On this episode of Theology Applied, Pastor Joel Webin is joined by Dr. John Street to discuss the topic of biblical counseling. Dr. Street has been a pastor for the past 22 years and is currently an Elder at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He also serves as the President of the Board of Certified Biblical Counselors, ACBC, which is a growing organization of around 2,500 people nationally and internationally that have been certified in the area of Biblical Counseling.
00:00:00.000Hi, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin with
00:00:04.680Right Response Ministries. On this episode, I was privileged to have as a special guest,
00:00:09.540Dr. John Street, to discuss the topic of biblical counseling. Hope you enjoy.
00:00:15.460Applying God's Word to Every Aspect of Life. This is Theology Applied.
00:00:20.920All right, so I'm privileged to be joined by Dr. Street with our episode today.
00:00:31.600Dr. John Street, would you go ahead and just take a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners?
00:00:35.520Sure. I'm just a sinner saved by grace and by God's infinite grace.
00:00:41.120He has placed me into a ministry whereby I have the opportunity to teach,
00:00:46.780especially on a graduate level, biblical counseling. I do that to guys that are going
00:00:53.220through seminary, and then we have a graduate program at the Master's University called the
00:00:58.440Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling. We are coming close to getting approval for a doctoral
00:01:04.680level program there at the university, so we're really excited about that in the area of biblical
00:01:09.960counseling. I'm really a former pastor. That's what I have done for the majority of my ministry
00:01:16.040life, but for the last 22 years since then, I've been a teacher and a professor, so that's what I
00:01:23.480do. I also function as an elder at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where Dr. John
00:01:29.720MacArthur is the pastor, and then I also serve as the president of the board of the Association of
00:01:36.560Certified Biblical Counselors, ACBC, which is a growing organization of around pretty close to
00:01:43.4402,500 people nationally and internationally that are fully certified and around the world it's a
00:01:51.080really tight network people that have been certified in the area of biblical counseling so
00:01:56.700that gives you a little bit of an idea of some of the things that I do but I'm really grateful for
00:02:01.680the fact that I have a wonderful wife who by the way in a day or two of our anniversary we turn
00:02:07.840we see it'll be our 44th anniversary we have four wonderful kids they all love the lord they're all
00:02:14.320grown they're all adults three of those four are married and we have six grandchildren and
00:02:20.980I didn't realize how good I was at spoiling until I had grandkids and but I'm especially
00:02:29.080gifted at it with grandkids. I love spoiling the grandkids.
00:02:34.920Yeah. Well, I mean, as I told you before we started recording, we moved from California
00:02:39.720to Texas. That's where I was born and raised. And my wife, she was born and raised in San
00:02:43.520Diego, California, but her parents got wise about seven years prior and moved to Texas.
00:02:49.620And so we picked the North Austin area because that's where her parents settled. And I was
00:02:54.580raised in Bay City, Texas, but my parents, they went ahead and retired early and relocated to
00:02:59.960this area as well. So we've got, our kids are super spoiled because they've got both sides of
00:03:04.700the grandparents. And it's just, I love being a dad, but I'm a little bit envious. I can't wait
00:03:10.920to be a grandparent because it's just, you just get to hang out, have fun, and then drop them off
00:03:14.840with mom and dad for all the discipline and training. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's
00:03:19.620kind of nice. Okay, great. Well, let's just go ahead and dive into it. Our topic is biblical
00:03:24.400counseling. And man, I've, I've had some struggles with this, you know, just in, uh, being a pastor
00:03:30.860when I, when I was a pastor in San Diego, and I haven't really encountered any of this thus far
00:03:35.940with the new church plant here in Texas, but I remember in San Diego, you know, a lot of young
00:03:40.640people, I was young myself. And so attracted people who were kind of in that same demographic
00:03:44.88020s and early 30s. And, um, yeah, people just felt like, uh, it's not real counseling. Biblical
00:03:52.840counseling is not real counseling. You need a trained professional license, you know, it's got
00:03:57.600to be secular counseling. And, um, and they always kind of, you know, which it was, I always thought
00:04:03.780of Samuel, you know, when, you know, the people ask for a King and God says, you know, Hey Samuel,
00:04:08.480it's okay. You know, and kind of soothes his ego a bit, you know, they're not rejecting you as
00:04:12.420prophet. They're rejecting me as God. They're rejecting me as King. And, um, you know, but
00:04:16.880people, you know, they always make it about the pastor. Cause what are they going to say? If
00:04:19.600they're professing Christians, they're going to say the Bible is not sufficient. It's not enough.0.98
00:04:23.600Now I'm convinced that I think a lot of professing Christians, uh, that's what they actually believe,
00:04:28.300but they'll pin it on the pastor. And instead they'll say the pastor is not sufficient,
00:04:31.940right? He doesn't have enough education experience. And, uh, and so they opt for
00:04:36.520these other forms of counseling. And so can you help us with that is, is, are there, are there
00:04:41.460valid other forms of counseling or does it need to be biblical counseling? And if so,
00:04:45.740what's the distinction between biblical counseling and secular counseling?0.95
00:04:50.640Well, obviously this is a, you start off with a good one because we get this all the time
00:04:55.560in the area of biblical counseling and people questioning what's really going on here. And
00:05:00.400don't we need someone that has a advanced degree in therapy or psychotherapy or psychiatry in
00:05:09.300order to be able to deal with the serious problems that people have and right from the outset I think
00:05:15.760it's vitally important to start off and talk about the fact that counseling itself was an endeavor
00:05:24.340that was a part of the very fabric of the New Testament church in fact there's far more counsel
00:05:29.180given in the New Testament than there is sermons there's lots and lots of personal counsel lots of
00:05:35.520corporate counsel that's given throughout the new testament and if the bible is your authority
00:05:41.940and your final authority and i think the resurrection of counseling in our contemporary
00:05:48.680world today in biblical counseling that is is a direct result a natural result of the reformation
00:05:56.000because the emphasis was upon the sufficiency and the superiority of the word of god over
00:06:02.700churches and church councils and so on and especially church organization like the roman
00:06:08.180catholic church and so the word of god becomes paramount and and this is something that
00:06:15.360we believe was practiced um and and have come to the conclusion was practiced by the early church
00:06:23.360in the first few centuries of the church and then um and then um somehow as time went on
00:06:33.060into the middle ages then it was eventually lost and a lot of this could be attributed to key
00:06:39.280people like thomas aquinas and his whole view of the fact that um there's still enough goodness
00:06:45.820in man for man to to reason towards god and choose god rather than god choosing him and
00:06:51.540And 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.
00:07:04.520Then when you get in the Enlightenment, obviously, the Bible and God is thrown out now as authority, especially in the secular domain.
00:07:13.520And now there is no authority except for man. And so you still have man with problems.
00:07:20.060So now psychology becomes a natural humanistic way to deal with man's problems.
00:07:27.440It's a natural historical result of atheism.
00:07:32.180It's a historical result of naturalism and especially relativism as well.
00:07:38.740So the problem is nowadays is that what has really destroyed counseling is the professionalization.
00:07:50.060of it where now only a professor professional with a high degree can can counsel people and
00:07:58.740for christians who have listened to that in the world and become a part of that kind of thinking
00:08:04.300that's in the world then it's a natural question to say well wait a minute if you don't have a
00:08:09.960professional degree in counseling then you're not qualified to do counseling right and we would argue
00:08:14.240that if a person is not well schooled in good biblical theology and good solid doctrine you're
00:08:23.220not qualified to counsel it's just the opposite in fact doctrine qualifies you to counsel when
00:08:30.840you sink your soul into doctrine that qualifies you to counsel so that is a commitment to the
00:08:37.980sufficiency of the Word of God. Would you agree that part of the reason why, you know, being your
00:08:46.680soul rooted in good, sound biblical doctrine qualifies you to counsel is because the point
00:08:51.780of counseling is the improvement of the person, which means you have to have a correct
00:08:58.280anthropology. You have to actually know who man is in his fallenness, and you also need to know
00:09:03.280who man is meant to be, which means that you recognize the truest, the God man. And so you
00:09:09.560have to know who man was meant to be by God and know who the person of Jesus Christ, who is truly
00:09:16.620God, but he's also the truest man, that this is what humanity was supposed to be. And then you
00:09:22.340also have to understand sin, the doctrine of sin and total depravity and fallenness and all these
00:09:27.760kinds of things and temptation. And so you have to have anthropology, you have to have theology,
00:09:32.040theology being able to say this is particularly in in our doctrine of god so not so much the
00:09:37.600father and the spirit but the son this is who the son is and he's he's the perfect adam this is who
00:09:43.260man is meant to be and and then our anthropology this is who man is in light of sin so i know i
00:09:49.300know the starting place and i know the finishing place whereas the secular counselor they don't
00:09:54.180know who man is they don't even know who you currently are much less who you should be what
00:09:59.380do they do why are christians going to them for counsel right exactly in other words christians
00:10:05.280are basically going to people who are essentially trained in atheism and psychology is essentially
00:10:13.140atheistic every counseling system that i'm familiar with and just in the united states alone there are
00:10:19.260350 different counseling systems that you could separately identify every counseling system is
00:10:25.760atheistic at its core in the sense that there is no God. It's very anthrocentric rather than
00:10:32.420theocentric or Christocentric. It's radically different than what we would do in terms of
00:10:40.240biblical counseling because we're focused on helping a person to be God's kind of man,
00:10:45.920God's kind of woman, first and foremost, whether you feel better or not. Our goal is not to help
00:10:52.820people feel better our goal is to help them be god's kind of man god's kind of woman to honor
00:10:57.460christ even through the difficult circumstances in their life and by the way when you start doing
00:11:02.600that then generally you will feel better you god will bless your life you do bible's full of
00:11:10.600promises that when you follow the way of wisdom then your your life will be extended you'll have
00:11:17.060a more peaceful life and a more blessed life it doesn't it just doesn't guarantee that doesn't
00:11:22.120guarantee that sometimes when you do all the right things life actually gets harder it gets worse
00:11:27.180suffering becomes greater so our goal is not just our goal is not just to help people get through
00:11:34.280their problems our goal is to teach them to be how how to be god's kind of man god's kind of woman in
00:11:39.920the midst of their problems we want them to bring glory to god and learn how to do that and so that
00:11:46.740goes back to a fundamental belief in the sufficiency of scripture now if you ask the
00:11:51.680evangelical conservative christian anywhere in america today do you believe in the sufficiency
00:11:56.780of scripture i would say that 99 of them would say absolutely i believe in that but what they
00:12:01.140mean by that is they mean that the bible is sufficient to get us to heaven in other words
00:12:06.740it has all the information i need in order to show me how to get to heaven and certainly i don't
00:12:12.400to disagree with that part of it but the bible is far more than that um i remember years ago j adams
00:12:19.580used to say people talk about pie in the sky by and by all right well the scripture was given to
00:12:26.280us so that we can begin to slice the pie now and enjoy our life in christ now not just somewhere
00:12:33.900eventually in heaven so we believe that the scripture is sufficient to deal with the serious
00:12:40.800soul problems of life now. It's sufficient to be able to do that. And in fact, it is not just
00:12:46.820sufficient. It's superior to anything that the world has to offer in terms of psychotherapy
00:12:52.880or psychology. Now, does psychology have any value at all? Yeah, I think on some levels it
00:12:59.720has a descriptive value. Oftentimes it describes problems well, but it doesn't have a prescriptive
00:13:05.860value it doesn't teach you how to deal with those problems from a biblical point of view
00:13:11.360or from a christian point of view it's going to always provide worldly answers so we can diagnose
00:13:19.600it can diagnose but it can't cure exactly exactly it can sometimes it can identify where problems
00:13:27.960are and even describe some of those problems well but even when they do that then they clump those
00:13:34.680symptoms together and then put a label on them like schizophrenia or like bipolar problems or
00:13:42.420manic depression or and you'll look those up in your bible and you're not going to find that
00:13:47.480terminology you'll say well the bible doesn't deal with that issue no no all of those psychological
00:13:52.900labels that are part of the diagnostic and the statistical manual the apa volume five all of
00:13:58.800those are just labels put on clusters of symptoms. When you look underneath that at the clusters of
00:14:07.440symptoms, all of a sudden the Bible starts to jump out at you because it starts to deal with
00:14:12.500all the symptomology that those particular groupings deal with. It doesn't use the secular
00:14:20.820terminology. And this is the reason why in my counseling, I want my counselee, the person I'm
00:14:26.240working with to think in biblical terms, not in contemporary psychological terms without the
00:14:31.720problem. As a person will come in and do a presentation problem of, you know, I have
00:14:35.940bipolar depression, or I have paranoid schizophrenia, or, and you're not going to
00:14:43.480find those particular terms in scripture, but I want them to use biblical terms. And when you
00:14:48.920start to think of your problems in biblical ways, all of a sudden, the Bible becomes no longer a
00:14:54.960question book it's an answer book it opens up it puts handles on your bible when that happens
00:15:01.380and this is what we want for people so what is counseling biblical counseling essentially is a
00:15:07.820form of discipleship that's what it is when you're discipling someone some oftentimes that's new in
00:15:15.660the faith or haven't been discipled before you're teaching them who god is who jesus christ is who
00:15:21.060the holy spirit is you're teaching them about the scriptures the importance of the study of
00:15:25.800scriptures and good hermeneutics and you're teaching them about the church and the importance
00:15:30.100of the church and all of this stuff but as you're doing that you keep will keep bumping into personal
00:15:35.740problems those same people you're working with has marriage problems or they struggle with fears or
00:15:40.460anxieties or depression you keep bumping in those personal problems well we don't ignore those in
00:15:47.980our discipleship. Instead, counseling becomes a targeted form of discipleship. It's where you
00:15:54.060zero in on those particular problems and bring the word of God to bear on those specific
00:15:59.680problems in that person's life. And actually, biblical counseling is what the world would call
00:16:06.860depth therapy. It's the deepest thing you can do because it is the only thing, the only thing
00:16:13.320that changes the heart of man it's the only thing that changes and that's the core issue of what
00:16:19.520we're dealing with it's the heart how the heart operates that kind of thing that's really helpful
00:16:25.860i like what you said just just a little while ago you said you know that um biblical counseling
00:16:31.380that provides answers to man's problems and i think i think that's one of the hang-ups that
00:16:35.680i've i've witnessed that professing christians will experience as well is um they're underneath
00:16:40.360this illusion that counseling doesn't tell them what to do. It doesn't give them answers. And it's
00:16:46.180not supposed to, that it's supposed to just listen, you know, the person lays back in the couch,
00:16:53.380you know, and tell me about your childhood. And then it mainly just ask questions, ask questions,
00:16:58.360ask questions, never really prescribes anything, never really gives any answers. And the only thing
00:17:03.680that really ever is said definitively is some form of affirmation. And I think that's a lot
00:17:09.280of people's view of counseling is that counseling, uh, ask questions, which I know in biblical
00:17:13.400counseling, you, you need to ask questions. Um, and there is a physical component to biblical
00:17:17.780counseling. We're not Gnostics. And so we recognize that, you know, there's the soul,
00:17:21.420there's also the body and it's, are you exercising? Are you sleeping? You know,
00:17:24.580those things matter. God, you know, we, we have a physical existence. And so biblical counseling
00:17:28.720isn't this pie in the skies over spiritualized, you know, so it asks questions. It wants to
00:17:34.420diagnose the problem, wants to understand things correctly, wants to assess the physical as well
00:17:38.880the spiritual, all those things. But then it also gives an answer. It also says something.
00:17:44.620And it says it with courage and with authority and gives people something to do. And I think
00:17:50.340that's one of the big hangups that people are like, wait, I wanted counseling. And you're
00:17:55.880telling me that this is what the word of God says. And you're even telling me the word of God says
00:18:00.280that I'm wrong. And this isn't counseling. It's like the picture of counseling that people have
00:18:07.820developed today is counseling just it listens it never tells me it just listens and affirms
00:18:13.920listens and affirms would you agree with that yeah have you experienced that hang up well
00:18:18.340especially non-directive therapies all right and these non-directive therapies think it's
00:18:23.640it's actually a criminal to to give them any kind of direction because they believe that
00:18:27.880basically in contemporary psychology that the answer is found within the person so you don't
00:18:34.280want to direct them because you direct them from outside of them you're going to steer them away
00:18:37.580from the answer within them and we would say from a biblical standpoint that when you get your life
00:18:42.820into trouble your answer is not within because that's going to lead you down a destructive
00:18:47.160into a destructive lifestyle we would say the answer is in the truth of the word of god
00:18:53.240trusting that following what the word of god says so god and his word is the focus of all of
00:19:01.000counseling for us and we would add this that the primary context for counseling is the local church
00:19:09.640our goal here in our graduate program at the master's university and what we train pastors in
00:19:17.240is not to set up counseling clinics we're not interested in setting up any counseling clinics
00:19:22.180if you're in the program and you want to set up a go and set up a counseling clinic then you're in
00:19:26.700the wrong program there every other program in the world does that especially secular models
00:19:32.940do that we want to return that person down to the local church under the authority of the local
00:19:39.700church with hopefully godly appointed elders who oversee what's being dispensed in terms of
00:19:47.500counseling they oversee the doctrine they oversee the truth and the life of the person who's the
00:19:52.940counselor as well as the counselee and that's where counseling is the most effective where that
00:19:58.480person is attending and worshiping the lord on a regular basis under the preaching and the truth
00:20:04.620of the word of god and so where you have powerful preaching and you have powerful counseling
00:20:11.380together those are the two most powerful change conduits in a person's life that that the holy
00:20:21.140Spirit can use. The Holy Spirit is the one who ultimately brings the change. But those two
00:20:25.500conduits are what God uses. Right. The Spirit of God working in conjunction with the Word of God,
00:20:31.440the Word of God preached, and the Word of God counseled, and both. So I completely agree.
00:20:35.960Another piece that I've noticed is, I think also, you know, so the preaching of the Word,
00:20:40.320the counseling of the Word, and being surrounded by the people of the Word, which you already kind
00:20:44.720of alluded to, but I think again, secular counseling by contrast, um, again, there's
00:20:50.160this, this, this stigma of, you know, that counseling should be very, very, very, very
00:22:33.160So 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.
00:22:48.900Yeah, I think a lot of people believe that.
00:22:50.740They really want the seclusion of being in a private situation where in that type of situation, you're no longer accountable.
00:23:04.560But 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,
00:23:16.020and I'm being counseled by them, then they can see you on Sundays.
00:23:20.280They 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.
00:23:40.280I'm always up front with them. Listen, I know so-and-so is your best friend. I'll say to them,
00:23:45.380I'm going to, I want to be able to go and talk to your best friend about their perspective
00:23:51.120on your problem. Now, people get scared of that because they have this false view that they think
00:23:57.960there is such a thing as a super Christian, that there are people out there that don't have any
00:24:03.800problems. We're the only people who have problems. That's not true. If the truth are known from
00:24:08.940pastoral staff down through all the congregation everybody struggles with there is no super
00:24:13.800christians doesn't exist and this is what the body of christ was intended to do galatians 6 1
00:24:20.360we're supposed to bear the burdens of one another help one another first we have to bear our own
00:24:26.120burdens but we have to bear one another's burdens and that's part of living within the dynamic
00:24:32.980framework of um of a church that's what should be happening where christians are counseling one
00:24:40.240another they're helping one another there are no super christians it doesn't exist um and that's
00:24:47.140what i think leads that isolation type of idea and that's the world has contributed that again
00:24:52.400the professionalization of counseling has done that it's led to that and um and the individualization
00:25:00.420of of the the focus of a lot of christianity today has led to that too because a lot of
00:25:09.100you can see this especially in roman catholic church it's about me going in with the priest
00:25:14.660into a little private closet and sharing all of my sins privately and that kind of thing
00:25:19.700that's the individualization when the new testament is all about the the corporate
00:25:24.980relationships that the believers have. There's a high value set on reconciliation. That's why
00:25:32.880we don't teach conflict resolution. That's a worldly idea. We teach biblical reconciliation.
00:25:41.320Resolving conflict is only one small step in the broader process of biblical reconciliation.
00:25:47.840It's much more comprehensive where that relationship between those people that formerly
00:25:53.140were in conflict with one another now is fully and completely reconciled and better than it was
00:25:59.520before better than it was before um uh totally and fully reconciled where now they're a blessing
00:26:06.880to each other there's a deep abiding friendship a brotherhood sisterhood that's going to be there
00:26:13.500that that's got to be there that's part of the dynamic body life of the fellowship of the church
00:26:19.460Amen. It's interesting that you mentioned the Catholic priest and the confessional booth kind
00:26:25.620of analogy. With that, do you think, because I think that's another thing that I've noticed in
00:26:31.660my pastoral ministry when it comes to counseling. I think sometimes individuals, they say they want
00:26:38.920counseling, but I think what they're really looking for is confession, a context for them
00:26:44.440to confess with his little visibility, accountability, and shame attached to that
00:26:52.560confession. And so I think it seems as though a lot of people who want counsel, what they really
00:26:58.480want is they want to unburden themselves. They want to confess their sins to someone
00:27:06.260where they just won't be a whole lot of consequences, which is very different than
00:27:14.060I want counsel because counsel says, I'm going to confess some things. Confession is going to
00:27:18.620have to be involved. Um, but, but it's not just, I want to confess my sin. It's I want to change.
00:27:24.380I actually want to change. I want to be a different person. And, uh, whereas it seems
00:27:29.040like a lot of individuals, it's, they're not really interested in change. They're interested
00:27:33.380in, um, alleviating their conscience momentarily, uh, by confessing. And I think confession and
00:27:40.420confessing and changing are two different things you have anything you'd like to add to that
00:27:46.120yeah uh sometimes in my and i give numerous illustrations we don't have time to go into
00:27:52.680them here but um over the past 45 years that i've been involved in pastoral counseling i'm
00:28:00.100absolutely convinced 60 at least 60 of the counseling that i've done of people who are
00:28:04.640depressed the real issue was guilt all right the real issue and now that's not true of everybody
00:28:10.460uh that's depressed but vast majority of them once you start dealing with guilt issues and
00:28:16.920handling guilt properly from a biblical perspective then it's amazing how the
00:28:22.680depression or the moodiness or the sorrow or sadness
00:28:28.560begins to dissipate once their conscience is clear um helping them to deal with that
00:28:37.620now and we live in a world where guilt today is um the enemy it's like a it's toxic um they treat
00:28:47.320guilt as if it's the enemy in the bible guilt's not our enemy guilt's our friend now if you have
00:28:53.940a red light come on to turn on a dashboard of your car, you don't pick up a hammer and smash
00:29:00.300that red light. You don't do that. You pull the car over, you open the hood and see what's going
00:29:04.800on. That's what the world does with guilt. They smash the red light. They try to get rid of the
00:29:13.420guilt. And a lot of people that are on SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or
00:29:19.100antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications a lot of them have unresolved guilt issues that go way
00:29:27.240back in their life nobody's ever helped them to deal with those particular issues it's something
00:29:32.200that has gone on for years and years and they anesthetized themselves with antidepressants
00:29:37.660when you're not really getting at the core issue you're covering over the the real issue
00:29:45.160with an anesthesia it's like giving an anesthetic to somebody who's um sitting on a cat tack you
00:29:54.200know they feel better for a while but once that anesthetic wears off then guess what the tack
00:29:58.740comes back once the antidepressants wear off guess what the guilt comes back and all of a sudden it's
00:30:04.160still there um and i could just cite last 45 years just example after example of that in counseling
00:30:11.400where that's the case so we live in a world that treats guilt like it's toxic like it's
00:30:17.760horrible it's not it's a friend it's like a it's like the smoke alarm that goes off in your house
00:30:23.220you don't destroy the alarm when it goes off you go find out what the problem is why why is this
00:30:29.100going on in my life and the bible helps you to find that and dig that out yeah it's the grace
00:30:36.040of shame. And I completely agree with you. I've been fond of, in my preaching, I always tell
00:30:41.780people that the gospel does not create a guilt immunity. The gospel, for those who believe it
00:30:49.780and are born again by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, I would say that in being
00:30:55.460a Christian, I experienced guilt exponentially more than I ever did as an unbeliever. Guilt
00:31:02.700has actually increased because I have so much more of a sensitivity to sin and anything that
00:31:09.700offends the Lord. And so the gospel doesn't create people who are immune to guilt or a guilt-free
00:31:15.540zone, shame-free zone, safe zone with trigger warnings and all that. The gospel doesn't do that.
00:31:21.440If anything, it intensifies guilt because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit and giving us
00:31:26.260eyes to see our sin for what it is in light of the holiness of God. But the gospel then provides
00:31:32.680a place where we can run with our guilt that ultimately is able to deal with that, not
00:31:57.320He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf, and his righteousness imputed to us.
00:32:02.040So 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.
00:32:15.080And 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.
00:32:29.120So 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.
00:32:40.380And 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
00:32:46.180And 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.
00:32:58.960or the rebellion in a particular instance, but for the world, certainly,0.77
00:33:02.640and then for some Christians who are not walking in the truth,
00:33:05.640keeping step in the truth of the gospel, guilt looks like an enemy.
00:33:28.640You 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.
00:33:34.700So the world doesn't say we hate truth.
00:33:36.260Nobody's nobody's that obvious and just come out and admit that they hate truth.
00:33:40.180Everyone claims everyone's making a truth claim and everyone claims to be a friend of the truth.
00:33:45.520And 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
00:33:55.520But 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
00:34:18.820Yeah, 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.
00:34:41.320But 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.
00:35:00.140that's so key and by the way that's the reason why we're so committed to the sufficiency of
00:35:05.800scripture because God it's rooted in the very character of God God does not do things
00:35:12.340incompletely all right for example what did God what did Christians do I should ask what did0.83
00:35:19.280christians do for almost 1800 years until a jewish um man by then that was a god hater
00:35:31.220by the name of sigmund freud come along and develop what we understand to be modern psychology
00:35:36.380today you know did somehow god leave out truth for all of those christians for almost 2000 years
00:35:45.340until Freud came along, and now we've got answers to the deeper issues of life? I don't think so.
00:35:51.700I don't think that's a very character of what we know God to be, is he never does things
00:35:57.260incompletely. There is this comprehensiveness to what God does, and when he does it, he does it
00:36:05.620completely, and it is sufficient for us in the time in which we live. That's so key.
00:36:12.380That'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.
00:36:31.940Well, 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.
00:36:55.280Anytime 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.
00:37:10.380But 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
00:37:25.120Roman Catholic priests were the ones who did it. Why?
00:37:27.740Especially 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.
00:37:38.020You 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.
00:37:47.420Well, for the Western world, science was really big.
00:37:51.760And so Roman Catholicism developed a way by which they could try to blend contemporary psychology and what psychology had discovered with the Bible.
00:38:04.020And they were the very first to call it integrationism.
00:38:09.900All right. Well, later on, Christians picked up on that.0.68
00:38:14.520And there's a historic reason why that happened.
00:38:18.200And it's primarily because from the 1850s to the 1950s, 60s, conservative evangelical churches were primarily evangelistic centers.
00:38:31.900Part of this was the moody, sankey revivalism in the 1800s that turned churches from being genuine New Testament churches to being revival centers.
00:38:43.280So 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.
00:38:53.940Yeah, exactly. You didn't hear that at all.
00:38:56.100It's John 3, 16 from every passage in the Bible.
00:38:59.240and and so but people during that time still had problems they had problems in their marriage
00:39:04.960had problems with depression they had problems with severe anxiety and fears so they had nowhere
00:39:10.380to turn they weren't getting into church so modern evangelical um christianity turned towards
00:39:21.300psychology and integration psychology they've actually borrowed from the roman catholic church
00:39:29.080that can be easily traced by the way that that integrational idea and tried to blend these
00:39:36.900things together well there there are so many things that are at odds i mean so directly at odds
00:39:43.560psychology doesn't believe in god we believe in god psychology doesn't believe that there's
00:39:49.480absolute truth we believe that there's absolute truth psychology doesn't believe in the power of
00:39:54.840the Holy Spirit. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. Psychology trusts in and aims at
00:40:04.380trying to help man be a better man. We aim at and trust in the word of God changing people
00:40:15.840in order for them to bring greater glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ and to their God.
00:40:21.960That 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.
00:40:43.720So 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
00:40:55.160And it's interesting. A lot of integrationism started with an Arminian and semi-Pelagian churches.
00:41:03.660That's where it started. A lot of Nazarene churches, those kind of things.
00:41:07.080and and you think about it semi-plagianism and arminianism and psychology have a lot in common
00:41:13.480because both are very man-centered right all right that's it and then only later on in the
00:41:21.940more reformed faith did others in the reformed faith go the psychology route which i believe is
00:41:28.500the opposite of their reformed faith you know it's going the opposite way they they're they're
00:41:36.060less reformed when they do that why do i say that because again they're they're going back to
00:41:42.960um in a sense roma catholicism when they do that kind of thing because it's trusting in man it's
00:41:49.540making man the center of the universe man the object of everything rather than having christ
00:41:55.340and god himself being the center of counseling and bringing everything under the understanding
00:42:02.200of who god is who christ is so there is a radical radical difference so they're not consistently
00:42:10.500reformed when they buy into that integrationism who they got from armenian and semi-pelagian
00:42:20.240churches who got that from roman catholicism and you can see how this can be easily historically
00:42:27.940traced i teach an entire class an entire semester on um um theology and the psychologies and
00:42:39.600basically what it is it's a it's a history of how people have traditionally dealt with soul problems
00:42:47.800from the secular mind into the christian mind and the history of the church and how the church
00:42:53.460has done that. So this can be easily, easily traced. So when you're going to a Christian
00:42:59.840counselor, I think that people like that are very well-intentioned. I don't take away from that
00:43:04.320Christian counselor's motivation. I think they want to help people. That's wonderful. They may
00:43:09.640even have high degrees, master's degrees, PhD degrees in psychology, but that disqualifies
00:43:18.380them from a biblical standpoint to give counsel. They should have advanced degrees in studying the
00:43:24.060word of God, using good hermeneutics to study the word of God, studying good doctrine. Then they're
00:43:30.880qualified in order to be able to give counsel. I remember very one prominent Christian psychologist
00:43:37.700who had for years and years and years had a very prominent nationwide radio program. On a regular
00:43:44.620basis i'd be driving in the car listening to his program and he'd be saying on there you know i'm
00:43:49.580not a theologian but i'd almost scream at my radio then you shouldn't be giving out counsel
00:43:55.060all right i'm not a theologian he'd say wait a minute well then why are you giving out counsel
00:44:01.160you should be a theologian if you're giving out counsel you're giving out counsel the word of
00:44:06.520god that's the most loving thing you can do is give people the truth of the word of god
00:44:12.460that's that's so creepy that's so helpful dr street because i think that's it's funny like
00:44:19.420we you know we've brought it kind of all the way back from the beginning of our conversations but
00:44:23.080that's the very reason why i think a lot of people don't want to go to their pastor because they're
00:44:26.760a theologian and they don't see that having anything to do with what they what they perceive
00:44:32.860that they need i need counsel you're a preacher you're a theologian you know like if i if i need
00:44:39.640to figure out the Trinity, I'll come to you. But I need counsel for my depression. And they don't
00:44:45.700see at all how these two things relate. But they do. And it's really a disappointment that I think
00:44:53.640in my experience, there are some pastors that, well, I mean, as you know, there are good churches
00:44:59.480and there are bad churches, there are good pastors, there are bad churches. But speaking to the good
00:45:03.480churches with good pastors, I think there are a lot of faithful pastors who know their Bibles
00:45:09.140well and they know men well because they know their bible well and what the bible says about man
00:45:14.660and the sin that is common to man they know these things and uh and they would love i mean they're
00:45:22.020just sitting there waiting to counsel their sheep they preach to them faithfully on the lord's day
00:45:27.600but there's so many more sheep that they wish would come to them and um and and they won't and
00:45:35.400And 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.
00:45:42.920And sometimes the sheep listens and sometimes the sheep bites and gets upset and leaves the fold.
00:45:48.580And 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.
00:46:03.700It's just that I think is from the pit of hell.
00:46:07.780I think it's a lie and it's deceived a lot.
00:46:10.280So let me end with this last question because I think some of our viewers will probably be wondering, what about medicine?
00:46:17.400When are there – are there any cases for medicine?
00:46:20.120And let me just throw out kind of an example.
00:46:23.360um let's say you know you're you're a woman and your husband has severe he's ex-military he has
00:46:33.320severe or he's been diagnosed with severe ptsd right and you guys have been to psychologists
00:46:39.880and psychiatrists these kinds of things and they have all said the same thing severe ptsd and he
00:46:45.500must have this kind of medication and you know you're listening to you know this woman hypothetical
00:46:50.980woman's listening to this episode and saying um yeah i i believe everything that you're saying
00:46:56.160dr street um i want my husband to sit down with the pastor and yes i want the word of god to come
00:47:01.300to bear in his life and i know there are soul issues there's you know there are spiritual
00:47:05.800issues at play and i know that that's even the majority of it but i think there might be some
00:47:11.280sense in which like physiologically he's fried he needs so are there cases like that what how
00:47:20.180How does the biblical counselor handle the physical side of the person?
00:47:25.060Yeah, there's another area where I think people have a huge misconception about biblical counseling.
00:47:30.260They think all biblical counseling is against medicine, and we're not at all.
00:47:33.780In fact, biblical counseling is very committed to hard science.
00:48:00.040If 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.
00:48:16.640and in fact even some of the psychotropic medications that are used today i think are
00:48:23.340part of the grace of god too because um there are so many people out there in the world the
00:48:30.480majority of the people in the world are never going to come to christ we know that jesus told
00:48:34.000us that the way to destruction is very broad the way to glory is a very narrow path very narrow
00:48:41.100group of people will ever be really saved compared to the entire corporate population
00:48:49.660of the world, past, present, and future. Very few will be saved. But out of all those people,
00:48:57.180there are going to be lots of people who are very mentally disturbed, suffering forms of insanity.
00:49:06.560and the Bible uses insanity. In fact, the Old Testament Hebrew word for insanity has the
00:49:11.980concept of being intensely self-centered, incredibly self-centered, self-focused is the
00:49:18.480idea. Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and verse 9, there talks about the heart of evil and man's heart is
00:49:28.780full of evil and insanity. Every person on the planet has the capacity in their sinfulness
00:49:36.240to be totally insane. We all have the capacity to be able to do that because of the evil and
00:49:42.420the sinfulness that are part of our heart. So most people are not going to become Christians.0.56
00:49:46.340They're not going to follow the word of God. So what are we going to do with those people
00:49:48.840who want to hurt themselves or hurt other people? Well, put them on drugs. I mean, that's part of
00:49:54.380the grace of God. Put them on drugs. There's not enough padded cells in this world to put these
00:49:59.060people. So give them chemical handcuffs. All right. That's part of the grace of God that needs1.00
00:50:04.940to be given but for the christian who is committed to being god's kind of woman god's kind of man to
00:50:10.780pleasing him bringing glory to him committed to the word of god with their whole heart they love
00:50:17.060jesus christ then if there are no biological reasons no physiological reasons to take that
00:50:25.220medication then let's work on this from a biblical perspective all right let's work on this now i'm
00:50:31.800not a medical doctor. Even though I've done lots of reading and lots of about medicine and drugs,
00:50:38.920I'm not a medical doctor. So I don't, as a counselor, I don't put anybody on any good
00:50:43.400medication. I don't take anybody off medication. It's ethically improper for me to do that. And I
00:50:49.740wouldn't do that. When somebody comes to me and says, I'm on some kind of antidepressant or
00:50:55.560anti-anxiety med, I say, okay, what dosage are you on? What kind of med are you on? Because I
00:51:00.760want to look up the side effects of that of some of that and i said okay well let's try working
00:51:05.720with your problems from a biblical perspective i don't tell them to go off their medication
00:51:08.680they start working on their problem from a biblical perspective they are the ones who
00:51:12.280eventually come back to me and say you know what i'm not sure i need this medication then i'll say
00:51:15.960to them listen don't go off of it cold turkey as you could crash go back to your doctor ask to be
00:51:22.280put on a decreasing dosage let him know that you're receiving talk therapy which is the world's
00:51:27.500terminology for biblical counseling, to replace that. And every single time, Joel, that that's
00:51:34.800happened, I've been able to successfully guide that person off of their medication to the point
00:51:41.520that they don't need it anymore. And they're relaying upon the word of God. It takes a while
00:51:46.520for some people, longer for others, to be able to learn to trust it. It's a trust thing. And
00:51:53.780And there is growing evidence, by the way, in two areas.
00:51:57.880And I'm talking about hard science now.
00:52:00.260There'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.
00:52:11.920OK, but there's growing evidence for that.
00:52:14.200The 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.
00:52:32.720I'm not saying the secular scientists are saying this.
00:52:35.740Direct result of being on this antidepressants for long term type of thing.
00:52:39.700now they're manifesting even more severe problems long-term schizophrenic things so i'm saying to
00:52:46.180the believer and we're now you got to remember that all counseling is pre-counseling until that
00:52:51.620person comes to christ you can't counsel an unbeliever with the word of god the only thing
00:52:56.580the bible says is you can evangelize them because at best the word of god is a set of suggestions to0.79
00:53:02.900an unbeliever at best and even if you get them to follow the word of god and they're still an0.72
00:53:08.540unbeliever what have you done you've created a really good pharisee right they're following the
00:53:13.080truth of the word of god but not for the right motives not for the right desires not because
00:53:17.140they love christ are you've created they will have a better life because there are practical
00:53:22.320benefits to obedience i mean god knows he's saying this is the way you should live life
00:53:26.880tends to go better with you so like guys like ben shapiro who are an incredible example of god's
00:53:31.240common grace he's probably has a better marriage and better kids and a better life than the god
00:53:36.920hating atheists who's just trying to stick it to the heavenly man but but at the end of the day
00:53:42.540he's heaping up judgment for himself in eternity it because because we say borrowing that's a
00:53:48.720charitable word but really it's it's theft you're stealing god's rules for life without paying him
00:53:55.040the homage the honor the worship that that he deserves back to you but yeah yeah yeah and and
00:54:02.180And 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.
00:54:14.120And self-righteousness becomes their demon in this particular case.
00:54:19.680So I was going to ask you real quick, with schizophrenia, do you think there's you said demon?
00:54:23.740And 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.
00:54:33.300But do you think some of these issues might just be some good old-fashioned demonic oppression?1.00
00:54:41.780If you don't have an unbeliever, I mean, if you have a believer, that's not true because a believer cannot be demonically possessed.
00:54:49.720But now, can a believer have symptoms of schizophrenia?
00:54:53.740Yes, 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.
00:55:08.560i have whole long lengthy lectures on dealing with schizophrenia from a biblical perspective
00:55:14.040uh schizophrenia by the way is a it's just a nice greek term it was invented in 1906
00:55:19.420by a german a psychologist slash doctor who um put two greek words together together it just
00:55:28.600means split mind all right it means split mind um well the bible talks about being double-minded
00:55:34.340All 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.
00:55:59.540right so those kind of things i would imagine a lot of that would come from uh addicts addiction
00:56:07.460right you know because they're people like god bless their heart you know i mean it's it's sad
00:56:12.800but they like maybe it's a it's a single mother who has a kid who genuinely who's let's say they're
00:56:19.520not a christian but just by god's common grace i mean has a powerful affection for their child
00:56:24.900and a powerful affection for cocaine and you know what i mean they're just they're divided
00:56:30.700and their heart is broken they're in tears they're a wreck um yeah right well back to
00:56:37.380your question in terms of medicine in proverbs chapter 31 it talks about the fact that give
00:56:42.740strong drink to whom who's perishing and wine to him whose life is bitter um i think alcohol
00:56:49.480is a good paradigm for any kind of drug that we use. It's the paradigm in the Bible for any drug
00:56:55.240that we use. Is there a proper use of this as a pain reliever, especially to those that are dying
00:57:01.680or perishing? Absolutely, there is. If there's going to be a psychotropic drug that's going to
00:57:09.840address a pain, now I think a differentiation needs to be made between what is sometimes
00:57:15.540referred to as emotional pain and real genuine physical bodily pain. That needs to be
00:57:21.520distinguished. But then Proverbs 31.7 says, let him drink and forget his poverty and remember
00:57:27.560his trouble no more in this particular case. So is there a place for those kind of things
00:57:33.580if there is severe difficulty or if a person is close to dying? Can that be
00:57:43.820given to them yes absolutely we're not opposed to those kind of things but for the christian
00:57:50.560who's committed to what the word of god wants to do they've had a good medical checkup there's
00:57:55.260nothing physiologically that's wrong going wrong in their body to the best of our knowledge then
00:58:02.400let's work on this from a biblical perspective and really dig into heart issues here and let's
00:58:09.780see how God can work and turn this thing around.