14 years ago my pastor-friend, Robert Jones, introduced me to the movement known as "biblical counseling" and a ministry called CCEF by putting some issues of their little journal into my hands.
The rest is history. CCEF and biblical counseling was used by the Lord Jesus to revolutionize my philosophy of ministry. Actually, it really brought my philosophy of ministry fully home. "Biblical counseling" was simply working out in a practical way all of the implications and entailments and applications of my theology: progressive sanctification, every-member ecclessiology, biblical anthropology, etc.
I had been taught that biblical counseling was "take 2 Bible verses and call me in the morning," and that it saw every life problem as sin and that if your only tool was a hammer, then every problem would look like a nail.
But the JBC told me something different. Every issue was full of true, do-able, timeless wisdom. And it was well-written and hopeful. It was engaging and it met me right where I needed. It scratched me right where I itched.
Over the years, I went deeper into the ministry of CCEF: training sessions, workshops, books, audio recordings (what we used to call "tapes"), and eventually classes at Biblical Theological Seminary and Westminister Theological Seminary with CCEF faculty. I'm on the cusp of graduating from a CCEF overseen Doctor of Ministry program.
And all because of reading the JBC.
The JBC is the only journal that I read from cover to cover. I've been missing it the last four years while it's been on hiatus.
But yesterday, it came back. And now it's online. Oh yeah.
Thank you, Dr. Powlison and the rest of the JBC team for bringing us the best in biblical counseling thought.
The return of The Journal of Biblical Counseling from CCEF on Vimeo.
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