What is Biblical Counseling: Theology in Action

Tony Caffey: Welcome back to Theology in Action. My name is Tony Caffey and I'm the senior pastor of Verse By Verse Fellowship in San Antonio, Texas, and I'm here today with my friend Biff Williams who is in charge of Care Ministry here at Verse By Verse. Thanks for being with us today, Biff.

Biff Williams: It is a pleasure.

Tony Caffey: Just a little bit about you for those who don't know you, you are a wife and a mother and a grandmother. You've been married, we just talked about this, 43 years this year to your husband. So, yeah, praise the Lord for that. And you have two boys and how many grandkids? Five, five grandkids. Yep. So what a blessing being a grandparent is a blessing. I just have to tell you, it really is, because you love them and you give them back.

Biff Williams: That is nice. It is, you inherit them and that is really sweet.

Tony Caffey: Now you just told me a moment ago that you don't go by Grandma.

Biff Williams: No.

Tony Caffey: You go, why don't you tell everybody the term you use?

Biff Williams: So I go by Baboo, B-A-B-U, and um, it, it in Russian, the word grandmother is babushi, so I'm, I'm a Baboo.

Tony Caffey: Okay, and your husband goes by what now?

Biff Williams: He goes by Pappy.

Tony Caffey: Pat. So Baboo and Pappy. Yes. That's adorable, Biff. So well, and it works well because with one set of grandparents-in-law, my, my daughter-in-law's parents, they're Grandma and Grandpa. Okay. So that was taken and we knew early on we didn't want to have conflict with, oh, which Grandma, so distinct names are a good thing.

Biff Williams: There's only one Baboo.

Tony Caffey: There is. Very good, Biff. You were also, and I want to mention this, you served in the Air Force. You're a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force, so thanks for your service to our country. So you've had quite uh, an experience both uh, at home, wife, mom, and then also military service. But now I don't want to speak for you, but I'll, I'll just conjecture that your passion is counseling and Care Ministry.

Biff Williams: It is.

Tony Caffey: And you've been active in that here at Verse By Verse for the last three years serving in that capacity and that's really what I want us to talk about today because I mean, that's an important part of what we do as a church. Lots of churches as well have counseling ministries and uh, obviously people in the church need care, they need counseling. So let me start with this question because, you know, we're really focused here on biblical counseling.

Biff Williams: Yes, yes, we are.

Tony Caffey: And there's a story behind that.

Biff Williams: Well, I want to hear that.

Tony Caffey: And I, I don't mean to frame this negatively, but I just to kind of tease out what that means. What, what makes the counseling that we do here biblical? Walk us through that, Biff.

Biff Williams: Okay. And I'm going to give you a long answer to your question. It won't be too long. Um, previously I did lay counseling at a different church and it was a hybrid program that combined biblical wisdom with psychology and things like that. And when we came here, the Lord just really impressed on me the, the necessity of biblical counseling that scripture is sufficient with the accompanying work of the Holy Spirit. And one of the really cool things about that, how that translates in our program, is if you follow a hybrid model or you follow traditional mental health counseling, your goal is kind of wellness. The goal here is sanctification, which is very different because it's about your walk with the Lord. Um, in traditional counseling, mental health counseling, you don't, you may form relationship, but once the counseling has ended, law, ethical law says you don't have contact, close contact for two years. We are so different here because what we do here is really intense personal discipleship, and you do that based on relationship. You build relationship and in building relationship, you prove yourself trustworthy, which means you have to be vulnerable. You have to let the person really know who you are if you're coming alongside genuinely with genuine compassion, a genuine heart to come alongside and help someone move forward. So I love biblical counseling because that is the premise for it.

Tony Caffey: And that's music to my ears because we're, we are organically a church. We're not an institution or a hospital or or a Care Center. We're the body of Christ and, you know, we do have this mandate from the Lord to make disciples and so this is a part of that, not the whole thing, but it's part of it. And, you know, that relational connection is, uh, part of that body at work, uh, you know, body life discipleship program integrated within the church. And so I, I love that and obviously we're Verse By Verse Fellowship, so the biblical side of that is important to me also as somebody who's dedicated my life to preaching God's word.

Biff Williams: Yes.

Tony Caffey: So, um, yeah.

Tony Caffey: There was a controversy even when I was in seminary. Remember there was a bit of a controversy between a camp that was called integrationists, they would try to integrate biblical counseling with maybe some modern methods of psychology, and then there were those who were the non-integrationists. And um, I think in terms of the church, what you said about sanctification, that that's not even a vocabulary word in the non-church world.

Biff Williams: Very true.

Tony Caffey: But that is part of our, our playbook so to speak in scripture. So it's essential.

Biff Williams: Yeah, it's essential and it's interesting because um, I will tell you, for a portion of my walk with the Lord, I came to the Lord as a teenager but I wasn't really discipled and for a portion of my walk it was, be a good person and yeah, I feel good with God, I feel like he loves me, my life is good. Um, did I read the Bible? Not very much. Did I consider it an absolute essential part of every day of my life that guides me? Absolutely not. And so coming to a place where there is the understanding that scripture is the living word of God, in Hebrews it says it is living, it is life-giving, it is the sword that pierces to the bone of the marrow. We are to use it, we are to apply it, we are to dig into it and get to know it because that's how we know who our God is. And if, and and if you don't know who your God is, how do you know who you're praying to and whether or not he even cares? And so there's, I again, that has come to me later in my walk with the Lord, but man, what a cool thing and it makes all the difference in the world.

Tony Caffey: It makes all the difference. That's good, Biff. And we have biblical counseling as an aspect of our disciple making paradigm here. Um, so let me press a little bit on that because, you know, I'm, I'm the pastor. I preach on Sunday and and so I could, if I were to say something cynically, you know, this is not my heart, but let's just pretend I said something like, all they need is the sermon on Sunday, Biff. You know, all they need is the, the message. Why is that, uh, obviously that's important. I've given my life to that.

Biff Williams: Yes, it is.

Tony Caffey: But what does biblical counseling do in addition to that to help those who need more than the Sunday message?

Biff Williams: Well, I would submit to you that everybody needs more than the Sunday message if they are in

 a real relationship with the Lord. The Lord says, be holy as I am holy. When you come to saving faith with Jesus, we are commanded to live in a certain way, to do certain things, not that those works earn us heaven. Right? Salvation is the gift of grace. But once we come to him, if we love him, we want to honor him by how we live, how we choose to live. So taking the Bible and applying it to every facet of your life, that's a whole different matter. Yes, church is on Sunday is absolutely necessary. We're commanded to come together as the body of believers. We are, I mean, thank God for you and the elders who teach there. We know that that's essential. But what happens on Monday? What happens on Tuesday? What do you do with your life on those days? And for me, and again, what I love about biblical counseling scene particularly, is intense discipleship, is we come alongside in love to help people go deeper in their walk with the Lord. That's what it is.

Tony Caffey: Yeah, and people are broken too. We live in a broken world. Um, I think increasingly so because some of the, and I'll just, um, maybe theologize a bit here, the worldliness and the worldly influences on, uh, even the Christian church are so pronounced.

Biff Williams: Yes.

Tony Caffey: So they're, they need help. People need help with marriage, people need help with addictions, people need help. And and they, they don't need less than a Sunday service and Sunday message where we're coming and worshiping the Lord. Um, but they do need more and that's where biblical counseling can be invaluable.

Biff Williams: Absolutely. And as I alluded to earlier, the difference between kind of hybrid or mental health counseling and biblical counseling is, um, the way we have structured our program, we can meet up to 10 to 14 times. And then after that, we don't cut people off. We continue relationship, we text, we meet for coffee. It's like, how are you doing? We're not sitting in the church counseling room and really, you know, taking notes and really working hard, but it's not like the relationship ends. It is truly, um, Galatians 6:2 says, bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. And that's what we do. And we know the law of Christ is, love your God with all your heart, love your neighbors yourself. That's what this is all about.

Tony Caffey: Yeah, let's talk more about that because there are going to be needs. I've been pastoring for 15 years, so I know that there are acute needs that crop up that need to be addressed. But the reality is that we all in the church need care and I appreciate that about the ministry. It's not just biblical counseling, it's care and um, you know, I've been influenced in my life by people like Garrett Higby that have modeled what he calls Soul Care and it's not just, you know, 10 percent of the church, it's something that's filtered throughout the whole church body through small groups, through counseling, Men's Ministry, women's ministry, we all need care. We all need what, um, you might call the, the one another's in the scripture.

Biff Williams: Absolutely.

Tony Caffey: Love one another, you mentioned bear one another, bear one another's burdens. So how does that function in the life of the church care ministry?

Biff Williams: Well, I love um, so with Care Ministry, we offer biblical counseling, we also offer care and support groups, uh, scripturally based training on, for example, boundaries, changes that heal. There's some really good opportunities out there as you know, you we are working on a marriage enhancement curriculum, we're working on several things you've tasked us to do. But also, I would say one of the most amazing things about truly following Christ is number one, we were created for relationship. Our God is a relational God and we know that scripture says, you know, will a three-quartered strand be easily broken? We come alongside, we come together. Um, Care Ministry obviously has its role in the church with respect to meeting specific needs, but each person that is part of this body, I think it should hopefully have a servant's heart.

Tony Caffey: Yes.

Biff Williams: And a volunteer heart. That's how you connect, connect in small group, connect and serving in the children's program or the Men's Ministry or the Women's Ministry, whatever the coffeeman, whatever it is. Connect, be part, be relational and our church has many wonderful avenues to do that. And I think this church especially does it particularly well, quite frankly. I'm going to brag on the church a little bit, but I think, I think we do it very well.

Tony Caffey: Yeah, and I think that's actually one of the things that the church as a selling point, not that we need a selling point, but, you know, we live in a fragmented society where

 people have low relational connections. Everything's digital now, which can cause maybe more problems than it solves. I think research has shown that and people are missing the, the connectivity of what used to be a part of, you know, the Kiwanis Club or, you know, the bowling leagues. People just don't do that stuff anymore. And yet, well, we're trying to accomplish in the church environment is that relational capital that's more than just human human interaction as important as that is. But we've got Holy Spirit indwelt believers with other Holy Spirit indwelt believers loving one another, caring for one another. You know, we've done, you've done grief counseling in the past. So what better place than the church where others have dealt with that, where we can, you know, help and walk somebody through a grieving process that can be painful. And um, you know, the church is, is just such, such a precious place where these kinds of things can take, take place and and I love it. I mean, that it's not that the church doesn't have her problems, right? We, we are all a work in progress. I feel like that should be stamped on my forehead, work in progress. But hopefully, and especially again, I think a church that has verse by verse teaching that says right off the bat, this is not a casual church. This is a church that takes scriptural, that that takes the scripture very seriously. Um, hopefully when people come, they sense that this is a safe place and that this is a place where they can be genuine and be accepted in their brokenness because we are all in bro, we are all broken in need of a savior. So I just, that again, when when you walk in the door, I think we Robin has done a fabulous job with the connections ministry and just ensuring people are greeted that they're welcome. But I just would so encourage anyone that is looking for a church home in San Antonio, come check us out. Yeah, because this is a great place of forgiven broken people who love the Lord. Yeah, great place to love another believer in Christ and to really be challenged to do that and then also to be loved as well. That and as a pastor I've noticed there's some people that are give giveers, you know, like constantly running around and but they're not always good at receiving true from other people.

Biff Williams: That is true. Oh yeah, that's very true.

Tony Caffey: And that's the great thing about church is that there's opportunities to love and then to be loved, to build that relational capital. And um, yeah, church, I mean, I, I know I'm biased because I'm the pastor of a church, but church is the best thing that I've found in the world for that. Not, not because she's perfect, but because I do think that we do have a corner on the Holy Spirit empowered world.

Biff Williams: Yes, you know, yes.

Tony Caffey: The Holy Spirit has not, you know, empowered the hospital or the local communities as important as or the local government in the way that that he has empowered the church. And then, you know, those institutions aren't called the body of Christ either. So I've said before even preaching like there's only one institution in the world that's going to go right on into eternity and it's not the U.S. government or the U.S. Air Force or um, any of those Kiwanis Club kinds. It's the church that's the body of Christ that's an eternal institution.

Biff Williams: I would love to share something that came from one of your recent sermons. Okay. Um, you're in the book of Hebrews and I have read Hebrews but I had the lightning bolt hit me with Hebrews 5:8 where it talked about um, of the high priest Jesus, the order of Melchizedek, but it said Jesus had to learn obedience through suffering.

Tony Caffey: Yes.

Biff Williams: That for me was mind-blowing because sometimes people believe, oh, if you become a Christian, your life's going to be hunky-dory. No, we are promised trials, we are promised we are not promised the rose garden until we get to eternity. Um, and it was just so amazing to realize that Jesus had to learn obedience, he when he became man, it wasn't, oh, this all came naturally, he had the Nate, he didn't have our sin nature, he was perfect, but he still had to learn. And that just brought a whole new dimension to me in my walk with the Lord, just how amazing that is.

Tony Caffey: Good, Biff. I've often wondered like, you know, with the modern day prosperity gospel preachers, like what I wonder what Paul would have done if they had gone into the prison that he was in and started preaching that stuff and Paul would just be like, are you kidding me?

Biff Williams: Exactly.

Tony Caffey: Or when Jesus is, you know, going down the road to Golgotha and people are spitting on him and some prosperity gos

 pel says, don't you know you're supposed to be wealthy and and rich and and everything's going to go great for you? You know, Jesus would be I think in that moment just wanting to rebuke them publicly. And um, you're right, they're historically, even the church has gone through trials and we live in a broken world. Sometimes when we come to Christ, that doesn't make our parents happy, it doesn't make our kids happy, it doesn't make our friend group happy and there's some opposition that's involved in that. And yet at the same time, the Lord's been there. Christians have been through that before, people in our church have been through that and can help as we um, you know, go through the the hardships of life and we still get cancer.

Biff Williams: Yeah, we sure do.

Tony Caffey: We still die. I mean, my mother-in-law died of ALS a few years ago and it was a really painful experience to watch her um, you know, go home to be with the Lord. Christians still, you know, deal with um, you know, things like miscarriages and suffering. So that's, we're not immune to that because but we do have the church, we do have hope and we have the body of Christ.

Biff Williams: Yes, we do. And um, that's amazing.

Tony Caffey: Yeah, goodbye. Let me ask you this, okay? Just, you know, I know you can't speak in specifics about ways that counseling takes place here, but what are some general things that Christians struggle with as you've interacted with them and ministered to them and, you know, what are I guess if you have an opportunity, what what are some ways that you approach anxiety because I hear that a lot as a pastor, I'm struggling with anxiety or, you know, depression or or other typical kinds of struggles, struggles not to the level of a really deep medically concerning, if you will, you know, suicidal depression kind of thing, that's different. But people that come to us having relationship issues. Well, part of those relationship issues center around their own anger or lack of forgiveness or bitterness or um, not knowing how to communicate well. So again, we, we focus back on scripture. What does, what does the Bible say? And it says, God has to be on the throne of your heart. If you have any other thing on the throne of your heart other than God, that's an idol and if you're following an idol, you are going to get tripped up, period. It will happen.

Biff Williams: And so part of it is looking at scripture, what does it say about anxiety, for example? Well, do not be anxious about anything.

Tony Caffey: Exactly.

Biff Williams: But also Romans 12:1-2, renew your mind, hold your thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. We have a choice, in in most instances, we have a choice how we choose to react to anything that hits us. And so part of it is not reacting emotionally and just letting your emotions carry you. Part of it is stop, pause, what would scripture say about this? Okay. Satan is a, you know, hit attacking us emotionally or a lot of stuff is happening in your life and you're just going really, you know, one more thing. You get to choose to say, okay, who's my God? Is he sovereign? Is he trustworthy? Does he love me? Does he have a plan for me? What does scripture say? Romans 8:28, yes he does. Is he trustworthy? Yes he is. Does that mean I won't suffer? Nope, I'm going to suffer because Jesus suffered. But I have hope. And then you, you mine the scriptures and you take what is applicable and you stand on it. You live it out. It this the Christian walk is not a sit back, life is great walk. It is an active. I am going to eat the, you know, appropriate scripture and I'm going to live it out. Holding your thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ, that's that's active and it's hard. It's very hard. So it again, that just I would go back to how I learned the difference of I would say just being maybe a Christian, not a Christian name only. I had a saving relationship with the Lord, but from walking from that very shallow kind of milk, if you if you look at scripture, there's milk and there's meat. Well, I stayed with milk for a long time, but to go deeper and to really get to know who your God is and what his word says and to live that out, that's a victorious life. That's a life with hope, with love, with passion, with compassion and it's it's an amazing life to know we have a God who calls us by name, who wants intimate relationship with us, who knows us the number of hairs on our head. It's inconceivable but it's amazing.

Tony Caffey: Good, Biff. Yes, I agree. You mentioned unforgiveness as one of the things that comes up and I've seen that too, bitterness. And I even in our world today, it seems like we have lost the capacity to forgive. People get canceled and people make a

 mistake and they're done for.

Biff Williams: Yeah.

Tony Caffey: And and that's another one of those instances where I really don't think the world has the rich resources to know what even forgiveness is for or why we forgive. And yet we back to biblical counseling.

Biff Williams: Yes.

Tony Caffey: Scriptures say we forgive much because we've been loved much. You know, we forgive because we've been forgiven. Right? Jesus has taken upon himself, you know, all of our sins, the the wickedness that that, you know, we've done. And so why wouldn't we forgive in light of how much we've been forgiven? And the world doesn't, they don't have a conception for that unless they've derived it maybe from Christian principles over the years or whatever. So I mean, that's just another reason that um, the the biblical side of biblical counseling is so important. We go to scripture and we see this paradigm. You've been forgiven much, that's why.

Biff Williams: Yes, we forgive. And also going back to what you said as well, our world today and our culture today is so antithetical to the Bible. It's all about me, it's about what I feel and what I feel is truth and that's my truth and you can't challenge it. What a broken world. Um, what a broken world. And yet um, we are to approach that world with great love, but we are also called to speak truth and love. We don't compromise on truth, but we bring love and compassion hopefully to people who really need to hear that and know that you're in a sorry state of affairs if your hope is inhumanity.

Tony Caffey: True.

Biff Williams: Period. You are in a sorry state of affairs. And so I think again, it's so important for believers to really walk the talk because scripture is very clear, they're they're going to know us by who we are in this world and by how we behave and interact. And when you have the Lord, you're called to love. You love outwardly because he's loved you. Like you said, we have been forgiven much. Um, and this world is certainly in need of hope and of real love. So yes.

Tony Caffey: Good segue. So final question, you know, where we have this hope as Christians for eternity. We're going to be in the presence of the Lord forever. New heavens, new earth, New Jerusalem coming, Revelation 20-22. Yep. So here's my question for you, um, is there going to be biblical counseling and eternity?

Biff Williams: In eternity? You and I are out of business. Praise God.

Tony Caffey: No, you mean I don't get to preach?

Biff Williams: There will be perfection. There will be no sin. We will be glorifying God in unison in harmony. I just can't even wrap my head around that. Um, so no, you and I are out of business.

Tony Caffey: I'm okay with it.

Biff Williams: Me too.

Tony Caffey: Which means in the here and now, we got, how's the expression go? We got to make K why the sun is shine.

Biff Williams: You betcha.

Tony Caffey: We have just a few years on this in this world to

Biff Williams: We do.

Tony Caffey: To represent Christ, to help disciples grow. So, um, yeah, thank you, Biff. Thanks for all you do here and thanks for uh, your counseling ministry. And yeah, if they want to know more about counseling or about what you're doing here, how do they find out more?

Biff Williams: Okay. So we have a website. Care Ministry is on there, so you can, you can go to that, scroll down, read about it. An easy way if you have email is to just email the church at supportcare, all one word, at vbvf.org. That will come directly to me and I will respond. 

Tony Caffey: Thank you, Biff. Thank you. Well, thanks for joining us for Theology in Action. If you want to see more videos like this or listen to more podcasts, you can go to that website messiahbible.org. We had a recent video and talk about joy as well, which would be a good companion podcast to what we talked about today. So I encourage you to go there and to also anticipate upcoming podcasts on Theology in Action here at Verse By Verse Fellowship. We'll see you next time.