Rick Thomas

📍 How Biblical Counseling Can Undermine the Church

READ Maureen's essay: https://rickthomasnet.substack.com/p/how-biblical-counseling-can-undermine

Too easily, people become “cases,” triaged into systems and funneled into professional care, rather than cared for as members of one body where no part is meant to suffer alone (1 Corinthians 12:25–26). The question I find most helpful to ask is this:

Is this person walking through a difficult “season?” If so, the church is best equipped to come alongside them in love and care. — Maureen Den Hollander

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❤️ Intimacy problems are rarely isolated issues. They are connected to communication, trust, and worship. When those areas are addressed biblically, intimacy begins to flourish. https://youtu.be/BPW47818FKU

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Webinar: Redeeming Physical Intimacy Physical intimacy in marriage is not merely a physical act—it is a spiritual indicator of the health of a relationship. Because the fall introduced shame, se...

📍 Substack: https://rickthomasnet.substack.com/p/calling-me-names-does-not-change

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💥THIS is a ginormous problem with our local churches.
The impulse is to place the accent mark on the "biblical counseling industry" instead of addressing a church's infrastructural weaknesses regarding the Great Commission:

👉 embedded discipleship in the local church, an every-member understanding and practice of soul care.

Rick
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📍Abuse Means Virtually Anything, and Clarifies Virtually Nothing
The word abuse has become a linguistic catchall. It stretches to cover everything from criminal violence to relational tension, from real oppression to perceived slights.

Like other cultural buzzwords—PTSD, racism, trauma, narcissism—it carries emotional weight but often lacks definitional precision. The problem is not that these realities don’t exist. They do! The problem is that the labels have become so elastic that they blur rather than clarify what is actually happening.

When a word can mean almost anything, it ends up meaning almost nothing.

Read on Substack: https://rickthomasnet.substack.com/p/abuse-means-virtually-anything-and

Rick
LifeOverCoffee.com | | Lifeovercoffee

Abuse Means Virtually Anything, and Clarifies Virtually Nothing The word abuse has become a linguistic catchall. It stretches to cover everything from criminal violence to relational tension, from real oppression to perceived slights.

📍Much of what is called “biblical counseling” today is not counseling at all; it’s guided discipleship through a curriculum. When we outsource soul care to books and systems, we create the illusion of competency without the substance.

This essay draws a clear line between facilitating content and actually shepherding a soul. https://rickthomasnet.substack.com/p/this-is-not-biblical-counseling

Rick
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This Is NOT Biblical Counseling! There is something encouraging happening in the broader Christian world. People are picking up good books, opening their Bibles, and trying to help others grow in Christ. That matters.

📍THE MODERN BIBLICAL COUNSELING MOVEMENT began with a bold claim.

In 1970, when Competent to Counsel was published by Jay E. Adams, it argued that Christians were fully capable of helping people. Our tool for doing so was the Word of God. That conviction was needed.

At the time, the church had largely surrendered soul care to secular psychology. Adams pushed back by insisting that Scripture was sufficient for addressing the struggles of the human heart. Though the message was necessary, the way the movement developed afterward revealed an unintended consequence.

From the beginning, the biblical counseling movement framed its mission in comparison to secular therapy. The argument often sounded like this: therapists cannot truly help people because they do not understand the Bible, but Christians can counsel better because they do.

That framing created a competitive posture. Instead of asking what the church had always done for two thousand years, the conversation often focused on how biblical counseling could outperform secular psychology.

In hindsight, that comparison may have been the wrong starting point.

https://open.substack.com/pub/rickthomasnet/p/when-biblical-counseling-became-an?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Rick
LifeOverCoffee.com | | Lifeovercoffee

When Biblical Counseling Became an Industry The modern biblical counseling movement began with a bold claim. In 1970, when Competent to Counsel was published by Jay E. Adams, it argued that Christians were fully capable of helping people.

📍Why “Emotional Pain” Sounds Compassionate but Isn’t Biblical
The phrase “emotional pain” is normal in modern counseling, but it carries assumptions that reshape how we understand the human soul. If we confuse "sorrow with injury" or "mental with health," we will eventually confuse the solution as well.

Essay on Substack

👉 https://rickthomasnet.substack.com/p/why-emotional-pain-sounds-compassionate

Rick
LifeOverCoffee.com | | Lifeovercoffee

Why “Emotional Pain” Sounds Compassionate but Isn’t Biblical Language is not neutral. The words we select do more than describe experiences. They frame them. Over time, vocabulary forms theology, and theology shapes how we understand ourselves, others, and God.

read on Substack 👉 https://open.substack.com/pub/rickthomasnet/p/why-emotional-pain-sounds-compassionate?r=1rl8js&utm_medium=ios

‼️POINT OF CLARITY
When someone sits across from you with a shattered marriage, a pattern of enslaving sin, or a history of abuse, they are not looking for a theoretical framework. They are seeking help. They hope you are God’s appointed person who can thoughtfully apply God’s Word to their specific situation.

They are not asking whether you are trauma-informed, pro-choice, an evolutionist, or a thirsty soul panting after the theories of Pavlov. If they are sitting before a biblical counselor, it is because they already believe that Scripture matters. The real question on their mind is simple: Can you listen carefully? Can you discern wisely? Can you guide me toward hope?

Full Essay on Substack
👉 https://rickthomasnet.substack.com/p/why-i-could-not-care-less-about-trauma

Rick
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Why I Could Not Care Less About Trauma-Informed Care There is a great deal of noise surrounding trauma-informed care. Conferences debate it. Influencers platform it. Critics dismantle it. Entire threads erupt over it.

💪I am a former “girl boss.” I wore the proverbial pants, got the name badge, and could often be found standing in the seats scoffing at those who opposed my view that “whatever men could do, I could do better.”

Then I became a Christian, and the Lord opened my eyes.

I must say I was intrigued by the title “Why women should not have the right to vote.” Written as a thought experiment by Rick Thomas. The article was well done, and I really liked it.

I actually agree.

👉 https://open.substack.com/pub/rickthomasnet/p/from-girl-boss-to-daughter-of-the

From Girl Boss to Daughter of the King I am a former “girl boss.” I wore the proverbial pants, got the name badge, and could often be found in the stands scoffing at any who opposed my view that “whatever men could do, I could do better."

A Commentary on the essay "Why Women Should Not Have the Right to Vote"

The essay was written as a thought experiment—an intentional act of time travel. It drops a document from 1919 into a modern feed without warning, not to provoke outrage for outrage’s sake, but to expose assumptions we rarely examine. This is not an uncommon literary device. It works precisely because it disrupts familiarity and forces the reader to ask not just Do I agree? but Why does this unsettle me so quickly?

What has been most instructive is not the conclusions readers draw, but the manner in which they respond. Some have engaged with sobriety and reflection, recognizing the historical framing and wrestling with the ideas on their own terms. Others have reacted almost instantly with emotionalism, name-calling, or dismissal—often without acknowledging the premise or period voice of the piece. That contrast alone is revealing.

The essay does not argue policy for today. It does not attempt to “put the cat back in the bag,” nor does it pretend that history can be rewound. Instead, it asks whether certain cultural shifts—particularly around roles, authority, and formation—came with costs that were either ignored or are now treated as untouchable. By forcing modern readers into an earlier moral and social framework, the essay exposes how tightly identity has become fused to contemporary assumptions, especially when those assumptions are challenged without warning.

One of the most striking observations has been how differently people respond when modern categories are temporarily removed. When readers are “thrust back” into an earlier time—before today’s language of rights, power, and self-definition—the loss of composure is not evenly distributed. That unevenness suggests that some ideas are held thoughtfully, while others are guarded emotionally because they function less as convictions and more as identity anchors.

The essay also highlights a deeper confusion in our culture: the tendency to mistake exceptions for norms and emergencies for ideals. History—and Scripture—record extraordinary moments where ordinary roles are disrupted by necessity. But wisdom does not turn disruption into design. The modern impulse is to celebrate role confusion as progress rather than to ask what is gained and what is lost when order gives way to reaction.

Ultimately, the value of the piece lies less in whether one agrees with its conclusions and more in what it reveals about us as readers. It exposes how difficult it has become to discuss roles, authority, and restraint without defaulting to caricature. It also reminds us that not every question about the past is an attack on dignity, intelligence, or worth. Sometimes it is simply an invitation to think more carefully about how we arrived where we are.

If the essay slowed some readers down—even briefly—to reflect rather than react, then it accomplished its purpose.

Rick


You May Read the Essay Here:
👉 https://open.substack.com/pub/rickthomasnet/p/why-women-should-not-have-the-right