Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Counseling Red Flags. The Bible as the Authority. Growing in Nuance - Highlight Episode 350

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Counseling Red Flags. The Bible as the Authority. Growing in Nuance - Highlight Episode 350 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Greg, brother, we're blessed to have you with us, man, so encouraged by what the Lord's been doing in and through your life.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: You've been working again with Fortis for a long time the Transform podcast, the television series that you do, which includes counseling people.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: You're the chair of the School of Biblical Studies at the Masters University, fellow at the Fortis Institute and you pastor.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: You counsel, man.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: You do a lot of stuff.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: You served in the military too.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, today we're going to be talking about the unbiblical errors of psychiatry and psychology, and this is sparked by an amazing, amazing book you wrote Lies.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: My Therapist Told Me why Christians Should Aim for More Than Just Treating Symptoms.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: This is a phenomenal book.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Someone in one of the endorsements, I think, said that they thought this is going to kind of be the authoritative work on this subject, and I really think it is going to be.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I was encouraged, I was personally edified, especially, man, that last chapter about Christ.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was reading it and just worshiping the Lord, and so we're excited to have you with us.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Tell us what's been behind the book and how it's been doing so far.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: You just look behind the book.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: It's on the back.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Your name is behind the book.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: No, it was a.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, as a counselor, there's always a bunch of methods that seem odd, things that come up, and sometimes, as a Christian, it's just like I don't know if these things are actually dealing with the root of the issue.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: So, instead of just critiquing all those downstream things, it was really the beginning of me trying to figure out why, as Christians, do we use those?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: What's happening?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Are those things really treating the root of the cause?
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: And that's where the book came in, where I wanted to help speak to.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: What are the ideas behind modern day therapy secular, secular psychology, psychiatry and are they really helping us or are they making things worse?
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: So, like that's how the trajectory started and that was probably three years ago.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Just starting to think that through and do that research you know, when we talk about counseling right, it kind of falls into many different sorts of categories.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: But here in particular, maybe you can give a working definition of what does it mean to have biblical counseling right?
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: I have a Christian friend who grew up in a homosexual lifestyle and when he became a Christian he still had these temptations.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: He thought that they would magically kind of fall apart and go away.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: And he had a Christian counselor come to him and say hey, every time you're tempted, I want you to smell this bag of dog feces, and then you can relate the two together.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: And he said it just grossed me out.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: He ended up walking away from the Christian faith.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: But when we talk about biblical counseling, talk about integration, define it for us.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: Where do we start?
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Sure, yeah.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Big picture.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Biblical counseling is trying to use the Bible as the authority and the source, the authority and the source.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: So it's not just that we're saying, well, we're going to use a proverb here and there you guys know Dave Ramsey, you know Financial Peace He'll take one proverb and frame this whole methodology off that one proverb.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: We're not trying to do that.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: We're trying to say let's think about people through the lens of Scripture, let's think about their problems through the lens of Scripture, let's think about the solutions to their problems through the lens of Scripture.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: And honestly, as anthropology goes, so goes all of the rest your care for people, the solutions you would offer them.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: So it's biblical counseling.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: It's not trying to claim its own jurisdiction, it's just trying to help people from the authoritative and sufficient Word of God.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's really the end of it.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: I think the state of mental health in the United States is in such a tipping point right now and there's not very many places where people can turn.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Sure, you can, you can.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: You've seen this.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, if you turn to modern therapy, to your point, like the, the DMR, which is the book therapists use, it basically encourages them to affirm and pursue whatever feeling they find inside of themselves.
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: To your point earlier, there's no authority in God, it's only authority in your own heart.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: In other words, if you're a Christian and you walk into a modern therapy office and you say I've got these inner feelings, same-sex attraction, they will say okay's, let's help you come to peace with that.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: There's no authority outside of your inner desire.
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: If you go in there and you say I want to divorce my spouse and leave my children, okay, I will help you come to terms with that decision and communicate that to your family.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: That's ultimately what modern therapy will drive you to, because there's no rudder steering the ship.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: There's no ultimate authority beyond my inner feelings and desires.
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: But let me turn the mirror a little bit and say also so many churches and pastors are underprepared and are not equipped to have these kind of important conversations as well.
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: I've seen a pastor where they got this book that was written in the 80s and it was like he would prescribe out of context Bible verses oh, you're depressed.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: Here is your Bible verse Go, be depressed no more.
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: And they don't have the tools and resources to actually walk people through some of this.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: And the kicker is that sometimes people would walk away feeling shamed, as though if I'm depressed it can only be that I'm in sin, not recognizing the scriptures invitation to understand suffering in the way that some of us will have, suffering that is given to us by the Lord.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: And so how?
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: I guess the question is like where do we go?
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: How does the average person who's maybe listening to this going?
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: Okay, well, I don't want to go to my psychiatrist, but I can't go to a therapist and my pastor doesn't seem to have answers for me.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: What do they do?
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: I think that's a win because they're asking and they're open to what God's word might say first of all.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: And so it's kind of a failure on our part if we say, well, don't go to a therapist, but we have no one for you to go to.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh great, well, I got to go to my therapist.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Biblical counseling is its own field now and that means that there are counselors, resources, training centers, all of that that correspond to that field.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: It is a growing field.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: I think you could trace it back to the 60s, 60s, early 70s.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: So that means that it has refinements that need to take place, or it means that there are people that need to grow in nuance and understanding suffering versus sin, like those things exist.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: But if someone's watching this or listening to this, biblical counselingcom is where I would start, which is the association of certified biblical counselors, and the certified really matters because it's not just someone who has a good heart, but it's someone who's actually gone through training.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: They've been evaluated and supervised in that process of counseling.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: So if, if you're stuck and listening to this biblicalcounselingcom, find a counselor and look for those resources, that's the, that's the next step.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, greg.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: What are some of the red?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: I know you touched on it slightly before the following the finger.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: What are some of the red flags that people should look for when it comes to someone counseling them?
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would really, really, really be guarded against going to an unbeliever first of all to get help with your mind, because here's what we're practically saying.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: They've done years of training, but it's in humanistic psychology, it's in Rogerian counseling, it's in some man-centered therapy, that unbeliever doesn't believe in the soul, immaterial person, afterlife, jesus, doesn't understand the basic purpose of life to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: And now I'm going to go to them and bear my life before them and get life advice from them.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: So I think honestly, if a person's not a Christian, we're doing our best not to go to them.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: We're looking for at least a Christian counselor or therapist.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Blessed is the man who walks, not on the counsel of the ungodly.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are told they have mental disease because they're depressed.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's legitimate to tell someone they are mentally unstable because they're depressed?
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And the reason I'm asking that is we've got a lot to be depressed about in this world and I think someone who's depressed is sane because they're thinking about the fact they're going to die, they're going to lose their loved ones, the whole world's in a mess and there's a lot of reasons to be depressed.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: And the same people that say depression is a mental disease say something like 300 million people in the world have got depression, so they've got mental disease right, which puts the whole human race in a mess right.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: yeah, it's hard to define what a mental disease is, even by the secular therapeutic.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: So it's there's.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: There's no objective line of when you have it and when you don't.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: We can't do a scan of your brain, we can't do blood work.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: What you're going to do is verbally describe your symptoms and a psychologist sometimes general practitioners, or a psychiatrist.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: They will diagnose you based off your symptoms.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: So is that person mentally unstable?
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: We can't define what mentally unstable is if we're using the secular therapeutic excuse me terminology.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: So that's the real issue.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: So what happens is the diagnosis grows because there's no objective way to verify you have it and there's no objective way to verify you don't have it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: So, but I want to keep adding that caveat of you can be sad and not have a mental disease.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: So don't hear me say there's no such thing as depression.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: But I am saying there's no objective way to verify you have depression and that's why the diagnosis keeps growing.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: And there's one way to add to someone's depression is to tell them they're mental on top of their depression.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: And there's no cure, yeah yeah, other than psychotropics and antidepressants.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Would you've got symptoms that are worse than the disease often?
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: What role does medication?
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I remember reading inside your book about the missionary family, you know, and the mother was like going insane.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: What is there a balance here?
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: And I know that I'm opening up a can of worms here talking about the medication side of it, but Sure, those are.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, those are the questions everybody's asking Like so are you saying it's wrong to take an antidepressant and the answer is no?
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: We are not saying that.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: What I'm saying is that the antidepressant is treating your body when it may actually be a mental issue.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: So if the mind is immaterial, there is no pill that you're going to take that's going to change your mind.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Easy example we would pay good money for a pill that would give us pure thoughts, but it doesn't exist and it will never exist, because pills cannot change your heart, your inner person or your mind.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: So what are those pills doing?
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: Helping you manage symptoms like Tylenol?
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Tylenol has a place, but Tylenol can actually create more problems for you if you're not dealing with the root of the issue.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: So we don't want to feel better if we're in hardened, unrepentant sin with the root of the issue.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: So we don't want to feel better if we're in hardened, unrepentant sin Like so.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Headaches are not caused from a lack of Tylenol, right?
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: Right Is basically the point here, right?
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: So when you medicate and there's no real diagnosis happening and most medicine is treating a symptom, not the actual problem, I think that we have the ability to take this easy way out.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Right, when we think that Christians come along and they say I believe the Bible is true.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: However, there's some practical steps, you know, maybe things become pragmatic and this just helps me to move forward.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: And then we have another issue of we're not bearing one another's burdens and we're not, you know, I guess, just fighting through what we're going through, right?
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: right To your point.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Medical doctors should be pursued and we should test for any reason why there might be a medical issue going on, why I feel the way I do.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: But if there's no medical reason, then we should at least be open to what's going on in my inner person that's encouraging these outer man symptoms.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in all fairness, yeah, and at the end of the day, it always comes down to authority.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're either going to lean on man himself being the final authority on all things that relate to life and the foundations of the world in which we live, or we're going to rely on the authority of God's Word.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's it, and I love simplicity.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: You know we have those two options and it's one or the other every single time, and it's sad to me.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I think that people don't think in that way.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: One of the questions I've been asking people I mentioned on the podcast is who's the most significant human being that has ever lived that has most impacted the world?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Almost everyone says Jesus, and then I asked him what is the most impactful book in all of history, the most printed, the most read, the most translated, the most purchased?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: The Bible.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I say, man, if Jesus is the most significant person that's ever lived the Bible is the most important book, the greatest book ever written then wouldn't you be wise to say who is Jesus and what does His Word say?
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And so it's sad that a lot of Christians even don't recognize that, but they're going to the world not realizing that they are, in a sense, helping to verify it.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Quote as an authority.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And that's tragic.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Friends, we value your time, so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Without the jokes and fellowship.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.