by Rev. Doug Leaman
Soli Deo Gloria Project in Aldeia, Brazil
the Missions Banner, June/July 2025

One facet of our mission work alongside Project Soli Deo Gloria continues to be Biblical Counseling. Recently, in our local church-based Biblical counseling class, we spoke about Biblical communication, specifically the four rules of communication taught in Ephesians 4:25–32. These revealed truths about communication can be summed up as:

1. Speak the truth in love.
2. Keep current.
3. Attack the problem, not the person.
4. Act—don’t react.

What wonderful and profound goals for Biblical communication!

Biblical counseling focuses on making concrete in the day-to-day realities of life the abstract theological principles found in God’s Word. It deals, to a great extent, with applied theology, seeking to discern God’s will for the details of daily living.

Biblical counseling—like every kind of verbal and moral counseling from one person to another—is always a theological enterprise. This is often misunderstood. Many, even within the Christian world, assume that there can be a kind of “neutral” or “non-religious” counseling. This supposed neutrality, however, is itself a theological commitment.

The idea of “neutrality” in counseling assumes that the “heart,” or “mind,” or “consciousness” can be independent from the Creator. The Biblical picture, however, is crystal clear: man is made in the image of God, in the presence of God (coram Deo), and in inescapable relationship with the sovereign Creator of all things. The Bible also tells us that man alienated himself from God by eating the forbidden fruit, thereby losing sweet communion with the Creator and becoming darkened by sin in every aspect of his being—thought, word, and deed.

So, if we begin a sermon or a counseling session expounding on the Biblical principles of communication based on Ephesians 4, we are assuming certain foundational realities that often remain unseen, yet undergird this teaching:

1. God is the Creator of all reality.
2. He declares perfectly what is true, and He can communicate that truth.
3. He reveals to His creatures the proper way to live.
4. These truths can be applied and obeyed in daily living.

There is a goal or end toward which our life is pointing—the glory of God.

There is an unbroken revealed chain beginning with God (theology), extending to His creation (metaphysics), to His truth (epistemology), to His moral standards (ethics), and to our ability to apply those standards (applied theology). That is deep theology!

When we think or act as if neutrality in counseling were possible, we are in fact assuming an unwarranted independence—morally/ethically, epistemologically, metaphysically, and theologically. This inevitably results in a confused teleology, which leads to the chaos of Enlightenment/post-modern moral relativism. They worship the creature rather than the Creator. Such confusion ultimately destroys God’s revealed will for individual life, church life, community life, and human relationships in general.

How we understand the world in which we live—and our place in this world—affects everything we do. These are deep theological issues, and there is only good and true theology or false theology.

Let us keep speaking the truth in love, for the glory of God to every nation!

Amen.