Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction : Years ago, I took a class in seminary entitled, Biblical Counseling with Dr Tim Seal.

I took it because during my ministry as a Student Pastor at Ellendale Baptist, I felt ill-equipped with the biblical counseling cases that I faced among teens and their parents.

I heard from fellow student pastors/ pastors who were constantly referring their counseling cases to physiologists in the area instead of dealing with the issues inside the church.

Pastors at that time, including myself felt ill-equipped and scared to handle big counseling cases out of fear of legal ramifications.

I knew this was wrong to send people elsewhere but I was convinced by those older ministers that these issues needed professional attention.

This outside referral saddened me because I believed that the Lord Jesus was the greatest authority to speak on these matters.

During my study in seminary, with the help of one particular author, I learned a great truth that has carried on through my pastoral ministry....the Bible is sufficient to counsel the souls and lives of people.

At the time, this author that I was referencing opened my eyes to Biblical counseling, or more specifically, Nouthetic Counseling.

His name was Jay Adams.

Dr. Adams revived the biblical counseling movement in ministry in the last 50 years.

We read some of his works in my class in seminary and I was hooked.

His main thesis of his ministry is two-fold:

1. God’s word is sufficient to handle the problems of people in this world.

-Dr Adams does not discount medical issues that occur in people that need medical attention but he is careful, even more today, if he was still alive, to consider

2. Anyone trained in the Scriptures can counsel others to look to Christ.

“Not every problem is essentially a biblical problem.”

This is the argument that is given by those who oppose Biblical counseling.

In other words, they would say for example, that counseling can include the sciences as long as you mix in Christian values and teachings.

But this integrationist style of counseling often promotes psychological therapies as alternatives to the prioritized word of God that biblical counseling offers.

In other words, there is biblical counseling and there is Christian counseling.

Christian counseling is a person claiming to be a Christian, using psychological principles and the Bible to counsel the human heart.

In his book, A Theology of Biblical Counseling, Heath Lambert makes this statement,

“Counseling is a theological discipline.

If you have continued to read beyond that first sentence, you have already completed the most controversial part of this book…Most people do not assume the theological nature of counseling...Most believe that theology is to ministers what psychology is to counselors and the two really do not have much to do with each other.”

-Heath Lambert, A Theology of Biblical Counseling, Pg 12-14

Biblical Counseling or Nouthetic counseling is the practice of realizing that all human problems can be addressed by the Bible in some way and therefore the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is central to that counseling.

The foundation of Nouthetic or Biblical Counseling is rooted in the word of God.

Its foundation centers around the command in Scripture to Admonish.

Its the GK word NOUTHETEO.

This is the central theme of this book of Corinthians and really all of Paul’s letters.

He is admonishing the saints in Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Galatia, Philippi, and Rome.

Look with me briefly at a few passages by Paul to the churches that reveal that admonition is a spiritual practice of the Christian life.

Colossians 1:28 (NASB95)

28 We proclaim Him, admonishing (“warning” ESV) every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.

In Colossians, Paul states that as he proclaimed Christ to the church, he was also admonishing or warning people to turn towards Christlikeness and teaching them the Word as to light the darkened roadway with a light.

They needed a course correction and Paul’s admonishment was the loving correction and proper instruction to warn and instruct them to head towards what God commanded.

This admonishment which includes teaching God’s word, is the effort all Christians need to be complete in Christ.

This verse is pivotal as we consider the role of admonishment in the life of every believer.

Admonition in the church then is not for those rare cases when problems arise and formal counseling is needed.

Admonishment is needed for all of us as believers if we are to grow in Christ.

Paul uses the same GK term NOUTHETEO for earthly fathers to raise their children up in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

The admonition is necessary for the growth of children into maturity and admonition in the church is just as necessary beyond our adolescent years.

Look at another verse with me,

Romans 15:14 (NASB95)

14 And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish (“instruct” ESV) one another.

Now notice Paul uses the same GK word here to the Romans that reveal that as Christians, we are called to admonish one another.

That means that as Christians, it is our duty to participate in the spiritual development of one another by admonishing each other with the word of God.

Notice Paul commends the Romans for being filled with knowledge and able to admonish each other.

This requires God’s church to be equipped to know and apply God’s word to life situations and struggles.

There is great training out there like the training by ACBC that Adam just completed, that is not just for pastors for the church to be equipped to admonish one another.

It is our duty to play that role in the life of church.

What are the components of admonishment in the life of the believer?

This is what Paul shows us in our passage today.

This is a helpful case study that Paul gives us to see how each of us, not just pastors, but all believers can faithfully admonish one another.

First notice with me Paul’s summart statement which really wraps up his argument for 4 chapters now about the division and factions in Corinth,

Here in v 14, you have the same term, NOUTHETEO as Paul’s main pastoral work toward the Corinthians.

He is not giving up on their spiritual work.

He is not walking away from them because they cannot be helped.

He is admonishing them in Christ because he trusts the work of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is key to radical change in a persons life.

Personally, before we look at the components, biblical counseling in the church all comes down to your believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.

Is the Bible sufficient to handle the situations of a persons life and well-being?

Again quoting from Heath Lambert,

Understanding that counseling requires some vision of life is crucial to understanding the theological nature of counseling.

The reason is that such a vision of reality is always theological.

God defines what it is to be a human being, and he describes that in his Word.

God knows what is the solution to our problems-faith in Christ- and reveals him to us in the Scriptures.

God authorizes a process of transformation and shows us what it looks like in the pages in the Old and New Testaments....We are who God says we are.

What is wrong with us is what God says is wrong with us.

There is no solution to our problem and no process of change other than the one God has provided.”

Let’s look at what Paul teaches in God’s word about the process of admonishment in the church.

1. Addressing Sin

If the church is be holy, it must address sin and not ignore it.

This will be the theme of every subject that Paul writes about in this letter to Corinth.

Paul summarizes his argument in chapter 4 about the divisions in the church.

He said the overarching sin that needs to be addressed is PRIDE.

Pride and arrogance in man’s ability and man’s knowledge and wisdom has been the subject of our study for many weeks now.

Paul summarizes the sin that is being addressed in the verses of our study today.

He mentions arrogance and pride as the root of sin.

Its not the tip of the iceberg.

The tip of the iceberg in Corinth was the division and disunity.

But the danger floating under the surface was much larger.

Look with me in v 6-11

Paul transitions from his explanation of being ministers of the gospel in v 1-5 to how he demonstrated those components among the people of Corinth.

He urged them to consider their own lust for going beyond “what was written” which means that they were moving towards the direction of Christian living that moved beyond what was written in the Scriptures.

Paul warns them of this as the reason that they are guilty of pride and arrogance.

When we move beyond what God’s word states and move into a confidence in our own wisdom and our own work, we have fallen into the same sin of Adam and Eve.

Paul is faithful then to expose the darkness within them and he identifies that dark sin as pride in v 6, 8, 18-19.

vs 6,18, 19 Paul calls them inflated or puffed up because that is the visual explanation of what arrogance does to us in our sin.

Our arrogance leads us to be inflated in our own confidence in self while humility is the deflated self that is resting upon Christ as a solid foundation.

Paul asks pointed and yet rhetorical questions in 7 which really highlight the problem of their hearts.

These questions serve as great examples of a pastor getting to the “heart of the matter” with those who are being admonished.

He asks:

Notice the 3 questions, one in relationship to their superiority, one related to their entitlement, and one related to their self-worship.

The Corinthians had fallen into a pride of superiority.

In some way their arrogance had led them to think that whatever knowledge they had, they attained such wisdom in their strength and that made them better than others.

Instead, a true Christian sees the blindness of man without the transformation of the person by the HS.

That is why Paul stated that the “natural man does not understand the spiritual things of God.”

Also, that pride led them to a sense of entitlement.

Not only did they think they attained such great wisdom but that they were entitled to such things.

Paul asks, “what do you have that you did not receive?”