spirit, soul and body

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Today, the role of elder has much less to do with shepherding, than it does with "working together with headquarters." One example is the aspect of counseling. Elders have gone to meetings for decades, yet have no clue how to shepherd or counsel troubled marriages. The results are so many broken homes. Some of the BB's have gone on record to say that any marital or family help we may seek is just "chicken soup for the soul."

For problems of the body one may see a doctor.
For problems of the mind one may visit a psychiatrist.
Yet only God can solve the problems of the spirit.

Anonymous, The Mystery of Human Life

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the "soft sciences" but I'd say it implies that there's a role for a little chicken soup for the soul when the soul is sick.

These people surely don't believe that their faith in Christ will prevent an appendectomy and if you're a schitzophrenic or actively suicidal, you certainly can't just rely upon the process of eventual transformation to take care of that for you. It's frankly just religious superstition for them to reject even simple counseling as beneath them simply because it is primarily focused on the problems of the mind and the soul. This was a problem for me as well at one point but being fully human is definitely a part of being a normal Christian.

"O Lord Jesus!" will not immediately remove either my bunions or my phobias. Try it and see! If either causes me significant problem moving forward with the Lord, I'd best deal with them as best I can so that I can again move forward with the Lord.

And a counselor with the leading of the Spirit and the knowledge of the Word? How valuable is that? Folks, that's just the reality of being an elder!

We don't want to be those building with wood, hay and stubble, for sure, but there are materials of gold, silver AND precious stone to build with.

Some teach and practice as if the only building material were "gold" but if a family ends up in a heap of collapse at the end of your kind of building effort, I'd say that was pretty good evidence that the wrong material was being used in that application.

I'll let you decide if it was really gold or only wood.