Featured Articles
A Most Welcome Visitor
You are a most welcome visitor when you bring godly love and care to a person in the hospital. This brief article offers a fresh perspective and practical suggestions on the simple, significant blessing of visiting the sick.
Page count: 5
Exposing the Lies of Pornography and Counseling the Men Who Believe Them
Pornography is a defining problem of our age, so it is also a defining problem for counselors. The Bible often addresses people enmeshed in wayward sexuality, and Alasdair Groves digs deeply into one significant aspect in the sanctification of pornographied souls.
Page count: 19
Practice Makes Perfect? Exploring the Relationship Between Knowledge, Desire, and Habit
Michael Emlet explores the interrelationship of behavioral habits, beliefs, and desires. Habitual actions matter in our sanctification, whether seemingly mundane (brushing your teeth), or seemingly unproblematic (going to the mall), or presumably serious (participating in worship). This article incorporates a review of James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom in the context of Emlet’s larger exploration of the significance of habits for counseling.
Page count: 23
How Does Sanctification Work? (Part 1)
When we look closely at what actually changes people—examples both from Scripture and from personal experience—we see how diversely relevant the Word and Spirit are to our human struggles. David Powlison challenges the popular views on sanctification that take one strand in Scripture and present it as the be all and end all of Christian growth. He specifically engages the strengths and weaknesses of the view that asserts, “You are sanctified by remembering that you are justified.
Page count: 18
Death Be Not Proud
This is a sermon that Bill Edgar preached at the funeral of a friend who died of cancer in her 40s. He answers five questions that those who grieve often ask God. Why did this happen? Where were you? What’s the good of it? Where is she now? What do we do now? Scripture offers wisdom and encouragement that becomes embodied in the lives of God’s children as we grow in faith, hope, and love.
Page count: 5
Counselor's Toolbox
When NOT to Do Marriage Counseling
In this Counselor’s Toolbox Winston Smith considers when NOT to do marriage counseling. Naturally it is a desirable goal for a husband and wife to counsel together. But Smith describes specific situations in which that is the wrong thing to do. Depending on the circumstances, a counselor may need to counsel the spouses separately, or focus on the one spouse who is most ready and motivated to work.
Page count: 5
Effective Homework in Counseling
Robyn Huck offers advice on how a homework assignment can carry the gains of a counseling session out into daily life. Two detailed case studies show how well-designed homework can be developed collaboratively so that it is tailor-made to a counselee’s abilities, problems, and motivation.
Page count: 7
