Biblical Marriage Counseling

Years ago, completely inundated and flustered and frustrated with the ridiculousness that passes for “Christian” and “Biblical” Marriage counseling, I wrote the following on the simplest form of biblical marriage counseling:

Husband: Love your wife.
Wife: Respect your husband.
Which of you is not doing that?
Repent and start doing that.
End of counseling session.
No charge.

Many people were irate when I first wrote that and many undoubtedly will be irate today. It defies human wisdom and the vast majority of academia. Spurgeon said, “Men think themselves wiser than the Word of the Lord, and sit in judgment upon it.” Denying the simplicity of the godly wisdom of Ephesians 5:33 gives an excuse for those who have been to “biblical counseling” who are no better today than when they started, and often are worse. They think it’s not their fault, it’s not their counselor’s fault, but it is the failure of God’s Word.

And that’s a symptom of the current culture because most of what passes as biblical counseling is not biblical. One counselee described it, “it felt like those sessions were just scheduled times for my wife to blame me for all my faults.” Counselors get mired in symptoms and definitions and techniques and fail to teach the most basic tenets of biblical marriage. The feminization of pastoral counseling and chasing after the wind of secular counseling has resulted in a plethora of excuses and finger pointing.

Dan Phillips recently put it this way,

Q: What should be the consequences of a husband not loving his wife?
A: Fry his hind end, because it's all his fault.
Q: What should be the consequences of a wife not respecting her husband?
A: Fry his hind end, because it's all his fault.
#TheDiscussionThusFar

The Bible does not give the wife an option to stop respecting her husband because he is not respectable (see 1 Peter 3:1-2), nor does the husband have the option to stop loving his wife because she is unlovable (see Eph 5:25, Rom 5:8). And, despite what so many feminized counselors would say, don’t think that love means nice. Love means sacrifice and sanctification (see Rev 3:19).

It reminds me of one of my favorite parables which I have retold many times and expanded upon,

A wife, completely embittered and exasperated by her marriage, visits a divorce lawyer to explore her options. She spends the session explaining to the lawyer everything her husband has done wrong and why he has made her so miserable for so many years. She concludes by stating, “I want this divorce to hurt him as much as he has hurt me.” 

The lawyer, a devout feminist, with malice in her eyes responds, “Here’s what you need to do. Don’t tell your husband about the divorce for the next month. Over the next month we’re going to show him how great a woman he is losing, and we’ll really make his head spin when we take not just the kids, the house, and his pension, but his excellent wife as well. Here’s what you need to do:

• Everytime he does something hurtful don’t respond in kind.
• Everytime he does something thoughtful make sure you show your appreciation.
• Everytime he is a bad father hold your tongue and take that opportunity to love your kids.
• Everytime he is a good father make sure to notice and verbalize your approval to the kids.
• Everytime he misses an appointment or a dinner because of work, thank him for providing.
• Everytime he makes an appointment or a dinner, thank him for making time for the family.
• Everytime he fails to help around the house, step up and be his helper.
• Everytime he helps around the house notice it and thank him for his aid.
• Everytime he kisses you goodbye, kiss him back.
• Everytime he doesn’t kiss you goodbye, kiss him hello when he comes back.
• Everytime he forgets to pray for you, pray for him.
• Everytime he prays for you, thank him for his spiritual leadership.
• Everytime he says something stupid, discuss the topic with him.
• Everytime he says something profound, commend his wisdom.
• Etcetera: You get the point. 

The month goes by, then another month, and the lawyer starts to wonder. She calls her client and asks, “When are you going to come in to start the divorce?”

“Divorce?! I’m not divorcing him! Why would I divorce him? He’s the greatest husband and father in the world!”

Love begets respect and respect begets love. A lack of the one does not justify withholding the other.

Husband: love your wife. She doesn’t respect you? Love her anyways.

Wife: respect your husband. He doesn’t love you? Respect him anyways.

End of article.

No charge.

Listen Better - Part 3 of 7 - Read the Word

Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - Pray Before the Sermon

Speaking to a rebellious people who were inquiring why God had not blessed their rituals and their efforts, Zechariah identifies their problem:

“They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets.” ~ Zechariah 7:12

(Zechariah doesn’t identify exactly which prophets they were ignoring, but definitely Isaiah’s chapter 58 is one of them)

As you attend church on Sunday morning hopefully you will hear a pastor open the Word of God and proclaim the excellencies of the King to you. But how will you know? For the last 70 years the people of Bethel had been listening to tradition tell them to fast in remembrance of the destruction of the temple and for God’s blessing. For the entire time they had been in sin; the sin of elevating man’s tradition to God’s commands, and in refusing to listen to the former prophets.

How could they possibly know that they were following tradition and rejecting God’s Word? If only God had sent prophets beforehand to declare God’s statutes…

Are you following tradition? Is your pastor preaching his own opinions or the opinions of those who came before him? I recently read a Warren Wiersbe book called 50 People Every Christian Should Know, and, while I like Wiersbe (especially his biographical works), many of the 50 on the list were famous people of his early life who preached their own opinions and traditions. Were they good communicators and visionaries in their fields? Absolutely, but should we emulate them? By no means. A disciple of Phillips Brooks would be astonished today that you don’t know who Phillips Brooks is, but I guarantee you’ve been influenced by his tradition of emphasizing the preacher’s personality over the preaching.

So, how do you know if you’re listening to tradition or God’s Word?

You have to know God’s Word, you have to interact with it, wrestle with it, digest it, and apply it.

Before you head to church next time, find out which passage your pastor is going to be preaching on, and read it at least a few hours before (or better, if you're not reading this article on Sunday morning, every day until the sermon). God’s Spirit will use the former prophets (in the case of my church, Mark’s Gospel) to speak to you and in reading the passage before you hear it preached you will be more prepared to understand and respond to what you hear.

Mayhaps God will show you something he does not show your pastor, or maybe your pastor will reinforce conviction that you received from the Word, or perhaps he will answer questions you had in reading. Maybe you’ll see a connection in God’s Word that helps to reinforce what you believe and what you’re learning. Scripture is full of cross-references and quotations, for example, reread Zechariah 7:11-12 and then go read Hebrews 1:1-2 and Romans 15:4 and see if you don’t see some parallels and some amazing grace as you see the continuing theme of Christ in all of scripture (by the way, read 2 Timothy 3:16-17 as well!)

Regardless of how the Spirit is going to use it in your life, you will be better for knowing God’s Word and you are sure to understand it better from your pastor if you read it before you hear him preach it.

Part 4 - Take Every Thought Captive

Listen Better - Part 2 of 7 - Pray Before the Sermon

Part 1 - Introduction

Unless God opens your heart to receive his Word, then nothing you do will help.

Blunt, but true: It is imperative that we realize that hearing God’s Word is a grace all in itself. Many people are precluded from hearing God’s Word and the ways are myriad; some have no access to or knowledge that the Word even exists, some are under direct legislation outlawing the reading of the Bible, others have ministers who refuse to preach God’s Word in lieu of their own opinions, and yet others sit under the preaching of God’s Word, but their ears are closed and their hearts are hard.

Adrian Rogers lamented,

The Devil would just as soon send you to Hell from the pew—as from the gutter!

Therefore, one of the primary things we must do to be hearers of God’s Word is to humble ourselves to realize our need for salvation, and that if Jesus is the only way, and if we are saved by faith, and if faith comes by hearing, then we must drastically entreat God to open our ears to his Word.

The Psalmist prayed,

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” ~Psalm 119:18

If God doesn’t answer then the most prestigious Bible training in the world will leave you in darkness and despair, so seek him for this grace!

Besides the obvious necessity of praying that God would make us better listeners, it also invests us in the preaching of the Word and prepares the soil of our hearts to hear. Charles Spurgeon wisely identified that the parable of the soils identifies many soils, but only one seed,

Which, do you think needs the most preparation, the sower or the ground? I would have the sower come with clean hands, but I would have the ground well-plowed and harrowed, well-turned over, and the clods broken before the seed comes in. It seems to me that there is more preparation needed by the ground than by the sower, more by the hearer than by the preacher.

And we ought not pray only for ourselves, but for our preacher that he may bring the Word in power from the Holy Spirit, and for our fellow listeners that the Word will accomplish in them exactly what God intends for it to accomplish. This investment in preparing to hear God’s Word adds the blessing that then we will work and hope and expect God to work not just in our own hearts, but in the hearts of those we’ve prayed for.

Won’t you pray for your heart, your pastor, and your church before you next hear God’s Word preached, and ever after until you are in the very presence of your Saviour?

Part 3 - Read the Word

Listen Better - Part 1 of 7 - Introduction

I recently launched my doctoral project to make the church better at listening to God’s Word. Nearly three years of research has gone into this project and it has been a blessing—to say the least—to delve both into God’s Word and into the writings and sermons of great saints who have addressed this same topic.

Did you know there are more commands in God’s Word to listen well than to preach well? And yet we have erected entire seminaries devoted to teaching people how to preach and have largely neglected the importance of listening well.

If you consider a real flock of sheep, there are many sheep but a single pastor. The pastor has many tools to shepherd his flock: his voice, a rod and/or staff, a sheepdog or a donkey, well-worn paths, etc. The sheep on the other hand are called to listen to their pastor and to discern his voice from any number of competing voices.

So, beloved, how do you listen? Do you hear the voice of your shepherd? Can you discern his voice from one that sounds very similar? I’m not talking about the voice of your earthly pastor, I’m talking about the Overseer of your soul. Martin Luther put it this way,

The right sort of preacher should faithfully and diligently preach nothing but the Word of God and seek His glory and honor alone. The hearer likewise should say, ‘I do not believe in my pastor, but he tells me of another Lord whose name is Christ; Him he declares unto me, and I will listen to his words so far as he leads me to this true master and preceptor, God’s own Son.’[1]

This article and the subsequent six articles are my attempt to make you a better listener to God’s Word. I have condensed all that I have learned into six principles (I followed the template of Joel Beeke to break them into Before, During, and After the Sermon), there are many, many other ways you can become a better listener and nearly infinite nuances to the six I have chosen, but I believe strongly that if you attempt these six in the way they are written, you will see an improvement in your own hearing.

I would appreciate your feedback and encouragement or discouragement as you work through these six principles. Comments may be left anonymously, or long replies may be sent to canyon.shearer@gmail.com or via telephone: e-mail for my phone number.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God’s Word, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17).

By the way, step 3, taking every thought captive, definitely addresses not letting your attention to God’s Word be stolen by errors or even outright sins of the preacher, so in case you see the typo, don’t let it detract from the spiritual lessons of the card. (Who knows, maybe I put that typo there on purpose to teach you a vital lesson!)

Thus concludes
Part 1 - Introduction

Continue reading:
Part 2 - Pray Before the Sermon
Part 3 - Read the Word
Part 4 - Take Every Thought Captive
Part 5 - Take Notes
Part 6 - Revisit the Sermon
Part 7 - Apply the Sermon

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[1]Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: a Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 1999), 123.