I've listened to my friend @DrKeithAEvans's inaugural convocation address a couple of times over the last few days. Biblical counselors aren't handed microphones and asked to give academic lectures very often, so I was excited to see Keith's contribution.

I'm grateful for Keith's emphasis upon theology, and we share a common love for the Reformed tradition and its import for counseling as a practice.

What kind of term is "biblical counseling?" A 🧵: One question that has emerged since my colleagues at SEBTS and I released our paper on Redemptive Counseling / Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling on Monday is "Are you all simply redefining what biblical counseling is so that you fit?"

What's the difference between clinically-informed biblical counseling and integrationism? A 🧵: There's a bit of a dustup in the world of biblical counseling right now over the term "clinically informed biblical counseling" (aka "redemptive counseling" or "research aware biblical counseling). I'll use CIBC in this thread for brevity and clarity's sake.

A 🧵on "All truth is God's truth" as relates to Christian approaches to counseling (and especially Jay Adams): "All truth is God's truth" is a phrase that gets tossed about within the realm of Christian counseling. This phrase has been used as theological justification by Integrationists to blend secular counseling systems and Christian theology to arrive at psych-integrated counseling.

Today I'm reading a document on caring for survivors and perpetrators of abuse that argues for Scriptural sufficiency this way:

"God, through His Word, has provided sufficient wisdom about abuse; more than what worldly systems can offer. Past failures in how we have responded to abuse should not force us to look to worldly wisdom in order to build a comprehensive approach to the evils of abuse, but rather...reorient us back to the enduring sufficiency of God’s Word...

A 🧵 on pastors and elders listening to women in church contexts and the sin of partiality. Imagine for a second that you have a man come to you saying, "My wife has been frustrating to live with of late. It seems like I can't do anything right. I work hard, provide for our family, and do dozens of things right. But then she seizes on the one thing that I didn't do."

Why complementarians should most expect abuse to be a problem in our churches, a 🧵 To start, I should affirm that I am a complementarian. I believe that God has ordered certain roles for men and women in the church and in marriage. So this is written from the inside, not an outside.

This 1984 article by Jay Adams is making the rounds again. In truth, there are several more like it by him dealing with other topics such as emotional abuse, "wife-beating," etc. A 🧵discussing this article: I've read this article and its compatriots many times for research. This thread will max out the number of tweets I can put in a thread, but here is a sketch of a limited number of devastating problems in Adams' approach:

Does abuse have to be intentional to be considered abuse? A 🧵: One question that comes up quite a bit in conversations about abuse is if the perpetrator needs to be intentionally harming the other person for his/her actions to be labeled as abuse.

Is the Bible trauma-informed? A 🧵: Any time there’s a question like this, we first gave to figure out what is actually being asked. What do we mean by “trauma informed?”

A 🧵 on figuring out when a situation is abusive, with significant help from Bavinck: 1/ Over the past several years, I've talked with quite a few pastors who are facing situations in their congregation where one spouse claims the other is abusive. Such situations are almost always confusing and difficult to untangle. 2/

Interpreting the SBC Annual Convention for my presbyterian brothers and sisters: A 🧵. 1/ Unless you've had your head in the sand, it's no secret that the SBC Annual Meeting happened this week in Anaheim. Every year, there are countless hot takes and they're tough to sift through. I am the one voting faculty member @ReformTheoSem who is in the SBC. 2/

A 🧵on hermeneutics, abuse, and marital sex: One important hermeneutical principle to realize is that the Scriptures are often written in a spirit of "all things being equal." This isn't the case everywhere (thou shalt not commit adultery), but happens quite often.

Interpreting SBC Polity for the Presbyterian Mind: A 🧵 Once again the SBC is in the news, and any time a denomination makes the news something has probably gone wrong. As the one SBC professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, I'm often asked to explain our polity and what exactly is going on right now. So, hopefully this is helpful.

Biblical counseling offers a helpful window into thinking well through the CRT/I conversations aflurry right now.

CRT/I is a worldview and a method of seeking to diagnose and treat observed human trouble. As such CRT/I is a system of psychology. All psychological systems are built upon some element of truth. That's what makes them catch on ideologically in society. A believed system has to have some touch point to reality. And it's hard to get absolutely nothing right when studying God's creation.

Interpreting the SBC Annual Meeting for the Presbyterian Mind: A Thread The SBC annual meeting is in the news and on social media. I know a lot of my friends here are Presbyterian, and we Baptists are often something of a mystery. I thought it might be helpful to sketch out answers to common questions or charges I’ve been seeing in social media.