Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
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.
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Brother, I do respect your opinion in it but let me assure you from certain personal experience that for at least some problems of the mind, such as delusional paranoid schitzophrenia, there is the need for someone with sufficient skill in dealing with that part of our being in particular and soul and spirit are so easy to distinguish in that case.
I would suggest, however, that one should be wise and go to the right sort of specialist for whatever the ailment is. You should not consult your opthamologist about your bunions. And for a believing married couple to take their marriage troubles to a secular psychiatrist is probably a similar mistake.
My point in it, however, was ulitimately to reinforce your statement and your view.
Helping troubled couples through the practical problems of their marriages is probably one of the best things a real elder could apply himself (maybe HERself?) too. The situation of trust offers unique opportunities for the genuine ministry of Christ to touch the broken and needful people. To systematically avoid undertaking that aspect of the responsibility of being an elder is yet another item in the column of "not quite right" in the Local Church that even today still attempts to maintain a fascade that EVERYTHING is ALWAYS right among them.
To avoid treating the ailments of the soul because one day it will be healed through transformation is the same superstitious thing as waiting to have your broken arm set because one day you will be glorified. And, surely, treatments of the soul by knowledgable believers is to be preferred to most of the secular notions that dominate the mental health field.