Don’t Dispense Answers: Helping Counselees Learn

Do you remember having homework out of textbooks where many of the answers were in the back of the book, so you could look up the answers and know right away whether or not you got the correct answer? And then of course, if you got the wrong answer, you would go back and change your answer. There certainly is a real help to knowing the answer. That way you can evaluate whether you are understanding what you’re learning. However, I’m sure you had a friend—not you of course—who would look up the answers right away and was more concerned about the answer and just getting the grade rather than making sure they understood the concepts they were supposed to be learning. If that’s the approach to learning—just give me the answer so I can get the grade—is there really any learning going on? Is the student that just quickly runs to the back of the book to get the answer so they can get the grade being prepared for the next class? Are they even being prepared well for the rest of life with that kind of approach to learning? As a biblical counselor, one of the easiest errors to fall into is being an answer dispenser or an information teller, rather than someone who helps and guides your counselee in the process of learning and discovery. We’ve probably all heard the quote, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” That’s essentially what’s at stake in biblical counseling. Are you a counselor who is teaching your counselees to be dependent on you or are you teaching them how to be more independent.

CULTIVATING WISDOM

The book of Proverbs begins with a number of speeches from a father to his son in Proverbs 1–9. The goal of all the speeches is to help his son live wisely. There is plain, straight forward teaching like stay away from sexual immorality, don’t be lazy but work hard, and so forth. But in addition to the clear commands about how to be wise, you also get strong exhortations to be a learner and a seeker of wisdom and understanding. Proverbs 2:1–5 (ESV) ¹ My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, ² making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; ³ yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, ⁴ if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, ⁵ then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. An interesting question to ask is, “If the father wants the son to be wise and he has told him many practical ways to be wise, then why must wisdom be ‘[sought] for like silver and search[ed] for as for hidden treasures?’ Hasn’t the father just told him plainly in chapters 1–9 what wisdom is?” Similarly, if a counselee comes in with a marriage problem or parenting challenge and they ask for help, isn’t it enough to just point them to a Bible verse and explain clearly what that looks like and send them on their way or move onto their next question? The answer of course is no. Unless, the person who is coming and asking for help is already quite wise. If Prov. 2:1–5 is true of them already, then them coming to ask you for help might be practically how they are living out vv.2–4. They may be coming to you because they’ve been seeking for wisdom on a matter and digging for it, but they need an extra hand in their dig. If that’s the case, then yes pointing to a passage with an explanation might be enough for them. But for the majority of counselees coming, they need help learning to do vv.1–4 so that they will come to understand v.5, which according to Prov. 3:7 will help them to “turn away from evil.”

Reality #1 – Many counselees are not skilled at reading the Bible for simple understanding of what the text says.

This is a huge issue today. It’s always been a big issue, so let’s not overstate the problem as if this is something new under the sun. I’m guessing the apostle Paul found a lot of biblically illiterate people on his missionary journeys! But that didn’t stop him or his companions for proclaiming the gospel and exhorting them grow in their knowledge of the Lord. This obviously was a problem even in the church where they should have been further along in their knowledge (cf. Hebrews 5:11–14). The largest kind of biblical illiteracy that I come across in counseling is just a lazy, surface level reading of the text. They may pick up some things from it, but many counselees do not ponder and think about how the text connects together or even make sure they understand what is going on. For example, Isaiah 50:10–11 ¹⁰ Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God. ¹¹ Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment. I don’t go here with every counselee, but this is a perfect text to illustrate a cursory reading of scripture and its inadequacy in helping the counselee. “Light” and “darkness” are obviously very common themes in the Bible. And most frequently “light” is associated with righteousness and goodness and “dark” is associated with evil and wickedness. However, if you only cursorily read the text you’ll see “walks in darkness” and immediately think, “that’s bad don’t do that.” And “walk by the light” and think that’s good.  And more often than not, that’s how counselee after counselee has read this text. But if you read it carefully making sure to understand what the text actually says you find out that “walk by the light” in this passage is not at all what you want to do! Because those who do that receive from God’s hand: “you shall lie down in torment.” POINT: We have to make sure through the counseling homework and the time in the counseling room to encourage and push them to read the text carefully for understanding.

Reality #2 – Many counselees when they “understand” what the text says just stop at that point.

Understand is in quotes above, because there is a sense in which understanding what the text says isn’t really understanding yet. If we again take Isaiah 50:10–11 as our example, let’s say a counselee understands that they should trust and rely in God when they walk in darkness rather than kindling their own fire. That is clearly what the text says will be done by the one who fears and obeys the voice of God’s servant (Messiah). Just because they can articulate that doesn’t mean that they continue to press into the text for the meaning and application to themselves. 1 Cor. 8:1 tells us that “...knowledge puffs up.” If counselees stop at the surface level understanding of the text, that kind of knowledge can just puff them up. They understand the meaning of the author. That’s great. That’s important. But it’s not enough! We need to get our counselees to incline their HEARTS to understanding, (v.2) and to seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures (v.4)! To do this, it takes the counselor asking good questions and pushing the counselee’s nose back in the text to think and to ponder (something our flesh is opposed to doing often times). Questions like:

• So what does it mean to walk in darkness? What kind of situation do you think that would be referring to?
• If the one who obeys the Lord walks in darkness, what does that tell you about what you should expect as a Christian at various times in your life?
• What does it mean to kindle a fire?
• Why is kindling a fire so abhorrent to God?

And then when you ask questions and they don’t give the right answers, you probably need to ask another question! Don’t rush to give answers! Seek to lead them along the process of learning to read and understand God’s Word for themselves. You as a counselor might think this is time consuming and challenging—and it is! Your counselees will surely think it is time consuming and hard! In response to it being hard, consider this quote from John Piper: "Raking is easier than digging, but you only get leaves. If you dig you may get diamonds."^[1] Leaves are not going to help your counselees stand against the deceitful schemes of the devil and the flesh! The treasures that God has for his children in his word if they are willing to seek it and search for it like silver and like hidden treasures are astounding! You want to get your counselee to the place where they understand how this passage applies to the marriage struggle or parenting issue they are having right now. They may be completely in the dark wondering, “How in can I get my child to listen? I’ve tried everything and nothing seems to work.” Or perhaps in the marriage they are thinking, “We’ve had this same problem for years. Ever since we’ve been married, we continue to have the same recurring issue that is just getting worse and worse.” Well, how would a passage like this help that parent or spouse? When they are in darkness and cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, what is the person who obeys the Lord going to do? They are going to rely on God. They are going to cling to God’s Word and seek his kingdom and righteousness today (Matt. 6:33), rather than lighting their own torch so they can light the pathway out of the darkness. Instead of focusing on the Lord and relying on him we rely on our own resources and solutions. Lighting and paving our own path out might be extreme like getting a divorce and finding a spouse who “actually” understands me. It might be less extreme by just avoiding my spouse and spending a lot more time watching TV, doing various hobbies, or staying later at work. Maybe it is trying to buy the problem off by giving extravagant gives or vacations. The ways people light their own fires rather than clinging to God’s word are endless. Counselees need to diligently ponder their favorite “fires/torches” that they use to get out of the darkness, rather than learning to rely on God and his resources. That way they can know specifically what they shouldn’t do (i.e. reach for the torch) and then know what they should put on (specific promise/scripture). POINT: Do not rob your counselee the joy of treasure in the Word of God by just showing them all the treasure you have dug up. Help them learn how to dig into God’s Word for themselves by going deeper than just the basic understanding of the text. Help them get to the REALITY of the text and the clear application to their own lives.

CONCLUSION

My desire is that as counselors we actually expect what God expects out of our counselees. The Lord expects his people to have a heart that is hungry to learn. A counselee will not be learning and growing if you just allow them to “rake” the Scriptures and then you do the “digging” and just give them what you have dug up. You must teach them to dig. You must teach them what it means to live out Proverbs 2:1–4. Because if they don’t live out Proverbs 2:1–4, then they’ll never learn the fear of the Lord (v.5), which means you won’t be able to help them. Our goal is to help counselees please Christ, which is impossible without the fear of the Lord. This is hard work. It takes time and patience. And maybe it’s just me, but it takes a lot of effort and thought into the homework I give them. Bathe all of this in prayer for apart from him we can do nothing! I’d love to hear specific strategies that you’ve found helpful in getting your counselees to live out Proverbs 2:1–4.

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^[1] John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 126. Photo by Ashin K Suresh on Unsplash