70. What is Biblical Counseling Part 2

I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority! If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got... Hey, if you don't have a King James, you don't have a Bible. And it'd be surprised, son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, hey, hey, don't you lay your head back. I'm important. I'm somebody. I love you. You know I love you. Have I convinced you I love you? You better nod your head, yes, are you? Come on, put it right there. Stay awake and you listen to me. I still believe if you have cold day and healthy, I get my balance to a woman. I'm a preacher. 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. Now here are your hosts, John Holyfield 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 future. 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. But I think bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. The podcast that gives you hope through Galatians 5.1. Help that can help you throughout your day. And really be able to allow you to be able to go through life on an everyday level. To be able to help you in your problems. And that was good. Did you just practice that? Yeah, I did. Gathered here. You've been working on that all day? All day. Been working on it all day. Gathered here with my good buddy John Hollifield. I'm going to use John's line. The guy in the other seat. The guy in the other town. The guy in the other state. John Hollifield. I was listening to the Young Baptist guys the other day. Clay Maynard opened it up. And it was like this nicely read script. And I'm like, we should totally do that. But we're not going to. It's a mess. It's a mess. All right. Just like life is and can be. It's a mess. Welcome, guys, to our podcast. I'm John and James here. And it's good to have you guys with us. As we're trucking along, we're getting close to sort of doing a summer break, James. We are. I think we have this episode, maybe one more, two more episodes. And then we're going to take July and August off. Sort of regroup. Maybe even do some planning. And, of course, both of us being in ministry, we have some normally really busy summers. I know James does. James has always a packed out summer. Doesn't really have a whole lot of time for anything between family vacations and then youth trips and just vacation Bible schools going on at church. So he stays pretty busy. So we like to. We're closing in on two years doing the podcast. And so we've learned where the busy seasons are. So we just take this back because while we enjoy doing the podcast together and we know that many of you have reached out so that it's helped you. Quite honestly, it's not our first priority. You know, this is this is not our first priority. First priority is to our our family and then also to the ministry that God has called us to in the local church. So, James, how's your week been? Man, it's been very eventful this last couple of days. We've had some just ministry that's been going on, people that have been struggling in different things, parents that have been struggling with some things that we've been able to give counsel and advice to. And then just I got to preach on the 15th. And so that was a great time. I got to open the word and share it with our graduates for our graduate Sunday and a great encouragement there. It's the first time I'd been able to preach in a couple of months. And so it was a good time for me just to be able to get back in that and to encourage others. You know, it is a joy to be able to do that. And so to be able to preach to our hometown or our church was just a great thing. But, you know, we're looking at the future, looking at June. I'll be in California. We've got two weeks of camp in June. So three big weeks there and then Vacation Bible School, like you said. And then we're going down to Nicaragua at the end of July. So if you guys wouldn't mind praying for us, I'm taking a team of 11 of us down there. And we're going to be helping out United Christian Missions. They've got several church plants, so we're going to be helping out those church plants, passing out Bibles, visiting people at the dump and helping in the prisons. And so just a lot of opportunities for ministry that we'll be doing down there. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, I've been busy. Had a meeting yesterday, James. Really exciting. Maybe a possible podcast coming up. I had a meeting yesterday with a lady who was working on a ministry to reach out to women in the church post-abortion. So women that have had abortions that are now in the church and trying to find healing with that and scared to death of saying anything within the church because of the reaction that they get in the church. And so she has a burden of having a ministry to this, to ladies like this, and so working with her. And so I had a great conversation with her and another man in our church. And so we're thinking about, I even told her I'd like to have her on the podcast to discuss that. So that may be a future podcast coming down the road, guys. And just also doing some things, trying to do ministry. Yeah, yeah. Just things have been, it doesn't slow down, it seems. It doesn't seem to slow down. No, you know, we just hired a new pastor here. And, you know, I told John, I said, man, I'm going to be able to go back to just doing youth stuff and, you know, have all this extra time. And as everything, things begin to fill up that schedule quicker than you want to. And so we are definitely in the heat of ministry. And, you know, it's exciting. We're at the end of the school year for our kids. So Brody's got field trips and award ceremonies and sports is coming to an end for baseball season. So it's cool to see the growth that our kids have had. And really just the growth for, you know, Jade, she struggled going through the pandemic with just academics. And seeing the growth that they had with the staff that they're at right now has been great to see that. And I was, her teacher wrote her a big note on the back of a paper that she got. And at the beginning of the year, she couldn't, she's going to second, she's in second, first grade. And she couldn't really read much at all. And I said, Jade, why don't you read that for me? And she read the whole thing. And I was just super pumped as a dad to be able to hear that and be able to see that. So, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. So you go, you go into Israel? Is it announced yet? Hopefully it will be by the time we drop this episode. If not, we just let the cat out of the bag, I guess. Sorry, RFP guys. I thought they did. Didn't they announce it? I think so, yeah, yeah. Maybe they did. And I really, I would love, John, I would absolutely love to go. And it's the, the cost is, you'll never get it that cheap ever again in your lifetime. I want to. My wife told me I could either go to Nicaragua or I could go to Jerusalem or Israel. And I told her, I said, well, I'm already going to Nicaragua. I've got a team of 11. I'm the guy leading the trip. She said, oh, well, I guess you're not going to Israel then. So. She cracked the whip. Yes, ma'am. No, I get that. You want to be on the same page and not want to spend too much time away from family. But, yeah, I don't think I'm going to be going either. I would, I agree with you. It would be the trip. You know, it would just be amazing. But it just, it's just not going to work out. But I think they're going to have fun. The RFP guys are going to be doing that trip to Israel. So I think there's 30 slots open. Yeah. So I think it's going to fill up really quick whenever they open it up. John, what about camp meeting? Camp meeting. That's coming up, I think, in November. Yeah. I'm pretty sure we're going to be there for that. We should be. Yeah. Yeah, we'll be there for that. We're in a couple different locations right now. And, man, I'm pumped about that. I miss hanging out with the fam and the meetup that we had last year in Bourbon. Man, I still think about it. Still talk to people from that meetup. It was just a great time. So hopefully you'll be able to join us at that and looking for some great things. Absolutely. Well, we're going to get into our episode today. Last episode we did, we sort of addressed some things that are, sort of in the cultural conversation right now about biblical counseling. And James, I'm a biblical counselor. James is a biblical counselor. He's working on certification, but he's already sort of in his ministry context has been doing counseling and that kind of thing. And so we are very much proponents of biblical counseling. So we wanted to sort of break it down a little bit. And last time we talked about, like, where did the movement come from? Where did it start? One thing I think we didn't say was this about that. And while we gave a little bit of history about how it began, let me say this. There's been a lot of other men that's come up, not just Jay Adams, that have brought some and added some great just perspective and things to the biblical counseling movement. It's not all just Jay Adams. Like, everybody's not just, like, little, just spitting out everything Jay Adams said. In fact, there's, you know, not everybody that's in the biblical counseling movement agrees with Jay Adams on every point of his understanding. But there's been some great guys that's come along and done that. Dr. Bob Smith was one that did some great things for the biblical counseling. David Pallison, Ed Welch, Paul David Tripp. Let me think. Howard Eyrick is one. George Scipione. And just different guys like that. Steve Vyers, who's a leader now in Lafayette, Indiana. And a lot of these guys have really contributed great things to the biblical counseling movement. But can I say this? Really, if you study church history, it wasn't anything. Adams didn't stumble upon anything necessarily new. A lot of what biblical counseling is, the Puritans were teaching 200, 300 years ago. 400 years ago. And so this is stuff that's been in the church. It's not something like they just discovered it and we never knew about it before. It's just some people have not studied, were not studying their Bible and helping people with the Bible that they had in their hands. So now what we want to do is cover what is biblical counseling. And if we get through this in a timely manner, we may finish it up today with why biblical counseling. So what is biblical counseling? James. James. Biblical counseling is a view of scriptural sufficiency. And it is applying everything, sort of like what John said last week with that quote. It is not forsaking what we have in our hand. Not giving away our birthright. I like how he said that, how we've given away. And we're going to talk about that even more today. But it is saying that the Bible is enough. I've had that even this week. Talking to a couple of families and been able to direct them to some passages of scripture and say, listen. You know, specifically I went to Titus chapter 2. And at the very end of that, how we talk through living a life that is godly, that is honorable, that is above reproach around other people. For the glory of God that has purified us through Christ. And so it is understanding that the Bible is sufficient. And the Bible is our ultimate authority. And John is going to read for us. I'm going to read Psalms 19. And John's going to give us some thoughts on Psalms 19 and how that can be applied to our life. And so once I get there, I'll read it. Start in verse 7. Okay. We'll add it out, the dead time there, John. Do what? Well, verses 1 through 6 is really talking about, this is talking about the revelation of God. Okay? And how God revealed himself to mankind. And so the first six verses talks about how we see natural revelation or general revelation from God. And see God revealing himself to mankind in nature. And then from verses 7 on, you sort of get what we call special revelation. Which is how God talks about revealing himself to man through a specific revelation that we know as God's word or the Bible. And so, but we're also given much more than that. And a concept of, as James said, sufficiency of Scripture. So go ahead and read. What translation are you reading out of? I've got the ESV here with me. All right. Go ahead. The law of the Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure. Making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right. Rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord are pure. Enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean. Enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired than they. More to be desired are they than gold. Even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey. The drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned. In keeping them, there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servants from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Yeah, and this passage is very crucial to understanding the position that James and I take. If you've been offended or if you think that we're just crazy or we've gone too fundamentalist for your taste, you need to understand this text. And verses 7 through 9, you get sort of identified different words used for the Bible. The law, the testimony, the precepts, the commandments, the fear of the Lord, the moral reverence or dreadful. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom. Brings with it the idea of worship or reverence of God. The rules of the Lord, commandments, and all of that. And so we get right there identified in it that it's talking about Scripture. It's talking about the Bible. But then you see how it identifies like what the Bible is. It says the Bible is perfect. It's sure. It's right. It's pure. It's clean. It's true. This is all identifying what the Bible is for us. So this Bible that you hold in your hands also is the same things. The totality of Scripture is perfect. It is sure. It's reliable, trustworthy. It's right. It is your guide. It's pure. It's meant to be clear and brings clarity. It's clean. It's fair. It's pure. It's true. It's faithful. Okay? So that's the quality of the Word. But here's what I want you to sort of look at from verses 7 through 9. And that is the idea of what the Bible can do. And this is where we see specifically the sufficiency of Scripture and the Bible's teaching of its own sufficiency. And why we, in biblical counseling, believe that the Bible is sufficient for life and godliness. Okay? At first it says that it converts the soul. This is the restoring, refreshing, converting, or total transformation. The soul is the word nefesh. It has about 20 different translations in the Old Testament. It really means the inner person. The inner person. James, we accept that if something is going on, somebody comes and sees us and there's something going on. And one of the things that we tend to do, and they're really struggling with something, is we do like to say, will you go get a checkup from a doctor? Because there can be organic issues, there can be like medical issues that are actually going on that needs a medical treatment. But many of the times, that which is going on is not necessarily the medical issue. It's the inner person. And see, here we see that the Bible is actually sufficient to restore the inner person. Alistair Begg said this, It is not the power of the people who hold it in their hand. It is the power of the book which they hold in their hand. True change in the inner person comes only through the work of God's word on the heart. So it converts the soul. The next thing is it makes wise the simple. It brings wisdom. It's skilled in practical aspects of living. The simple is basically the idea of somebody who's simple or silly or foolish. Okay? Like somebody who's an open door. So it brings wisdom to that. Alright? Practical guidance in situations. What do I do in this? How should I handle this thing? James, I'm sure that a lot of the counseling that you did this week was basically saying, giving them guidance. They're coming to you. What do I do? Isn't that a question we hear a lot in ministry with people? What am I supposed to do? Tell me what I do. And the Bible provides that. Yeah. The Bible's sufficient for that. It guides us with wisdom principles on what we should do. Yeah. And one that had actually came in, she said, I know the church can't raise my kids. I know that it's my responsibility, which is great that they're acknowledging that. But then she said, how can I, what are some ways, what are some practical ways that I can use the Word of God to help the situation? I mean, when parents are coming in asking that, I mean, it's softball questions, man. You're just throwing out good, solid scripture that's got good application to it. I explain it with them. I'm not just sending them a verse and saying, leave. I mean, we're talking through that in that moment. And we spend about an hour praying through things, talking through, okay, how can you take this and apply it to your son? Maybe it's you talk through it with him, and then we come in together, and we discuss it together, and we begin to break down and really flesh out why did this happen? Why did this mistake happen? And how can the Word of God purify our souls again and purify our hearts again? That's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up. We are not talking here about diagnosing or prescribing two verses and call me in the morning. Yeah. Okay, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about taking scripture and the truth behind it, the depth of the truth behind the passage and letting it meditate and mull over and begin to change. Let the Holy Spirit use it to change the heart and the mind in the person and then coming home, coming back and fleshing out how that worked out and showing them the way that sanctification is taking place in their life. Yeah. So it rejoices the heart. It makes wise to simple. The next one is it rejoices the heart. It brings joy to the heart, the mind, the intellect. Listen, life is hard. Sin has caused suffering so much. Where is our true source of bringing encouragement and hope to those that are struggling and suffering? The Bible is sufficient for that. Honestly, what are you going to go to other than the Bible? What really is going to provide that lasting hope other than a word from the creator? It enlightens the eyes. This means enlightens this luminous or glorious or light of the sight. It brings, you know, and that's, James, I don't know if you've experienced this, but I've had these moments with people in the counseling room where I've showed them a truth or put out the truth and they're just like, like, it's like, I've never seen that before. Like, this is often the response that's given. Wow. Not wow at me, but wow at the word of God. Well, and really, John, it's because too often the way we were raised was read your Bible through in a year and you're cramming to get this. Oh, I've got this study. I got to read three verses and three chapters and four chapters and I miss a day and now I'm at six chapters and now I'm at eight chapters a day because I missed. And all of a sudden the Bible becomes a job to read through to say, well, I did it that year and it's a checklist. But when we actually begin breaking down scripture and allow it to apply and mold our heart, that's when the illumination happens because I say, man, I never read that passage like that. Well, why didn't you? Because you were trying to read five passages a day, five chapters a day. And so that verse that stood out to you didn't really have any effect because I can't really focus because I've got to read these. I've got to get this check done where, like I tell our teenagers often, maybe it's just a verse. Maybe you're reading through Psalms 25 and the second verse hits you and you just keep reading that verse and that's the verse you read for the day. There's nothing wrong with that. You're putting the word of God in your life. And the reason why those aha moments don't happen is because personally we don't get to study the way we should because it's this whole checklist mentality. And the counseling room, like we talk about, allows us to break down those scriptures that they could be doing themselves. It's nothing that we're doing special. It's just simply illuminating the word of God to them. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point. Case, case in point. Here's an example. Psalm 46. Psalm 46 of one of those passages James even talked about that's like familiar to a lot of people. Psalm 46 one. God is our refuge and strength. A very present help and trouble. Many of you listening probably are familiar with that verse, right? Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea. Though its waters roar and foam, though its mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah. Now, many of you probably know Selah means stop, pause, reflect. All right? So let's stop, pause, and reflect on what's been said thus far. You're going through something. You feel like your safety has been, your security, anxiety is there. What are you anxious about? What are you worried about? Now, if there's a place, maybe you've been abused in your past and you're looking for, you don't know where your safe place is. You don't know where your safety is. Look at this verse. What does he say? God is our refuge. What is a refuge? Refuge is like a place of safety. A refuge is like a castle. You think of it as a place that whenever massive armies would converge, they would retreat to the refuge and then they would raise the drawbridge. They would set up soldiers on the turf. They were safe in their refuge. They were safe in the place that the army couldn't reach. So that was their safe place. But he's not just a refuge. He's strength. And he's a very present help in trouble. So what does God provide to you in those moments of panic attack, those moments of anxiety, those moments of like what somebody robbed you of and that sense of security and safety? What does God provide to you? He provides to you. He says, I am your refuge. Stop seeking refuge in every other area and every other thing that continues to let you down and fall apart. Seek it in God. He is the refuge. He is that strength that you need to get through it. And I like this, James. He's a very present help in time of trouble. Not the person you run to after the trouble's over, but during the midst of the trouble, he's present for you to run to him right then. Then what he does is he goes through and he begins to explain all the different things that's going on that can cause you distress. And from verses 4 through 9, he talks about natural disaster, weather, the devastation of like losing things and weather, the nation's uproars. I mean, we look around, we can see tornadoes, hurricanes, natural disasters like that. We can see the nation, the gas prices going up, all these things that can cause us to get into anxiety areas and panic and think of what's going to happen next. And then he gets to verse 9. He says he makes worse decease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the chariot. He begins to talk about how God is powerful and in control of all of these disastrous things that can cause us anxiety. And this is where I like to get to, verse 10, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. I like to say it this way too, James. I like to say it, and maybe I'm saying this to you this morning or whenever you're listening to this. Be still and those moments stop and know that he is God and you are not. He is God and you are not. And there is an example of a passage of scripture that many are familiar with and the impact, the truth of focusing in on that, of what it can do and how much hope and encouragement and lightening our eyes and rejoicing the heart. It endures forever. It stands firm. It doesn't matter, James, what comes and goes in culture. God knew. God knew where we were going to be in culture in 2022. He knew what scientific discoveries were going to happen. And his word, when he wrote it, was just as sufficient then as it is today. It endures forever. And it makes right, makes straight paths. This is right, just, with all, likewise. Okay? It should be desired in verse 10. It should be enjoyed in verse 10. It's where you can be warned in verse 11. It brings reward. It brings self-awareness in verse 12. It guards and protects in verse 13. And it is where we find the path of acceptance with God. Okay? This is the sufficiency of scripture. It is this belief on why we are so dedicated and so just convinced to biblical counseling. Because this is the book that we go to with sufficiency to then. But there's another aspect of it, too. Biblical counseling is a view of scripture sufficiency. But it's also, biblical counseling is counseling. It's soul care. James, read Romans 15, 14. Romans 15, 14 says, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. We are able to instruct one another. John said that as he was looking up that passage there, and we talked about it before we got on here, the word there, instruct, it means to give warning, to give instruction, or to give teaching. And this is what Paul was saying when he was writing this. Everyone is able. Every single person is able to give instruction, to be filled with all knowledge, to be full of goodness. We are all able to, if we ourselves are able to apply these truths that we sort of talked about in the first part in Psalms 19, we're able to apply it to our soul. One of the things that this last year at the ACBC conference was all about soul care. And it's just a glorified term. We use the term soul care, but it's helping one another's soul to be right with God. Sanctification is what it is. And that is sort of this whole goal of biblical counseling is taking someone where they're at and bringing them back to where God would have them. I'm going to read, if I can find it real quick, Titus chapter 2, because I've been meditating on this passage over the last couple of days in my life, helping others. But Titus 2 is talking through how we should instruct others and be there for other people and how we can help one another through older men and younger men. And as we go through that, he gives this thought, this simple thing of saying, Romans 15 says that we could be filled with goodness, be filled with godliness and worldly passions and to leave self-controlled uprightness and godly lives in this present age. We can leave all those things. Very familiar passage here. Verse 13, waiting for the blessed hope and the appearing of our glorious God and great Savior Jesus Christ. But then 14, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all unrighteousness. And even in our sin, even when we've done wrong, even when we think that our soul can't be renewed, what does he say? To purify himself, a people, for his own possession, who are zealous of good works. This is the soul care of allowing our souls to be renewed so that we can do good work, so we can follow the Lord, so we can help others in this instruction. That's excellent. And what basically, James basically said this, but honestly, if we had to give a term, a church term to this, it's discipleship. Yeah. It's discipleship. It's one believer taking God's word and helping another believer grow closer to Christ. And they may be in more specific situations like marriage conflict, parenting issues, anxiety, depression, and those types of things, but that's what it is. It's discipleship. It's bringing in why. So let's, that's the what of biblical counseling. So let's move, James, to the why. Why are we so passionate about this? And why do we do this? We affirm the biblical care of people. And it really comes down to, you know, we've already talked about scripture, the sufficiency of scripture as authoritative truth. We believe in that, so therefore we use that. But here's what it comes down to. It's the centrality of Jesus Christ and authentic change. Basically to say this. It's our view of sanctification. Yeah. That it is a process that you grow closer to Christ as the word of God becomes more part of your life and you grow in God's word that the Holy Spirit changes you through his word. It is, it is because of sanctification. And we believe that people have, are struggling. And this comes to the theme of our podcast because we believe that the church has drastically failed in this area. Yeah. Drastically failed in this area. And we've got to do better. And I think one of the great ways that we can do of trying to, you know, James, Stephen talked about it. Like so many have been taught to just read your Bible in a year, read your Bible in a year. Listen, if you can read your Bible in a year, I just want to pat you on the back, give you a hug and tell you that's awesome. I love it. But how about instead of beating yourself up of whether you read the Bible in a year, how about read a small passage and making sure you understand what it means? Man. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree so much. I mean, I never want to discourage anybody from reading the Bible. But instead of trying to get, see how much you can read of it, how about making sure you know what you just read and what it meant? Yeah. Well, you know, just like John made me feel guilty before we got on the show because he said, hey, how many books have you read through this year? Oh, no, no, no. Come on. I said, I finished two. I'm a slower reader than John. Oh, well, I finished 20 books this year. I mean, really, when he said that, I felt guilty. Man, I should be reading more. I should be. I really should be. But I understand I'm a slower reader and it takes me time to process those things. And so I shouldn't feel guilty because I am applying myself. I am giving myself to other books and trying to encourage myself in that area. But in that same way, if I were, I was talking with the pastor that was retired, a missionary from Romania this past week. And and he talked about how he's read his Bible through 50 times in his lifetime. And I was like, man, that's great. That's awesome. I'm really glad you have. And I've read through the Bible several times in my lifetime so far. But is that I mean, is that the mark of a Christian? Is that the mark of a Christianity and a sold out believer is how many times you read your Bible through? I've never lost people who read their Bible through many times a year. And so, yeah, have you have you mastered reading your Bible through or have you let the Bible master you? Yeah, that's so good. Did you just come up with that, John? I think I heard it somewhere. But yeah, I just I just sort of thought about it. We're going to quote that as John Holliday. There is zero things original with me. Zero things original with me. The last thing here is the jurist. Go ahead. That John again, Christ is the person who can create change. It's not me and John or someone sitting there with a Bible. It is the Bible through Christ creating change. The first question I asked both parents this past week that came and talked to me was, do you know if your child's a believer? They're both in our youth group, but there's some practical things. And one said, yeah, one said, I'm pretty sure my son's not. So those are things that I'm already starting to pray for. How can we use this situation to apply the gospel, to see Christ come in there, to see Christ work ultimately in his life and bring him to the revealing knowledge of who Jesus is? And so that's sort of this whole thought of we've got to bring change, but it can't be change about what I say. It can't be change about what someone else says on TV, but it's got to be the change that only the Holy Spirit through Christ can bring in our life. And the other reason why we believe in biblical counseling, and this is where we're going to probably anger people, is the jurisdiction of the care of souls. We believe it is the church's job and therefore the use of scripture to take care of those who are struggling with the inner man, those who are struggling with issues of the soul. And that secular psychology has encroached upon that. Now, before I go further, let me say we do believe in the belief of common grace. We believe that through real, and let me say that again, real science, that discoveries can be made about the human condition that can help us understand man and his behavior. But we interpret that through a biblical grid and a biblical worldview. And we understand that many of those who are doing the studies and doing the science have already approached it from a non-biblical worldview. And quite honestly, many times an anti-biblical worldview. Is that coming through? I hear that noise. I don't know if everybody else hears it. Is it me or you? Okay. Sorry. My wife called me for some reason. The psychologist is calling us to tell us to shut up. I'll tell you. There's women in our life. But let me just say that we have to understand that we interpret these things through a worldview. And can I say this? I think I read after secular psychologist. I have a couple of magazines on psychology today. I want to know what's going on. And I use my biblical grid, my biblical worldview to interpret and say, all right, then this is helpful. And a lot of times this is not helpful. Yeah. James, will you read that quote by Ed Wilts? Love to. This is from the Masters University Thoughts. And Ed Wilts made this statement. He said, and really listen to the words. And I'm going to slow down. I may repeat some words. All psychology practitioners. Practitioners. Practitioners. I'm stuttering a little bit today. Practitioners are dispensing a worldview. We've already discussed what a worldview is, how we view things, how through the lens of what we see things. A set of fundamental beliefs about the nature of people. Your theories are heavy with assumptions about who we are, why we do the things we do, and where we are going. And he makes this very, very bold statement. This is the turf of the clergy or the pastor. This is really what the Bible, what Jesus laid out for the pastor to do. And as John read last week, we've sold our birthright. We've sold what we are meant to do as pastors, as preachers, as Christians to instruct one another. Because we all have that responsibility. And we've given it away to the world. And we wonder why the world is messed up the way it is today. Yeah. And let me say this. Some of the areas that I think that the progress of science has helped us. Let me say something positive about that. Because you may think that we're just bashing and bashing and bashing it. Some of the areas where science has progressed and helped us in areas of understanding people and the brain and that kind of thing has been some recent discoveries over the past 20 years or 30 years in the area of trauma. That has helped us. But if you understand a biblical worldview, and then you look at the science that has come out on trauma, you also understand that there are biblical sufficiencies that we can apply to help people with trauma. Now, it'll help us understand. But where are we going to for our answers? It's still the Bible. Yeah. It's still the Bible. And if you, let me say this. This is a particular area that I've actually done some research. There's some good books on it. Ed Wiltsch is Blame It on the Brain. Mike Emlett wrote one called Descriptions and Prescriptions, a Biblical Perspective on Psychiatric Diagnosis and Medications. I'll tell you, one good one is a book called Good Mood, Bad Mood by Dr. Charles Hodges. He actually has a podcast. There's a podcast lesson where he does a lecture on it and provides a lot of his studies. He's a professor on the idea of psychotropic medication and diagnosis. If you are frustrated about what we've said, I encourage you to talk to us. I don't want you to just shut us out. I intend to encourage, we intend to encourage and strengthen your confidence in the Bible for those that are probably already in line with us. To those who aren't in line with us with what we've said and you've listened this far, I want you may not, and you may not come around to agree with us, but I want you to reach out to us and we can go into further detail and give us some of your concerns and questions because I think that if we laid some of those out in specifics, you might say, okay, they're not just kooks. They have reasons behind this. You may not agree with us still, but it doesn't necessarily make us crazy people. I don't know. I'm trying my best here. We may be crazy, John, just maybe not crazy in the way they're thinking. I don't know. We probably are crazy in the way they're thinking. We're a bunch of nuts from North Carolina, so I mean, what can you say? Yeah, but the thing is, is we care about people. We care about, I mean, soul care. And we strongly believe that if we're going to say that Christ is sufficient, the gospel changes lives, and the Bible is sufficient, then we're going to carry that out. Yeah. And we're not going to tuck tail and just, like, lay down whenever something in the world with a totally different worldview comes out and says, this is better. This is right, and what you're saying is wrong. Yeah. I agree. Well, James, what do you think? Any closing comments? I think that I hope this helps. This has helped in my journey going through this time of training and learning, really, how to apply the Bible in a more practical way. It's what it's done for me as a pastor, as a youth pastor, as someone who cares about people. This has been tremendous for me. And so I hope it helped you. I hope it's given you a new light on how to even study your Bible personally. Because the gospel is what changes things. It's not what I can say and what finesse I can do by manipulation. It is simply the gospel and what God says in his word and the lives that we can observe and the things that they've said, how they can change the way we live our life. And that's ultimately what the Bible does. That's what the gospel does. It changes things. Great word. Great word. And that's where we're going to close shop for now. We want to let you know we're going to come back with another episode. And then we have an interview in the last episode of the summer, before our summer break, is going to be an interview with a counselor named Jonathan Holmes. Him and another counselor named Deepak Raju wrote two books that just released called Rescue Plan and Rescue Skills on dealing with the issue of pornography addiction. And also helping those who are in the lives of those trying to get help with pornography addiction. So we're going to talk a little bit about those books, what caused them to write those books, some of those issues. It will be sort of a more of explicit, and we may use terminology that aren't for young years. So we'll give you a warning about that. But we're going to talk to them also specifically about how legalism does not help in breaking an addiction of pornography. And so we're looking for that. We're going to address that subject. And that will be our final episode going into our break. We encourage you to like this episode. Share it with somebody if you find it helpful. And if you want to reach out to us, you can do through Facebook Messenger is one good avenue. Or our email address, which is forfreedomatyahoo.com. F-O-U-R-F-R-E-E-D-O-M at yahoo.com. Thank you guys so much for listening. And until next time. You can also visit our website. It is active and live. Last week it wasn't. And for some reason I didn't click a button. And it's the number fourfreedompodcast.com. And both of mine and John's emails are on there. You can send us an email that way by just clicking on email. And so it's on the meet the staff. So real easy if you want to go there and check out the website. And there's also, we've linked some blogs and some things that have helped us. And so we've added those on there. Some helpful links that may help you if you're struggling with some stuff. And so go there, check that out, and let us know how we can help you further. Awesome. Until next time, guys. To God. Not the pastor. Be the glory. Well, we'll see you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFPNetwork.org. To find more podcasts like this one, resources, and meetups to encourage you on your journey. We'll see you next time. 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