Are Pastors Who Won't Provide Biblical Counseling Real Pastors?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your host, Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, Are pastors who won't provide biblical counseling real pastors?

Now, Tim, as we start this episode off, do you have any scripture for us that can sort of shed some light on the direction this conversation should go?

Yeah, 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 -13 says, We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and who are over you in the

Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace amongst yourselves.

So, when you think about this verse in general, there's a word in there, admonish you. So, Paul instructs the

Thessalonians to respect those who labor among you and who are over you in the Lord and admonish you. That word admonish in the

Greek is the word nouthateo, essentially. And the biblical counseling movement gained some inspiration from this word in general, meaning they named their biblical counseling movement after this

Greek word nouthateo. But then, this is a word that in the Greek, it means to counsel about avoidance or cessation of improper course of conduct, to admonish or to warn.

So, this is a word that basically means counsel. And one of the jobs of pastors is to be a counselor in general.

And there's just a lot of Bible verses on this topic that we could talk about as well, but this is just part of what it means to even be a pastor itself.

Hearing that definition, it kind of makes it sound like you could almost sum it up as just discipleship.

Is that right? I mean, I don't mean that to try in an effort to diminish what the pastor is doing, but more just to say,

I mean, if we want like a simplified version of what does that actually look like, it just sounds like probably a more authoritative version of discipleship.

Am I wrong in that? So, what's happened is that that's exactly what you should be thinking when you're thinking about this kind of topic in general.

But I think for the vast majority of people, we really don't even know what a pastor is anymore. So, when you're trying to have this kind of discussion, we don't even know how to answer this kind of question because I mean, this is why the

SBC, they're putting together, a few years ago, they put together a study committee to answer this question.

What is a pastor? You know, I had just forgotten about that, and then you had to go and remind me. Yeah, I know. Get me riled up.

Just trying not to think about those things. But no, the idea in the minds of many people is that a pastor is essentially a public speaker, he's a performer, and we have very little to almost no expectations of pastors in general.

I mean, they're basically just guys who stand up there and give a speech once a week or something along those lines.

I mean, that's the way that many people think about pastors, and the way that we think about pastors,

I mean, it really is just historically, it's just like there's no understanding of historically what a pastor actually was.

I mean, they're basically just entertainers. I mean, that's why you can get guys like J .D. Greer to get individuals to do their sermon prep work for them and give them their notes, and they just stand up and basically read their script.

I mean, you can watch sermons of Matt Chandler where it really did seem like Matt Chandler's standing up there giving his sermon and doing advertisements for products that he was probably getting paid for.

Are you serious? I've not heard of that before. Yeah, look it up. I'll have to go check that out.

You'll see these oddly placed, they sound like advertisement kind of things in the middle of a sermon.

Is he doing how the football coaches, whenever they give their post -game interviews, they'll have the

Dasani water on one side with the label turned out so you can see it, and then the Coca -Cola bottle on the other side with the label turned out?

I think there was one of him with a beverage at one point. And that's why

I love drinking this beverage, because there's something like that. But no,

I mean, you can look up that kind of stuff. But I think in the minds of many people what's happened is you have megachurch culture that has taken over in American churches in particular, and your standard megachurch pastor,

I mean, he's basically just like the brand, as Mark Driscoll would say, I'm the brand, right?

So that's what he is. He's just the brand that gets everyone together into the same place. But then whatever it means to be a pastor in the biblical sense, they're not doing anything related to that.

All they're doing is just being the public figure, the organizational head, that kind of thing, maybe the

CEO of the corporation who's the public face of that where all the branding comes.

But the idea of a pastor, it's just much more than that. I mean, just think about the metaphors of a pastor.

A pastor is a shepherd. What do shepherds do? Shepherds care for their sheep. So we've gotten to a point right now to where people don't have the impulse anymore if they have problems to even go talk to their pastors.

So they don't have any kind of expectations that pastors are going to do that. Part of the reason why that's the case is because psychology has made such great inroads within the church, and it has been a successful replacement for soul care as an expectation.

So with the advent of psychology now, people, they have an expectation that if they need help with their problems, they need to go talk to a secular psychologist and probably just get on drugs and become a drug addict for the rest of their life in order to deal with basic problems of life.

Yeah, and if you even dare to mention that someone should go ask, like,

Hey, I'm depressed. Hey, you should go talk to your pastor about that. I mean, you'll just get destroyed.

Everyone will come out against you and say, No, they need to talk to a qualified person. And half the time, even the pastors will come out and say,

I'm not qualified to help someone who's struggling with depression or anxiety.

I'm not qualified to tell you how to spend your money. You need to go talk to a financial advisor.

Whatever it is, it's so strange to hear even the pastors saying,

Hey, I'm not qualified to do these things. In my mind, it's like, Hey, if you're not qualified to help shepherd someone through these pretty normal experiences in life, then my guess is you're probably not qualified for the job in general.

Well, yeah, and that would assume that there is an actual job description beyond just giving a pep talk every week or whatever it is that you think you're doing.

But yeah, I think for the vast majority of American churches right now, you do have a pastor who maybe stands up there and gives 52 either moralistic, therapeutic messages, or if it's more of a conservative church, 52 salvation messages a week or whatever it is that they're doing.

But then with the advent of psychology, there isn't the same expectation that if you have spiritual problems, you go to your pastor to get spiritual answers anymore.

But I mean, you could read the Puritans. There's so many books out there that just are dealing with the common perspective of a pastor throughout church history.

And a good one that I would recommend is Pastor Sketches by Ichabod Spencer. But I mean, you have a picture of what a pastor actually is.

He goes from door to door, talks to his sheep, has spiritual conversations with them.

How is your life going and everything else? And with an attempt to help them to apply the

Bible to their life. And I mean, it's just something that's been lost here. And I think as you read through the

Bible, you look up that word, nuthateo, you realize that it shows up in a wide variety of places. And it's a word that basically hints at what a pastor's job is, and that's to counsel.

But a lot of people, they get hung up in that. If you say, hey, are pastors who refuse to counsel, are they real pastors?

If you were to try to say, well, no, they're not real pastors. They're not shepherds. They're just actors. They're just public speakers.

They've lost the job description. I think the common pushback that many people give is that they think that somehow what you mean by that is that you need to have a pastor who is formally counseling his members in a very specific kind of way.

Maybe setting up sessions, having forums that are filled out and all that.

And whether or not you do that as helpful safeguards or whatever, a pastor should be providing counsel at the very least.

He should be someone who's qualified to help you to deal with basic problems of life. As you read through the

Bible, you should realize that God in His Word, He's given us everything that pertains to life and godliness. Through the knowledge of Him, He called us to His own glory and excellence.

He's given us the scriptures, and in them there's these very great and precious promises which would help us to deliver us from our flesh and everything else.

If you don't know the Bible well enough to know how to help people deal with basic problems of life,

I don't even know what you're doing. Well, that was what I was about to ask you, too. Just thinking about this from a church -wide level, this question that we're bringing up, are pastors who won't provide biblical counseling real pastors?

Does that imply that every single pastor at the church needs to provide biblical counseling for the congregation?

Does it mean as long as the church has at least one or two guys who are able to do that consistently and in a way that seems to meet the needs of the church, is that faithful?

That means that the other pastors at that church who aren't providing biblical counseling, they're not neglecting any part of the job description.

How should we understand this from a church -wide perspective? Basically, is it all pastors need to do it, or at least some of the pastors need to do it?

I mean, there's certainly conceivable situations where at particular churches you can have individuals who are better counselors than other people or have more knowledge about a wider range of issues, everything else.

I mean, that certainly is the case. But then part of what you have to do is you have to demystify the word counsel.

And it is what you said. I mean, if you think about what counseling is at root, counseling is just discipleship.

That's what it is. So if you think about the job of a pastor, it's just to make disciples. I mean, that's what you're doing.

So as you think about that, you think about that kind of word and think about what we're actually talking about.

It's the job of every pastor to make disciples. Paul talked about night and day for three years, he didn't cease to admonish everyone with tears.

The job of a pastor is the job of a disciple -maker. I mean, Great Commission, we're given a

Great Commission. We're told to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them to observe everything that Jesus did and taught.

That's the Great Commission, that's what we're doing. We're teaching people to observe everything that Jesus did and taught. And Jesus had a lot to say about just common life problems.

So if you try to demystify what we're talking about with counseling in general, we're just talking about discipleship. And thinking about it along those lines, that's the big difference between biblical counseling and psychology in general, is that they're both trying to answer the same kind of question, like, what should you do?

The problem is that there's just a different standard that you're counseling by. So you're both giving advice, but what is your advice based on?

Is it based on pragmatism or is it based on the Word of God? And so what biblical counselors are trying to do, and what pastors should be trying to do, is they should be trying to help people to know how to glorify

God in every situation they find themselves in. How do you glorify God in every single situation?

And what you're going to find is the Bible is sufficient to tell you how to glorify

God in any situation that you might find yourself in. That doesn't mean, as people say, that it's a textbook on physics or something like that, but it is aimed very specifically to address how to glorify

God in whatever situation you find yourself in. And so what you have to do is you have to ask yourself of all the decisions that you're going to make and everything that you're doing, does it glorify

God to do this? And that's obviously a pastor's territory. So would it glorify

God to marry this person? A pastor should be able to give you an answer to that kind of question based on knowing what the

Bible actually says about marriage, right? So should you get divorced? A pastor is qualified to tell you what does the

Bible say about marriage, about divorce, about happiness, about sadness, about discouragement, about hopelessness, about despair.

How do you glorify God with your emotions, with your feelings, with your behaviors? I mean, this is just territory.

The Bible is painstakingly addressing. And so when you think about it along those lines, then obviously every pastor at a church should be qualified to answer how do

I glorify God with my life kind of questions. Now certainly, I mean, there may be some issues that are harder than others that you may want to go get insight from, you know, one person over another person.

You know, maybe, but I mean, like, scripturally, I mean, there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors. Like, in the multitude of counselors, the

Bible says there's safety. So, like, the job of an elder board is to have a multitude of counselors that can have, like, think about certain situations and give the best kind of advice.

That's, you know, that's the job of elders. I mean, Jesus himself describes himself as a, you know, wonderful counselor.

So, like, this is the job of a shepherd, basically, and every shepherd needs to be competent in this job to some degree or another, for sure.

So, I guess there's a question, too, then, about the availability of pastors to be able to do this type of counseling.

You know, because I'm sure there's plenty of people, maybe even some people listening right now who are attending churches where they feel like there are at least certain pastors in their church who are, you know, seemingly always unavailable or, you know, impossible to get in touch with when it comes to these things.

Maybe not every single pastor in their church, but at least some of them, especially,

I think, probably, most commonly, like, whoever... bigger churches. Yeah, and bigger churches and whoever is, like, the senior pastor of that church.

That's typically, like, what I would imagine are probably the most difficult pastors to get in touch with.

So, is there an issue there with that? You know, if you're at a church where you feel like, hey, you know,

I've tried to reach out, I've tried calling, I've tried emailing, I just can't really seem to get in touch with my senior pastor, for example.

I can get in touch with some of the other pastors, but I can never seem to get a hold of him. Is there an issue there, or, you know, is there a point where we have to say, like, hey, you know, we've got to be realistic and realize that pastors have, you know, multiple responsibilities, and, you know, maybe not every single pastor is able to counsel every single person in the church who is going to need counseling?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly two things. There's certainly several things that you could say at that point. So, you know, first of all, there's the assumption that people want counseling, and I would say that I don't know that that's always true.

Maybe I'm being a little too generous, huh? Yeah, I mean, for the most part, you know, it used to be that people would think, hey, if I'm going to get married,

I need to go talk to my pastor and get some advice about, you know, this choice that I'm going to make, you know, talk to one of my pastors at the very least about this choice

I'm going to make. But right now, it's almost a formality. You know, it's just like, hey, go get premarital counseling just so that, like, we've already set a date where we know what we want to do.

We're already persuaded on what we're going to do, but we need you to marry us. And so this is a hoop that we're jumping through, and please don't actually try to give us any counsel whatsoever.

So, I mean, I think the vast, like probably the vast majority of church members today. Other than maybe like, hey, how do

I make my wife happy so she's not making my life totally miserable or something? Yeah, so most people, they don't want counsel.

What they want is someone, if they want anything, they want someone to listen to them and tell them everything that they think and feel is right.

Yeah, yeah. Like, they want universal positive regard. That's what they want. But then if they do, like, like, so if they do want actual counsel, most often what they want, they want it from someone outside the church so they don't have to actually share their problems to, like, someone within the church.

Like, it really is attractive to them if they can go to a church with a counseling ministry outside the church. That way no one has to understand or know their baggage or their dirt in that way.

So I'd say that most people aren't even predisposed to want it anymore. They've just come to expect that one, pastors aren't going to do it.

Psychologists are going to do it. If the church is going to do it at all, you need to go somewhere else so that you don't have to air your dirty laundry in front of people who you see rub elbows with every day and maybe they'll think poorly of you with that.

But then let's transition, though, from that into what you're saying, though, which is what about the person who actually wants it and they want it specifically from a specific person?

I was like, yeah, if you go to a church full of 10 ,000 people, you're not going to be able, every single one of them isn't going to be able to be shepherded by, you know, the brand, right?

The Mark Driscoll, I'm the brand kind of thing. Like, you're not going to be able to do that because there's just not enough hours in a day.

Now, part of the problem is that those guys, you know, I'm not saying anything about him in particular, I don't know particularly what his schedule looks like, but I mean, the vast majority of megachurch pastors are probably not counseling at all anyways.

You know, there are very few people because there's just way too many people. You can't, no one's, you can, like if you're

Joel Osteen, you have 50K people, you're not talking to any of them, you know? I mean, even like a

John MacArthur, it's like, you know, he, I mean, just literally physically cannot counsel every single person at his church.

So in a situation like that, I mean, I do think churches, they, in the best case scenario, you need to have shepherds who are going to care for the sheep and actually shepherd the sheep and make yourself available for the sheep and that, like,

I do think that there's, the Bible teaches, obviously, a plurality of elders within a church, and so a plurality of elders are needed in order to take care of an entire body because, you know, not, you know, everyone doesn't have unlimited time, giftings, you know, everything else.

And so, like, you do need a shepherding plan that's going to shepherd a body. And so, I mean, some places like Master's out there,

I mean, man, they have a seminary out there, they have an army of pastors out there to care for that body in a way that, you know, they're caring for that body much better than, you know, even small churches, you know, with a single pastor at times.

So I would say that there's something, there's some allowances to be made along those lines, but then, you know, you do need to make sure that your church has, like, an intentional plan, like, to shepherd the people that you're giving.

And I think there's some creativity that can go into doing that. And certainly it's a work that's beyond one, the scope of one person, and there are time constraints and everything else.

But I do think that a lot of churches, they probably should be thinking more intentionally, like, when we're getting to a point where we're growing beyond our ability to actually care for what we have, we need to plant another church, or we need to be more faithfully training up leaders who are, you know, and members.

And, you know, and part of what, the heart of the biblical counseling movement in general is that, like, the biblical counselors, they, like, we believe, the

Bible teaches, that it's the pastor's job to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build one another up in love, meaning, like, the church itself has, like, a responsibility to counsel each other.

So, like, there's a sense in which, like, just as every single, you know, believer is responsible for the

Great Commission, we're all responsible for the Great Commission, just as, like, we're all responsible to make disciples in some way.

Like, it should be that what your church is striving towards is a culture that's ministering to itself to where you have every single member in your body who are, like, counseling each other, right?

Discipling each other. Right, yeah. And, I mean, that's, you know, that's some of the things that, you know, it's a neat thing to see happening at our church where you have individuals who are doing that very thing where they're having tough conversations with individuals who are having nosy conversations with individuals at times, you know, more than just the, hey, how are you doing?

You know, all right, great, I'm fine too. Yeah, all right, let's talk about, like, trivial stuff at that point.

I mean, I've, you know, heard, I've overheard and witnessed plenty of times where individuals are having real spiritual conversations with people.

And so, like, the best case scenario, you have pastors who are equipping the body to minister to itself, and then they're there to handle, like, the issues that the body is unable to handle in that way too.

So, there's definitely responsibilities on both ends. So, what should someone do if they are at a church where there is not really any realistic way to get counsel from the pastors at that church?

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I want to say they should leave the church. I mean, but step one would be to follow

Matthew 18 and try to confront your pastors about the fact that they're not pastoring and, you know, go with Matthew 18 as far as you can take it along those lines.

But, I mean, I do think that there is a place to say that if my church is not going to do this, then

I'm going to leave. And I'm not saying that. There's a kind of person who hears that to say that step one is just,

I don't know if they have counseling here or not. I wouldn't want to go if they did. So, I'm just going to leave or something like that because I have a problem.

And that isn't helpful at all. It's not meant to be like an easy way out kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, no. You know, that's not the way it works. But, I mean, I do have people all the time who will call me up for counseling.

You live in the area and everything else. I mean, the first thing I'll say is, hey, have you asked your pastor about this?

Have you talked to your pastor about this? Oh, no, I'd be too embarrassed to do it. It's like, well, I'd be happy to help if he's not willing to.

But you need to establish that he's not willing to first. Because it's his job to shepherd you.

And he's going to have more information than I have. He has more context than I have. He knows your situation better than me.

He should. And, you know, if he's not willing to help, then I think you should find someone who is willing to help and go to a faithful church.

And the sad thing is, I know so many situations where people, they refuse to connect themselves with a local body who is willing to minister, period.

And then they refuse to connect themselves with a local body who is willing to take this responsibility seriously to actually shepherd and disciple them.

And then when difficult things happen in their life, when tough things happen in their life, they have no one to turn to and no one to help them to resolve these marriage problems they have, these parenting problems they have.

They have no one to turn to. And then they're in the midst of these very messy situations and no one knows them.

And then they're springing these situations on people that are strangers to them, that don't have any context for even how to help them or how to help them navigate what's actually going on.

And you just, you know, they reap the bitter fruit of all that too.

And that's a really sad thing to watch. And to watch it particularly happen over and over and over again with certain individuals who just refuse to, you know, be a part of a local church in that way.

But I mean, the church is a great blessing, man. It's a great blessing. And the accountability that the church provides is a great thing.

And if people would take advantage of that, I mean, I think our marriages would be healthier, our parenting would be better. You know, relationships within the body would be better.

We'd be making better decisions, wiser decisions, smarter decisions. But that's what, you know, that's what pastors are there for is to help you to, you know, answer the question, what does

God have to say about this? How do I glorify God in every area of life? Yeah, and I think, you know, that's probably the most frustrating thing when it comes to these kinds of issues, especially with how people view the church and what the church is supposed to do in general, just because it's, you know, the blessing of being a part of a local church is not that you get to go to a place and you get to be entertained, you know, for an hour or whatever, and then you leave and go about your week like normal.

You know, the blessing of being a part of the local church, or at least one of the blessings, is that you have people who are willing to come alongside you and who are willing to, you know,

I mean, just, like you said earlier, be like a family, right?

Be people who are intimately involved in each other's lives, and not just in a, hey, how are you doing?

Oh, good. Yeah, I'm good, too. Okay, I'll see you next week kind of thing, but actually having conversations, actually getting to know one another, actually spending time together, you know, outside of Sunday and outside of Wednesday nights, telling each other, like confessing sin to one another, and, you know, seeking counsel from one another, and all of these things.

I mean, it's really crazy just to see how much good God does through these things, and it's just so frustrating, and frankly, it's very sad to see many people who just kind of, they view church as like,

I'm going to go on Sunday, I'm going to go on Wednesday, you know, if I need counsel for anything, I'm going to go talk to a psychiatrist, or I'm going to go talk to my financial advisor only, or, you know, whatever it is, and I'm not, you know, my pastor's not on the short list anywhere to get, you know, in terms of people

I'm going to get counsel from, and, you know, those people, they just, they have such an anemic view of church in general, and so they really just don't even understand, they view church as a burden, ultimately, is how they view the local church, and instead of the major blessing that God has intended it to be, you know, for us as believers,

I mean, I can't tell you how many, how many college -age people that I've met where we are who claim to be

Christian, and, you know, every time, I'm like, hey, you've got to, step one, now that you're here, you've got to get involved in a local church for all of these reasons, you know, and the ones that ignore that, by the time they're graduating college, they look nothing like a

Christian, and a lot of times they look even vastly different than, you know, when they first came into college, where, you know, you're kind of like, hey, you know,

I'm, you're saying a lot of the things that a Christian would say, but, you know, I don't know you, so I, you know,

I don't know where you are at spiritually, I don't know what you understand about the gospel or anything, but you at least, you at least look the part in the way that you're speaking and whatnot to me, and you sound like you at least understand some of the basic principles of the

Bible, but then by the time they leave, they're just like, I mean, they look just totally the opposite of what a

Christian is supposed to look like, and it's partially because they didn't get involved with a local church, you know, and they didn't have people who were there to counsel them through these things and, you know, encourage them to stay away, to fight their sin and to kill their sin.

They didn't have all those things. They neglected them, and, you know, that is a really sad thing to see over, to see people neglecting and essentially spurning these gifts that God is giving to us through the local church.

I mean, Proverbs 18 .1 says, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire. He breaks out against all sound judgment, and, you know,

I mean, certainly the church body is there for us to bear one another's burdens, to, you know, pray for one another, to confess our sins to one another.

There are blessings that come from life within a local body where you have family, you have built -in accountability, you have, like, you know, a disciple -making community that's going to come alongside you, and, you know, like, we're all on the same mission together, and we're all on this mission to glorify

God, and we're people, when they isolate themselves from that, man, they're just, they're toast.

Right. Okay, well, you know, I think we'll wrap up the conversation there. You know, obviously, like we said, this is an important conversation, and one that, you know, is aimed at reminding people about all of the many blessings that come from the local church, and one of them being, you know, pastors who are directly invested in the lives of their congregation, because that is one of the responsibilities.

Like you said, they're meant to be shepherds. They're meant to guide and teach and equip their congregations, and that's not just on a

Sunday morning or a Wednesday night. So hopefully this conversation's been helpful for you. Hopefully it's, you know, been something that's encouraged you, reminded you of the blessings that we get to receive from the local church, you know, so that we're not tempted to look at the church as if it's some massive burden that we have to constantly, you know, go to.

I mean, it actually is a really big blessing, and so our hope is that that is how

Christians view the local church, as number one, a way to worship

God together with other people, and then number two, a way to be encouraged and equipped to continue to walk faithfully as people who are followers of Christ.

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