Introduction – Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
1
Introduction
Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
“A lot of Christian psychology is theologically bankrupt. We haven’t struggled with
the great themes of the Christian gospel. We’ve been pragmatic. We try to help people
with their emotions, but we don’t have a theology of emotions” (Archibald Hart,
quoted in Tim Stafford, The Therapeutic Revolution: How Christian Counseling Is
Changing the Church, p. 26).
“From the beginning, God’s Word was a necessary factor in human existence; that
need did not begin with the fall. Man does not (and did not) live by bread alone; life
requires a Word from the mouth of God” (Jay Adams, More Than Redemption: A
Theology of Christian Counseling, p. 2).
“Releasing the energy of Christ is enhanced by thinking through biblical categories
for understanding people, their problems, and what can be done to help” (Larry
Crabb, Connecting, p. 182).
Their Story
Christians once knew how to relate God’s truth to human relationships. Then, as if
an evil spell had been cast upon the Church, Christians abdicated their calling,
allowing it to be abducted by aliens. These aliens, separated from the life of God,
claimed the mantle of relevancy, built great soulless soul physician schools, and
proceeded to prescribe cures for soul sickness. Meanwhile, vanquished Christians
erected academies that dissected God’s truth, but ignored human relationships.
Soul Physicians returns us to our heritage as students both of the Scripture and of
the soul. Its purpose is to infuse biblical counseling with Christian theology to equip
the Body of Christ to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth.
This call is not new. As long ago as 1964, William Clebsch and Charles Jaekle
recognized the history of Christian soul care and identified a modern shift away from
theologically informed spiritual direction.
The Christian ministry of the cure of souls, or pastoral care, has been exercised on
innumerable occasions and in every conceivable human circumstance, as it has
aimed to relieve a plethora of perplexities besetting persons of every class and
condition and mentality. Pastors rude and barely plucked from paganism, pastors
2
Soul Physicians
sophisticated in the theory and practice of their profession, and pastors at every
stage of adeptness between these extremes, have sought and wrought to help
troubled people overcome their troubles. To view pastoral care in historical
perspective is to survey a vast endeavor, to appreciate a noble profession, and to
receive a grand tradition (Clebsch and Jaekle, Pastoral Care in Historical
Perspective, p. 1).
The Church has always ministered to hurting and hardened people. However,
recently we’ve experienced a radical shift. We’ve lost our confidence in the relevancy
and potency of Christ’s gospel of grace.
Faced with an urgency for some system by which to conceptualize the human
condition and to deal with the modern grandeurs and terrors of the human spirit,
theoreticians of the cure of souls have too readily adopted the leading academic
psychologies. Having no pastoral theology to inform our psychology or even to
identify the cure of souls as a mode of human helping, we have allowed
psychoanalytic thought, for example, to dominate the vocabulary of the spirit
(Clebsch and Jaekle, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective, p. xii).
Past generations crafted their counseling models from pastoral theology—a
biblical theology that produced practical methods to relate God’s truth to human life.
Today we tend to borrow counseling models from our secular society.
We’ve lost the trail of those who journeyed before us. They blazed their trail with
the words “Truth and Love.” Our predecessors followed a thoughtful biblical
theology and a loving pastoral methodology. We tend to wander off one path or the
other. Some of us are very loving; we relate well to people, but we don’t adequately
relate God’s truth to people’s lives. Others of us are quite truth-oriented; we know a
lot about God, but we don’t adequately know how to relate his Word to our world. It’s
time for us to rediscover our way.
My Story
As chairman of a seminary Christian Counseling and Discipleship program, I’m
responsible for interviewing prospective counseling faculty. I’m saddened by how few
think theologically. When asked to share the essence of their approach to soul care
and spiritual direction, they are unable to explain how their theology supports their
counseling. Some describe secular models and sprinkle in Scripture. Others discuss
how a specific biblical passage might apply to a specific issue. The second response
might seem theologically informed, but it tends to maintain a “one-verse-oneproblem” mindset, rather than grappling with how to formulate a biblical approach to
Christian counseling.
Some may be thinking, “Great, another academician/theologian who thinks he can
tell practitioners how to practice!” Or, “Theology—that dry as dust, cold, sterile
exploration of truth—doesn’t help when yet another depressed person sits in front of
me. It doesn’t help when I counsel someone trapped in the web of pornography.”
Introduction – Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
3
A quarter-century ago I found myself forced to wrestle with the relationship
between theology and counseling. As a Bible college graduate and seminary student, I
accepted a job as a mental health counselor on a psychiatric inpatient unit. From day
one I realized that I did not understand how to relate the Greek, Hebrew, Bible, and
theology that I was learning to the struggles that these folks were facing. I was
convinced then, as I am now, that the problem was not with the Bible, but with my
inability to understand how to relate the Bible to people’s lives. How do we change
lives with God’s changeless truth? How do we relate God’s truth to human
relationships? What is the bridge between the Scriptures, the soul, and society?
The book that you hold in your hands is the twenty-five-year culmination of my
quest to address these questions. I have doggedly pursued the fundamental question:
What would a model of biblical counseling and discipleship look like that was built
solely upon Christ’s gospel of grace? What does the gospel offer? What difference
does the gospel make in how we live, how we relate, and how we offer help? Soul
Physicians is my presentation of a theology of counseling—a gospel-centered, gracefocused model of soul care and spiritual direction.
God’s Story
Theology has laryngitis. “The Bible seems to have lost its voice not only in the
wider society but, more significantly, even in the community of Christ” (Stanley
Grenz and John Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, p. 58). I believe this is true of
modern Christian counseling which has effectively relegated theology to the sidelines.
We are “people of the Book” who need to learn how to read the Book confident that
theology is God’s story that gives meaning to our individual and group stories.
We must relate God’s truth to human relationships by infusing biblical counseling
with four types of Christian theology: academic theology, historical theology,
spiritual theology, and practical theology. By investigating and integrating these four
theologies, we learn how to use God’s changeless Word to change lives. Box I:1
outlines that method. My dream in following this procedure is to present in Soul
Physicians:

An academic theology that provides us with a way of thinking about life—
God’s way, his perspective on our daily lives and personal relationships. I
want us to develop the conviction that biblical counseling is the intersection
of God’s old, old story and our very post-modern story.
 A historical theology that gives a voice and vote to past perspectives and
practices in caring for souls. I want us to reclaim the forgotten art of ancient
soul care and spiritual direction.
 A spiritual theology of life that re-ignites our first love for Christ and equips
us to become soul physicians who dispense Christ’s grace to heal people’s
disgrace. I want us to relate God’s truth to human relationships.
 A practical theology of biblical counseling that equips us to deal with
suffering and sin as Christ would. I want us to be able to sustain, heal,
reconcile, and guide people’s faith in a biblically faithful and personally
fruitful manner.
4
Soul Physicians
Box I:1
Relating God’s Truth to Human Relationships:
Infusing Biblical Counseling with Christian Theology
Academic Theology: Foundation—Information/Meaning
What?—Content and Conviction from God’s Perspective
Systematic Theology
Biblical Theology
Exegetical Theology
Lexical Theology
Contextual Theology
Historical Theology: Forebears—Validation/Humility
What Then?—Church History and Contribution of Our Predecessors
Historical Perspective
Historical Practice
Spiritual Theology: Formation—Transformation/Wisdom
So What?—Categories and Constructs for Personal Relevance
Personal Implications
Life Applications
Practical Theology: Friendship—Ministry Application/Love
What Now?—Care and Cure Through Personal Relationship
Soul Care: Sustaining and Healing
Spiritual Direction: Reconciling and Guiding
Your Story
You would not be reading Soul Physicians unless you embraced my passion to
speak God’s truth in love. We share the conviction that the Scriptures are our
guidebook for spiritual growth and spiritual friendship. My prayer for you is the same
as the Apostle Paul’s prayer for his friends in Philippi.
Introduction – Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
5
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge
and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be
pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:911).
Love is not enough. Truth is not enough. Love and truth must kiss. When our love
abounds in depth of insight, then we are able to discern what is best so that our lives
are pure, our ministries are fruitful, and our worship is delightful.
Paul’s excited. It is as if he says, “I’m praying that your love very much
exceedingly spills over!” The word he uses for “abound” (perisseuē) relates to the
word for the abundance remaining after Christ fed the 5,000. It speaks of liberality,
lavishness, overabundance, and spoiling. Don’t you want to spoil others with Christ’s
love?
You can, if you do it in full knowledge and depth of insight. “Full knowledge”
(epignōsei) pictures noticing attentively, discerning, fully perceiving, observing, and
discovering. That’s what God calls soul physicians to do: diligently dig to uncover the
buried treasure of truth—the academic theology—contained in God’s Word.
“Depth of insight” (aisthēsei) suggests the experiential use of wisdom—
knowledge applied to life. Spiritual theology allows us to “spend” our theological
treasure wisely. Don’t you long to share Christ’s changeless truth to change people’s
lives?
You can. Paul says that love that abounds in knowledge and insight enlightens us
to discern what is best and pure. This is practical theology—the ability to look at
situations with spiritual eyes, to cut to the heart of issues, and to help others to
scrutinize the will of God in the particulars of their complex, crazy world. Paul says
that we can learn to do this in a way that is pure and blameless. That is, sincere and
unoffending. Don’t you want to be able to share truth in a courageous, yet nonoffensive way that empowers people to race after God’s will?
It takes work, the kind of work we read about in Hebrews 10:24. “And let us
consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” To
“consider” (katanoōmen) implies studying, pondering, and directing one’s mind
toward a topic. It encompasses thinking, understanding, grasping, deliberating, and
conceptualizing. The author of Hebrews selects an intensifying form of the word
picturing immersion into a topic. In classical Greek, the word spoke of the
apprehension of a topic through thorough study and scrutiny.
“Wait!” we protest. “This must be for scholars. Not me!” Read on. “Let us not
give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one
another” (Hebrews 10:25a). The context is the local church—small house churches
meeting together for one anothering. God calls “average, ordinary Christians” to take
seriously pondering thoughtfully how to spur one another on toward maturity.
Why study a theology of biblical counseling? To incite love. God is calling each
of us to invigorate, arouse, stir up, fan into flame, intensify, and energize others to
love. Isn’t that what you long to do?
My purpose is to offer you a way of thinking about life—the gospel way, the grace
way, God’s way. I want to provide you with a way of relating Christ’s gospel of grace
6
Soul Physicians
to the lives of people filled with disgrace. I want to provide you with a way of
thinking about relationships that equips people to be better lovers.
I know that you long for this. You long to know what makes counseling truly
Christian. You want to practice uncompromising Christian counseling that relates
God’s truth to people’s daily lives. So please join me in a biblical exploration of the
art and science of soul care and spiritual direction.
Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Heading
If you are going to read Soul Physicians, then you deserve to know my purpose.
That you now know.
I also want you to know how personally involved you were in the development of
my purpose. I pictured you and thousands of people like you as I wrote. Committed
lay people wanting desperately to know how to help friends and family members.
Loving pastors longing for training in the personal ministry of the Word. Competent
professional Christian counselors wanting more than anything to practice truly
Christian counseling. Bible college, Christian liberal arts college, graduate school, and
seminary students needing a text that helps them to grapple with God’s Text and
people’s context.
Box I:2 offers you my personal MVP-C Statement summarizing Soul Physicians.
It gives you my Mission, Vision, Passion, and Commission statements that drove
every word I penned as I prayed for every future reader of Soul Physicians.
As you read Soul Physicians, you will also need to know where I am headed. You
will discover my path in Chapter One The Soul Physician’s Desk Reference Manual.
Here you will view the core truths that you will learn in “soul school.”
Just prior to Chapter One, you will encounter two sections that follow each
chapter. You will find Caring for Your Soul: Personal Applications. You can use this
section either as an individual or a group study guide encouraging you to think
through how each chapter relates to your life. This is crucial since God’s Word must
impact us if we are to use it to minister to others.
You will also find Caring for Others: Ministry Implications. Though this volume
is theological in nature, theology is eminently practical. Thus every chapter concludes
with implications for how you can integrate biblical theology into your biblical
counseling.
Introduction – Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
Box I:2
Soul Physicians’ MVP-C Statement
Mission Statement
My mission is to equip you to think biblically
about soul care and spiritual direction
by developing a comprehensive and comprehendible
way of viewing life from God’s perspective:
his story of love offered, rejected, and restored;
his story of lovers designed by God, depraved by sin, and dignified by Christ;
his grace-story of our ultimate spiritual Friend, Jesus Christ,
who became like us, died for, and was resurrected
to sustain, heal, reconcile, and guide our faith.
Vision Statement
It is my dream to passionately present a spiritual theology of life
that re-ignites your first love for Christ,
empowers you to relate God’s truth to human relationships, and
equips you to become soul physicians who dispense Christ’s grace.
Passion Statement
My passion is to infuse biblical counseling with Christian theology to
change lives with Christ’s changeless truth.
Commission Statement
You will be enlightened to the four acts in the drama of redemption;
encouraged to become Romancers, Dreamers, Creators, and Singers;
and equipped to sustain, heal, reconcile, and guide;
as you enjoy and dispense Christ’s grace.
7
8
Soul Physicians
Caring for Your Soul: Personal Applications
1. Regarding your personal confidence in God’s Word:
a. To what degree do you have confidence in the relevancy and potency of
God’s Word in your life?
b. How do you evidence your confidence in God’s Word to help you when you
are suffering?
c. How do you evidence your confidence in God’s Word to help you to have
victory over sin and to grow in sanctification?
2. Concerning Paul’s prayer from Philippians 1:9-11:
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge
and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be
pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:911).
a. What difference would it make in your personal life if you prayed this prayer
daily?
b. What difference would it make in your people-helping ministry if you prayed
this prayer daily?
c. Love and truth must kiss. Which do you tend to emphasize more, love or
truth? How? Why?
d. What does it look like when you spoil others with Christ’s love?
e. What does it look like when you share Christ’s changeless truth to change
people’s lives?
f.
What does it look like when you share truth in a courageous, yet nonoffensive way so that others are empowered to race after God’s will?
Introduction – Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
9
Caring for Others: Ministry Implications

Evaluate Modern Christian Counseling and Spiritual Friendship: Do you
agree or disagree that modern Christian counseling has lost its confidence in the
relevancy and potency of God’s Word? How will your answer impact your
ministry as a soul physician?

Evaluate Your Own Counseling and Spiritual Friendship: To what degree is
your counseling theologically informed? What could you do to infuse your soul
care and spiritual direction with Christian theology?

Assess Christian Counseling and Spiritual Friendship: What makes biblical
counseling biblical? What makes soul care and spiritual direction Christian?

Assess Your Own TQ—Theology Quotient: What type of theology do you tend
toward: academic, historical, spiritual, practical, all of the above, or none of the
above? How could you sharpen those theological areas that you tend to minimize?