I have an accreditation in biblical counseling through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC). I don't need it. It's helpful to have it, but not necessary. I'm thankful for the way ACBC has served the church to provide training for the church to help real people with real problems. I'm super thankful for the mentor they provided to help me navigate conversations directed by the inerrant truth of the Scriptures. I also realize that if all I had was God's Word, I have all I need to sit with someone in their troubles and point them to their hope and healing in Christ. The fact that God uses his church as his means of helping each other does not make us experts in human problems or in opening the hearts of the hurting to the truth that helps. For God to impart sufficient hope and help, we need God. More to the point, we need the Holy Spirit.
In writing to the church in Ephesus, Paul encouraged the Ephesian believers to live new lives in Christ. They were called not be like they were in their former life before Christ. Paul puts it this way: Eph 4:17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. While the Ephesians were indeed Gentiles, they had now become part of God's family. They had new lives, and new minds in Christ. Paul wanted them to be active in this new life and instructed them accordingly. Ephesians 4:22-24 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. They were to put off the old and put on the new, but they were to be rightly instructed in what "the new" was. Paul said they were to be renewed in the spirit of their minds. They required a complete internal transformation of heart and mind to trust and obey Christ as believers.
How do people who have grown up enculturated in a particular society and worldview change to the degree that they think and live and act in a completely new context of thought and reason and behavior? Earlier in the letter Paul reminded them of what happened to them when they came to believe in Jesus. Ephesians 1:13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. They had received the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit upon their believing the gospel. Not only that, but Paul also prayed for the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Ephesians 1:16-18 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.
Paul's confidence for change in the lives of the Ephesians comes from his confidence in them having transformational truth in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform them through the application of that truth to their hearts and lives. As they sit with each other and center on their new gospel understanding of the world, the Holy Spirit would guide them in renewing their lives around the truth of Christ. It was not a truth that they invented but one that was imparted to them through apostolic authority in the inspiration of the Spirit.
We have that same apostolic authority in the New Testament today. It is the Holy Spirit inspired text of the bible. Just like the Ephesians, we have received the Holy Spirit upon believing in Jesus. He gives us understanding and transforms our lives as we open His word with each other to grow in the likeness of Christ.
There is only one expert of change in the counseling room. It's not me. It's not you. It's the Holy Spirit working through his word.