Welcome.
Praise the Lord for an awesome passover week. My prayer is that you used this special time in our christian calender to re-new and refresh your faith in Christ. As promised the series on Christian Counseling is about to begin.
This posting is actually based on a ministration I gave in June 2004 at a Pastors retreat in Minna, Nigeria organised by Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM). A book that helped me greatly on the subject is called, Competent to Counsel: An Introduction to Nouthetic Counselling by Jay E. Adams. (1970). Be blessed.
Over the next few days we will be looking at the concept of Christian Counseling in detail. Looking at what it is and what it is not, the purpose for it and how to do it. Lets start with some foundational concepts regarding the topic at hand.
2011 (c) Google images
Introduction
All Christian counseling centers on Jesus Christ. As such the church attaches much importance to it. Its role in the ministering of the gospel and church building cannot be over-emphasized.
Though Christian counseling is not a doctrine, the church however, recognizes that knowledge of Christ and His will come from Christian counseling. Hence any counseling that does not make Christ its centerpiece is not regarded as Christian counseling.
What is counseling?
A look at the bible will bring the meaning to our understanding of the concept:
“Him [Jesus] we preach and proclaim warning and admonishing everyone and instructing everyone in all wisdom (comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God), that we may present every person mature (full-grown, fully initiated, complete, and perfect) in Christ (the Anointed One)” (Col.1:28, AMP).
The term counselling means to advice, to admonish, to warn and to teach. But the term Christian counselling derived its meaning from the Greek word called NOUTHESIS. Nouthesis has no English equivalent.
2011 (c) Google Images
Concept of Nouthesis
Let us look at the concept of Nouthesis. Nouthesis has 3 basic concepts as depicted below.
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| Diagram showing the three concepts of Nouthetic Counselling |
The word Nouthesis as frequently used, means the same thing as another Greek word called DIDASKO which refers to as “to teach”.
However in Col.3:16, just as it is noticeable in other places in the bible, it shows that it has an additional meaning other than simply ‘to teach’.
“Let the word [spoken by] Christ (the Messiah) have its home in you [in your hearts and minds] and dwell in you in [all its] richness, as you teach and admonish and train one another in all insight and intelligence and wisdom [in spiritual things, and as you sing] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to God with [His] grace in your hearts” (AMP).
Here it not only means teaching, it also means admonishing and training.
What is Admonition?
Admonishing is a verb meaning telling somebody in strong terms that you do not approve of what he or she has done. It also means reprimanding someone firmly.
Admonition, on the other hand, is a noun meaning warning somebody about his or her behaviour. Now before you begin to "warn" somebody it implies that something wrong or sometimes evil, has been done and that a problem is at hand which must be tackled or overcome.
It also means that there is something wrong in the life of the one to be admonished, warned or reprimanded. But DIDASKO, which only means to teach, does not imply any problem at hand, rather it suggests passing information across, making information clear, and making information understandable and memorable.
Nouthesis used in the sense of admonition, presupposes a change in behaviour or life of a person being confronted or warned. The central idea in Nouthesis used as admonition is that there is something wrong- some sins, some evils, some hardships, some problems, and some difficulties that need to be dealt with during the counseling session.Thus the central idea of Christian counselling is to effect a change in the life and behaviour of the person concerned.
In the next installment of our series we will look at the second and third basic concept of the term Nouthetic counseling.
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