The Christian's Guide to Guidance: How to Make Biblical Decisions in Everyday Life

by Jay E. Adams

Book by Adams, Jay Edward

Genres: Christian Living, Counselling

97 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1998

About the author

Jay Edward Adams is a Reformed Christian author. He has written over 100 books and these have been published in sixteen languages.
He received a Bachelor of Divinity from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from Johns Hopkins University,a Masters in Sacred Theology from Temple University, and a PhD in Speech from the University of Missouri.
Adams' book Competent to Counsel launched the nouthetic counseling movement, a movement whose aim was to use strictly biblical counseling methods. He is the founder of the Intitute for Nothetic Studies.

Reviews

[Karen Willoner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an excellent book. Mr. Adams does a great job going through what biblical guidance is NOT, focusing on popular methods for seeking guidance. (Some of which I’ve picked up to an extent, and am glad to understand the errors of now.)
He demonstrates that one can indeed have the Lord’s guidance for decision making, and gives Scriptural understanding and principles for doing so. Highly recommend.

[Bledar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book. It speaks out to wrong ways that people have tried to look at decision making and gives some helpful principles to make decisions. No, it does not tell you how to make every single decision, but it gives principles to operate by.

[Nicholas Potts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little primer on how Christians should think of guidance or “being led.” Should we “feel peace,” “seek signs,” “hear God?” Or should we be satisfied in what God has already said? This book lays out the latter and gives good principles to understand how to seek guidance in life, even if we are dissatisfied with this answer as our modern world teaches us to get it anywhere and everywhere else, instantly.

I gave 4 stars because the version I have has some typos in it and these should have been easily caught.

[Michael Schmid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished reading "A Christian's Guide to Guidance" and came to the conclusion that I cannot depend on prayer, advice of others, circumstances ("open doors"), reason or peace as ways of receiving guidance from God. The only absolutely infallible method of guidance ist God's infallible Word. All of the other methods may encourage me towards missions but I want to base my decisions on the Word of God.

[Cheryl Delisle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incomplete verses used

I struggled with this book because I found the author took a lot of what he said out of context of the Bible. He only used parts of scripture that would support his thesis. He did not use the entire verse or the entire context in which the verse was written. The Bible is the most important part for us to use in determining what God's plan is for our life, but we cannot limit God. I feel this book tries to cram God into a box.

[Sharayah Lee]

I read this small book as part of some research for a paper I was writing. I appreciated Adams' emphasis on the sufficiency of Scripture. Some of his statements are a bit stronger than my personal opinion, but this is a good book to read and discuss.

[Joshua Chipchase · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent, short, easy to read explanation of how to know God's will and make decisions. Written in Adam's blunt, Biblical, and practical style. Strong stand on scripture's sufficiency. Not as good as I was hoping for (I expected a little more from Adams), but still helpful.

[Debbie Levis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent Jay Adams instruction on decision making

[Joy Conkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really challenging and thought provoking book about guidance. It has prompted me to do some serious thinking and rethinking about how God guides his people.

[Joe Molinari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great and quick read that serves to recalibrate the mind and heart regarding how we are to seek God’s will and make decisions. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is because it was so short! I wanted more.

[Jeff]

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