By my count I’ve read almost half of Bob Kellemen’s 12 published books. I am both familiar with and appreciative of his approach to the goodness of God, the sufficiency of the Word, and the necessity of biblical counseling. By any standard, Kellemen has been one of the leading advancers of biblical counseling in recent years. He has directed the Biblical Counseling Coalition (BCC), written multiple books, taught seminary courses, equipped scores of lay counselors, and helped to lead his local congregation as an elder. Most recently Kellemen has taken the reins of the biblical counseling department at Crossroads Bible College in Indiana.
In Gospel-Centered Counseling: How Christ Changes Lives, the latest volume in the Equipping Biblical Counselors series, Kellemen provides his most robust and mature volume yet. Over the course of 16 meaty yet accessible chapters, Kellemen unfolds the existence of a loving trinitarian God, the difficulty of living out the truth in a fallen world, the reality of an evil personal being plotting our destruction, the cosmic change Christ has effected by his death and resurrection, the necessity of living the Christian life in community, the importance of recognizing our wonderful future makes a difference in the here and now, and the equipping power of the Spirit to sanctify us for holiness and for ministry.
If that sounds suspiciously like the outline of a systematic theology book, then you’ve grasped the main thrust of the Gospel-Centered Counseling: theology matters—not just the theology one learns in Bible college or seminary, but also the theology followers of Christ must grapple with day by day.
Is It Memorable?
Any 300-page book aspiring to be useful and memorable requires its fair share of repetition and summary. Kellemen is colloquial when it’s warranted, especially in the scripted sections, which are condensed examples of what usually unfolds over the course of many counseling sessions. Some may dislike Kellemen’s “capitulation” to Twitter culture by rendering his chapter themes in tweet-size sentences; indeed, almost his entire conclusion reprises these tweet-size summaries. But Kellemen is going for memorable, not monumental. He wants to serve the church in the present, not the academy in posterity. All the pithy labels, mnemonic devices, and mini-scripts serve to convey biblical truth. Furthermore, Kellemen always defines. He takes nothing for granted and never leaves us wondering how he’s employing a certain concept, word, or phrase.
Gospel-Centered Counseling: How Christ Changes Lives
Robert W. Kelleman
Structure is also a key to success in a book of this length and scope. As mentioned, Kellemen has designed the volume to approximate a systematic theology textbook (which some may not realize until Kellemen shows his hand toward the end of the book). Suffice it to say that Kellemen’s skilful design and insightful knowledge of spiritual reality led to my own mini-revival as I read. Naturally this spiritual awakening slowed down my page-by-page progress, but I wouldn’t trade those hours of sweet communion with the Lord for anything.
Is It a Masterpiece?
In the foreword Deepak Reju calls this book a “masterpiece.” Is it? Insofar as it is grounded in Scripture, yes. Inasmuch as it makes compelling connections from biblical theology to best practices in biblical counseling, yes. In its distinctly Christian approach to Christian practices—it is shot through with prayer and insists sanctification involves deep confession—then yes, Gospel-Centered Counseling is a fine work. Is it destined to become a biblical counseling classic that will still be reprinted 20 years from now? I couldn’t say for sure. But Kellemen won’t mind either way. He wants to equip God’s people for one-another ministry, and if Gospel-Centered Counseling achieves this much, his stated purpose will be met.
Still, some questions remain. For example, is the Bible totally sufficient for counseling? Is it enough for living in the 21st century? Some will dive into the book expecting Kellemen to answer such questions. While he does address this issue as one aspect of his gospel-centered approach, readers might like to know the volume the BCC released immediately prior was Scripture and Counseling: God’s Word for Life in a Broken World (Zondervan, 2014) [excerpt]. Its main concern was to encourage confidence in the Bible as central to life and counseling.
One question I suspect newer Christians and non-Christians might ask is why there isn’t more “Gospel” (in this context referring not to the good news but to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in the book. They have a point: if the Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament and primarily concerned with Jesus’s life and ministry, why so relatively little about him in a book by this title? As Jesus himself pointed out, all Scripture speaks of him (John 5:39). And as we know from the apostle Paul (2 Tim. 3:16), even the black letters of Scripture, are the inspired words of the Word of God. Ostensibly Kellemen will explore this ministry of Jesus further in Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ (Zondervan, forthcoming). And that’s exactly where the biblical counseling conversation needs to go next.
Gospel-Centered Counseling is a vital new resource that deserves wide usage in counseling ministries, in training institutions, and in local churches.