Know Your Counselee

I was a teenager when my mother came home from the grocery store and exclaimed, “Look at the size of these bananas! I’ve never seen bananas this big!” They were unusually large, and being someone who really likes bananas, I was excited to have one of these treasures.

And then I peeled one and bit into it. It was hard. And bland and unsweet. And starchy. It was the worst banana I’d ever eaten.

That’s because it wasn’t a banana. It was the banana’s look-alike cousin, the plantain. While I have learned to cook and really enjoy plantains, they are not nearly as enjoyable when eaten raw like a banana. I learned a good lesson that day—if you want to enjoy a banana, be sure you are actually eating a banana!

Similarly, when we arrive in our counseling rooms, it is possible to confuse the kinds of counselees we have. The epistles, and Paul in particular, point to the various kinds of people that populate the church and that will fill our counseling rooms. First Thessalonians 5:14 is particularly helpful in identifying a variety of counselees that will come to us. This verse doesn’t identify any particular presenting problem of counselees, but it does identify three kinds of qualities or attitudes that are behind many different presenting problems of our counselees.

So just what kinds of people populate our churches and what kinds of counselees might come to us?

The Kinds of Counselees You May See

You may have counselees that are unruly. Biblically, the unruly person is the one who is undisciplined. The term was used of soldiers who were either without rank or who were operating rebelliously outside their rank. They were in disarray and out of order. In the context of the Thessalonian church, Paul may well be thinking of the church members who were idle and lazy, neglecting their daily responsibilities because they anticipated the second coming of Christ and thought their obligations were therefore unnecessary. (Aside: Paul is the only New Testament writer to use this word, and he only uses it in the Thessalonian letters, so he seems to be addressing the particular problem of idleness in that church; see also 2 Thessalonians 3:6-7, 11.)

In our counseling rooms, we should be attentive to watching for counselees who are lazy, inattentive to spiritual disciplines, not following through on personal or spiritual responsibilities in their particular roles as employees, husbands/wives, parents/children, or church members. This lack of spiritual discipline may also be manifested in other areas of their lives: being undisciplined with finances (both in spending and accounting), friendships (not following through on obligations and promises), personal health (inattentive to bodily care through diet, exercise, medical care, and grooming), and even not caring for physical property (lack of care of his home, automobile, or other possessions might indicate overall lack of discipline and even rebellion).

In summary, the one who is unruly is undisciplined and apathetic. And he is undisciplined because he does not want to fulfill the responsibilities he has been given (by God), which means he also is unsubmissive (to God).

You may have counselees that are uncourageous. These are people who are fainthearted and discouraged. They are weary from the trials of life. Faced with “one more difficulty,” they throw their hands up in despair and lament, “I just can’t catch a break…” These counselees may have every intention to be obedient to the Lord and they want to change, but the hardness of the task and the pervasiveness of particularly great difficulties provokes them to quit. They are overwhelmed and lack the courage to continue.

In Romans 14, Paul identifies similarly weak people who are overwhelmed with choices of liberty; their consciences don’t allow them to enjoy what God has graciously given to them. So lacking courage to act on the freedom given to them, they bind their own consciences with legalism (and attempt to bind others as well).

In our counseling rooms, we may have counselees who are overwhelmed by personal suffering. The suffering might be physical illness, financial trouble, occupational or educational challenges, or relational difficulties. They may have not personally sinned, and someone may not have sinned against them—they are just experiencing what seem to be the unrelenting pressures of living in a broken world. Or they may be experiencing repeated and perpetual suffering (even persecution) from someone. And in either case, they may be tempted to give up because of the weightiness of the difficulty.

You may have counselees that are spiritually weak. The “weak” person in this verse is someone who is spiritually weak—it is the spiritually helpless person who needed the atoning death of Christ for his spiritual disease (Romans 5:6). The weak person is weak because he has not strengthened himself spiritually, and he habitually succumbs to spiritual and moral temptations. Paul may be thinking about the Thessalonians who had fallen into that city’s sexual snares (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8).

In our counseling rooms, we will want to watch for people who are sinfully self-indulgent. Like Demas (2 Timothy 4:10) and some members of early church (1 John 2:19), they were attracted by worldly temptation and willingly and even openly indulged in those temptations. Some of these will give the appearance of being in the church, but their actions speak truly about their spiritual condition: they are followers of the world’s system and they do not want fellowship with Christ.

It is notable that most presenting problems can fit into any of these categories. Consider just one example. A man might come to you who is disengaged from his family. He does not care well for his wife and he is aloof from his children. He works many hours, has a woodworking hobby that takes much of his free time, and takes several fishing trips with his buddies each year. What kind of counselee might he be?

He might be unruly. That is, he might just be too lazy to engage with his wife. It is hard to know her (1 Peter 3:7) and to love her sacrificially and nurture her (Ephesians 5:25, 29). Similarly, it takes great effort to consistently and repeatedly train and instruct his children both in how to live in the world and how to know the gospel and pursue Christ (Ephesians 6:4). In this instance, his disengagement is a result of his laziness and his apathy.

Or he might be uncourageous. It could be that his home is a blended family and his attempts to lead both his children and step-children have been ignored and rebuffed. His attempts at godly love and care have been rejected—sometimes even mocked. His heart is weary of the battle and so he gives up and retreats to time with his hobbies and friends. In this instance, his disengagement is because he is discouraged by the lack of progress his godly efforts have produced.

Or he might be spiritually weak. It might be that he has believed the worldly philosophy of self-care instead of the biblical truth of self-sacrifice. He would rather indulge his fleshly yearnings than fulfill his godly callings. He wants to receive rather than give; he is interested only in receiving blessings and not giving blessings. In this instance, his disengagement is because of more overt immorality.

The Kinds of Counsel Your Counselees Need

Paul notes that each of these different kinds of church members needs a different kind of care. And we will likewise need to direct our counselees according to the kind of counselees they are.

Unruly and lazy counselees need to be admonished. The verb Paul uses here is familiar to biblical counselors—it is the verb noutheteo (“nouthetic”). It is to exhort, correct, and admonish one who is rebellious. The counsel is clear and direct. Those who are rebelliously lazy need to be corrected and confronted with their sinful conduct (and they need to understand that their apathy is sin and needs to be repented of). To use the example from above, the disengaged father and husband needs to hear that he is a rebel against God and his lack of discipline is not a “weak character trait” but ungodly rebellion. (Aside: it is notable that the only of the characteristics in this verse that receives the strong corrective of admonishment is what we might call apathy and laziness—which is a reminder to counselors that some [many?] sins may be the result of a lack of concern for others and the Lord.)

Uncourageous counselees need to be comforted and encouraged. Counselees who are weary of the relentlessness and largeness of the task need fatherly comfort and encouragement. In fact, Paul uses this same word in 2:11 to reflect the kind of consolation a father gives his children when they are struggling. Just like an overwhelmed child doesn’t need corrective discipline but hopeful encouragement, so those counselees who want to follow the Lord but are in unusually trying circumstances need to hear words of gentle comfort. They need to feel the spiritual arm of the counselor around their shoulder and hear the message, “Come with me… let’s walk together…” while he points them to God’s kind and sufficient provision.

Spiritually weak counselees need to be upheld. The one who has fallen into the trap of spiritual deception and sin needs to be “held fast.” He needs someone holding him up, guiding, directing, and correcting his thinking and his actions. He has lapsed into immorality and disobedience because has held on to the wrong master and he needs help holding on to the right master. This principle seems to encompass the idea of teaching and perhaps correction and training from 2 Timothy 3:16. He needs to be continually brought back to the truth of God’s Word and the source of that truth, God Himself. He needs the exhortation of the goodness of denying sin and embracing and following Christ.

All counselees need to experience patient care from the counselor. The last exhortation from Paul in this verse is “be patient with everyone.” Whether someone is unruly, uncourageous, weak, or anything else, the counselor or discipler should be patient with them. Why? Be patient because these are the kinds of problems that are common to man (1 Corinthians 10:13)—perhaps even to the counselor. Further, the counselor is patient because as the counselee is exhorted, comforted, or upheld, well, transformation takes time; it is very rarely instantaneous and complete. And finally, patience is needed because impatience repays the counselee’s evil sin with more evil (v. 15) and because patience demonstrates that the counselor is seeking what is best for the counselee. So be patient as you serve the Lord by caring for your counselee.

When we invite a counselee into our lives, we need to be discerning about the nature of the counselee. We want to listen attentively to their problems, concerns, and needs. And we need to be discerning about their hearts. That is, we need to not only discern the nature of their hearts and whether they are struggling with some idolatrous desire, but we also need to discern what kind of counselees they are and how that has influenced the difficulty in their lives.

So one ongoing question the counselor should always ask is, “Just what kind of counselee do I have?” And as we correctly discern what the counselee is, we will be able to care for that counselee wisely and accurately.