Desiring God; John Piper; Church Attitudes Toward Mental Health
-by Kathi
There has been much talk recently about Desiring God’s tweet on February 6, 2018.
***
The concern over this tweet is the lack of consideration for how complex the mind is and how trauma affects the brain. Why do so many Christians think that mental health is purely a spiritual issue? The brain is a part of our body. Just as the body is treated by medical professionals, so must the brain be treated for complex mental health issues.
The original tweet was followed up with this:
***
So, the original tweet was based off an article posted 12/31/07. This article was a tribute to Clyde Kilby and cites resolutions for mental he stated in a lecture in 1976. No where in this article is the mirror image used in the original tweet. The only thing closest to the mirror image is:
I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.
Mental health can be magically fixed
by focusing on God?
Going back to the original tweet, I was not surprised by this thought that mental health could be magically fixed by focusing on God. I was sure that Desiring God has been posting this concept for years, not only by John Piper, but by others as well. Searching through articles on the site I found the following examples of this thought perpetuated over the years:
From John Piper, paper presented to Bethlehem Baptist Church for their search for an Associate Pastor of Counseling, “Toward a Definition of the Essence of Biblical Counseling” 12/12/01:
There is no true mental health without understanding the desperate condition we were in without the cross, and without feeling the joy of deliverance from that condition through the death of Christ on our behalf.
***
From John Piper, “Should Christians Use Anti-Depressants?” 1/21/08:
However, on the other side, it seems clear to me that the brain is a physical organ with electrical impulses and chemicals, and that mental illness is therefore not merely spiritual. No man could persuade me that all mental derangement is owing to a spiritual cause that has a purely spiritual solution.
One way medicine can be helpful is if it gets people to a point where they have enough stability to read the Bible. Then, through being able to read the Scriptures, people are able to be refreshed in the Lord and, in time, come off of the medicine. In that case medicine is a means to an end, and that seems perfectly natural to me.
***
From John Piper, Speech to American Association of Christian Counselors, “Beholding Glory and Becoming Whole: Seeing and Savoring God as the Heart of Mental Health” 9/16/09:
And just at this point, I wonder if many of our people are left thinking that what it means to be loved by God simply that he affirms their desire to be made much of. “Christ died for me to make much of me. He rescued me while undeserving to make much of me. He forgave me to make much of me. He removed his wrath to make much of me.” Oh how gloriously good this feels! What a precious gospel! And it’s all merely natural. There’s nothing supernatural about it. It looks like recovery and healing! It works. But at root, it is not “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” It’s all to the praise of the glory of his affirmation of me.”
***
From Rick Warren, Desiring God 2010 National Conference, “The Battle for Your Mind” 10/1/10:
I have been studying this subject for thirty-three years. I did my first study on the mind in 1977, working through all the books of the Bible. I think I could teach on this subject for an entire week. There is so much material on what the Bible has to say about strengthening our minds, renewing our minds, submitting our minds, and bringing our thoughts into captivity. There are at least one hundred principles in God’s Word that have to do with what we are to do with our minds. As I said, your mind is your greatest asset.
***
From John Piper, “Your Life’s Greatest Problem” 1/14/15:
Now let’s just get this real clear and real straight, because I have the feeling we live in such a kind of touchy feely day that Christianity is being so psychologized and so therapeutized that we really do believe this book was written for our mental health. It wasn’t. It was written to help us get right with a wrathful God. God is one great massive fire of holiness. He hates sin and cannot abide it. We are little ant like sinners of sin. And if we got within 10 trillion miles of this God we would be consumed.
***
From Marshall Segal, “The Insanity of ‘Self-Care’” 3/14/16:
Practice a different kind of mindfulness. Go ahead and listen to music, or watch a sunset, or play with your pet, but go Godward — be mindful of God and his great love for you. It really can be helpful to practice gratitude, or to enjoy a particular moment or activity, or to focus on something bigger than yourself, but not if it ends there, and certainly not if it only ends with you. Any habit or activity can be a means of joy, peace, and healing, but only if it brings you to God — our only Lord, Savior, and greatest Treasure.
***
From John Piper, “The Root of Mental Health” 3/15/16:
After medication, perhaps the most common remedy for most behavioral and mental disorders is — and has been for almost half a century — some form of self-worth enhancement. It pervades our educational institutions, the psychotherapeutic and counseling systems, the personnel and motivational industry, advertising, and even the church.
I think the remedy is flawed. And its Christianized forms may involve damaging views of Christ and his cross. For example, it is profoundly wrong to turn the cross of Christ into a warrant for self-esteem as the root of mental health.
***
John Piper, From his book Taste and See: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life 7/5/16:
It is profoundly wrong to turn the cross into a warrant for self-esteem as the root of mental health. If I stand before the love of God and do not feel a healthy, satisfying, freeing joy without turning that love into an echo of my self-esteem, then I am like a man who stands before the Grand Canyon and feels no satisfying wonder until he translates the canyon into a case for his own significance. That is not the presence of health, but bondage to self.
***
From Jon Bloom, “The Proven Path to Mental Health” 10/30/17:
The proven path to our soundest mental health is a robust, holistic trust, in everything and every circumstance, in the triune Christian God.
Desiring God has been perpetuating the myth that mental health issues can be taken care of by simply changing your attitude or focusing more on God for years. This may work for some people, but those with complex brain chemistry issues may not able to solve their problem with a mere attitude adjustment. Attitudes in the church toward mental health also keep people from seeking proper treatment.
It is time for Desiring God to stop equating a person’s mental health status with their spiritual status. The two are not one in the same.
Spiritual Sounding Board 
It’s really a tragedy, our churches tend to treat mental illnesses if it were just a spiritual problem, but many in medicine just want to treat mental health issues as if they were purely physical. Our legal system just wants too lock everybody up.
We really need to change our mindset in this country and to begin to treat people holistically, as if they were mind, body, and spirit, because they are.
LikeLike
Your final paragraph nails it, Kathi. Nice compilation and nice conclusion.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for the research. I used to be a big Piper fan (Desiring God did a lot for me when I was trying to make sense of my somewhat chaotic theology). But over time, I’ve realized how some of his philosophies can have negative consequences. I have found a lot of freedom to deal with mental/emotional struggles in the Catholic Church (where I finally did start to make a LOT of sense out of the chaos). There, I’ve mostly heard messages from priests along the lines of “Do what works and helps you to be loving toward others and yourself.” Seems so much more reasonable. We don’t have to have it all figured out; sometimes trusting God means letting go of the sense of control over your own health. For instance, sticking to your guns that only the Bible cures you can be just as foolish as sticking to your guns that only meds cure you. When I’ve received counsel from priests and nuns, they always ask to know about the fruit of the treatment (whether I’m talking about prayer or about counseling or about meds). Is there peace there? Does it encourage humility, joy, and faith? Or does it cause doubt, despair, frustration, lashing out? I think it’s much healthier to teach people to pray, pray, pray, and of course read the Scriptures, and do their best to heal whatever way God provides. Look at the fruit of the treatment, pray and listen to God, and do what helps you to love best. (And I would add, read the Catechism for wisdom.)
P.S. Found your blog through a dear friend after a great discussion on courtship. She was nervous because my husband and I mentioned that we encouraged our teens to consider court. After doing research, I was able to reassure her that we were NOT talking about the same thing as the madness she had heard about! We need new terminology!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s a link. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-illness-metaphor/201709/the-myth-the-chemical-imbalance
In the end the churches touting SSRI’s and neuroleptics from the pulpit are no better than the others. They treat those they see as SMI as monsters.
A way churches COULD help the depressed or chronically unhappy is by showing them Christian love and encouragement, but most just tell you to shut up and take your drugs since they don’t care about social lepers and try to freeze them out.
Here’s another link from the American Psychiatric Times. But Dr. Pies uses big words you may not feel up to reading. Much harder than watching a Zoloft commercial.
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/psychiatry-new-brain-mind-and-legend-chemical-imbalance
There are no easy answers. I find both the militant pro-psych crowd just as harmful as the anti since they really don’t care about emotional pain either. If the “magical pills” make someone feel worse they can be more cruel and hateful than the crowd from Desiring God. Interesting how neither side has bothered to keep up with CURRENT medical science.
LikeLike
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/psychiatry-new-brain-mind-and-legend-chemical-imbalance
LikeLike
I wanted to add so much of my own commentary to a lot of these quotes, but that would have made the post way too long. I figured I could add things in the comments, so I have more to say. (go figure!) 🙂 Extra thoughts will be spotty for now as I’m heading off to work.
To start off, Rick Warren’s comment about how he has studied what the Bible says about the mind for years. His examples are correct, the Bible does talk about strengthening and renewing our minds. However, the Bible does not address how the mind is impacted during formative years when abuse is in a child’s environment. Nor does it talk about how the mind is impacted by traumatic events in a person’s life. Nor does it talk about complex brain chemistry that affects a person’s mind.
The Bible is not a manual for dealing with mental illness. If a person has religious faith that is important to them, then that can play an important role in their healing. A counselor should not limit the impact of faith on a person’s life. The problem becomes when a person struggling with mental health issues is told that their lack of faith keeps them from healing. This minimizes what the person is experiencing and can add to further depression and shame.
LikeLike
My former church issued a position paper and it was intriguing to read between the lines.
My first take on Piper is that it is the typical waffling back-and-forth. He wants to pretend that he actually cares about people with mental illness and understands that mental illness is a difficult issue, but then he wants to say that mental illness is somehow spiritually curable.
I think this is a key cultural misunderstanding, and it impacts our spiritual understanding as well. For Reformed-types, total depravity means that there is no area of our being that isn’t heavily impacted by sin. Yet, these same Reformed-types want to claim that through “Biblical Counseling”, the effects of sin in the mind can be undone. Are we Christians or Christian Scientists? Just as a baby can be born blind as a result of the broken world, a baby can be born with a mind that has the same sorts of genetic defects. For the church to then say that all people, no matter what the defect, can be “renewed” and “transformed” through spiritual willpower, is beyond cruel, and even more cruel is to discipline and badger those people as if they simply didn’t have the willpower to overcome their “sinful” mind.
Back to the position paper. It was the same thing – there was a lot of “psychological” talk about the genetic defects and how those defects caused certain behaviors that we consider sinful, yet, once the word “SIN!!!” was present, then it launched into, “and this is how we deal with SIN!!!” So, essentially, fine to have a genetic disorder, fine to feel bad for people that do, but once they “act out”, the time for mercy and compassion is over, time to beat up that wicked sinner!
To relate back to physical…. It’s like telling a double amputee that the Bible says to “walk” in the truth, and if they don’t “walk” then they will be disciplined for their rebellion against God.
LikeLike
More Deep Thoughts(TM) of the Pied Piper.
A position paper worthy of Scientology in 140-character “I Made A Poopie!” format.
LikeLike
I know and care about two people who struggle with mental health (anxiety, OCD, paranoia, psychotic breakdowns etc.) and who are on medications. The suffering and challenges are real, but that doesn’t make them people who are any less important to God. This life and this world are very harsh. I don’t pretend to understand why there is so much suffering, and sometimes I’m bitter about it. But the idea that mental and emotional ailments can be healed or overcome by sheer belief in the Lord… that idea is not even biblical.
Momentous faith, dedication and earnest prayer did not deliver the apostle Paul when he asked for relief of his “thorn in the flesh”. Why should it be different when the “thorns” are in the mind or the heart?
People can follow Jesus Christ whole-heartedly and still have repetitive ordeals of all kinds, including how their brain cells and emotions work. This is where the Desiring God crowd gets it wrong. Mental illness is not a litmus test of faith or obedience.
2 Corinthians 12:8-10 (NIV)
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
LikeLike
I found this Youtube channel that features recorded biblical counseling sessions. Not having seen a biblical counselor, I decided to watch some of them.
Trey & Deb Session 1: A young couple with various marital issues such as fighting over money, inlaws, etc.
Trey & Deb Session 11: The same young couple 10 sessions later. Unlike in the first session, they are all lovey dovey holding hands and smiling. They have turned into Chistianese machines spitting out Christian platitudes and raving about how helpful biblical counseling has been to their marriage.
I am thinking. Is this even legal to put recorded sessions on the Internet for the whole world to see?
Here is another Youtube channel that is about biblical counseling. It features lectures and sessions as well.
Here is a session with people who suffer from clinical depression. The title says “actual” counseling session, but the description says it is a “re-enactment.” Huh? How can it be an actual session and a re-enactment at the same time.
I don’t think I am going to watch the last one about clinical depression. My stomach can’t take it.
LikeLike
Piper’s writings are driving me to the Laments in Scripture. He drive the progress of mental health education and awareness back into the dark ages.
I am also seriously questioning publishing companies who agree to put his words in print without considering the damage, deep harm imposed on the great realm of mental health. These are real human beings, God’s creation I am referring to.
Let’s hear Piper address the physical illnesses of humanity due to overeating, ignoring health warnings, lack of exercise, prescription drugs for cholesterol mismanagement in diet, etc. He could perhaps give God’s perspective of destroying our temples, gluttony, hedonism, self gratification…….
LikeLike
From Piper’s 1/21/08 post on anti-depressants…He admits that medication may be good because the brain is a physical organ. But, what’s the best use of medication? When it helps someone to read the Bible. Then, buy reading the Bible they might be healed by God’s words and come off medication. Sigh
LikeLike
So archaic and cruel. Where is the tender heart of God expressed in his writing, his tweets?
LikeLike
I think part of the problem is that both the scope of mental illness and the professional approach to it is way more varied than people think. Even psychiatrists disagree on what causes certain mental illnesses and what is the best way to treat them. For example, I’ve been reading Bessel van der Kolk lately, and he writes about successful drug trials in his career, but also about how his study of trauma (he’s a PTSD specialist) has led him to believe that some diagnoses, eg of depression, can be flawed because they don’t take into account past trauma. So in the latter part of his career he is moving away from an entirely drug-centred focus in treatment.
I think that some of these opinions tweeted recognise a genuine issue in mental health care, which is that the same treatment doens’t work for everybody. That is true; it’s a very complex field. But they have come up with the wrong answer. It is certainly good to pray, to read the Bible, to fix our eyes on Jesus and seek comfort from Him. But why do these guys think they know better than qualified and experienced professionals?
LikeLike
I wonder how much more mental distress Piper has caused with his “gospel” of scrupulosity?
LikeLike
in my church, “excessive scrupulosity” is considered a form of OCD.
LikeLike
@Liz:
The only difference is BIBLE instead of Drugs being the answer to Everything.
(Image of someone hammering square peg into round hole screaming “YOU’LL FIT! YOU’LL FIT! YOU’LL FIT!”)
LikeLike
Piper reads like a rapid cycle of Bipolar. He is up, then down and then up again. He is all over the place when it comes to his opinion of mental health and the root from whence it springs. Notice – he never defines what mental health is, and this is a problem.
“It’s all to the praise of the glory of his affirmation of me. 2009” Here he is “up” indicating our mental health is derived from the fact that God rescued us, removed His wrath from us…all for our affirmation. It feels good – according to his quote – unless he was being facetious.
Then…”We are little ant like sinners of sin. And if we got within 10 trillion miles of this God we would be consumed. 2015″ He is now “down” condemning us all in the wrath of God’s imperial sense of justice. How can we measure up? We can’t. Don’t even try. How do you feel now? How is your mental health doing? Terrible? Good. It should be…after all, you are an ant and a sinner (of sin). So don’t go feeling good about yourself.
He stays “down” because…”it is profoundly wrong to turn the cross of Christ into a warrant for self-esteem as the root of mental health. 2016″ But, wait – didn’t he just say in 2009 that the cross was the source of our joy? Our affirmation. It felt good, felt like recovery. I’m confused. Am I supposed to feel good or bad that Christ died for me?
Oh, here he tells me how I should feel: “If I stand before the love of God and do not feel a healthy, satisfying, freeing joy without turning that love into an echo of my self-esteem, then I am like a man who stands before the Grand Canyon and feels no satisfying wonder until he translates the canyon into a case for his own significance. 2016” So…he’s waffling with an upward cast. Feel good: “healthy, satisfying, freeing joy” at the love of God…just don’t carry it too far by calling it self esteem. Well, what else would you call that? He called it “affirmation of me” in 2009. Is that not the same thing a healthy self esteem?
Because, as he said in the beginning, “There is no true mental health without understanding the desperate condition we were in without the cross, and without feeling the joy of deliverance from that condition through the death of Christ on our behalf. 2001”
So, in Piper’s view, to have good mental health (whatever that means) we should be Bipolar, like him. Live in the dregs of desperation but feel joyful deliverance. And hop rapidly between the two poles.
LikeLike
As far as I’ve seen, the best results tend to come from a combination of medication and therapy, not just one thing.
I will read those articles and comment later though.
LikeLike
I think this is a process of religious grooming. Maybe it is that people hear and latch onto what they want to hear, so he can speak “comfort” out of one side of his mouth and “condemnation” out of the other. People who are looking for comfort find him comforting and people who are looking for penance find him penitent.
But, I found, growing up in quasi-neo-Calvinism was that comfort always was masking the blade of condemnation. We find comfort that Jesus didn’t burn us up like little ants as we deserved. Jesus loves us because he died on the cross to hide our wretched sins from the justice of the father. Behind every story of courageous Christians before us was a bar and a litmus test. Luther was courageous. He prayed at least three hours a day. If we want to be Christians like Luther, we need to pray three hours a day.
But, I’m flabbergasted. At my previous church… Sermon after sermon was just like this. Thinly veiled condemnation in a mere drape of comfort, and people would gush about how ‘encouraged’ they were by a sermon. Even a sermon about why “ordinary members” were easily deceived and couldn’t be trusted in their interpretation of scripture and why God gave us his Elect Elders and Pastors(tm) so that we could understand God’s will for us – apparently many were encouraged by that. I was not.
LikeLike
Charis, “Live in the dregs of desperation but feel joyful deliverance.”
“JOY” for Piper is a superficial smile.
There is a Desiring God article on finding JOY at work, and the point of it is that no matter how cruel or inhuman our working circumstances are, we should be able to pray for “JOY” and God will give us “JOY”. If we don’t enJOY our work, then God is punishing us for something, most likely our lack of faith or desire for self-worth, and we need to rid that of our lives so that we can return to JOY.
LikeLike
For anyone who is interested, I just made this post recently on my Daisy blog (I also have several other blog posts about depression and anxiety):
_Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari_
LikeLike
In my own personal experience with clinical depression and anxiety, I tried both medications, secular psychology / psychiatry, ~and~ the “Bible and Jesus only” approach.
I definitely was not helped with the spiritual only approach that guys such as Piper are always advising.
I think only a Christian who’s never had severe depression or anxiety would dare to prescribe Bible reading only or prayer only as a “treatment.”
The secular psychology stuff was a mixed bag for me: the drugs did not help alleviate my depression or anxiety, and the doctors I saw did not get to the root issue with me (which was codependency, the depression was partly or mostly a side effect of that).
Years later, after I saw my last psychiatrist, I had to figure out for myself what my problem was by researching psychological articles and self help books online. I really feel one of the doctors I saw over a 20 yr period should’ve noticed the codependency, but they just wanted to throw pill prescriptions at me.
If John Piper ever gets an arm bit off at the beach by a shark, I want him to forgo medications, and just think nice, fluffy, pretty thoughts about Jesus and see how far that gets him.
LikeLike
Also on my blog (this may be relevant to some of the comments above):
_Please Stop Treating Mental Illness Like It Has A One Size Fits All Solution by Hattie Gladwell_
LikeLike
Perhaps John Piper just revealed his own “mental illness”.
For years his mantra has been “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.” In other words, his so-called God, who is a “massive fire of holiness” [which will consume us if we get within a trillion miles of Him], somehow needs us little “ant sinners” to be satisfied in Him in order to be glorified, which sounds a lot like an “affirmation of me”, which Piper then later eschews.
He goes down another rabbit trail about glory and complains, “But at root, it is not “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” It’s all to the praise of the glory of his affirmation of me.”
But Piper’s well-known, oft-repeated mantra is nothing more than an “affirmation of me”, yet he seems to view all of us as annoying little ants.
LikeLike
I have thought for a long time that Piper is quite conflicted, emotionally.
People seem to connect with his dichotomous tools of shifting. I have heard it said that many people are able to connect with him on some level because he offers so many perspectives. Dare I name it a bit of ‘crazy making’, nothing is absolute.
LikeLike
Interesting how he quotes Rick Warren, who said that in 2010. That was before his son’s suicide death. Maybe John Piper needs to lose someone close to him the same way.
Gonna do more research on bi-polar, even though it’s painful.
LikeLike
@Mark: “JOY” for Piper is a superficial smile.”
I am very familiar with superficiality within the church. I call it “white picket fence” syndrome. Pastors will preach and plead for congregants to be authentic, bring their problems, their pain, their true selves to church – to be “real.” So they can be “healed” and “made whole” together. Be a community…that cares.
And when you do that (or attempt to), you get the “deer in the headlights” look and pushed back about 100 yards. “Um, no, we didn’t want you to be THAT real and open.”
What they want is your white picket fence. See, it looks like all the others. Never mind that the yard is a mess, the playset is in disrepair and the house has boarded windows and is in jeopardy of being condemned. No, no…only the picket fence counts. It’s white and clean and pretty and matches all the others in the neighborhood with a nice little gate we each stand behind and exchange small talk – never inviting anyone in. Because, well…the yard and the playset and the house!
Church is a collection of white picket fences. If anyone cared to look beyond, they would see the deeper issues, build a relationship, be invited in. That rarely happens. They are just thrilled with the picket fence.
Heaven forbid you let your fence go to shambles – indicating that the rest of your life needs a little TLC. That is a for sure way to be shunned and left as an “outsider” for not following the crowd. You will pay the price for being authentic. At least, that has been my experience…except for the rare individual or two who take the time to look past the fence. They just might discover that some of those “fixer uppers” are truly beautiful inside.
LikeLike
I have been taking an extremely helpful psychotropic medication for about 25 years now. Without it, I simply cease functioning: I slip into anhedonia and catatonic depression, and my life simply spirals down the toilet. I’ve been homeless and destitute without meds.
With medication, I can function and I can live a life. I don’t really care what a bunch of preachers have to say about it, most of my problems started with preachers in the first place. I’ll never forgive Gothard and all those who rammed Gothard’s ideologies down people’s throats, and I have nothing but incoherent rage for authoritarian Calvinists and other assorted patriarchal nincompoops.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Strong advocates of “biblical” counseling on the warpath against psychology remind me of anti-gay crusaders who turn out to be repressed homosexuals. They themselves suffer from serious undiagnosed mental illnesses which they suppress with religiosity.
I have had the misfortune of getting to know a few of them. They spit out of the right cliches and platitudes, but the weird vibe I get is just too strong to ignore. They are hiding themselves behind religiosity.
Sexually repressed people need help, not more Bible verses. Untreated, they end up victimizing vulnerable people including children. See all the sexual abuse cases in churches. The same can be said of mentally repressed people. They need help. But instead, they work as biblical counselors.
LikeLike
You’ve got some good points to consider, David.
LikeLike
Thanks, Julie Anne.
I forgot to say. Case in point: Just look at some of Piper’s tweets. They are just strange.
LikeLike
So sorry for what you suffered! Ugh. So glad you have gotten some treatment that is helping. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your different messages which have given much encouragement and different ways to see and experience God’s love for.
This article here really spoke much volume to my thought and thinking that have given my heart a refreshing joy and have given my spirit a lift that is awesome. Reading this list gave me to know all the more Jesus Christ is the ONLY answer for any and every situation in one’s living in this life, daily.
I am understanding the importance in separating the natural person and the Holy Spirit within. Meaning I once was looking at everything spiritual first, when Scripture stated, “first natural…” (1 Corinthian’s 15:46). Again thank you for this list of messages on “Mental Health with the look at the physical being of a person (me); yet, the root to any and all health is receiving and applying the Words of God into one’s personal life which led to a much deeper relationship that leads to a partnership in the Lord Jesus Christ. Again thank you and your staff on being faithful to having this purpose. Please continue giving W.O.R.D.S. of encouragement. (Worth.Our.Rigtheousness.Deliverance.Spoken.)
LikeLike
Linda, “Reading this list gave me to know all the more Jesus Christ is the ONLY answer for any and every situation in one’s living in this life, daily.”
Yes, this is truly the answer, but Jesus would tell us to find the help that is available from those around us as well. Piper et. al. want to equate mind and spirit, so that mental health = spiritual health, and while there can be those aspects, there are also the physical aspects.
We don’t look at someone who is bleeding and say that, if they repent of the sin in their life, the bleeding will stop, but that seems to be the core of Biblical Counseling – that all mental health can be traced to spiritual sin. Maybe in some cases that is true, but I think it is just as likely to be the result of a physical issue.
We saw that firsthand – an issue that was mitigated significantly by applying more tools and being proactive, but not solved. We came to the conclusion that there was an underlying physical issue. So far, evidence suggests that to be the case.
LikeLike