"Christian" Counseling

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are.

Michael Durham, Chris Giesler, and Andrew Hudson.

Christian Counseling Must Be Centered on Christ and His Word

Today we have a question about counseling or Christian counseling and psychology. The question reads, a friend of mine has started going to a Christian counselor. I am skeptical because he mentioned that they suggested hypnosis as a treatment.

My gut reaction is this is not a good thing. Is this okay for Christians? Does the word offer any help in this area? Michael, would you like to start us off?

Yeah, so first of all, we always need to be thoughtful, discerning when we see the word Christian attached to anything. We should be heartened by the fact that somebody would be seeking Christian counseling and that somebody would want to practice Christian counseling.

We would expect this, therefore, to be centered upon Jesus Christ and his word, how he has revealed the truth of God. We would expect Christian counseling to be submitted to the authority of God, thus focused upon the word of God.

But when we think about the practice of hypnosis, we need to think about, first of all, what it is, and then consider whether or not it's in agreement with the word of God. Now, again, the claim for somebody saying that hypnosis has a role in counseling, someone going to counseling, obviously, is hoping to find some healing, some wholeness, some resolution for some issues that they're facing.

They'd probably like some encouragement. They'd like to have some hope. They'd like to have difficult relational issues and questions addressed and answered. Someone may be dealing with thoughts that they're having that they don't want to have.

They may be struggling because of bitterness from the past or anxiety about the future. And again, these are very human issues, things that the Bible addresses. Now, there is healing and wholeness and restoration and forgiveness and hope for all of us in Christ and expressed through his word.

But when you go to the Bible to look for hypnosis, you're not going to find it. Now, we're going to talk about hypnosis in a moment, but when we look at the word of God about where are our solutions, where are our answers, where is our healing, where is our help?

It involves the word of God being proclaimed to us. Here are the truths about who God is. Here are the truths about who Christ is and what he has done. Here is the promise of the Holy Spirit. Here is the reality of who we are, made in God's image, fallen in sin, in need of salvation.

And here is the nature of the salvation that we have in Christ by faith alone, in grace alone. So the Bible does address all of these things. The Bible speaks to the entirety of the human experience. And we find a full and true salvation in Christ, but it is according to the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Christ.

When Jesus came preaching, he came preaching, time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. And then he gave the information about what that good news is, the good news of the kingdom, his person, his work, and so on.

What is hypnosis? The word is made up of two parts. We have hyp, H-Y-P, hypo in the Greek, meaning sub or below. Then we have the word gnosis, which is the Greek word for knowledge. What is being claimed here?

What you need to help you, given all these variety of issues that you're facing, is something sub, below knowledge. Something that is outside or below knowledge. I'm not going to share with you the word of God.

We're not going to look at how you're describing your experiences and your problems, and then look at the word of God so that we can say the same thing about them that he says. You know, we're not going to agree with heaven about my life here on earth, so that God's will may be done.

We're not going to seek his help. We're not going to walk in the light and see things from his perspective. No, we're gonna do something that is subconscious. Something below knowledge. Something that is not gonna be in accordance with a clear understanding of who I am and who God is and what is going on in my life.

So, there's no verse that says thou shalt not do hypnosis. Right? But why would you go to a counselor to get hypnosis? Because, you know, I need help. Okay, fine, you need help. You can get help. But a Christian counselor should not be using hypnosis because that's not how Christ speaks to the healing, restoration, forgiveness, and encouragement and hope of the saints or of anybody.

Right, so hypnosis doesn't fall with anything that's biblical.

Does, I've heard it described this way before, that hypnosis is you're like under a suggestive state by someone else. Is that being self-controlled? Is that modeled by the fruit of the spirit of being self-controlled, submitted to Christ?

Right, so you're being controlled by someone else and something else. With hypnosis, it's not a matter of, you know, let's talk about why it is that you get angry all the time. You know, and let's look at how the wrath of God is unachieved, the wrath of man is unachieved, the righteousness of God.

Let's talk about why people get angry. Let's talk about, you know, the fear that lies behind it. Let's talk about the pride that lies behind it. Let's talk about the bitterness that lies behind it. You know, let's look at anger from God's point of view.

Let's talk about repentance. Let's talk about the need for salvation and so on. That's how you would handle it from a biblical point of view. Now hypnosis is gonna be something different, right? It's being put into some sort of suggestive state and the therapist is going to be droning on and on about how, you know, the next time they get your order wrong at Burger King, you know, you're not going to be mad, right?

You're gonna be at peace. And we're not gonna even deal with what the anger is. We're not gonna even talk about the reality of it. We're gonna go sub-knowledge here, right? And we're going to try to control your behaviors and your outcomes but never even talk about what really is going on.

So like being controlled by a different spirit.

It just sounds like magic. You know, like I'm gonna say these words to you in a specific way while you're in a specific state and magically things will be better this time.

And who are we trying to conform ourselves to? The therapist? Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what?

What God's will is. His good and pleasing and perfect will.

So the renewing of a mind is not the subverting of a mind.

Right.

Which hypnosis is the subversion of a mind. But we're changed by the renewing of our mind.

And it's not the same as drunkenness but it's interesting that we use the term spirits with drunkenness because you are under control of a different spirit when you dive into drunkenness.

Well, how often was pagan practices of spiritual revelry also done under intoxicating spirits?

Don't you mean still? I mean like the whole D &T, like the Joe Rogan, like all that, like the.

How are you going to commune with the spirits?

Yes.

Through altered mental conscious states.

The pharmacology.

How do we achieve that? Hypnosis is an altered mental conscious state.

Well and that's.

So is consuming intoxicating liquors or other substances.

That's interesting that one of Paul's admonitions is do not be filled with wine but be filled with the spirit. We're to be possessed by the spirit. And if in our counseling we're being admonished not to go to God's word or to his spirit but we're to be guided by what?

Something else. So even if it's like the emptying of your mind and you're be guided by this person but if you're not being possessed of the spirit my concern you'd be possessed by something else. Like what's going on there?

You know you can, it seems kind of effective though on one level you know. I watch a little show called Daniel the Tiger and you know when he wants to roar he just counts to four, right? That's the way that the world handles things, right?

We're going to find some sort of mantra, some sort of song. We're going to find some anger management rather than anger repentance. But that would go for, you know it's not just anger but there's all sorts of other types of things people don't want as a part of their life.

They recognize the destructive nature of sin in their lives. They can tell, hey my relationships are being destroyed right and left. I'm losing friends, I'm losing family members. Look at my life, it's a mess.

They can rightly identify, hey this behavioral pattern in my life is the reason why my life is just a mess whether it be some sort of addiction or something. And they go to a Christian counselor looking for help.

What are they going to get? Hypnosis has nothing to do with the salvation that Christ offers.

And I think that's why the terminology can be difficult sometimes like evangelical. What is that now? You know it could mean all kinds of stuff. Same thing with Christian counseling. What is the person teaching?

What is their position on God's word? Is it sufficient or is it not sufficient? Because you can have Christian counseling which is just secular counseling with some Bible verses. And so there's been a movement for some Christians that hold to God's word being sufficient for all of these things.

And they call it biblical counseling. I'm not saying that there aren't Christian counselors out there that aren't counseling from God's word. But you have to ask the question, what is their stance? What are they going to as their ultimate authority?

Evangelical means that Eve is always angelic.

Oh.

So why do we need to get her in the pulpit?

Oh my goodness.

Well, when I went to seminary we took a counseling class as part of the Master's Divinity process. And when I took that class the professor was very upset about anybody who would pursue any kind of counseling that wasn't based on the already established methods of secular counseling.

So the book we read was all about taking the common categories of counseling and putting a Christian veneer over them. It's kind of an additive and that makes it all better. And the idea was that all these counseling issues, all these psychotherapy issues had already been established by the experts, right?

So what we're gonna do is add Christian nuance to it and just make it that much better, okay? And at the time there was a lot of talk about newthetic counseling, a lot of talk about a kind of counseling from a perspective of, you know, hey, there's a lot of sin in the life of people who are fallen, there's depravity, there's God's word that we should be looking to for the solution.

And my professor, oh, he hated that. And there was just a handful of people in the class who were for a kind of counseling where the Bible was sufficient to answer any issues within the human experience.

And we all got very bad reviews on our perspectives. He was very much opposed to that. And again, why? He really believed that to help people with all these real problems, that the Bible was not the instrument for that, right?

And of course he was wrong in that, but it always struck me about how passionate he was that we should have the world's categories and established practices, otherwise we weren't giving it our best.

Did you believe that Jesus was Lord anywhere else?

Mostly within your heart.

Okay, yeah, and I mean, that seems to be the issue all around, right? It's like an obedience thing. It's not like, it's not a difference in hermeneutics at this point. It's are you going to be obedient to your Lord in all things?

And we're not talking about hermeneutical differences there.

The disciples who continued following Christ after hearing these hard things responded, Lord, only you have the words of life. To whom else would we go? Who else are we running to for words of life?

Well, and I was looking at Galatians and he's talking about works-based salvation, but a lot of this, you know, psychology is the study of the soul, but oftentimes the solution are very fleshly. We're going to, you know, give you this medicine that'll fix your problem, looking to the flesh.

And I just think in Galatians 1, he says, I am astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, something else that saves. Instead of turning to Christ and his word and his saving hope that he gives, you're turning to something else.

And he talks about the flesh versus the spirit. If your salvation is started in the spirit, are you going to finish it in the flesh? And the questioner talking about hypnosis, that's very much just manipulation of the flesh.

That's not relying on the spirit.

Well, isn't that all the enemy can, not all the enemy can do, but isn't that like what they're really limited, they've limited themselves to that, right? They've tried to stick strictly to the material part of everything, deny that this world is filled with embodied souls.

So they're trying to limit themselves to very carnal ways and they're trying to be consistent with it based on their presuppositions because you can't be treating a soul, even though that, like you said off mic, that's what they're supposed to be doing.

Yeah, psychology is a study of the soul, but if you don't believe in a soul, then what are you treating? And people have an eternal soul and most of these issues are addressed by scripture because it's God that we're made in the image of.

He gave us a soul and when we've fallen, he gives us the solutions in his word. And so we don't need to look elsewhere to try to manipulate these things. We need to get to the heart of the issue. And often the symptoms are being addressed.

Are you depressed? Are you anxious? Well, let's treat that somehow versus the repentance and turning to Christ.

The Sufficiency of Scripture for the Human Soul

Well, what do we say to Christians that have, maybe in the past, had some sort of, felt they've had some sort of help in this way, but have come to the idea that the Bible is sufficient for all things, but they're really struggling in this manner to make that step, to really believe that it is the sufficient instrument for these problems that they have in their lives?

Yeah, I think that God has made us in his image to love him supremely, to love others rightly, steward this creation in righteousness. And even in the talking with others who are made in the image of God about my issues and how this is what I struggle with and so on, you're encountering somebody else who's made in the image of God and there are just basic things that we can never run away from.

I mean, we're wearing the uniform, even if we're breaking the uniform code, even if we are AWOL, so on and so forth, there's just things you can't get away from. So when you talk to somebody else who's made in the image of God, even if they're not bowing the knee to Christ and so on, what are they gonna be concerned about?

What do they know is gonna be good for somebody else in their life? Well, you should be at peace with others in your life. You should not pursue things that cause all manner of injustice to others. You wanna feel good about yourself, right?

You wanna be at peace, right? And all these things are gonna be twisted, messed up, so on, but you're gonna feel better just talking to somebody. There's a cathartic moment in confession. This is why people go to the confessional still and just dump everything on the priest.

My wife and I have had this experience a lot in our years of ministry where people will come into our life briefly and just dump everything. Just talk about all these different things and cry and weep, and we share the gospel with them and encourage them to find forgiveness in the Lord, but they just feel so good getting off their chest, right?

Confession is good for the soul is the old expression. Well, they feel better. It's a cathartic experience. They got to talk to somebody who was kind and listened and was there and obviously cared about them, and then they go away and it builds up again and again and again, and then they'll go release on somebody else.

This is what people do on Facebook all the time. They don't need to confess to a priest. They just confess to the Facebook world, and that is, people have found in the past, I have been helped. Well, of course you have because you're relating to people and they're showing you some concern and care.

You feel better, obviously, but there's a difference between a worldly sorrow and a godly sorrow. A worldly sorrow that is self-focused, man-focused, that produces a repentance that you end up repenting from versus a godly sorrow where you're thinking of God first and most, where there is a brokenness, a sorrow that produces a repentance that you do not repent from, and this is, of course, what Christ wants for us.

Speaking from experience as a pastor, when there is a structured loving opportunity and it's not just me in the room, but it's myself and another elder and people within a family and so on, and we're counseling and we're going through what does the word of God have to say?

Let's say what God says about what's going on. Let's look at how he says that it's supposed to get better. You know what?

Jesus saves. He heals.

He restores.

He changes.

He sanctifies. It happens. And it doesn't require some sort of specialty diagnosis kit. We just have to say what God says about it and trust that the direction he sends us is the right way to go.

And ask him to help our unbelief along the way.

Yes, absolutely.

There's a sense of patience there. It takes some time. Takes some time to hear, to listen, to think, put it in perspective, what God has to say about his word, but I've not seen it fail in the life of a believer, right?

I've not seen it fail in the life of a believer.

Can it?

Yeah, not with Christ in charge of it, right?

No.

Now, in the life of an unbeliever, they may find some sense of, oh, it's kind of interesting bit of wisdom there. That seems like a good principle that might be helpful in some cases, and they might derive some general benefit, but it really requires the grace of God that that's what it takes.

Recommendations: The Great Exchange and Teaching from Rest

Amen. Well, I think we've taken that as far as we can go. Michael, do you have recommendations for this week?

Yeah, a book called The Great Exchange by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington. The Great Exchange, the subtitle is My Sin for His Righteousness. That's a great book. It goes from Acts all the way through Revelation and deals with every passage in which The Great Exchange is talked about.

Just some brief commentary, two or three paragraphs on every passage in the Bible where it talks about how the Lord laid down his life for us. It's very effective as a devotional read.

Chris?

I would recommend a book I went through a while back. It's called Teaching from Rest, A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace. It was very helpful. We think of we have to get all this stuff done. We're responsible for teaching our children.

We try to cram as much in as we can, and it's very task-oriented, but then there's more going on than just them learning knowledge. There's their soul, and this idea of conversation and contemplating things and the big picture, kind of the long game, what are we trying to do?

And so this book was very good about kind of helping us declutter what we're trying to do with our homeschooling, so I would recommend it.

Andrew?

Recently, some of the brothers have been going through a book called A Display of God's Glory, Basics of Church Structure by Mark Dever. Coming out of Nine Marks, apparently this may not be very easy to acquire.

However, it has been a very challenging book for me to read in the sense that it presents church structure and trying to approach it biblically. Nine Marks, true church, right? I was also talking with a brother about how one of the challenges about this book is it's meant to be applied in the sense that your church should have a specific structure, just like your life should have a specific structure as governed by the Word of God.

Your specific structure for your church should be biblical. One of the challenges that I've noticed is wanting our church to be everything that God has called it to be and to be ordered rightly. It takes time.

It's a process. I don't want to see fault in others and the way they're doing polity and be like, ah, look, they're wrong and not willing to look at myself, us, we, the body here at Sunnyside and not be willing to follow the master wherever he goes.

So are you suggesting that building up a church culture takes more than one generation?

It takes the work of Christ.

Yep, and he does so over many generations. Well, I'm gonna make a recommendation that I actually need to follow myself. I know this is James White's number one selling book that he's had and there's been, as Chris was talking about earlier, some grieving in general in our area.

My wife has had a friend pass away recently, very young, and his book Grieving, Your Path Back to Peace is something I need to pick up and read myself, but I've heard very many people have been helped out by it and surprisingly so because we're used to him taking apart Greek texts online or taking apart Catholic apologists online.

So him dealing with grieving is something out there, but I hope everybody can follow that recommendation, including myself. So what are we thankful for, Michael?

We were not able to get together with my extended family over the Christmas break because of sickness and so on, but my uncle David, my mom's older brother, and his wife, my Aunt Tomalu, they held out and they did not cancel, they just postponed and they still opened up their home and they left all their Christmas decorations up and we went ahead and got together a couple days ago and they just opened up their home and it's a home they've lived in for decades and it's like the one house left in the family that's been there for so long.

And I remember when I was just a very young, young boy, sitting in the same spot that I'm sitting in now, 40 years old, I was just thankful, thankful for the landmark, thankful for the memories and the history, thankful for the generosity of my uncle and my aunt where my dad and my brother and his family and my whole family got to be there and my cousin Emily and her new husband, Zach, and we're all there and just being able to be there and to talk and to fellowship and so on, it was just very warm, very kind, pleasant, generous and I was just very, very thankful for that opportunity.

Amen, Chris.

I am thankful for the hard sciences. I'm thankful for medicine and I know we've been through some things in the past year, discussion about trusting the science and the experts, but God really has given us, as humans, the ability to learn his world that he made and I've gone through some health things here recently and they were able to do some tests and figure out there were some problems with my health and give me medicine for that.

And so thinking about our recent discussion about the soul and our bodies, I am grateful that there is help there through God's wisdom and we can seek out aid.

Amen, Andrew.

I am thankful to God for giving me the opportunity to honor my father, who lives in Tennessee while I'm here in Oklahoma, through the use of FaceTime. I was able to help him with some financial rearrangements now that he is retiring.

It is interesting how honoring your father or mother looks differently over time. So I'm very grateful for the opportunity to help him with some knowledge that I had been self-researching for a long time and which it felt like a preparation for this moment.

Amen, yeah, I like that. I'm thankful for periods of rest and periods of discipline and sometimes they coincide. I think recently I've had a combination of rest and discipline on trying to step out and do things too quickly and the Lord pulling me back and getting me to rest, getting me to heal, but also to think on his timing and not my own, getting to think on his plan and not my own and resting that he has me, my family, and specifically my wife in his clutches and he keeps his promises and he doesn't let go.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?