Mailbag: I’m thinking of pursuing counselor training and had some questions. One of which is how you have seen the counseling movement grow and change over the past forty years.

This is an excellent question and as you delve into the world of biblical counseling I think it would serve you well to understand the movement, past, present and future before you make a decision on training.

Jay Adams would be considered the father of the counseling movement. I have the utmost respect and gratitude for Jay and would caveat my historical interpretation of the movement by letting you know my respect for him. When Jay and I stand together, I’m the goofball in the room and it won’t take long to figure that out.

It’s a cliche, but applicable here: he has forgotten more than I’ll ever know in the area of counseling.

This is not hyperbole. Jay is an icon in the counseling world. And God has used him in many wonderful ways. It would be impossible to figure out how God has used him. It’s too broad, deep, wide, high and long. I could only hope to be used 1/1000th in my feeble Christian life. Some people God chooses for grander purposes. I’m not one of those guys. Jay has been one of those guys.

I am very familiar with Jay and have read dozens of his books. I think most anyone in biblical counseling has, so anything that anyone offers that is good is an offshoot of Jay. Additionally, one of my profs at TMC was Wayne Mack, a student of Jay. All roads lead to Jay in some way.

The one thing that I would say when considering a training program would be a consideration of the hermeneutical spiral as it pertains to counseling. The hermeneutical spiral is a periodic revisiting of a biblical topic by running it back through Scripture in order to refine the topic. The more often we run our ideas through Scripture the more precision we will have of the subject.

For example, I think that Jay was raised-up by God for a specific purpose, which is well documented. And he was used mightily by God for this purpose, beginning in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Jay brought counseling in “from the cold” so to speak and brought necessary attention to it for the local church. Jay would be like Luther in that regard. He was a trail-blazer, a pioneer.

However, Calvin came along and brought more precision to what Luther did. John Calvin gave Martin Luther’s body of work more polish. This is what I think David Powlison & Company have done through their work at CCEF. Over the decades the spiral has been getting tighter and more precise.

Currently there is a third generation of biblical counselors who are standing on the shoulders of “Luther” and “Calvin” and, hopefully, bringing more precision to the doctrine of sanctification.

The two main points of emphasis that I’ve noticed in this third generation’s tightening of the hermeneutical spiral is an emphasis on the Gospel and the Local Church. This would be over-simplistic and unfair to say, so please don’t throw rocks here, but for the purposes of this blog post I’ll say it:

Jay gave us the bible, method, mechanics and the hope and belief that we can counsel. Powlison took us further as he gave us a more comprehensive view of the heart. He didn’t throw out method with its put off/put on motif, but built upon it.

Powlison and friends fleshed out “idolatry” in ways that were real, practical and refreshing for the local church. Where Jay gave us a framework and belief in counseling, Powlison gave us “nuance” regarding the mechinations of human idolatry.

Again, I’m over simplistic here. Please give me latitude so I don’t have to write a tome.

Other articles in this series

• Case Study: Counselees and the Local Church
• Case Study: Are You NANC Certified?
• Should I Be NANC Certified?
• To Certify or Not to Certify: That is the Question for Counselors
• Counseling Solutions Training Program to Equip Counselors
• Desire and Burden Do Not Make a Biblical Counselor
• Inherent Liabilities with Biblical Counseling
• Counseling Today: Standing on Jay’s Shoulders, Pt. 1
• Counseling Today: Standing on Jay’s Shoulders, Pt. 2
• Can’t the Local Church Do This?
• Two Ways to Become a Better Counselor
• My Top Choices for Counselor Training
• Do I Need a License to Be a Christian Counselor