Welcome back to week 40. We hope the past week has been a blessed one for you. Last week we briefly examined some typical homework assignments for depression and anxiety. We hope those examples were helpful to get you started. This week we will briefly consider how to deal with sin in counseling. 

In order to deal with sin in counseling we ought to attempt to apply the comprehensive meaning of the Greek word for counseling, “nouthesia.” Nouthesia is the word from which the term “Nouthetic” comes. Nouthetic is simply another designation for biblical counseling. It paints the picture of change through confrontation with the motive of concern for an individual’s soul (cf. Col. 1:28-29).^[1]

In counseling someone we ought to operate off of some presuppositions. One, the counselee has sin in his life that God wants changed and his sin is serious because God hates his sin (Rom. 1:18; 2:5-6; 3:10-18, 19, 23; 7:14-24; Gal. 4:9). Two, the counselee’s only hope for change is found in the Scriptures which we must faithfully and accurately minister to him or her through the power of the Holy Spirit and verbal confrontation of sin (John 6:68; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Gal. 6:1). Three, our confrontation (i.e., speaking the truth), should be done with gentleness (i.e., in love), and should be for the benefit of the counselee’s walk with Christ. This means that we stress the biblical need to call sin, “sin.” The counselee is ultimately not a victim of circumstances, nor has he or she drawn the –so to speak –unlucky genetic card of depression, anxiety, or the like. The counselee is the perpetrator of sin (Rom. 3:23).^[2]

So, what do we do when sin is present in the counseling session? The following is an example. Frank gets mad at something his wife carelessly (maliciously or not) says to him. He initially says nothing in response. Instead, he lets his anger simmer inside. 

Frank ponders what was said to him over and over and his anger grows from simmering to boiling. The next thing Frank knows, he is exploding on his wife. In the counseling session the best thing that can be done is to gather as much data as possible about the situation. At the same time, we cannot let the outburst continue. We need to draw attention to the problem. After we have prohibited such actions, we gather more data through careful analyzation. We go step by step probing what went wrong. We reconstruct the scenario in a controlled manner by asking pointed questions.

After the data has been gathered and analyzed we can help Frank to construct a plan so that he can respond in a way that honors God the next time this kind of thing happens.^[3] We would begin by making sure that Frank realizes that his response to his wife was sinful, and that his sin is serious to God. Next, we would set out a plan that would instruct Frank to Seek Speedy Scriptural Solutions Together:

• Seek –the Lord in a brief prayer to help control your temper.
• Speedily –tell your wife that you are having trouble controlling your temper.
• Scriptural Solutions Together –should be sought with your wife so that you can take off sinful thoughts and/or deeds and put on biblical thoughts and/or deeds. That is biblical repentance and reconciliation.

Then, Frank would be instructed to write down the incident. His recording would be formatted to include: what he thought and what he did. He would include a comparison of his thoughts and actions against the light of Scripture. When he does this, he would see how Scripture commands him to act, and what he plans to do next time, if failure was experienced. Lastly, Frank should be instructed, and encouraged, to continually seek God’s glory above his own desires (cf. Isa. 43:7; 1 Cor. 10:31; 2 Cor. 5:9).

We hope our short time considering how to deal with sin in counseling was helpful. If we do any amount of counseling / discipleship, we will experience other’s sin first hand. Lord willing, next week we will outline a comprehensive counseling program to help a couple develop good communication patterns. Until then may our Lord bless you and keep you.

^[1] Jay Adams, Ready to Restore (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co, 1981), 9. 

^[2] Clearly counselees can be victims of another’s sin perpetrated against them. However, as serious as that sin may have been, the counselee still has an obligation to respond in righteousness (Cf. Lev. 19:18; Matt. 5:43-44; 19:19; 22:37-40; Lk. 6:27-28, 35: Gal. 5:14; Eph. 5:22, 24-25; Col. 3:19; 1 Peter 3:1-7; James 2:8-9).

^[3] We are keeping our attention on Frank, not his wife, because Frank is responsible for how he responds, not what his wife says. Also, he is the head of the house. If there is a lack of love in the home, we seek out the head first. The head is responsible for creating a loving environment in the home which the rest are to follow.