Book Review - Counseling One Another: A Theology of Interpersonal Discipleship

The word counseling seems intimidating sometimes. The word often brings my memory back to the days in grade school when I would sit down with my guidance counselor to discuss school and how things were going. Other times the word reminds me of friends and family that have gone through some form of trauma or were dealing with various emotional issues and needed to visit with a psychiatrist or psychologist. The word counseling even brings me back to the days in college when I took a psychology class and thought at the time, "Wow, the human race is really complicated!"


So when I saw the book Counseling One Another - A Theology of Interpersonal Discipleship written by Paul Tautges, it immediately captured my interest. The reason was just by the title, it joined the word "counseling", which as previously stated has sometimes been intimidating, with the word "discipleship", which has always had a pleasantry about it due to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. I wondered, what does "counseling" and "discipleship" have to do with each other. I even thought initially that one needed to be separate from the other based on my experiences with "counseling" and "discipleship". However this was exactly what the book addressed and the fact was, both are essential but need to be viewed and applied correctly.

The book starts out by stating in the Foreword, "It is unfortunate that the idea of Christians counseling one another has largely fallen into disfavor in the contemporary church. If you were to admonish average born-again Christians with the responsibility  of counseling others, the common excuse would often be, 'I'm not a counselor! That's something for a credentialed professional with a special gift and a Ph.D." The Foreword also indicates that for most Christians in the church, counseling is "complicated, private and messy, something reserved for the specialist." The primary reason for this according to the book is that many Pastors do not even counsel anymore. Why? The first reason is due to how they were taught in seminary. Many Pastors graduating seminary today are trained to deliver excellent sermons and if they can do that, then they will be successful in their ministry. The second reason becomes a product of the first reason and that is, since Pastors primarily focus on the excellent sermons, they don't spend time in counseling their congregation or even train their congregants to counsel each other. Instead they rely and recommend the use of credentialed psychologists from the world.

The author highlights the concern about this based on "recent comments in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal" that more Christians are growing a confidence in counseling methods derived from "man-centered theories of human behavior" performed by Christian psychologists. The issue however with many Christian psychologists is they are keeping their faith separate from their psychological or counseling methods and discipline. This of course makes them very popular to the world since they have stripped the "offence of the cross" from their practice however by doing this the true issues of the heart are not addressed.

Why does this matter though? It appears many people are receiving help and dealing with the issues that would warrant seeing a psychologist. Colleges (to include Christian colleges) are increasing their offerings of Psychology degrees in order to meet the demand for many people seeking this in society. It must not be all bad right? Well according to the book, it does briefly state that there are times where the experience of a trained psychologist are warranted, however if they leave out God while performing their craft, then those being counseled are not being taught to truly overcome anything.

The reason they are not being trained to overcome is due to the fact that worldy psychological methods are based on man searching within themselves to deal with the issues. Man sets themselves up in such a way that they can do things on their own if they followed man-centered behavior modifications and perhaps even take a prescription to alleviate the stresses from the issues of life. Certainly prescriptions can be warranted at times, however man-centered behavior modifications and just taking prescriptions do not get to the root cause of the psychological issues. If man could simply rely on themselves to conquor life's problems, then there would be no need for God. Mankind cannot ever help themselves. THE ONLY WAY TO OVERCOME AND NOT JUST DEAL WITH LIFE'S ISSUES IS BY SURRENDERING YOUR LIFE TO JESUS CHRIST!

In discussing this, the author covers the importance of Christians counseling others, whether they be sinner or saint. The author addresses the importance of scripture and how this is essential in proper counseling methods. Scripture is the only mechanism that can truly penetrate the depths of the heart and cause someone not just to deal with their issues, but to overcome them through the power of repentance, conversion, and reliance upon God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The author makes it clear that no Christian can counsel another person without them first being guided by the Holy Spirit. However the author also makes it clear that Christians have a responsibility and must be willing to counsel others as necessary and look for opportunities to be used by God to minister to peoples deep hearted needs.

Overall, the author covers the topic of "Counseling One Another" from a Christian perspective well. I appreciate all of the scriptural references highlighting the importance of Biblical counseling and how the book steps through the experience of salvation and the process of sanctification. The book also does not shy away from sensitive topics such as homosexuality and cohabitation. The book addresses issues like this from a Biblical perspective and mentors the Christian on how to address these issues during counseling. Although the book discusses quite a bit about how detrimental worldly counseling is, the book does not always compare side-by-side the worldly method and the biblical method. This is ok in my opinion though since the primary calling of the book is to help enlighten and encourage Christians to counsel others and what they need most is to see what scripture says about the topic not so much what the wordly method doesn't offer. In order to reach some Christians though on this topic (since according to the book many Christians rely on credentialed psychologists without Godly wisdom), it may have been nice to show some scenarios and how the worldy method doesn't work in the end. Nonetheless, the author covered the topic thoroughly and thought provokingly.

One last thing I have to mention is one doctrinal disagreement. In the book, the author briefly alludes to Satan being cast out of Heaven. Although I realize this is a very popular teaching and belief among many Christians, scripture does not completely support this belief. This will continue to be debated until the end of time, however this belief and teaching can lead to other serious doctrinal errors that could detrimentally affect a person's salvation and since this book was written around the importance of leading people to Jesus Christ and holy living through "Authentic Biblical Counseling", I cannot endorse this teaching in the book.

I received this book for free via Cross Focused Reviews from Shepherd Press for an honest review of the book. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.