In his chapter of An Introduction to Biblical Counseling, Dave Powlison identifies seven core elements of biblical counseling (pgs. 57-58):

1. God is at the center of counseling.
2. Commitment to God has epistemological consequences.
3. Sin, in all its dimensions, is the primary problem counselors must deal with.
4. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer.
5. The change process counseling must aim at is progressive sanctification.
6. The situational difficulties people face are not the random cause of problems of living.
7. Counseling is fundamentally a pastoral activity and must be church-based.

For today and the following six Thursdays, I’m going to use Powlison’s framework above but with my own spin on it. I’d like to attempt to explain and apply each of these as they relate essentially to my friends and me – not to pastors and church leaders, but to us plain Jane church members. Keeping each brief means leaving out a lot, but I’ll aim to get to the point and be relevant. This should be a good exercise for me and all glory to God if it is enlightening or helpful to you as well! Here we go…