How to Help People Change: The Four-Step Biblical Process

I was looking for a book that would help teach me how to better use the Bible in counseling and I found it in this Jay Adams book. He does a marvelous job in showing that the Bible is totally sufficient in correctly identifying and labeling our problems as well as fixing our lives. The outline of the book can be found in 2 Timothy 3:14-16 where it deals first with the Bible's total sufficiency in giving a person wisdom for salvation. Jay then shows, as the Apostle Paul did, that the Bible is totally sufficient to teach us what is true, convict us of what is wrong in our lives, corrects us so we get back on the right path, and trains us to live a faithful, godly life. I love how Jay shows each of these parts as essential to counseling and how psychology distorts or even skips some of the essential elements of counseling people for change. And when counseling, not all change is good. Change must be to make us more like God. Psychologist who do not go strictly by the essentials of what the Bible teaches sometimes do more harm than good. They teach people a "victim" or "disease" mindset in which there is little or no hope for them. God's Word teaches "forgiveness, repentance, and deliverance." God's Word solves our problems instead of ignoring, falsely diagnosing, and mistreating them. Jay shows that the Spirit of God working through the Word of God can make a person pleasing to God. Therefore, God wants to use a Biblical Counselor to teach, convict, correct, and train a humble, repentant person back into a fully restored relationship with God and others.

The four-step biblical process that Adams (1986) puts forth is based on sound interpretations of the Scriptures. His views are distinctively biblical and are likely to be best applied by clergy in the discharge of pastoral counseling duties. Adams four-step model of biblical counseling is troubling for some - refreshing for others. The modern landscape of biblical counseling is filled a wide diversity of opinion in regard to the usage and integration of secular psychological principals in Christian counseling settings. While some choose to integrate, Adams thoroughly rejects the idea of integration. In his model, all that is needed for counseling is found in the pages of Scripture and anything outside the realm of Scripture should be soundly rejected. "Strangely enough, many of the most prominent defenders of biblical inerrancy and authority are the very pastors who, in biblical counseling, treat the Scriptures as an insufficient source, in need of supplementation from psychiatry and psychology. Sad to say, they implicitly deny the Scriptures' credentials for helping people change." (Adams, 1986, p.21) Adams four-step approach to biblical counseling is put forth as an attempt to counsel purely on the basis of the Scriptures ability to help people change. Adams places a high emphasis on the need for biblical teaching in counseling. He asserts that it is not possible to achieve positive change apart from the impartation of biblical truth from the counselor to the counselee. The counseling process in this system basically leads a counselee toward serious Christian disciples by way of biblical teaching in an effort to import change in the direction of Christ-likeness. This system is unashamedly biblical and blatantly intolerant of secular counseling principals. The goal here is Christian discipleship and the aim is Christ-likeness. Adams sees the need for change primarily as the result of a deficit of instruction in biblical truth - a shortfall of Christian discipleship. In this system the true goal of Christian counseling is sanctification through the power of the Holy Spirit. "In other words, this book is not about neutral change. The change for which Christian counselors strive has a spiritual direction and their aim is to help people prosper in the at direction. All change toward God is good, and all change away from God is bad. Sanctification, change toward God is the goal of all Christian counseling." (Adams, 1986, xiii) Adams counseling methodology is about forsaking sin for the sake of Christ. It is a distinctively Christian approach to the Christian life and Christian counseling. As a pastor I embrace a Christian counseling method very similar to that of Adams. While I do not reject secular principals as wholeheartedly as Adams, I choose not to integrate as a matter of pastoral counseling integrity. I have seen first hand the damaging affects of pastoral counseling done in haphazard ways. If integration is

I appreciate all of Jay Adams' work and this book is excellent as well.

Jay E. Adams has done it again. He is right on point. Change is necessary and Adams truly shows you how to assist in that effort. Necessary reading and using for the Biblical Counselor and any one who cares about God's people.