Is biblical counseling important now more than ever? Dr. Keith Evans offers insights on the purpose and importance of biblical counseling, tracing the practice through the Bible to its relevance today.
“Is biblical counseling important now more than ever?” is a challenging question in the sense that yes, it’s immensely important now, but it’s always been vitally important. So how do we capture that balance there?
Historical Importance
I seek to make the argument in my classes that biblical counseling didn’t begin in the 1960s and 1970s. Biblical counseling actually began in the garden, as God is speaking his Word to individuals, and he’s applying that Word to their circumstances and to their setting of giving his Word to Adam, to Eve. And then, we just see that throughout all of time continued. You see that traced throughout the Scriptures: that faithful shepherds are not only just speaking the truth, they’re applying it to the particular situations of life. They’re making sure that the people understand it, as well.
Biblical counseling didn’t begin in the 1960s and 1970s. Biblical counseling actually began in the garden, as God is speaking his Word to individuals, and he’s applying that Word to their circumstances.I think about Nehemiah 8, that not only was Ezra reading the Word, but then the Levites are ensuring that the individuals are understanding the meaning and the sense of it. And so you just see that concept throughout the Scriptures. You see it in the New Testament, of course, as well. Jesus himself—the great Shepherd—but then you see, in the apostolic ministry and so forth, and then that’s conveyed to us in the pastoral epistles, that this is the shape that the counseling ministry should take, that the individual application of the Word should take.
Present Importance
So it’s been vitally important throughout time, and it’s vitally important for now. But to get to the other aspect of the question, is it more important now than ever? There is an aspect that we have farmed out the care of the individual to the world, and the church gets very overwhelmed very quickly in the sea of experts. Do we have to trust the experts for the care of the individual? And I’m not speaking against expertise and scientific advancements and so forth. No, that’s that’s good, that’s right. But the church has always had the ministry of the Word to the individual, and we have been equipped with what we need for all of faith and life, that God has gifted us this Word to care for the individual. So it is vitally important now that we not be farming that out, but that we continue to retain that which the Lord has entrusted to us from all of time, and not lose that to the world or to the expert.
