The Journal of Pastoral Practice: Volume 8, Number 1, 1985
Overview
For nearly 30 years, the Journal of Biblical Counseling (previously the Journal of Pastoral Practice) of CCEF (the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation) has provided a forum for biblical counseling’s development and application. The journal’s mission is to develop clear thinking and effective practice in biblical counseling through articles that faithfully bring the God of truth, mercy, and power to the issues faced by ministries of counseling and discipleship.
Top Highlights
“It fails to capture that perverse combination of desire for good relationships, yet suspicion and fear of others; of tolerance for others’ failings, yet self-aggrandizement and despising of others; of moments of brilliant self-awareness, yet habitual blindness to what about us is obvious to others; of patience with counselees, yet petty anger with family members; of love for self-knowledge, yet stubborn resistance to correction.” (Page 47)
“First, the data of human defensiveness looks like the biblical description of the workings of sin. ‘Defensiveness’ incarnates all the blindness to the truth about oneself which might be denominated ‘pride.’ It has that combination of self-deception and deception of others that fits under the heading ‘the deceitfulness of sin.’ It embodies a primal resistance to honesty about oneself, an evasiveness, excusemaking, and blameshifting, all of which are captured in a host of colorful metaphors: stiff-necked, hardened or darkened in heart, foolish, and so forth.” (Page 47)
“Secular psychology is always hamstrung by its precommitment to view human problems as ‘ontological’ problems-as ‘things’ that are not working right.” (Page 48)
“But the Bible never views human problems as ontological but as relational or ‘ethical’ at their cores. Problems exist between man and God and between man and man. That our psyches are unhinged—or futile, darkened, alienated, ignorant, hardened, deceived, and desire-ridden, as Ephesians 4 puts it—does not mean our problems are psychological. The disorientation that manifests itself in our psychic life is only symptomatic of an interpersonal disorientation: our alienation from God.” (Page 48)
- Title: The Journal of Pastoral Practice: Volume 8, Number 1, 1985
- Author: Jay E. Adams
- Edition: 1
- Series: The Journal of Biblical Counseling
- Volume: 8
- Publisher: The Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation
- Print Publication Date: 1985
- Logos Release Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Counseling › Practice; Pastoral counseling › Practice; Pastoral theology
- Resource ID: LLS:JBC8_1
- Resource Type: Journal
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-16T17:45:23Z
Jay E. Adams A.B., B.D., S.T.M., Ph.D. (1929-2020) served as a pastor, church planter, denominational executive, seminary professor, author, and lecturer. He taught homiletics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and was the Director of Advanced Studies at Westminster Seminary in California. He was the founder of the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF), the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (formerly NANC), and the Institute for Nouthetic Studies (INS). He was the author of over 100 books including the best seller Competent to Counsel which launched the modern biblical counseling movement. He was the recipient of the Order of the Palmetto, the highest civilian honor awarded by the State of South Carolina.