Recently, our friend Justin Taylor published an excerpt from this article in his blog. He stated correctly that it was not available on-line, and so we decided to rectify that problem by publishing it here for you to read in its entirety.

This article discusses the nature of criticism, and then responds to some of the published critiques of biblical counseling.

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Critics are God’s instruments. I don’t like to be criticized. You don’t like to be criticized. Nobody likes to be criticized. But, critics keep us sane—or, by our reactions, prove us temporarily or permanently insane. Whether a critic’s manner is gracious or malicious, whether the timing is good or bad, whether the intention is constructive or destructive, whether the content is accurate, half-true, or utterly false, in any case the very experience of being criticized reveals you. To what madnesses are you prone?

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David Powlison, M.Div., Ph.D. David is a counselor and faculty member at CCEF and has been the editor of The Journal of Biblical Counseling. He holds a Ph.D. in History of Science and Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Master of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary. David has been counseling for over thirty years and has written many books and articles on biblical counseling and the relationship between faith and psychology.