Pastoral Care and Counselling: Biblical, Theological and Historical Perspective

1. Pastoral Care and Counselling in the Bible 

     1.    Identity issue – Bible gives a sense of identity. If we are not doing what the bible says it is very difficult to have a very clear sense of identity.

    2.    Changing expectations – there are different roles implied on pastor. When we trace biblically it gives a clear sense of understanding.

A pastor’s model should be Jesus Christ. In OT there are four models of ministry which jesus involved in his ministry.

    ·       Office of prophet. – prophet speaks on behalf of God to people. Prophet acts as a mouth piece. Prophetic message has two dimensions one is warning other is hope.

   ·       Office of priest – sacrifice represented people with God and prophet acted as a mediator with people and God. Priest Spoke to God and to the people.

     ·       Wiseman – wisemen is the one who gives wise counselling. The key aspect is that the wisemen fulfilled the ethical demand of people. They focus on ethical life of people. The priest guided them for the repentance and showed the way which they have to choose.

     ·       King – the offices of rule and shepherd emerges in the 11^th century.

In OT all these four offices were separated except in the case of Moses or Daniel. By and large these offices were not overlapped. In Jesus’ ministry there is a culmination of all these. Jesus & Pastor care. A Pastor can fulfill the role which Jesus Christ fulfilled from OT Pattern:

1. Prophet

i) Mouthpiece; Jesus Christ was God’s mouth piece. A pastor fulfills this function of Jesus by preaching. Prophets were essentially those who spoke God’s heart. We say God is using pastor to speak the word of God. Paul’s prime factor in his mission was preaching.

ii) To carry God’s word as burden: It is like in a situation where we are accountable while carrying lakhs of rupees of someone else. Pastors are accountable for preaching the gospel to people. They always carry God’s word as burden.

iii) Bear Price: Prophets were criticized for their message by and large. There were prophets who went against flow of the world. Pastors are expected to bring God’s word against worldly life and expected to take firm stand for the sake of gospel. 

2. Priest

i) Identified with people: Priests really spoke on behalf of the people and identified people.

a) Intercession: Priests always interceded with God for the sin of people and on behalf of the people. Ref; 1 Tim 2; 1,2, James 3 : 16

b) Reconciliation: Reconciliation between both God and man

c) Suffering: Pastors are always remembered and called at the time of tragedy and suffering rather than happy movements.

ii) Guard worship: Pastor is also called to God’s worship. It was the responsibility of the priest to perform sacrifice and worship

iii) To be Holy: Pastors are expected to keep high standard of holiness including personal purity.

iv) To Bless People: People expect priest to lead prayer and give benediction. 

3) Wiseman/Sage

They essentially fulfilled three things.

i. Seek wisdom: Church need people constantly versatile people with wisdom to build on knowledge that is happening around the world. In other words a pastor should have the knowledge of the changes happening around the world..

ii. Observe life: Our life always must match with the life of Jesus and be able to talk to people in a particular way.

iii. Give counsel: Pastor is expected to present to the need of the people.

4) King

Four things that a king essentially does or the qualities of a king

i) Leading: Pastor must be a leader. Pastor takes first step irrespective of the circumstances.

ii) Impart vision: Pastor must be capable enough to communicate to the people.

iii) Steward Resources: like a King pastor or priest was given the responsibility of providing resources, and use the same within the context of the church.

iv) To lead in war: A pastor has to take the stand in the front line in a war against corruption, politics and current issues. A pastor needs to be there in front row to address the issue of the church as well as the society.

A pastor fulfills the need of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus in turn fulfilled the responsibility of prophets. 

2. Pastoral Care and Counselling in the Early Church

When we look at Church’s task, it was essentially divided  into four functions that is,:-

·       Proclamation

·       Teaching

·       Fellowship

·       Service or ministry

When we are preaching word of God a pastor is helping to help people to live accordingly. Help people to live life of holiness- in fullness of life. Pastoral care is essentially targeted in relation to fulfilling the needs. Pastors teaching help them to live accordingly. Koinonia: Helps people to live in fellowship. Church fulfills all these four aspects. In New Testament, church is not defined in a particular way. The images that Bible talks about the church in N T are; Body of Christ, Bride, Priesthood of all believers, People of God, New Israel, Salt of life Each of this images talks about relationship. In ministry identity leads to function.

3.    Pastoral Care and Counselling in the Reformation Traditions

Reformation was a movement against certain doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome resulting in the establishment of the formation of the protestant church. Reformation period falls between 1500 to 1648 A D They were protesting against;

1. Power of Pope- Papal system, pope’s word even superseded God’s word.

2. Ritualism there were lot of emphasis on ritualism which gave power to priest

e. Indulgences – Sale of ticket to heaven. Priests insisted that praying of priest will uplift the soul from hell to heaven.

4. Inquisition: torture for human involvement of black magic. There was time when people were involved in black magic were killed. Among that Spanish inquisition was worst.

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

Martin Luther’s idea spread through the invention of printing press. He emphasized three

things. They are;

1. Sola Scripte : Only scripture is essentially to be followed than priest’s word or canon

2. sola fidei : Faith alone

3. sola Gratia: By grace alone

Based on these principles he protested the Roman Catholic doctrines.

1. Understanding of Eucharist/Lord’s Supper: There was a belief in Roman Catholic doctrines

that when priest prays the bread and wine it is automatically transformed to Jesus body and

blood. He opposed this idea of transubstantiation

2. Mass (Ritualism) : Church service was filled with ritualism. He said we need not want priests

to intercede for us and act as mediator with god.

3. Sale of indulgences (Parquetry)

4. Praying to saints

With his reformation idelogy and doctrines he foster the era in Pastoral Care and Counsellling.

Impacts on pastoral care and counseling

There were four areas in which he emphasized

1. Preaching: There was a shift from ritualism to word of God.

2. Baptism: The ritual part were abandoned and conveyed that Baptism is the rebirth with Jesus Christ.

3. Lord’s supper: Lord’s Supper is to be emphasized on the aspect of fellowship and reconciliation

4. Priest hoods of all believers: We don’t need a separate class of priest as we all are priests (1 Pet 2. )

Martin Bucer (1491 – 15551)

He was s disciple of Martin Luther. He was also known as pastoral theologian on reformation.

He emphasized on three duties of pastor

Pastor must be a diligent teacher of scripture

He must be an administrator of sacraments

He must be a participator in the discipline of the church

He must be caring for the needy

John Calvin (1509 – 1564)

John Calvin is known as a theologian but he was also a pastor and churchman. He said Bible is full of example of how priest should conduct the role of apostles. He emphasized the role of pastor as modeled by Jesus Christ. He emphasized on three things.

1. Preaching,          2. Governing and   3. Pastoring or caring

John Calvin in his writing says a pastor need to have two voices, one for gathering sheep other for driving away wolves and thieves. The scripture advices the need for doing the both. There was a radical step from where church has to do.

     4.    Pastoral Care and Counselling in Recent Times

Ministry of Pastoral care has suffered severe setbacks from the very beginning. The church and its leaders were already occupied into studying and debating into the doctrinal issues and leadership politics and thus neglected the pastoral care.

Christian pastoral care has a long history. Christian pastor comes from a very long line of ancestors. Rich traditions of the past in a limited way are available to him. He is linked with past generation of relatives and ancestors. He draws pastoral practices from the wisdom of those past generations. At the same time the Christian pastor belongs to a wider family. The concept of communion of saints brings to him help and encouragement in his ministry.

On the other hand there is also growing trends that pastoral care is not given by the Pastor alone. It is the function of the whole congregation. Jaekle and Clebesh called him therefore a representative person. It certainly gives the impression that the whole church and local congregation is behind the pastor in giving pastoral care to the needed person.

A pastoral counsellor’s practice of psychotherapy  is theologically grounded, informed by psychological theory and tempered through supervised clinical experience. The primary role of pastoral counselling specialists in the life of the church is to support congregations and their leaders in their ministries of health and healing.

David Benner,  described pastoral counselling as Pastoral Counselling involves the establishment of a time-limited relationship that is structured to provide comfort for troubled persons by enhancing their awareness of God’s grace and faithful presence and thereby increasing their ability to live their lives more fully in the light of these realisations. The emphasis in pastoral counselling is on God and spiritual growth.

Pastoral work in the modern period or Christian Response to these streams Science came to play important role in behaviorism, psycho analysis, personalism and trans-personalism. Christian response towards these changes in modern period was of four ways;

1. Assimilative: Acceptance of everything. This group uncritically accepted scientific emergence and all aspects of all the streams mentioned above.

2. Reactive: They rejected everything. Jay Adams was key person of this group. They claimed Bible is the only thing to counsel people. Man’s problem can be reduced to two things love and God. Love people and God. They rejected secular counseling.

3. Dialogue: Interactive response. Proponent of this group was Thomas Oden. He said psychology and theology need partnership with each other. Christian counselor should recognize the truth and incorporate techniques. Psycho analysis has a lot of good to teach us like improving memory. A pastor should incorporate and integrate psychology and theology in his approach in care and counseling. 

Pastor response /Pastor Care and Counseling in Recent Times also focuses on Pastoral Ministries fold. In recent times Pastor Care and counseling is viewed in terms of what pastor does. One key thing a pastor does is;

1. Preaching: Preaching is important aspect of counseling. It is also known as pre counseling. Mostly the opportunity for counseling comes from preaching.

2. Teaching: pastors are always involved in teaching. A pastor need to teach and give lessons on the basis of Bible for such questions like is it okay for me to marry a non-Christian or shifting the aged parents to old age homes etc. Pastor need only to give advice, guidance and explain about the consequences of the steps that the member is going to take. A pastor will never expect to give final answer for any problem.

3. Counseling: Counseling is more about relationship. In any situation people will constantly seek pastor’s help. Pastor does not have a choice between counseling and not counseling. Choice is between disciplined counseling and undisciplined counseling.

4. Administrator: People expect pastor to be a good administrator like handling church committee maintain accounts, property take proper decisions and plan future programs etc.

5. Visiting: Pastors are required to visit their members. There are different types of visits Home visits, crisis visits, Hospital visits, evangelistic visit, and organizational visit. A pastor is a good shepherd; a good shepherd knows its sheep.

6. Pastor care through life cycle: Life cycle is how life goes through the major events of happenings in Christian life of pregnancy, birth, baptism, confirmation, marriage, death etc.

From birth to death a Christian needs pastor’s care in various situations.

Resources that pastor uses

In recent times there is a shift from psychological mechanism (therapies) to Bible, prayer, sacraments, Christian community, rituals, worship services are the resources that pastor use