Matthew1344
Puritan Board Sophomore
This was my first assignment in my Into to Discipleship Counseling class at Eternity Bible College. My first question was this.
I am no scholar, but I had a blast thinking through this answer. I am really loving school!
I have always loved you guys input, because you all really challenge me a lot. Please, if you have a sec, skim through this and pick apart my answer.
What did I miss?
Is there a logical flow?
Doctrinally wrong?
Bad understanding of scriptures?
I am no scholar, but I had a blast thinking through this answer. I am really loving school!
I have always loved you guys input, because you all really challenge me a lot. Please, if you have a sec, skim through this and pick apart my answer.
What did I miss?
Is there a logical flow?
Doctrinally wrong?
Bad understanding of scriptures?
A simple definition for worldview is how one sees the world. The best worldview is one in light of the Gospel.
"Worldviews exert their influence at the deepest level of a culture" (Hiebert 5). I agree with this and I want to bring it home. I would say that worldviews exert their influence at the deepest level of a person. "For as he calculates in his soul, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).
People come to others for counseling because they need advice on how to align their life to what their worldview says is good. No one wants to strive for misery and a horrible life in their worldview. Even if their worldview is that misery and suffering are ways to find an inner happiness, like Buddhism, at the end of the day they are trying to be happy.
So for everyone, the counseled and the counselor, worldview is extremely important, because it determines what kind of counsel you get or give. For the Christian we make it our aim to base our worldview on the glory of Christ and his gospel.
I have been told before that there are two basic questions in life. "What is Truth" and "Why are we here". The answer to the first question answers the second also. Truth is Jesus. "I am the...Truth... and no one gets to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Because of this, we submit our lives to Christ as Lord. This is why we are here. We love him by obeying his commands (John 14:15), trusting his counsel in life (Psalm 73:24), to experience what is good for us, namely, the presence of God (Psalm 16:11).
As a Christian counselor, we understand that the issue is never the problem. The issue is always a side effect. The problem is always sin. This is the reason for the importance of a gospel worldview in counseling. In Mortification of Sin in Believers, John Owen states that "Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins.... Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head" (Owen 15). Adultery, covetousness, and atheism is not the problem, sin is.
If this is true, which I believe it is, then we need Christ. We need Christ to forgive us and cleanse us from our sins. We need his work on Calvary to put to death the sins of the body. We need Christ to be deliver us from this body of death. We need Christ, because all we have is Christ. He is our only hope.
So, worldview plays a crucial role in how we approach counseling. It is actually a matter of life and death. If Christ is the worldview, then their is hope for the soul. If Christ is not found, then neither is hope in ever being healed.