Biblical Counseling For Today

by Jeffrey Watson, Charles R. Swindoll (Foreword)

In his preface to this challenging book Jeff Watson describes biblical counseling as "a noble adjective married to a nervous noun." Believers are wise to be skeptical of much that is done in the name of counseling in secular settings. Even under the umbrella of "Christian counseling," one has heard horror stories of cases where God's Word has been misused. But Jeff Watson makes a strong case in this volume for the legitimacy of marrying "biblical" and "counseling." Christian counselors, says Watson, need to cultivate three fundamental skills in their Watson helps counselors achieve these goals by drawing on the interactions of Christ, the commands of Scripture, and the actions of the apostles and prophets. Thus he marries counseling and biblical principles. To those of us who are called on to counsel on any level, Charles Swindoll says, "This book will become an invaluable tool for you. I urge you to let it become your manual for proper counseling."

Genres: Counselling, Christian

244 pages, Hardcover

First published October 19, 2000

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book claims to be about Biblical counseling--see the title?-- but Dr. Watson comes to counseling from the world's vantage point rather than from a Biblical theological vantage point. Its all about presuppositions. The world has a lot of really good observations about the problems people get themselves into, but because they are in rebellion against God their solutions have very little real help for people who are suffering. The result is a kind of counseling that uses the Bible as illustrative rather than authoritative. The integrationist assumes the correctness of the world's great minds and then looks for agreement in the Bible. The Biblical counselor assumes the truths of the Bible and good theology and looks for agreement (or accidental insight) in the secularists. I know this is rather strong. But where you start and which direction you go make a huge difference in where you end up.

[Jeff Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most practical and useful book on biblical counseling that I have read (having read three and 1/4 this month). I greatly appreciated Watson's style and organization that lend itself to being a great textbook for someone teaching a course on this material.