Last week, we discussed The Person-Oriented Paradigm: Developing a Helping Relationship in our biblical counseling class. In it, we saw the importance of shifting from a problem-oriented to a person-oriented approach in biblical counseling, emphasizing the need for counselors to engage with their counselees through compassion, respect, and sincerity to develop trust and a helping relationship.

This time, the next topic is taken from the 9th chapter of Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically. This is the continuation of the importance of relationship and hope in counseling. Specifically, Wayne A. Mack’s topic is about Instilling Hope in the Counselee. The chapter has 17 pages. I will do my best to summarize the chapter's content and reflect on its significant insights.

Wayne Mack introduced the chapter by emphasizing the important role of hope in counseling people with difficult circumstances. Examples of difficult circumstances include divorce, the death of a loved one, and financial bankruptcy. Hope is needed for people who remained in such a situation for a long time. Also, those who made repeated attempts to solve their problems and failed need hope. Those who made their situation more complicated by unbiblical responses need hope. Those who consulted counselors and psychologists, and whose problems were mistakenly diagnosed, need hope.

The author then highlighted the Bible's emphasis on hope’s role in the process of sanctification. Biblical counselors, taking the Bible as their manual in counseling, must follow this guidance in the counseling process. What follows is the list of God-glorifying results in having biblical hope even in the most difficult life situations of the counselees:

• Joy despite the most difficult trials (Prov. 10:28; Rom. 5:2–3; 12:12; 1 Thess. 4:13)

• Perseverance (Rom. 8:24–25)

• Confidence (2 Cor. 3:12; Phil. 1:20)

• Effective ministry (2 Cor. 4:8–18)

• Greater faith and love (Col. 1:4–5)

• Consistency (1 Thess. 1:3)

• Increased energy and enthusiasm (1 Tim. 4:10)

• Stability (Heb. 6:19)

• A more intimate relationship with God (Heb. 7:19)

• Personal purity (1 John 3:3)

If the above results are largely missing in someone’s walk with God, that’s a sure indication that biblical hope is not present. Perhaps the counselee is holding on to some kind of hope, but it’s not the biblical one. And that is why the next section in the chapter is very helpful. Here, Wayne Mack contrasted biblical hope with the counterfeit ones.

Characteristics of Counterfeit Hope

Many people think that finding a secure job and an ideal lifelong partner will solve all their problems. Their happiness depends on getting what they want. The problem is that if our wants are not aligned with God’s will, the search for happiness is an elusive one. Wayne Mack gave a popular story to illustrate the danger of holding in counterfeit hope. He mentioned a lady with financial problems because of embracing a “name-it-and-claim-it” mentality. When she passed by a car company, she laid her hands on one car and claimed it, thinking that the Lord would provide the money to pay for that car.

Here's how Wayne Mack describes the characteristics of counterfeit hope:

• Denial of reality

• Mystical or magical thinking

• Unbiblical view of prayer, and

• Erroneous interpretation of biblical text

Denial of reality

Two stories to illustrate this point. The first story is about a young man who has no musical talent but wants to make a living out of it. His friends, not wanting to offend him, encouraged him to pursue such a career. Since he does not possess the skill, naturally, his quest ended in failure.

The role of the biblical counselor is to assess the situation if his skill matches his life’s plan. Since in this case, the two are misaligned, the biblical counselor must advise the counselee to choose a different career path, or if musical training can remedy his deficiency, then he must enroll in such a course. If these steps are not implemented, the man’s hope is not based on reality, and he is bound to be disappointed with himself and the people who motivated him.

The second story is about a young lady abandoned by her husband. Her friends kept on encouraging her that they were certain that her husband would return someday. However, that is something biblical counselors don’t know for certain. To encourage that young lady to hold on to such hope is not based on reality. Instead, here’s how Wayne Mack advises the lady:

I don’t know. What I do know is that God can use this in your life to make you a greater woman of God, and if that happens, you have benefited from the situation. I wish I could tell you for sure that your husband is going to come back, but I cannot do that (p. 115).

Mystical or Magical Thinking

Some people think of prayer and Bible reading like magic. If they start the day with devotion, they expect that everything will go right. If they miss it, they are worried that something bad might happen throughout their day. It’s like devotion has mystical power to ward off evil. The Bible is only useful when we understand it correctly and apply it to our lives.

Unbiblical View of Prayer

Moreover, many also share a mistaken understanding about the role of prayer in Christian life. They think that in solving problems, all that matters is to pray. Take, for instance, the problem in finance. If you do nothing but pray, you fail to appropriate the tools that God wants you to utilize in answer to your financial problem, such as understanding personal cash flow and developing the habit of savings and small investments.

Erroneous Interpretation of Biblical Text

Here, the contrast between eisegesis and exegesis has been explained. False hope is based on a subjective interpretation of the biblical text. We push our ideas to the text for it to mean whatever we prefer. Exegesis, on the other hand, is an objective process whose goal is to find the authorial intent, which both the ancient and modern audiences share.

The first approach usually ends in disillusionment. Here, Wayne Mack shared another story to illustrate the destructive consequences of holding a counterfeit hope based on a mistaken interpretation of the biblical text. He mentioned a woman who got involved in an extramarital affair. Wayne Mack found out that what led the woman to that adulterous act was a wrong interpretation and application of Matthew 18:19. She claimed that text as a promise for her parents to stay together. When her father finally abandoned her mother, she thought that God’s word was not true. “Doubt and bitterness toward God grew in her heart until finally she broke her marriage vows and got involved with another man” (p. 117). Her hope was based on a mistaken interpretation of Matthew 18:19. In fact, the text has nothing to do with prayer, but church discipline. God did not fail to fulfill his word, for He did not promise her that He would keep her parents’ marriage if she and her friend would agree together in prayer. Telling her that her hope was based on an erroneous interpretation of the biblical text could be the starting point to her recovery.

In the next article, I will share the characteristics of biblical hope. However, for now, the table below is enough to sum up the difference between counterfeit hope and biblical hope:

Grace and peace!

Reference:

MacArthur, John. (2005). Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically. Nashville, Tennessee: Nelson Reference & Electronic.