Quote:
Originally Posted by YP0534
Yes, that's why I used it. (Was I that opaque?)
At first I thought that it seemed that Ohio's rejoinder concerned (at least in part) the risks of seeking assistance from secular counseling. I'm not here to promote that specifically but a single or even many bad results doesn't undo the good that has been done in many other contexts. Just because some surgeons might kill you if you go to them doesn't mean surgeons are bad. Right, Ohio?
But on re-reading, I'm thinking that maybe Ohio mostly meant to say that the compartmentalization of human beings into these tidy categories has been used too frequently as an escape clause for anyone who might otherwise bear responsibility to see that human beings were healthy and proper before God and their fellow man (or woman, as the case may be.)
Did I get it right the second time, Ohio?
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Both are right.
That quote was used by my ones I love as incentive to seek help outside of Christ and/or bible-centered counseling. They had wrongly "compartmentalized" themselves and their marriage into thinking a certain part God could help and another part God could not. This is a bit different from going to a surgeon for a broken arm. Matters of the soul and spirit cannot be so easily dissected.
Sorry if it seemed I am against the views of tripartite man. I basically agree with that, but not to the extremes. Is it not similar to the BARM discussions about God Himself "distinct and separate" eventually leading to tri-theism? Segmenting our soul's needs to psychiatry in lieu of godly Christian marriage counseling cannot be a good thing. We humans are more "one" than "three" and the help we seek should reflect that. Christian counselors do not compartmentalize the soul and spirit in this way.
Obviously this family did not find marriage counselors in the LC, and this has always troubled me. Elders "job descriptions" are defined by the ministry, and the ministry demeans counseling as "chicken soup" or other pejoratives such as "self-help." The result is that many families suffer. Families that have devoted many years to church service.