Biblical Counseling

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. And now here's your host, Steve Noble. Thank you Steve. Steve. Thank you for being here today.

Thanks for being on the show. So we're not going to get into the nuts and bolts of all that stuff, but what you do in terms of being a professor there at the seminary, as well as now dealing with kind of intake of students. What have you seen in your life over these years that made this topic something of interest that you wanted to talk about today? Yeah, well, you know, I'm not a quote unquote biblical counselor, except for in the sense maybe we all should be.

That's a discussion. I don't teach biblical counseling here. I have amazing colleagues who do, but I feel like biblical counseling has been wrapping itself around my life story in different ways. So I've been working here and just staff roles, you know, support roles for years, and I can fast forward a number, rewind a number of years and think about a time when we brought counseling experts on the campus and said, hey, if we were building a counseling program from the ground up, what would it look like, you know? And just getting to sit in on a little bit of that and then, you know, reading a book here or there, things like that. And then I was kind of a bachelor working at BJU trying to help ministry happen here. And, you know, eventually I met this grad student named Hannah, and she was studying biblical counseling at the seminary that I did some support work for here at BJU Seminary and getting to know her.

And she's it's always spilling out of her. And then we got married in 2020. And even as we were engaged, she's saying, you know, Timothy, do you think our home could carve out a space for helping people, people who just need help and hope from God's word? Could I have some ladies over? Could I do this? And I said, I think we can make that work.

I mean, I wanted to get married to her. Yeah, let's do it. Okay.

And just seeing how that's unfolding. Does it change your schedule? Yes. Does it mean your daddy daycare? Sometimes, you know?

Yes. But that's been the personal side for me. And it's been an amazing journey. And then on the professional side, about a year ago, I got asked to jump into the seminary and in a more involved way, hey, could you help us with enrollment? And so much of our enrollment interest right now at BJU Seminary is from people who want to study biblical counseling, and I'm talking to them on the phone, and I'm hearing their stories.

And it's everything, Steve. It's like, hey, I'm an assistant pastor. I'm up to my eyeballs and counseling. And by the way, can I skip the other courses and start with marriage and family right away?

I'm like, okay. And someone else says, hey, my kids are all out of the home getting more involved in church. You know, I've been a full-time mom all these years. Now I want to do biblical counseling, and I'm already having conversations. I want to get better at it.

It's just a full range. And it's been really neat to talk to those people. Yeah. And how long have you been working around BJU and the seminary and the school?

Oh, my first real job, you know, I was a grad student and working part-time here and doing different things, but my first full-time job ever in life was starting out as the administrative assistant at BJU Seminary, and that was almost a decade ago now. Yeah. So I would imagine you guys, and I've had this conversation with some of the professors there at BJU, whether we're talking about BJU Seminary or the university itself, talking about the changes in the incoming students and this whole notion of needing some help, wanting some counseling. Of course, we're talking about biblical counseling. That's changed a whole lot, even if we just talk about your 10 years there.

I mean, it's a different picture today than it was in 2013. Well, I don't even know where I heard this. I read something, you know, sometime in the past couple months that said back in the day, if you said, hey, I'm seeing a therapist, you would get asked, what's your problem?

Right. And I think it was a little tongue in cheek, but I forget where I read it, but they said nowadays, if you say I'm not going to therapy, someone says, what's your problem? You know, and we're not really talking about therapy here. We're really talking about hope and help from God's word, biblical counseling. But I think, you know, there's a lot of needs.

You covered, I think, the CDC study, teenagers, especially teen girls, the mental health crisis and potential impact of social media on that. I mean, it's an epidemic of need. And Christians are not immune. And how are we going to help each other?

Exactly right. And I think one of the things that's helpful, of course, and this is a challenge. I'm a lot older than you are, Timothy. But for my generation, it's a challenge when we start getting into this subject and we're going to hit the break here in just a second. But because we look into our past, we didn't talk like this. We didn't we didn't tell people we think we need a counselor. We need some help. We need to see somebody. That one was an admission of weakness or that there was something wrong with you say psychiatry.

And I'm thinking this person's a loon. But scripture is full of wisdom and God does give some to be teachers. And I would add counselors to that and feel safe about it. How do we utilize God's word to help us with the daily trials of life? That's what we're talking about today with Timothy Hughes.

We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble to Steve Noble Show Theology Thursday with our friends at BJU Seminary and sometimes Bob Jones University itself. But most of the time we're talking to our friends at the seminary today. Timothy Hughes is with us who works at the seminary.

He also does intake. So he's around a lot of different levels of students. And he just had on his heart because of things he's been around and and family members, people like that, that deal with biblical counseling in this conversation, which is wide ranging. And I appreciate your willingness to kind of do it that way, Timothy, and just talking about the role of biblical counseling in everybody's lives. And for some of us, Timothy, this will be, hey, man, I hope some people will become more comfortable. But by the time we're done today with considering, maybe I need to get some biblical counseling. And then there's other people that maybe somebody, you know, needs to get it. And like I said, in my age group, there tends to be kind of a negative reaction to a negative connotation to it.

Or perhaps there's going to be some people that really should consider maybe God has created you in such a way and calling you to do counseling. I mentioned to you, Timothy, before we started the show today that we have really dear friends, some of our closest friends. And in her in her 40s, mid to late 40s, she decides that their children are getting older.

You mentioned that earlier. She decides, hey, you know what, I'm going to go get a degree in biblical counseling. She did it online from Liberty University. And then she was working at a local college here. Now she's got her own practice and it's been just amazing to watch.

And she was in her mid 40s and decided to go back to school. So I would say, especially if you're in that season and your kids are growing up and they're getting out of the house, man, the Lord might be calling you into this. And you said, which is interesting to me, people interested in biblical counseling, like at the seminary and stuff, that's just exploding. There's a lot of interest. There's a lot of interest in you. And it's not just it's not just people from one background or at one stage of life.

People in their early 20s, all the way up to to people that are in retirement or nearing retirement, assistant pastors, stay at home moms. But but but we alluded to this earlier, but I wanted to unpack this a little bit more just based on your experience, because when you say assistant pastors and people like that, these are people that are already out there in the midst of it, realizing that they do not have the training that they need to effectively counsel people. And you you I appreciate, you know, you don't just say, hey, yes, there's power in the word of God, but it isn't always just I'm going to throw a passage of scripture at you and that's it.

I mean, Jesus walked with his with his posse for three years before it was time to set them completely loose. But talk to that. Talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah, no, that's a that's a great conversation, a really important conversation. You know, Romans, I think it's 15 is talking to believers, rank and follow believers and saying, hey, you're able to admonish one another. So on one level, I think we need to look at each other and say, hey, you're growing in Christ. You're a believer. You're following the Lord. You want to help others follow him. That's part of it.

None of us get to pass on. Hey, I don't do this. This is you could call this discipleship.

Yeah. You we we ought to be saying, hey, I want to encourage you with this first. Hey, if you need to talk now, if as soon as I say that to one of my students, they may say that'd be great. You know, could could we talk sometime? I might they might come and I might be able to encourage them. They might come. I'm able to encourage them.

But I say, you know what? I know someone with more experience in this area who's going to do the same thing I just did. Take the word of God and help ask the right questions and lead you to think biblically about this and encourage you.

Hope and help from God's word. But who would be way more experienced than me? Would you mind if I connected you with them? So we all need to be doing this. But just just like sharing the gospel, some have an opportunity to do that, you know, maybe overseas in a full time way. And we would get behind that or just like we all need to be sharing the word. But we're thankful we have a pastor who gets to spend more time getting really good at that so that there's we all need to be involved in this. This we are able to admonish, Lord willing, that we're following on and and able to pass on the word. But some people have an opportunity to get better at it.

Yeah. And and maybe that would be a great blessing to someone who's going through a harder difficulty. And maybe then those people would say, hey, you could learn to do this, too.

Why don't you spend some time with me so that next time you get a hard question like that, you know, you don't you know, you have more to say. So it's something we all need to do. It's it's like evangelism. I can't say that's the pastor's job. Hey, I'm struggling today. I'm feeling sad. That sounds like biblical counseling.

I don't do that. You know, no, we ought to be able to help. But I'm thankful some people have got to study more. Right. Yeah. I'm going to ask you about that in a second. But in terms of when people are talking to you guys about, hey, I think I want to come to a BJA seminary and study biblical counseling.

Like what's getting them there? Do they have some spiritual gifting that you tend to see that's in common? But before that, back to just all of us. To your point, I mean, so while you were talking, Timothy, I pulled up as things I've written on and talked about before all the one another's. OK, it's the one another, which occurs over 100 times in the New Testament.

Here's just a few of them. And tell me, everybody, if this doesn't sound like counseling to one degree or another, love one another, be devoted to one another, honor one another, live in harmony with one another, build up one another, be like minded towards one another, accept one another, admonish one another. That's Romans 15, which you mentioned, care for one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens, forgive one another, be patient with one another, speak the truth, be compassionate and kind, speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, submit to one another, consider others better than yourselves. Look to the interests of others, bear with one another, teach one another, comfort one another. I mean, it's all over the place and that really, for the sake of our conversation today, boy, we would all do better if we had some people that really knew the word of God, full of the Holy Spirit, and they, as a friend or brother and sister in Christ, were willing to counsel us with whatever we're struggling with. Absolutely. That's hilarious.

I brought the same list. I mean, that's so much of what it is. And there's a lot of great biblical counseling organizations out there, like the Faith Biblical Council, like the Faith Biblical Center in Lafayette, Indiana, like ACBC Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, like CCEF, like the Biblical Counseling Coalition. And some of these people have put out definitions of biblical counseling that I think capture that heart. Rob Green says, biblical counseling is the process where the Bible, God's word, is related individually to a person or persons who are struggling under the weight of personal sin and or the difficulties of suffering. You know, we think counseling, you have a problem. Hey, we all have problems. And sometimes we cause our own problems and sometimes we don't. And we need help from God's word for sin or suffering so that he or she might genuinely change in the inner person to be pleasing to God. Paul Tautius, who recently spoke at a conference at BGU Seminary, said this, biblical counseling is an intensely focused and personal aspect of the discipleship process whereby believers come alongside one another for the threefold purpose of teaching, warning and leading one another toward the biblical love and godliness that mark progress towards spiritual maturity. I don't think this is something we say, hey, you you only need this if you if you have a problem. Well, we all have problems.

And and only certain people are to be remotely involved in this and they probably get paid a lot of money. This is something this is one on one sharing the word with each other. This is this is when your teenager comes and says, hey, I have some questions.

And, you know, do we have answers from the Bible? This is when somebody you say, hey, how are you doing? And instead of saying fine, they say, do you really want to know? Yeah, that's right.

Yep. That's you know, that's a great that's a great way of looking at a great question. We're going to continue this conversation talking to Timothy Hughes today from BGU Seminary. I want to talk about some of these folks that are interested in biblical counseling.

What kind of gifting maybe is. But like you said, Timothy, there's people that are called into it because of their gifting and the calling of God. But we're all called to be involved with counseling one another.

We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble, the Steve Noble Show Theology Thursday, as it is every week with our friends at PGU Seminary today, just having kind of a wide ranging conversation about biblical counseling in general and the need for it. The one another's in the scripture will call to that. And again, we're talking to Timothy Hughes today that works down at PGU Seminary. And this is something, Timothy, that you mentioned this early on in the show, that you've got a whole lot of people coming to the seminary now that are interested in biblical counseling.

So there's that which I want to dive into. But then you made the point and we brought up we both had our list of one another's that we're all called to counsel one another, care for one another, try to help each other by the application of scripture. And it's not just you mentioned personal sin. This is like suffering. Some suffering results as a because of the choices we make, our own sin. We basically made our bed.

Now we're lying here. But other suffering and other problems come as a result of other things, physical, other people, other situations. You had no control. You weren't asking for it. You weren't looking for it yet. You suffer. And so you got that there.

But with the people that are approaching BGU Seminary saying, I want to come there for counseling to get a counseling degree. Do you see any because I want I want to especially kind of try to tap on the shoulder of the people out there where God has maybe qualified you to consider this field more seriously. Is there are there some things they have in common?

I know you have a wide range of people, wide range of ages, but like gifting or anything like that. Any commonalities there? Well, you know, if you're like, hey, could this be for me? Some questions you could ask yourself when Mike Mike Inlet has has said that we're all. If you're a believer, you are simultaneously a sinner, probably a suffer and a saint. Sinners need to be scripturally challenged and sufferers need to be scripturally comforted and saints need to be urged to press on.

And so if you're thinking, yeah, I like to do that, I would like to do that sort of thing. Has anyone ever said you're such a Barnabas? Is that a clue? Has anyone ever said, hey, I don't know if you remember this, but two years ago, we sat down to coffee. You shared some things from God's word. I was struggling and God really used that.

I'm a different place. Do you find yourself do you find people gravitating to you and saying, hey, I'd love to get your I'm kind of going through something. I've told a lot of people about this. What do you think if you do you find yourself in conversations where you're basically saying, hey, let's open up a Bible. There's a verse I was thinking about and I was thinking about you and the cancer you're going through. And I am praying for you.

And they say thank you for sharing that verse. If you really get into that one on one ministry of the word and it seems to be a blessing to people. Would you consider would you ever consider like leveling up a little bit and getting some more training for those harder questions? And for those of you that are older than Timothy, that's a gaming reference. Leveling up is where you're playing at one level, but you have the opportunity and in this case, the ability and perhaps even the calling and the God ordained gifting to go from being, well, I have some friends and yeah, people do tend to come to me and seek my advice or just counsel or just I can be an encouragement.

Level up means you might need to really seriously, peripherally consider upping your game. And again, it's really interesting on the on the gifting side of this. Timothy, we had I mentioned our friends and she had gone back to school to get a biblical counseling degree. We all had dinner recently and we were talking about like if you have the gift of mercy.

Is maybe biblical counseling is maybe not something you should do because you carry other people's weight so close to your heart. We had a fascinating conversation about that. Wow.

I would have loved to have been in on that one. And my opinion at the time and remains that I actually think, you know, if you have the gift of mercy and you have wisdom and you understand what the gift of mercy is going to bring with it, you're going to be way more interested in other people's hurt and pain and suffering than your average Christian. We should all care. But if you get to mercy, you're going to carry stuff differently. Yeah.

And Steve, that's my wife. So I'm in your corner on that. I can see how it could go wrong. You know, it's interesting. Some people have a pretty clinical seeming approach. I'm not an expert.

I'm just shooting off the mouth here and you get that. But, you know, it's you know, you could find a perspective that would say, hey, if you're doing quote unquote official counseling, you know, watch out getting too close to the person. And we get the wisdom aspects of some of that in certain situations. But there's another component that we're called to discipleship and we're called to friendship. And one of the giftings my wife has is the gift of friendship. And she will work with someone for months. And and all of a sudden, maybe the counseling is over.

Maybe maybe it's like, wait a second. Is this counseling? Is this discipleship?

I don't even know what to call anymore. It's Christian friendship. She's made. She's helped a disciple take steps forward. And so I think the gift of mercy, not all counselors are biblical counselors.

Christian encouragers are going to look the same. Someone may have the gift of discernment in in in overdoses, and that's going to help them in one way. Someone may have an outsized gift of mercy. And if channeled wisely, that is going to be the only thing that God uses to touch someone that really is going through a hard time. You know, I thought my wife has that gift. Our oldest son has that gift. And when you look at somebody and people tend to open up their hearts to them because that gift of mercy enables them to be unquestionably a great listener and just in their body language. Like our son just got married last Saturday in San Francisco.

And when it was my turn to speak, I was saying here was here was one of my challenges. And if you ask my wife and our other three kids, who's the nicest person you've ever met, we're all going to say it's Hayden Noble. And that's not nepotism. That's just we literally all mean it. He's the nicest person we've ever met. So my concern was always in terms of him getting married one day.

How in the world is it going to is it possible for him to find a wife that's going to be as tender hearted and as kind hearted as he is? And he has. And that was the amazing thing about it. It's an incredible story.

I'll tell it another time. But but just to watch that and how even in the work environment, he's in the gaming industry and they moved him from the art side of it. Now he's more in production because he's really good at coming into a team and because he cares about people so much. He's always interested in all the team members and trying to figure out a way to help them succeed. And he's a great mediator. Well, you know what?

That's the way God made him. And that gift is being used in a secular gaming company environment, which is really cool. And I think that's where we've got to be really sensitive and wonderfully made, I would add specifically. And I think even moving beyond certain giftedness, personality type things, which God can use a bunch of different if they're following him and loving him, can use all kinds.

But situational as well. You know, someone may say, hey, I've gotten thrown into a lot of counseling at the church and I would like to study it at a deeper level. Someone may say, hey, my, you know, my I have teens now and now I have time because they're not small kids. And, you know, maybe I'm getting more questions and I want to help them.

There can be situational and circumstantial where God's opening a door and also saying, hey, you're part of something. You're getting these opportunities. There's a need. And this would help your own personal growth. There's all kinds of situational reasons I think people study biblical counseling as well, whether that's through a degree program like BJA Seminary or whether it's through a certification like ACBC or whether it's through it's like, hey, where's some resources, some articles I can read?

Where's some sermons I can download? You know, at whatever level. I think situational and circumstantial challenges and opportunities can drive people to seek out more help with this as well. Yeah, because that you can actually get at BJA at the university, you can get a biblical counseling bachelor's degree. Yep. And then you can jump over to the seminary if you've already got a bachelor's degree. And then you can get I imagine you guys have a probably a master's degree program.

Yeah. So we've got a bachelor's degree. I think we have a minor, too. We have a graduate certificate. It's just like six awesome counseling classes. Your first one would be free if you're a new student. So you're like you've got five more and it's just a certificate. It's very focused. But there's an MA and the MA comes with ACBC certification or fulfilling those requirements as well.

It's really robust package. And we have some great faculty here. But then you can get an MDiv with that biblical counseling concentration and then you can get a doctor of ministry. And if you already have an MDiv and something else, you can get still get a doctor of ministry in with a concentration in biblical counseling. It's it's like we want to serve sort of all levels of training. So that's what I love about like the certificate program, whether you do it through BJA or one of the organizations you've talked about or the seminary, is that I mean, I'm looking at the at the BJA.edu website right now. And you look at the overview of just considering this is just the bachelor's degree program, whether you desire to serve as a biblical counselor in full time ministry. OK, that's the top of the top.

OK. Yeah. Or simply to encourage others in your workplace, which sounds like my son church, which should be most of us and family. The biblical counseling program at BJA exists to prepare Christians to assist believers in their progressive sanctification by pointing them to Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and God's all sufficient word. Sounds to me, Timothy, like we're all counselors, which I think is kind of how you started this in the first place. And, you know, if if you or some of your listeners are like, wow, where's a place I could go to get resources and explore some of this?

Well, hold that thought because we're up against the break. So we'll get that answer when we come back talking to Timothy Hughes from BJA Seminary talking about biblical counseling. You need it.

Somebody else, you know, needs it. Maybe you need to be getting training to be the counselor yourself. A wide ranging conversation on a very important topic, which is why we love Theology Thursday. We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show Theology Thursday with our friends at BJA Seminary down in beautiful Greenville, South Carolina, today having a wide ranging conversation about a subject that should affect all of us one way or another. And that's biblical counseling.

And again, we started off today with Timothy Hughes talking about. Well, I did because I'm a lot older than Timothy that that for my generation, I'm 57 for a lot of us and older, you know, counseling. You've seen a counselor, you've seen a therapist, whatever that all came with a lot of baggage. You're weak, you're messed up. There's something wrong with you.

What are you crazy? But now it's and I'm grateful that for the most part that that baggage is gone and it's become really kind of a much more normal or acceptable conversation topic to have. And especially when you get into the realm of biblical counseling, how do we properly apply the word of God to challenges in our lives, whether you created it yourself from your own sin or your suffering as a result of other people's sin or just the overall fallenness of the world, which shows up in a lot of different ways. So we're trying to have a wide ranging conversation to maybe you need counseling. Maybe you're really good at counseling people.

Maybe you need to, as Timothy said earlier, maybe you need to level up and take what God has been doing in your life with respect to this and how you're able to affect other people and maybe get more training. Maybe it's a certification. We put I put up two links earlier.

We had a couple of people on Facebook Live. They're like, I can't I'd love to find a Christian counselor, but I don't know where to find one. I put a couple of links up to ACBC, to CCEF, and there's actually certificate programs there, too. You don't have to go after a bachelor's degree or a master's degree, but you can learn and get more training officially. And that's what a certificate program is about. So a lot to talk about. I really appreciate your time today, Timothy, and helping us go down all these different roads.

But we started to talk about what's going on there at BJU Seminary. Yeah, we're just so thankful that God has given us a team of biblical counselors, experienced biblical counselors who are doing it. My pastors, one of the counselors, we're so thankful that we have Stuart Scott, who is just so experienced at different institutions and has written books.

And it's just just a humble servant of God who knows how to do this well. And just just others. And Steve, as I talk to you, I mean, I could name names of people that I have gone to. And said, look, I wanted to talk with somebody, you know, as I named some of my colleagues, some of them are people that have been a help to me.

And so and so I'm thankful for this. And they're the people that trained my wife, Hannah. So if someone's thinking, hey, I want to level up, I'm interested in training. Or if someone says, I don't have any money, but I'd like to learn more because I do have teenagers with questions.

I do have church people, you know, what are all the different kind of resources? And I thought I'd just mention a few. Sure. Number one, if someone's interested in a degree or a certificate studying at the at the graduate level, BJU does a first class free thing. And the first class is Foundations of Biblical Counseling. And if you would come and get approved for graduate studies, you would end up talking to me and I'd say, let's get you in that class. And if you want to do more great. And if not, I hope this class would be a blessing to you.

That's awesome. And so people can email seminary at BJU dot edu or just to explore it more can go to seminary dot bju dot edu forward slash serve. That's what we want to do. We want to serve other Christians, serve the church seminary dot bju dot edu forward slash serve. That's our seminaries counseling landing page.

And you can look at the degrees, but you can also scroll to the bottom. And look at our philosophy of biblical counseling, which is a great little introductory resource that talks about, hey, what's the definition of counseling? What do we mean by sufficiency of scriptures? How does this relate to other kind of counseling? What about what about trauma and deep suffering?

How does this relate to to medical things? Just just things like that and an appendix appendix like, hey, what are the different categories of human need? I don't know if that's one of the things in here or just what are components of biblical counseling or biblical counseling program?

So there's some different things in there. And again, seminary dot bju dot edu forward slash serve some other resources. Anyone who gets our M.A. also gets ACBC certified, but you can get ACBC certified and not get an M.A. And you could just go to biblical counseling dot com.

That's really easy. A great organization we partner with, a state association of certified biblical counselors, a really great, robust program. And you say, hey, I think one of your listeners asked this question, hey, I'm trying to find a biblical counselor. ACBC is not the only organization that does this, but you could go to ACBC.

You could even Google ACBC find a counselor and you'd probably find their counselor. I put that I mean, I put those links up already. I put them up. OK, awesome.

So ACBC and CCF and as well as work. Yeah. So those are those are some biblical counseling coalition dot org.

These are some of the resources that have a similar philosophy that be helpful. And yeah, those are the and then, you know, we can all just just try to create a culture of this in our families that it's OK to say, hey, that was hard. Yeah. And the answer, you know, and we want to get good at this. Like it doesn't have to be me just throwing the Bible verse at you, which we need to throw Bible verses at each other. OK, of course. Be anxious for nothing.

Right. But there's a lot more the Bible has to say to people in a broken, fallen world who would be tempted to be anxious. Fear not.

I am with you. I mean, let's get good at giving hope and help from God's word and let's find resources that will help us do it. Let's dig into our Bibles for ourselves, but for other people as well. And then let's not let's find resources so that if we realize we're in over our heads, you know, someone comes to you and says something, you're like, wow. I mean, this sounds really serious. And like it would take a lot of wisdom.

And, you know, someone who knows, you know, there's let's be honest, there's some situation where you need to call the cops. Oh, man, that's right. And so let's not let's not be overly confident and just like, hey, I am now I'm just going to I don't need to get any help. No. Right. Even as we're helping others, a culture of I can reach out for more help. Let's let's be willing as Christians to say it's OK to reach out for help and let's be as prepared as possible to give that help and to connect people with biblical help and hope from God's sufficient word.

That's right. There's a whole lot of people suffering in silence. And we shame is powerful.

Guilt is powerful. We're worried about how people are going to respond to us. But the reality is, I mean, that's that, hey, you know, you're a church on Sunday.

Hey, brother, how are you? Oh, I'm too blessed to be depressed and all that. I wish sometimes we would dress for church the way we actually feel. Because you're probably going to see some people in there on Sunday that are like, wow, that's not much of a church outfit. Yeah, but it is representative of how I'm feeling or where I'm at my life right now. And I think we all just need to put away the if we're going to understand the word hypocrisy in its original context.

Those are just masks that people are wearing or wearing a bunch of masks. And I think a lot of us suffer unnecessarily, Timothy, because we're unwilling to admit that we're struggling or unwilling to admit we need help. And then on the other side of that conversation, some of us are just too stinking pharisaical and just too judgmental that you throw one Bible verse at somebody and think that's it. And they just need to love Jesus more. And that's insensitive, too. That's like, hey, I know the power of Romans 828, but you don't always pull that bad boy out in every particular circumstance and throw it at somebody. And sometimes that could be actually unloving. That's a really important part of the answer, but it's not the whole answer. And it needs to be delivered in a relational loving context as part of the bigger answer scripture. Yeah, being there on campus, Timothy, as you are both the seminary as well as the university a bit. Have you seen an increased interest from your young students, undergrad age 18 to 22 in this particular subject? Oh, yeah, I don't know.

You know, I don't have I don't have a good sense of that. I would hope so. I would hope there's an openness. There's definitely a need. Oh, yeah. I think this generation is more willing to talk about problems.

We have to be sure we're helping them know how to find biblical solutions, but they're probably more willing than us. Oh, definitely. To reach out to say at least to their friends. Oh, life is hard.

Yeah, they'll throw it out there on social media. Hey, I'm really struggling. I'm feeling really depressed.

I'm really down and anxious about this test. Well, you know, there's there's they're much more open with that stuff than my generation ever was. If you say that about yourself when I'm 18, when I was 20, we were just a loser. And there was not I mean that I was raised my both my parents were a member of the greatest generation. Hey, suck it up, Timothy.

I'm not going to have a conversation with you about your feelings. I'll tell you one of the greatest reasons I can be thankful that my wife has been blessed to get some training. I'm so thankful for all the people she gets out. We've got one son and we've got another child on the way. They're growing up. They're growing up in a crazy world. And and we want as a couple to be prepared as possible to help when they start encountering how broken the world is. Yeah.

Yeah. And not just your own two kids or however many the Lord gives you, but all of their friends. I mean, there's a massive need all over the place and both inside and outside the church. And for unbelievers, what a great opportunity to share not only the power of God's word, but eventually the gospel in and of itself. And so it's really a great opportunity.

We all need to embrace the reality of the need. And especially if you are your hearts being kind of tugged at today as we're talking to Timothy and you're like, yeah, this is probably something I need to look into more. Well, that's between you and the Lord. I will just nudge you and say there's always a blessing and obedience. And that's the way God's created you.

Then there's a whole nother style. There's a whole nother element to your life that perhaps you haven't touched yet, but it's available to you because God's calling you into it. So make sure you're aware of that. Seminary.BJU.EDU backslash serve is the website forward slash old person like me says the other way. Seminary.BJU.EDU forward slash serve. I've got a bunch of links up on the Facebook live feed today. Timothy, thanks so much. It was a great conversation. Very helpful, useful information. And just God bless you and your efforts.

Great to talk with you. You're welcome. Hold right there. We'll pray together after the show's over. And so there you go. Seminary.BJU.EDU forward slash serve. And I've got other links on the Facebook live today. If you're looking for a biblical counselor, a couple of great resources there for you as well. This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show. God willing, I'll talk to you again real soon. And like my dad always used to say, ever forward.