42:02.200 of who god is who christ is so there is a radical radical difference so they're not consistently

00:42:10.500 reformed when they buy into that integrationism who they got from armenian and semi-pelagian

00:42:20.240 churches who got that from roman catholicism and you can see how this can be easily historically

00:42:27.940 traced i teach an entire class an entire semester on um um theology and the psychologies and

00:42:39.600 basically what it is it's a it's a history of how people have traditionally dealt with soul problems

00:42:47.800 from the secular mind into the christian mind and the history of the church and how the church

00:42:53.460 has done that. So this can be easily, easily traced. So when you're going to a Christian

00:42:59.840 counselor, I think that people like that are very well-intentioned. I don't take away from that

00:43:04.320 Christian counselor's motivation. I think they want to help people. That's wonderful. They may

00:43:09.640 even have high degrees, master's degrees, PhD degrees in psychology, but that disqualifies

00:43:18.380 them from a biblical standpoint to give counsel. They should have advanced degrees in studying the

00:43:24.060 word of God, using good hermeneutics to study the word of God, studying good doctrine. Then they're

00:43:30.880 qualified in order to be able to give counsel. I remember very one prominent Christian psychologist

00:43:37.700 who had for years and years and years had a very prominent nationwide radio program. On a regular

00:43:44.620 basis i'd be driving in the car listening to his program and he'd be saying on there you know i'm

00:43:49.580 not a theologian but i'd almost scream at my radio then you shouldn't be giving out counsel

00:43:55.060 all right i'm not a theologian he'd say wait a minute well then why are you giving out counsel

00:44:01.160 you should be a theologian if you're giving out counsel you're giving out counsel the word of

00:44:06.520 god that's the most loving thing you can do is give people the truth of the word of god

00:44:12.460 that's that's so creepy that's so helpful dr street because i think that's it's funny like

00:44:19.420 we you know we've brought it kind of all the way back from the beginning of our conversations but

00:44:23.080 that's the very reason why i think a lot of people don't want to go to their pastor because they're

00:44:26.760 a theologian and they don't see that having anything to do with what they what they perceive

00:44:32.860 that they need i need counsel you're a preacher you're a theologian you know like if i if i need

00:44:39.640 to figure out the Trinity, I'll come to you. But I need counsel for my depression. And they don't

00:44:45.700 see at all how these two things relate. But they do. And it's really a disappointment that I think

00:44:53.640 in my experience, there are some pastors that, well, I mean, as you know, there are good churches

00:44:59.480 and there are bad churches, there are good pastors, there are bad churches. But speaking to the good

00:45:03.480 churches with good pastors, I think there are a lot of faithful pastors who know their Bibles

00:45:09.140 well and they know men well because they know their bible well and what the bible says about man

00:45:14.660 and the sin that is common to man they know these things and uh and they would love i mean they're

00:45:22.020 just sitting there waiting to counsel their sheep they preach to them faithfully on the lord's day

00:45:27.600 but there's so many more sheep that they wish would come to them and um and and they won't and

00:45:35.400 And then some of those pastors, you know, it gets so severe where they have to go to the sheep, you know, and hey, I'm sorry, I've got to intervene here.

00:45:42.920 And sometimes the sheep listens and sometimes the sheep bites and gets upset and leaves the fold.

00:45:48.580 And it's tragic, but I think one of the big hangups is just that people, they've just put this sharp divide between the pulpit and counseling, theology and counseling, you know, all these things that, yeah.

00:46:03.700 It's just that I think is from the pit of hell.

00:46:07.780 I think it's a lie and it's deceived a lot.

00:46:10.280 So let me end with this last question because I think some of our viewers will probably be wondering, what about medicine?

00:46:17.400 When are there – are there any cases for medicine?

00:46:20.120 And let me just throw out kind of an example.

00:46:23.360 um let's say you know you're you're a woman and your husband has severe he's ex-military he has

00:46:33.320 severe or he's been diagnosed with severe ptsd right and you guys have been to psychologists

00:46:39.880 and psychiatrists these kinds of things and they have all said the same thing severe ptsd and he

00:46:45.500 must have this kind of medication and you know you're listening to you know this woman hypothetical

00:46:50.980 woman's listening to this episode and saying um yeah i i believe everything that you're saying

00:46:56.160 dr street um i want my husband to sit down with the pastor and yes i want the word of god to come

00:47:01.300 to bear in his life and i know there are soul issues there's you know there are spiritual

00:47:05.800 issues at play and i know that that's even the majority of it but i think there might be some

00:47:11.280 sense in which like physiologically he's fried he needs so are there cases like that what how

00:47:20.180 How does the biblical counselor handle the physical side of the person?

00:47:25.060 Yeah, there's another area where I think people have a huge misconception about biblical counseling.

00:47:30.260 They think all biblical counseling is against medicine, and we're not at all.

00:47:33.780 In fact, biblical counseling is very committed to hard science.

00:47:38.280 Now, not soft science.

00:47:40.820 Why do I make a distinction between the two?

00:47:42.840 Because hard science is based upon causation, where there's direct cause and effect.

00:47:48.440 Soft science is based upon co-variation, which is causes that seem to be related to effects.

00:47:54.240 Psychology is very much soft science.

00:47:57.340 And we're interested in hard science.

00:48:00.040 If there are medicines that are really addressing real human problems that are physiological problems, biological problems, we're all committed to using those particular medicines as part of the general grace of God in our lives.

00:48:15.560 We're grateful for that.

00:48:16.640 and in fact even some of the psychotropic medications that are used today i think are

00:48:23.340 part of the grace of god too because um there are so many people out there in the world the

00:48:30.480 majority of the people in the world are never going to come to christ we know that jesus told

00:48:34.000 us that the way to destruction is very broad the way to glory is a very narrow path very narrow

00:48:41.100 group of people will ever be really saved compared to the entire corporate population

00:48:49.660 of the world, past, present, and future. Very few will be saved. But out of all those people,

00:48:57.180 there are going to be lots of people who are very mentally disturbed, suffering forms of insanity.

00:49:06.560 and the Bible uses insanity. In fact, the Old Testament Hebrew word for insanity has the

00:49:11.980 concept of being intensely self-centered, incredibly self-centered, self-focused is the

00:49:18.480 idea. Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and verse 9, there talks about the heart of evil and man's heart is

00:49:28.780 full of evil and insanity. Every person on the planet has the capacity in their sinfulness

00:49:36.240 to be totally insane. We all have the capacity to be able to do that because of the evil and

00:49:42.420 the sinfulness that are part of our heart. So most people are not going to become Christians. 0.56

00:49:46.340 They're not going to follow the word of God. So what are we going to do with those people

00:49:48.840 who want to hurt themselves or hurt other people? Well, put them on drugs. I mean, that's part of

00:49:54.380 the grace of God. Put them on drugs. There's not enough padded cells in this world to put these

00:49:59.060 people. So give them chemical handcuffs. All right. That's part of the grace of God that needs 1.00

00:50:04.940 to be given but for the christian who is committed to being god's kind of woman god's kind of man to

00:50:10.780 pleasing him bringing glory to him committed to the word of god with their whole heart they love

00:50:17.060 jesus christ then if there are no biological reasons no physiological reasons to take that

00:50:25.220 medication then let's work on this from a biblical perspective all right let's work on this now i'm

00:50:31.800 not a medical doctor. Even though I've done lots of reading and lots of about medicine and drugs,

00:50:38.920 I'm not a medical doctor. So I don't, as a counselor, I don't put anybody on any good

00:50:43.400 medication. I don't take anybody off medication. It's ethically improper for me to do that. And I

00:50:49.740 wouldn't do that. When somebody comes to me and says, I'm on some kind of antidepressant or

00:50:55.560 anti-anxiety med, I say, okay, what dosage are you on? What kind of med are you on? Because I

00:51:00.760 want to look up the side effects of that of some of that and i said okay well let's try working

00:51:05.720 with your problems from a biblical perspective i don't tell them to go off their medication

00:51:08.680 they start working on their problem from a biblical perspective they are the ones who

00:51:12.280 eventually come back to me and say you know what i'm not sure i need this medication then i'll say

00:51:15.960 to them listen don't go off of it cold turkey as you could crash go back to your doctor ask to be

00:51:22.280 put on a decreasing dosage let him know that you're receiving talk therapy which is the world's

00:51:27.500 terminology for biblical counseling, to replace that. And every single time, Joel, that that's

00:51:34.800 happened, I've been able to successfully guide that person off of their medication to the point

00:51:41.520 that they don't need it anymore. And they're relaying upon the word of God. It takes a while

00:51:46.520 for some people, longer for others, to be able to learn to trust it. It's a trust thing. And

00:51:53.780 And there is growing evidence, by the way, in two areas.

00:51:57.880 And I'm talking about hard science now.

00:52:00.260 There's growing evidence that says that most antidepressants basically work only because of the placebo effect, because the person thinks it's going to work.

00:52:11.920 OK, but there's growing evidence for that.

00:52:14.200 The second thing is that a lot of people now that are being diagnosed with schizophrenia are people who have been on antidepressants or anti-anxieties, which are the stronger meds, medications for several years.

00:52:27.380 Now they're manifesting schizophrenic tendencies.

00:52:30.140 That's a direct result.

00:52:32.720 I'm not saying the secular scientists are saying this.

00:52:35.740 Direct result of being on this antidepressants for long term type of thing.

00:52:39.700 now they're manifesting even more severe problems long-term schizophrenic things so i'm saying to

00:52:46.180 the believer and we're now you got to remember that all counseling is pre-counseling until that

00:52:51.620 person comes to christ you can't counsel an unbeliever with the word of god the only thing

00:52:56.580 the bible says is you can evangelize them because at best the word of god is a set of suggestions to 0.79

00:53:02.900 an unbeliever at best and even if you get them to follow the word of god and they're still an 0.72

00:53:08.540 unbeliever what have you done you've created a really good pharisee right they're following the

00:53:13.080 truth of the word of god but not for the right motives not for the right desires not because

00:53:17.140 they love christ are you've created they will have a better life because there are practical

00:53:22.320 benefits to obedience i mean god knows he's saying this is the way you should live life

00:53:26.880 tends to go better with you so like guys like ben shapiro who are an incredible example of god's

00:53:31.240 common grace he's probably has a better marriage and better kids and a better life than the god

00:53:36.920 hating atheists who's just trying to stick it to the heavenly man but but at the end of the day

00:53:42.540 he's heaping up judgment for himself in eternity it because because we say borrowing that's a

00:53:48.720 charitable word but really it's it's theft you're stealing god's rules for life without paying him

00:53:55.040 the homage the honor the worship that that he deserves back to you but yeah yeah yeah and and

00:54:02.180 And the more that that that secular person follows the truth of the word of God, the further they are removed from the gospel because they're more convinced of their self-righteousness because they're leading a much better life.

00:54:14.120 And self-righteousness becomes their demon in this particular case.

00:54:19.680 So I was going to ask you real quick, with schizophrenia, do you think there's you said demon?

00:54:23.740 And so I just, real quick, because it was on my mind, do you think that there is, in some cases, yeah, it could be the side effects of taking medicine, antidepressants, anti-anxiety pills for a long time.

00:54:33.300 But do you think some of these issues might just be some good old-fashioned demonic oppression? 1.00

00:54:39.460 If you've got an unbeliever, yes.

00:54:41.780 If you don't have an unbeliever, I mean, if you have a believer, that's not true because a believer cannot be demonically possessed.

00:54:49.720 But now, can a believer have symptoms of schizophrenia?

00:54:53.740 Yes, I believe it can for a period of time. That can actually happen for a believer that's not demonic in this particular case, but it has to do with the way that they're functioning, their view and perception of life. And you have to really get in and begin to address that perception of life.

00:55:08.560 i have whole long lengthy lectures on dealing with schizophrenia from a biblical perspective

00:55:14.040 uh schizophrenia by the way is a it's just a nice greek term it was invented in 1906

00:55:19.420 by a german a psychologist slash doctor who um put two greek words together together it just

00:55:28.600 means split mind all right it means split mind um well the bible talks about being double-minded

00:55:34.340 All right. The Bible talks about that, that kind of thing. And so can people be divided in their views of reality and switch serially from one view of reality to another? Yes, people can do that. That's not a disease of schizophrenia. That is a problem in their thought processes and what they really want in life. And they can believe both realities are genuinely true.

00:55:59.540 right so those kind of things i would imagine a lot of that would come from uh addicts addiction

00:56:07.460 right you know because they're people like god bless their heart you know i mean it's it's sad

00:56:12.800 but they like maybe it's a it's a single mother who has a kid who genuinely who's let's say they're

00:56:19.520 not a christian but just by god's common grace i mean has a powerful affection for their child

00:56:24.900 and a powerful affection for cocaine and you know what i mean they're just they're divided

00:56:30.700 and their heart is broken they're in tears they're a wreck um yeah right well back to

00:56:37.380 your question in terms of medicine in proverbs chapter 31 it talks about the fact that give

00:56:42.740 strong drink to whom who's perishing and wine to him whose life is bitter um i think alcohol

00:56:49.480 is a good paradigm for any kind of drug that we use. It's the paradigm in the Bible for any drug

00:56:55.240 that we use. Is there a proper use of this as a pain reliever, especially to those that are dying

00:57:01.680 or perishing? Absolutely, there is. If there's going to be a psychotropic drug that's going to

00:57:09.840 address a pain, now I think a differentiation needs to be made between what is sometimes

00:57:15.540 referred to as emotional pain and real genuine physical bodily pain. That needs to be

00:57:21.520 distinguished. But then Proverbs 31.7 says, let him drink and forget his poverty and remember

00:57:27.560 his trouble no more in this particular case. So is there a place for those kind of things

00:57:33.580 if there is severe difficulty or if a person is close to dying? Can that be

00:57:43.820 given to them yes absolutely we're not opposed to those kind of things but for the christian

00:57:50.560 who's committed to what the word of god wants to do they've had a good medical checkup there's

00:57:55.260 nothing physiologically that's wrong going wrong in their body to the best of our knowledge then

00:58:02.400 let's work on this from a biblical perspective and really dig into heart issues here and let's

00:58:09.780 see how God can work and turn this thing around.

00:58:12.980 That was fantastic.

00:58:14.340 That was really, really helpful, Dr. Street.

00:58:16.820 You know, when you were saying, you know, we follow the science,

00:58:19.200 you didn't say that, but, you know, the hard science

00:58:20.780 and not the soft science, I kept thinking.

00:58:22.740 Every time you said soft science, I thought Dr. Fauci.

00:58:25.440 I just had to say it, I had to say it on the episode.

00:58:27.480 Dr. Fauci, that's a soft science kind of guy, man.

00:58:29.760 That's not hard science.

00:58:31.820 But all right, so let's go ahead and conclude our episode.

00:58:34.380 Is there any final thoughts you want to leave us with?

00:58:35.940 now i i think that well the the final thing is second peter 1 3 says we have everything we need

00:58:43.260 for life and godliness through our knowledge of him that's such a key thing and now either that

00:58:49.080 is true or the whole bible is false and what are we doing playing christianity all right did god

00:58:57.040 give us everything we need for life and godliness yes and by the way the whole focus of second peter

00:59:04.340 chapter one is the word of god i mean he concludes the whole chapter there at that particular point

00:59:12.480 where he's dealing with what is the word of god well um well let me um read it to you so he says

00:59:21.420 um but know this first of all that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation

00:59:27.220 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men moved by the holy spirit spoke from

00:59:32.500 god so the whole book of second peter was written to warn about the coming of false teachers into

00:59:41.500 the church and i think part of that false teaching is really psychology psychology has come in the

00:59:46.380 back door of the church um we while the church in the 1900s were fighting um attacks on doctrine

00:59:54.620 attacks on the inerrancy and the inspiration of the word of god and the conservative church won

01:00:00.180 all of those while all that was going on psychology comes in the back door and undermines the faith

01:00:06.080 of so many people destroys the faith of so many people where they really believe that the real

01:00:11.520 answers to real problems is out there in the world it's not in the scriptures that that's

01:00:16.300 as sad as can be so that's a frightening but i think very accurate assessment that was helpful

01:00:22.260 yeah well exactly that's very very helpful dr street thank you so much for coming on the show

01:00:28.220 So I really appreciate it.

01:00:30.300 It's been my pleasure, and thanks for your show and what you do,

01:00:34.760 and keep up the great work with the gospel there and in your church as well.

01:00:39.440 Yes, sir. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

01:00:41.680 That concludes our episode. Thanks for tuning in.

01:00:44.700 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount,

01:00:47.140 we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.

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01:01:00.100 know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource. As a reminder,

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The NXR Podcast - August 25, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Biblical Counseling 101： The Sufficiency Of Scripture

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