When it comes to the gospel and hard conversations, modern American evangelicals are living in a continued age of non-confrontation. We prefer polite over against pugnacious. And, that’s usually a good thing. But, in any one person's  journey from death to life, from darkness to light, from walking according to the flesh, to walking by the Spirit, there comes a tipping point where loving, but direct confrontation must be made to them from someone who loves them enough to make the cut and draw first blood.

Like a surgeon, discussion must eventually go from talking about corrective surgery in theory, to life in the operating room.  As Jared Wilson has written, “You can’t talk about ‘Predator’ and ‘The Running Man’ and somehow smoothly transition into the Romans Road" (Link: The Imperfect Disciple). The simple truth is this: Biblical counseling and discipleship quite often require and involve asking and answering hard questions on the way to change.

Speak the Truth in Love

Contrary to the principles of Rogerian therapy, which teaches the counselor to merely reflect back to the counselee the counselee's own words in a spirit of “non-judgment,” Christians must recover their ability to both confront and be confronted “in accordance with the Scriptures.” This is an aspect of true, biblical discipleship that cannot, indeed must not be avoided when the time comes in any counseling case. As counselors, we will often encounter counselees who are not accustomed to biblical directness. Sometimes, we ourselves are unwilling to get to the point, preferring to “beat around the bush,” because we’ve been conditioned more toward “the Gospel of Nice,” than the Law and Gospel of Christ.

Whether we’re the one coming to the table for counseling, or we’re the one providing it, let’s remember the purposes for which God has gathered us in the counseling room (our sanctification), and take care to not muzzle God’s word. We do not create the message, we are merely the (privileged) heralds and recipients. of it.

Sometimes, the most productive counseling moments begin with asking and answering insightful questions that "cut to the division of soul and spirit, of joint and of marrow" (Heb. 4:12), like the one God himself asks of each of us in Psalm 4:2:

"How long will you love what is worthless and pursue a lie?” (CSB)

Counselor: How do you know whether God might use your question, asked at just the right time and in just the right manner, to lead someone to faith and repentance?

Counselee: How do you know whether your receptiveness and honesty toward hard questions will avail you of the heart work that only the Holy Spirit can provide, through the means of your counselor or discipleship partner?

Shine the Light:

1) If you’re a counselor, how have you been unwittingly (or directly) persuaded at times to avoid asking the hard question for fear of running your client away?

2) If you’re a counselee, how have you been tempted to avoid being asked a hard question, or providing a soft answer in order to move the conversation away from a core issue?

3) In either case, what needs to change, and what’s at risk if we won’t?