“Goodbye Elyria Water Tower!”  When our kids were very young, we lived in Elyria, Ohio. For ten years I ministered at Open Door Christian School and Church of the Open Door in Elyria. Whenever we would leave on vacation, we would pass the Elyria water tower and all say, in a sing-songy voice, “Goodbye Elyria Water Tower!” When we returned home from vacation, of course, we would sing and shout out, “Hello Elyria Water Tower!”  When we moved from Elyria to Taneytown, Maryland, were I served as a pastor and professor for a combined 18 years, we passed the water tower one last time, and ..read more

A Provocative Facebook Post Recently, Pastor Mark Williams, who oversees a nouthetic counseling site on Facebook, posted the following opinion on his nouthetic site and on his personal Facebook page. “Don’t call yourself a biblical counselor if you do not believe the simple truth that God’s Word provides us with all that we need for soul care. To take on that title and then integrate humanistic philosophies and theories into your methodology gives people a false view of what biblical counseling is supposed to be. If you do not want to stick with the Bible, why would you want to call yourself a ..read more

What Makes Biblical Counseling Truly Biblical?  Until heaven, we will always have debates about what makes biblical counseling truly biblical. I’ve sought to address my convictions about biblical counseling in my post: 6 Biblical Counseling Convictions A Thread on Biblical Counseling  Today, I summarized this post in a Twitter/X thread. Here’s the thread. Here’s my 16-word description of my model of biblical counseling. Biblical counselors are: Gospel-Centered, Theologically-Saturated, Relationship-Focused, Church History-Informed, Research-Aware Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls&nbs ..read more

A Word from Bob  There’s been a lot of discussion on Twitter/X about a video from Pastor John MacArthur about mental illness. While my post does not interact with Pastor MacArthur’s post, my post does seek to offer, in tweet-size bites, my preliminary ponderings on Mental Illness, the Church, and Biblical Counseling. My Twitter/X Thread  1 A Thread on the Church, Biblical Counseling, and Mental Illness. Lots of current discussion on Christian Twitter/X about mental illness and mental disorder and what a sound, compassionate, comprehensive theological approach (and definition) might l ..read more

When we disagree with other self-described biblical counselors, how could we handle those differences biblically? Here are three posts on this important topic: 5 Biblical Counseling Principles for Addressing Disagreements Among Biblical Counselors 6 Types of Biblical Self-Examination Questions to Ask Before Criticizing Fellow Biblical Counselors Are We Reasonable or Unreasonable in Our Interactions in the Biblical Counseling Movement? Of course, I’m not the first, nor the only, or even the primary person asking biblical counselors to consider how we engage with other counseling systems ..read more

“Cherry-Picking” Powlison  Recent writings in the modern biblical counseling movement have been using David Powlison’s teachings in a “gate-keeping” way. “David Powlison taught _____; so anyone who sways from _____ is not really a true biblical counselor.” These writings “cherry-pick” quotes from Powlison. That is, they focus exclusively on quotes where Powlison highlights the dangers of secular psychology, and exclude the quotes where Powlison discusses the role, value, and use of secular psychology. Three Concerns  I have three concerns about this practice of cherry-picking Powliso ..read more

The rocking horse pictured in the featured image has been in Shirley’s family for almost 70 years! Shirley enjoyed it as a child. Our children enjoyed it. Our granddaughters enjoyed it. We really didn’t want to sell it, but we added it to the moving sale items. It did not sell. Then Shirley was praying that we could find a family that would love it. So…we were putting everything away hours after our moving sale…and a family drove up—a Christian couple with a young family, a major family health need, and some financial needs. They took, for free, many of our items. And then their little daught ..read more

Pondering…  I’m pondering a fresh interpretation of segments of the modern biblical counseling movement’s worldview. I’m wondering if a common biblical counseling understanding of people (“theological anthropology”) may, perhaps, be “a bit off.” What Do You Think?  Let me know what you think about my ponderings. Here goes… More Than Just “Volitional”  Here’s my pondering: Could it be that we’ve made “volitionality” an “idol of the heart”? We seem to make much of “just choose to do right; just choose to feel right!” This mindset puts our will/volitional capacity on the throne—exa ..read more

As biblical counselors, we have something of a checkered history with research. For more about what I mean by that, you can read my blog post Biblical Counseling and Scientific Research. As biblical counselors, we will sometimes say, “I quote from research. Here’s an example!” But read the examples closely and you’ll note that often we are quoting a secular researcher debunking another secular researcher. There’s a label for doing this: the co-belligerent use of research. We wage war against a common enemy by quoting those who we might otherwise disagree with. It follows the adage ..read more

A new book by Abigail Shrier is all the rage: Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. As the title and subtitle suggest, Shrier opines that bad therapy, especially in the form of “gentle parenting,” is ruining the current generation of children in America. I have been posting about the book on my X (Twitter) account and in my Facebook Gospel-Centered Biblical Counseling group. I’ve seen a number of online mentions of Shrier’s book, some predominantly positive, especially by fellow biblical counselors and evangelical Christians. I’ve seen several negativ ..read more