69. What is Biblical Counseling Part 1: Where Did it Come From?

I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. You obey your pastor. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got, hey, you don't have a King James, you don't have a Bible. Some of y'all are listening to worldly, ungodly, and wicked music. Amen? There's a reason why there's not a drum set over on this side. And if there ever is, I won't be back. I still believe there'd be a cold day in hell before I get my talents from a woman. I'm a preacher. The young preachers that do love God getting pulled off in the Calvinist, and I'll fight it, I'll fight it. I'll fight you in the parking lot over it, I'll get personal with you. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom Podcast. A podcast that is part of the RFP Network. That seeks to bring freedom in Christ. From the spiritual abuse of legalism in the independent fundamental Baptist movement. Now here are your hosts, John Hollifield and James Saifert. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in Scripture. It is a part of Scripture. But the defining principle in Scripture is love. And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under that teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teaching. I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start doing differently until they have a heart out of which they're going to be doing those things differently. Bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. Welcome everybody to the For Freedom Podcast. I am your host, John Hollifield. I'm here with the co-host, the other guy in the chair over in North Carolina, Big James Saifert. How's it going, James? Man, I am doing great. We are living the dream. We are doing the best we can with what we've got. And finally coming through all this. Some of us got more than others. Well, come on. We are going through this time of finally coming out of this life of COVID. I actually got to go into our schools the other day. Had a meeting at the school board today. And hey, I was, John, this is really cool. I was invited by our middle school. Some of you may remember back about half of our episodes ago where we had this whole controversy with the middle school and the planner gate that we called it. The principal actually contacted us and asked me if I would come and lead a devotion this Friday for the students before school. So it's optional. They can come and hang out. And so I'm going to be doing that Friday. So I've been prepared for that. And we've got graduation Sunday coming up. So I'm preparing our message for that. So we've full swing, man, right back into ministry and excited about what we have going on around here. That's awesome. That's like an answer to prayer of mending, sort of that relationship there. So that's pretty great. Yeah, just staying busy here, doing church work and ministering, counseling and all that good stuff. And, excuse me, having a blast. And so this is a different – we've been sort of doing a whole lot of interviews. And this is an episode today. We're not going to do an interview. This is just me and James today. And we've got a topic we're going to talk about. But – Just two guys and a mic, baby. Two guys and a mic. James, have you seen the new Doctor Strange movie? John, I am going Friday. Me and my wife and we've got two other couples from our church. We're all going to go and watch it. And we're going to have a great time. We're going to dinner, hanging out a little bit. And then we're all going to go watch the Multiverse of Madness. I have not watched any spoilers. I haven't watched anything on YouTube or Facebook or nothing of that matter. And so I am completely like I'm walking in from just seeing the trailer on this Saturday. So if you have seen it, don't message me any details. Oh, messaging. Don't message me. Yeah, don't do anything like that because I'm pumped and ready to go. John, have you went and seen it yet? Yeah, I went and saw it opening night. Did you? And yeah, it was good. It was okay. There were some things about it. The greatest one that's ever been made? No, there were some things about it I didn't care for. But there was also some really awesome things that happened at it. So that was cool. Have you seen WandaVision? I have, yes. I've seen WandaVision. Okay, so you got to see WandaVision in order to see this one. If you're not, you're going to be totally lost in this movie if you haven't seen WandaVision. So if you haven't seen WandaVision and you want to go see this movie, make sure you see WandaVision. But that's not what this podcast is about. It is not. All right, this is the For Freedom podcast, which is about bringing the message of Galatians 5.1 to those who have been spiritually abused. And so James and I have been doing this podcast almost, James, in June. It'll be two years. Oh, man. Come on. June. Awesome. It would be two years we've been doing this. And we started out with, you know, we sort of fluctuated. We've gone up and down with sort of what is the, you know, what is the aim? What are we trying to do here? And trying to go, like, theological, trying to go apologetic. And then finally we sort of landed on, like, bringing biblical counseling principles. And we've talked about that. And I know that if you've listened to this podcast, you've heard that mentioned quite a bit. But one thing that we've never done, James, is actually talked about and defined what is biblical counseling. And I honestly think that's a good time for us to do this. There's actually going around right now a little bit of a public outcry against biblical counseling. And honestly, I think it has to do with the recent things that came out through Julie Roy's report and some other things. And I think it's a good time for us to talk about the situation that happened at MacArthur's church with this lady who was church disciplined over 20 years ago. And James and I are not here to comment on that situation. That's not the goal. We don't want to talk about it, honestly. We just think that it's brought attention to biblical counseling to give a sounding board for people all over online to use against and try to attack biblical counseling. And I think that it's getting an unfair shake. I think people are being intellectually dishonest on how they're assessing it. And so I think that it's important for us, and should have done this a long time ago, to talk about what biblical counseling is and isn't. James, before we get started into this, do you have any comments? Yeah, and I think that some of the things we're going to talk about, John, are things that maybe we heard as young Christians growing up in the movement of the independent fundamental Baptist movement. And even other people have even commented and said at times, or maybe you heard from the pulpit, some of these criticisms about counseling itself, or going to see a counselor, or going to see a psychiatrist, or going to see someone. And so some of these comments you're going to hear, some of these things that we're going to address, are things that maybe you've heard before in the past. And so we're going to try to help unpack some of those things from a biblical worldview and talk through them. Yeah. Yeah, well, I would say this. I think that in the background that we came from, counseling or biblical counseling has been viewed in two different ways. Either one, it's been shunned. You don't need counseling. You just need to get right with God, that kind of stuff. Or two, it's been embraced but done very poorly. I think some people have come out of the IFB and have been, biblical counseling was embraced wherever they were from, but yet it was a very poor version of biblical counseling. And there's a reason for that, I believe, and I'll get to that in a little bit. But here are some criticisms that we've heard about biblical counseling. One is that it's dangerous. Biblical counseling is dangerous. People might say that because they don't know how to counsel with domestic abuse, and so you're sending people back into dangerous situations, dangerous home situations. So it's been accused of being dangerous. What's another one, James? Well, even along with the dangerous, John, there, it gets to that point of I've been hurt by the church or something has happened, and now I'm going into the church or to a pastor's office or to a layman's house to get advice, and that one-on-one situation could be perceived as danger. It could be perceived as something that is wrong. And so there are ways that we can protect ourselves when those things happen. I think the second comment or criticism that people would say would be leave it to the professionals. What do you pastors think you're doing? Why do you think that you have the right to come and tell me what to do and how to live my life? Let me go to a professional that has a degree in this or has some certification, who's licensed, who's certified. And so this thought of the professionalism has been a critic as well. Yeah, I've heard this one actually quite a bit. You know, you guys don't need to be handling people's issues. You need to let professionals do it and that kind of thing. And so we want to maybe address that. Another criticism is biblical counseling always, they don't help people. They just say the problem that there is always sin. It's always sin. It's always sin. And so you just think everybody's problem is sin. And so that's one criticism that we've heard and that we may address. We'll try to address as we go forward. And then what's the last one, James? Yeah, the last one is biblical counseling doesn't care about the victim. The victim is, you know, get over it. Get over what your problem is. This tone of the victim has no recourse at all. And it's sort of like, you know, if you would just get right, like sort of what John said with the sin, if you would just get right with God, the victim side of it would go away. And so these are some criticisms that people have voiced, people have said in the past. Maybe you've heard in the past as well. And so those are the four things. And so, John, what's your thoughts there? So what we want to do is sort of address the criticisms as we define what is biblical counseling. And there's a lot I can say about this subject. So I don't know if we're going to be able to get all this in one episode. This may be a couple episodes or a series. But we're just going to just keep going down the line until we get through all the what we have written down. But we want to ask first the question, what is biblical counseling? But I think that's going to lead us to a question of when did biblical counseling begin? So in order to define biblical counseling, we have to understand its origins. And so James had sort of found a very good definition. I have my own words of how I define it, but James found a very good definition of biblical counseling from Faith Bible Church or Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette, Indiana, which, by the way, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette, Indiana, Steve Vyers, who I have the utmost respect for. Steve was my supervisor in my certification training. I love Steve and thankful for his mentoring along that. And they have some great people there that put out some fantastic material. But James, why don't you read the definition of what is biblical counseling from Faith Lafayette? Yeah, and I think that even in this definition, and I didn't pick this definition because of the criticisms, but the definition itself that they lay out, it almost takes care of a lot of those things that we struggle with. Biblical counseling is the process where the Bible, God's word, is related individually to a person or persons who are struggling under the weight of personal sin and or difficulties with suffering. So that he or she, this person might genuinely change in the inner person to be pleasing to God. And so as they lay it out, as Steve Vyers and Faith Lafayette laid this out, it is the person who is struggling with a sin, we're applying the Bible to their situation so that their inner person can begin to glorify and please God in everything that they do. Yeah, and I think that one of the, so basically what we're saying is that people are really in one or two categories. They're either the sinner or the sufferer. And quite honestly, a book that we would recommend, that James and I both recommend, that really hit this idea and really get to what the heart of biblical counseling is for them by taking Christ's heart to them is the book by Dane Ortlund called Gentle and Lowly, Christ's Heart for Sinners and Sufferers. Because that's where we see people are in two categories of sinner or sufferer. And we have to understand what the Bible teaches about sin. All right. Ephesians 2 says that we're dead in our sin. All right. In our trespasses and sins. I just preached a message on this from Ephesians and our church. But also you got Romans 3, Romans 5, 8, that God gives his love or commends his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Okay. So at the heart of this is we understand that we're working with people who are sinners and sufferers. And quite honestly, us as biblical counselors or whoever the biblical counselor is, is also a sinner and a sufferer. But in order to understand why we take that position or why that position has become what biblical counseling is, I think it's important to understand, you know, where did the movement begin? Where did the movement begin? And the movement began really in the official like launch of the movement was in like 1968 or 1970. So there was a Presbyterian pastor. He was a pastor that during this time, secular psychology was growing rapidly. And the ideas of Carl Rogers, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, a lot of these guys were doing and the church was struggling at how to handle people with everyday life. And so seminaries were allowing many of these trained psychologists, psychotherapists to come into their seminaries and train their people, train the students who are going to be the next pastors to either accept this, learn this, become a psychologist too, or you need to refer your people to what we said earlier as a criticism to a professional, to a professional. And so you had this sort of culture building, this sort of, this was what was going on. Pastors were being either taught or trained or by sense of practice felt unqualified and untrained to help anybody that came to them for help. You know, somebody is in your church, they're struggling with something, who do they go to? Well, they're going to go to somebody that they trust and the only person they trust is their pastor. So they go to their pastor and their pastor is sitting there, all right, what do I, how do I help them? Okay, so you had a lot of seminaries saying you either need to get your degree in psychology or you need to refer them to a professional. But here's where the problem is. And some of you are saying, yeah, still to this day, you're saying, yeah, they need to, they need to send them to a professional. But the problem with this, guys, don't, don't try to, I do get passionate about this, but I want to be as kind as I can. The problem with this is you have to understand secular psychology comes from a different worldview than a biblical worldview. Sigmund Freud, when he started his practice, started it on a Sunday because he wanted to replace the Christian church. Many other guys that started this believe that the church was hindering human growth. This is not a biblical worldview. So if you're somebody who, like James and I do, who believe in a very conservative biblical theology, this is why we come to a biblical counseling point of view. Because we believe, it's not like we're rejecting science or something, and that's something I can get on a rabbit trail too. We may circle back around to it. It's not that we're rejecting science. We're saying this is our worldview. This is what we believe the Bible says. Now let's interpret what the Bible says with the grid of what is actually coming at us from the secular psychological world. And quite honestly, a lot of it is found wanting. A lot of it is found in coming up short. So what happened was, and James, if you want to jump in here, you just stop me because I've been studying a lot of this lately. The only thing I want to just interject, and then you can continue, because I never struggled with this, but I had some church members and even deacons that were in our church that when I began talking about biblical worldview, they stopped me and said, hey, what are you talking about? What is a biblical worldview? They had never even heard that terminology before. So I think it's good for us to even define that real quick. A worldview, in layman's terms, just so you know going forward, is how you view everything in your life. Yeah, it's how you interpret the world around you. Yeah, so when we say a biblical worldview, it is when we approach a problem, we should run to the Bible and say, how can this help or hurt? What's going on here? How can the Bible help me through this situation? Where a secular worldview, when we use that term secular worldview, it is, okay, what did Darwin have to say to help me through this situation? Or what did Aristotle or Mozart, whatever you want to say, who, how can this person help me through this specific situation? So I think it's good to define that term as well. No, that's a good, no, you're exactly right. And listen, we're in no hurry. If we don't finish all this stuff in time, then we'll just pick back up next time. But let's take a minute here. I'm actually teaching on this right now to our young people. Peter Jones wrote a book on the other world. You said Peter Ruttman. You're teaching Peter Ruttman right now? Oh, good, great. Great, come on. I did not say. I'm going to permanently mute you if you say that again. Peter Jones. Yeah. Peter Jones, who wrote the book The Other Worldview, said, A worldview contains a series of convictions and conclusions about the nature of the world that provide fundamental meaning and direction for our lives. He says, We all have a worldview. The simple act of opening our mouths to speak shows a belief that life has significance and somehow fits together. So the question is, what is your worldview? Is your worldview that of what the Bible teaches or is your worldview that which is shaped about the world around you? Now, we're going through right now, James, we're going through like a series on worldviews with our adults and young people. And we're covering like pragmatism, humanism, and existentialism. But when I first started, I said, honestly, I like to make things simple. It helps me understand these complicated terms to simplify things. And when we come down to it, there's really just two worldviews. Yeah. There is a Christianity or a Christian biblical worldview or secularism. Yeah. And secularism. And everything else will fall under that umbrella of secularism. Now, under the umbrella of secularism, have other worldviews come in and try to marry itself with theism or theology or an idea of an existence of a God? Yes, they have. But every time it does so, things get left out of biblical Christianity that are imperative for having a biblical worldview. And this is something that we can see that has happened in American culture over the past hundred years. Development of concepts and ideas have sought to replace a biblical worldview. Quite honestly, the church has done a poor job as well by getting sidetracked, like fundamentalism has, getting sidetracked on many other less important, extra-biblical, legalistic ideas and things, other than actually dealing with that of the onslaught of secular culture. See, instead of combating secular culture with a biblical perspective and worldview, what fundamentalism is is let's combat secular culture by calling it all sin and trying to draw a line so far away from it that we look different and therefore we call that God's Word. And if you're not doing exactly what we say you're supposed to do, then you're in sin. And that's where all these legalistic, extra-biblical standards come into play. And because of that, they've hurt themselves over the long run because they're losing young people by the thousands. So young people come through these youth departments and then they never come back to church because they haven't taught them how to process a worldview. So they'll go to a college and they hear a worldview there and come back with questions that the church can't even answer because they have not engaged with it. Yeah. And I think one thing, John, also, just I'm going to quote Greg Boone, who I think stole it from Paul David Tripp. I've seen some of this in his writings. But Greg Boone, who's a great speaker at Look Up Lodge in South Carolina, Travels Rest, South Carolina, he made this statement last year when we were down there. He said, young people, he said, I want you to understand everything you do in your life, and really this breaks what you just said down even more, everything you do in life is either going to build the kingdom of God or it's going to build the kingdom of hell. And he stopped for a minute because, you know, that's a strong statement. I began thinking, man, that's that is so true. And he said, a lot of you are probably thinking right now, well, no, no, no, no. Greg, you're wrong. I love Jesus, but what I'm doing is really not glorifying him. And so I'm sort of just glorifying self. And I'm just he said, if you're glorifying self, you're glorifying Satan. He said, everything in our life is either going to build God's kingdom or build Satan's kingdom. There is no, and he used this word, he said, there is no spiritual Switzerland. He said, you can't be neutral in this world. And so in our life, when we process what are we doing, is what we're doing glorifying God. If it's not, then it's glorifying self and ultimately it's glorifying Satan. And that's what is building up. And that's how this worldview has to be perceived. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent. And so what you end up with by the time that you get to the fifties and the sixties is you have the church and sort of a little bit of a crisis on they're preaching one thing on Sundays, but on Monday through Wednesday, they're sending their people to, uh, to psychologists that are telling them this, uh, other things and, and, and treating them these ways and, and, and, and promoting self instead of Christ. And so some pastors embraced it. And then some pastors said, there's gotta be a better way. This is not matching up with my biblical teaching. This is not matching up with what I'm teaching my people. So I can't be sending to them. One guy who was very concerned about this was, he, he served in a couple of pastorates in the, uh, in the late fifties. And then in the early sixties, he moved, um, uh, to Philadelphia and he was working in tandem with Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. His name was Jay Adams. Jay Adams was teaching pastoral theology in, um, in, at Westminster Theological Seminary in the sixties. Now, let me just do a parenthetical right here. The moment I mentioned Jay Adams, some people are going to be like, Jay who? They have no idea who he is. Other people are going to be like, I like Jay Adams. Mm-hmm. Some, and then a third group are going to be, all right, I'm done. And they just turned us off or they want to turn us off because they're just angry right now at the mention of the name Jay Adams. First of all, let me say this about Jay Adams. Um, I think he's been very misrepresented. I think that you have to understand, you do not discount someone just because of a Twitter quote that you may have seen on social media because somebody took an excerpt out of his book and threw on their social media. And now that every time you hear this guy, he's terrible. Also, I think Jay Adams was very poorly represented through Independent Fundamental Baptists because they took some of his theories to biblical counseling and didn't listen to the rest of what he said when it came to biblical counseling. Therefore, they really messed up and wrecked a lot of people's lives. So, therefore, when they hear Jay Adams, they think, well, that's the kind of counseling that I got in the Independent Fundamental Baptists. He would not have approved of what you got. They took his theory of biblical counseling of the sole sufficiency of Scripture, and didn't listen to how he fleshed that out and used their own messed up interpretations to try to counsel people. And they messed up a lot of people. All right. So, the parenthetical over back to Jay Adams. Jay Adams was now pastoring or teaching these guys in seminary and training these pastors. And then he had like a small segment of his course notes to counseling. And he's like, listen, I pastored. I ran into these problems. I want to help these guys. So, he decided to start studying the Bible very, very closely to try to help these guys. In the process of doing so, he ran into a secular psychologist named H. Hobart Maurer. Maurer was not a believer. Maurer was a secular psychologist. But at the time, in the early 60s, Maurer was criticizing, he was criticizing the secular psychology movement because he was seeing, number one, major flaws in the Freudian, excuse me, in the Freudian system. And number two, finding that it wasn't working with his patients. In fact, let me see. I want to read this quote by Maurer that is actually really good. All right, this is what Maurer said. Again, unbeliever, secular psychologist in 1961 said, has evangelical religion sold its birthright for a mess of psychological pottage? This is the testimony of a secular, unsaved psychologist who said, you guys sold the road. You have your Bible. You have your belief system. And if you say you believe it, why are you going over here for what these things say that they can help man? You've sold your birthright. You've sold what you believe down the road. Yeah. That's what he said. Well, Adams went and got some training under Maurer. Although he disagreed with Maurer on a couple of worldview issues, he found what Maurer did and how he treated people very fascinating because Maurer addressed their issues and addressed the fact that a lot of things that was coming causing problems in them was their own guilt and that they weren't addressing their guilt. While the rest of secular psychology of the day in the 50s and 60s was basically saying, you need to, you're fine. You're okay. Freud was saying that guilt is non-existent. You need to keep doing that thing that you're doing until you don't feel guilty about it. Well, the Bible says that too. It says that if you keep on doing that, you're going to end up having a seared conscience. Well, that's what Freud was telling people. If your conscience is accusing you, then that guilt is not good feelings. You need to get rid of it. You need to keep doing and keep doing and keep doing that sin or that thing. Of course, Freud wouldn't have called it a sin. Keep doing that thing until you don't feel bad about it anymore. But the conscience still accused people and guilt is still a very powerful force and guilt can really plague the mind of an individual. So Adams goes back and he does research to the point where he develops an entire class at Westminster Theological Seminary on counseling. And pretty soon, the notes of that class come out. And in 1970, he released a book called Competent to Counsel. Competent to Counsel. And the book took off. Adams' personality was that of someone who could be polemical. He could be somebody that got into a lot of arguments, got into fights with people. But listen, I think that a lot of his conclusions that he made were right. Now, let me say this. Anytime, James, I think anytime in history, especially in the history of the church, you see somebody trying to correct a major error in something. Normally, they speak loud. They speak boldly. But they tend to overcorrect a little bit. Mm-hmm. Right? It's like, okay, this is the error. The error is saying everybody's good. Everybody's okay. Adams comes out and says everybody's not okay. Everybody deals with sin. And maybe the overcorrection could be looked back and said maybe they overcorrected a little bit on the sin. But I really, truly, with all of my heart, believe that biblical counseling has balanced that out over the years. And I really think that Adams' work in that was fantastic. I don't know how long we're going. There's still more that I want to say about the origin, history of the movement and about Adams. But, James, do you have anything to add right there? No, I think what you've said is great so far. And you've done a lot of the history side of it. I haven't. And so I don't have much to add right there. Yeah. So Adam starts something in Philadelphia. He's teaching at the seminary. And so then he starts what's called CCEF, Christian Counseling Education Foundation, with the purpose of training people to do counseling but also counseling people at the same time. So they start up this counseling center there in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And CCEF is going. The first students that Adams had then start graduating, and they start going out doing their own counseling ministry. Before long, you have other ministries in the mid-'70s that start up. Faith Lafayette, under the leadership of Pastor Bill Goode, starts up a counseling ministry and works in tandem with Adams to do that. And then things begin to continue to move forward. And then in the late-'70s, the National Association of New Thetic Counselors is started, also sort of referred to as NANC. And it goes strong, and it starts a certification process to certify counselors. In 2013, they actually changed their name from the National Association of New Thetic Counselors to the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, known as the ACBC, which I am certified through. James is working on his certification through them as well. That is sort of the origins of the movement. And there's a lot still that can be said about that. But I think it's important to understand there was a need for biblical counseling. And I think that it is very helpful to people. I've seen it help people. And it's born out of this. So this goes back to the idea of what is biblical counseling? What is biblical counseling? Biblical counseling is a belief, a firm belief in the sufficiency of Scripture. It is a view that God's Word is fully sufficient. And, James, unless you have something to add, I think that might be a good stopping point for us for today. I think the only thing we may want to say is, and you may not know this, but why did they change the name from NANC to ACBC? And there's other great counseling organizations out there, ABC, BCC, several other things, Biblical Counseling Coalition, that are great organizations. But, John, do you know why they did it? Was it just for simplicity purposes of the reason they changed their name? I don't know. I can look. That's a good question. Maybe we'll have an answer for you next time. There you go. Because maybe some people are saying, okay, why did they change it from what Adams had to now Biblical Counseling in the name? And Adams has passed away. Adams died. He died at the age of 90, 91 last year. So Jay Adams passed away. He's gone. You still may not like Jay Adams. That's okay. But I'll say this. Jay Adams died with integrity with his wife and integrity with his children. And whether you agreed with him or not, the man was brilliant. During all the time that he was starting his stuff, the guy wrote almost 35 books in six years. One of those being a translation of the New Testament. He was a brilliant Greek scholar. The guy was very, very smart. Whether you agree with him or not. And actually, I would say this. Before you go on social media rant about disagreeing with him, maybe you ought to recognize who he actually was. And think, I'm not saying that we can't disagree with people. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I think that we need to pump the brakes on our social media rants of who we're criticizing. I think we need to be very cautious and careful before we start going. And listen, this is a backtrack of what I used to be. I think if you go back and listen to the earlier episodes of this podcast, you find that I was very much that way. And quite honestly, James, I think that I've changed my stance a little bit. I think that we need to be, we need to call out sin where sin is. But I think we need to be a little bit more judicious, a little bit more just, a little bit more cautious, and a little bit more wise. And how we're publicly saying things about people. Yeah, I agree. And so, John, where we're going to go from here is next week, or next time we record, is what is biblical counseling? Where do we get this from? Where do we get this idea from? And then ultimately, why do we choose biblical counseling? What is the whole, the meaning of it? And really, I think that when we define why we do biblical counseling, in my mind, it's the reason why I was so, I don't want to say bought in or sold out or convinced that this is so effective in my mind. One, I've seen it work. I've seen the effectiveness of it through the training and through just putting it into practical use. But when we begin to talk through what it really is, it lines up with everything that we as a Christian church, as Baptist churches, as whatever denominations you want to say, affirm in a lot of ways. Yeah, and I think it's in that point when we talk about why biblical counseling, I think that's where we're going to get into addressing some of the criticisms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, thank you guys for listening. Don't tune us out. Some of us probably already have, but it's okay. I know. I know. And some people get very emotional about this and very passionate. Yeah. I get passionate about it, and I appreciate it. But if I can get anything across to you, I want to get this. It is because we believe in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture rightly interpreted. Rightly interpreted. And believe that that Bible is enough. And we're going to get into this next time. It is enough to provide help and hope for all sinners and sufferers. Yeah. If it is our final authority in faith and practice, then it should be the final authority of our faith and practice. And I get, James, maybe I should say this. I get the fact that sometimes those statements that we say, and probably a lot of the things that we've said on this, are triggering for those coming out of independent fundamental Baptists. These are things they heard in those fundamental. I get that. But one of the things you need to understand is your growing past coming out of legalism, fundamentalism, spiritual abuse, abuse of communities. It's not everything that came out of that was wrong. Not everything that was wrong. And so it's trying to discern what actually was true. And just because somebody else taught it that was not a good representative of Christ doesn't mean necessarily that that truth is wrong. Truth is still truth. Yeah. And we want to say that we're sorry and we hope you find healing with what has been hurt. But please, we're not intended to try to trigger you and upset you by saying some of these statements. We just, we've come through our own healing. We've come through our own spiritual abuse. And on this side, we believe those things are true as it pertains to the Bible being rightly interpreted. Yeah. So I think we'll wrap it up. Appreciate you guys listening. And give us a like and a share on social media. Maybe leave us a review on the Apple Podcasts. Hey, we're in the beta phases, John. But if anyone wants to go and check it out and critique us, we do have a website up and running. And it is for the number four freedom pod dot com, I believe, dot co dot com. It's dot com. And go by and check it out. It is up and running. It is live. I'm still waiting on John to give me some information for him to give his bio in the website. But we are up and live and going on there. You can go by and check out. Send us an email. Our email addresses are on there. And you can reach out to us. Those areas. The other podcasts that are affiliated with the network are on there as well. And you can go by and check out those links and those ways that you can reach out to those things. But like John said, like and share and give us a rating on Apple iTunes. And it's greatly appreciated. Yep. And therefore, until next time, to God, not your counselor, be the glory. All right. Well, we'll see you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFP Network dot org to find more podcasts like this one, resources and meetups to encourage you on your journey. Thank you.

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