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40 Verses that Show Counseling and Discipleship are the Same Thing


In reacting to a Twitter post about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of modern therapy, a pastor named Josh Howerton recently said this:


People right now live in the most therapeutic culture that has ever existed; simultaneously, this is the most lonely, anxious, depressed, and suicidal generation that has ever existed. In a secular culture, the therapists replace the pastors . . . a lot of people look to therapists as secular priests . . . I just want to point out that at a net scale, it's not doing what we may have hoped it would do . . . When you walk into a counseling office, what you are doing (whether you know it or not) is that you are asking them to disciple you. (Find clip at the end of this blog)


This is an intriguing notion to me. Modern secular counseling has, by and large, replaced discipleship in the church today. The idea goes like this: If you want to grow in your faith, then discipleship is for you. If you want help with the struggles of life, then you should see a "professional". This never used to be, which is why well-known Psychologist O. Hobart Mowrer wrote in 1961 in The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, "Has evangelical religion sold its birthright for a mess of psychological pottage?" Unfortunately, the answer is "Yes."


Yet until recently, Christian discipleship has sought to accomplish, since the start of the church, what modern counseling has sought to accomplish within the last 150 years. Notice what modern counseling aims to accomplish through these two definitions of what counseling is.


According to Health Encyclopedia:


Counseling is a broad term that encompasses various forms of therapeutic interventions and professional support services. It aims to help individuals, couples, families, and groups navigate through life’s challenges, develop coping strategies, and improve overall mental health and well-being. According to the American Psychological Association, counseling involves a trained professional who works collaboratively with clients to promote understanding, identify solutions, and facilitate positive change. (emphasis added)


According to the American Counseling Association:


Professional counselors help people gain personal insights, develop strategies and come up with real-life solutions to the problems and challenges they face in every area of life. As trained and credentialed professionals, they accomplish this by getting to know clients, by building safe, positive relationships and suggesting tools and techniques they believe will benefit clients. (emphasis added)


Now, here are 40 verses that show that discipleship already intends to develop these skills, with the end result being the glory of God, communion with God, a clear conscience, greater unity with the body of Christ, maturity in faith, joy in Christ, perfect peace, greater conformity to the only perfect person who has ever lived, and more. These 40 verses certainly have their own context in which they were written, but broadly speaking, you can see that discipleship intends to help people through life's challenges, develop strategies to deal with the difficulties of life, improve both mental health and well-being, teach, encourage, promote understanding, build safe and positive relationships, etc. The standard for what all of this means and the way in which that is accomplished, of course, is different in secularism than in Christianity; nevertheless, notice what God attempts to accomplish in Christians discipling other Christians. Keep in mind that these verses were written 2000+ years before the invention of modern counseling/therapy:


  1. Acts 20:20, 31: . . . How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house . . . Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.


  1. Acts 20:28: Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.


  1. Colossians 1:28: Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.


  1. Colossians 3:16: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.


  1. 2 Corinthians 1:3–7: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.


  1. Ephesians 4:1–2: I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love . . .


  1. Ephesians 4:15: Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ . . ."


  1. Ephesians 4:29: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.


  1. Galatians 5:13-14: For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”


  1. Galatians 6:1-2: Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.


  1. Hebrews 3:13: But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.


  1. Hebrews 10:24-25: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.


  1. Isaiah 50:4: The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.


  1. James 5:16: Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.


  1. John 13:34-35: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.


  1. Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.


  1. 1 Peter 5:5: "Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'"


  1. Proverbs 9:9: Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.


  1. Proverbs 10:11a: The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life. . .


  1. Proverbs 10:17: Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.


  1. Proverbs 11:14: Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.


  1. Proverbs 12:25: Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.


  1. Proverbs 12:26: One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.


  1. Proverbs 15:22: Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.


  1. Proverbs 15:31-32: The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise.


  1. Proverbs 19:20: Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.


  1. Proverbs 24:11-12: Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.


  1. Proverbs 27:6: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy." (Implies corrective counsel from a friend as loving and necessary.)


  1. Proverbs 27:9 — Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.


  1. Proverbs 27:17: Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.


  1. Romans 1:11–12: For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.


  1. Romans 12:10: Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.


  1. Romans 12:15-16a: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.


  1. Romans 15:14: I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.


  1. 2 Timothy 2:1-2: You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.


  1. 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."


  1. Titus 2:3-5: Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.


  1. 1 Thessalonians 3:12–13: and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, [13] so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.


  1. 1 Thessalonians 4:18, 5:11: Therefore, encourage one another with these words . . . Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.


  1. 1 Thessalonians 5:14: And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.


If Josh Howerton is correct (and the literature shows he is), then two things desperately need to take place. First, the church must arise, reclaim its authority over discipleship, and become better equipped to provide intensive soul care. Second, members of local churches must see that God has much better resources to accomplish what secularism has tried to accomplish for the past 150 years but failed. Read more about what intensive discipleship looks like here:





If you would like intensive discipleship (otherwise known as counseling, but in a way that is biblical), visit our website below:



In Christ,

Justin Daugherty



 
 
 

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Hope Counseling & Discipleship Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit counseling center in Savannah, GA.

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