mgpcpastor's blog

Long title, helpful material.
David Powlison provides a guest post on Between Two Worlds.
First he observes that this comedy sketch by Bob Newhart has a lot in common with some forms of contemporary counseling.

Back in the day this was the common caricature of ‘nouthetic counselling’.
Powlison then gives a half dozen contrasts between the model represented in the clip and true counselling. His longer explanations of these statements provide helpful context:

1. The Bible gives a vision for lifelong transformation and mutual aid—as well as for the 5-minute moment of insight, or the 5-week and 5-month seasons of change, or the 5-year unfolding movement of progressive transformation and deepening. “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
2. Our Father never simply says “Stop it!” … He knows we can’t change on our own. We have a living Savior, who died to give us mercy and lives to give us grace in times of need.
3. Wisdom doesn’t speak in boilerplate. It’s never a one-size-fits-all formula. Or, contrary to the Christianese equivalent, it’s never 3-steps-to-Victory. So every psalm, every letter, every gospel, every prophet is different.
4. Human responsibility is never by oneself and to oneself. It is always relational.
5. To bluntly confront such a frightened struggler violates the ABCs of biblical wisdom: “comfort the faint-hearted, hold on to the weak, be patient with them all.”
6. To counsel biblically is to fundamentally identify with the people with whom you converse. “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man” (1 Cor. 10:12f).

And so forth. Don’t ever think that biblical counseling is just CBT dolled up with some Bible verses. And “Stop it!” if you ever treat people that way! Wisdom is a wonderfully different creature. When our Father stops us from doing something wrong, he always starts us walking along a delightfully different path.

Read: Bob Newhart’s Counseling Method: A Terrific Spoof . . . and a Serious Comment