圣经神学与辅导
在地方教会中，圣经神学和辅导的关联在哪里？或许乍一看你可能会说，没什么关系！
为什么？当你听到“圣经神学”的时候，倾向于首先想到的是创造、堕落、救赎和成全。你会想到那些主要的圣经主题，比如罪、苦难、出埃及、献祭、律法、国度还有被掳，以及这些在圣经救赎历史的进程中是如何发展的。当你听到“辅导”这个词的时候，想到的就是人际关系的事工、对话、门训、个人挣扎和危机。你会看到特定的名字和人。
圣经神学是有益且重要的，虽然相比于大马路上有血有肉的现实生活略显抽象，但是我想说，这两者是紧密联系在一起的。它们之间的关联为教会中可被信任、智慧和处境化辅导事工提供了基础。
伟大的圣经神学家霍志恒（Geerhardus Vos）曾说过：“在历史的进程中出现的神所有关于自身的启示都在回应祂子民实际敬虔操练的需要。” [1] 这就意味着圣经中充满了与生活中的问题相关的内容。它不仅仅为我们提供了圣经神学，事实上也提供了实践神学。[2]圣经和生活是紧密相连的。
在一对一的事工处境中最能凸显它们彼此关联的方式又是什么呢？
我发现引入叙事手法或者讲故事的概念特别有用。无论我们阅读圣经，或者“阅读”（倾听并试图理解）人，都是适用的。我们读圣经必须把它看作一个以耶稣基督的来临和祂更新的统治为中心的真实故事。圣经中所有片段式的内容都要融合进那个更大的叙事中去。[3] 但是要将圣经应用到我们现代人的生活中，我们也必须考虑人类连于圣经的剧本，或者怎样与之断开的。
一种谈论人们生活的故事性质的方式就是，确认所有人提问和回答的都是关于生命本质的四个基础性问题，不论他们是否意识到。
我们在哪儿？我们所住的这个世界的本质是什么？
我们是谁？人类基本的本质是什么？
哪里出了问题？为什么这个世界还有我的生活会如此混乱？
解决方案又是什么？这些问题怎么才能被解决？[4]
这些问题和我们的作答方式，形成了我们生活经历的叙事主干。它们塑造着我们诠释生活中各种事情的方式，从平凡平淡的到令人触目惊心的种种。它们塑造着我们看待自己和他人的眼光。它们塑造着我们对于一种有意义的人生、甚或一个意义重大的时刻该由什么组成的认识。它们塑造着我们每天的信仰、情绪和决定。每个人都日复一日地生活在自己首要的故事中。每个人都是各种范畴中的意义设定者，以此诠释生活。问题在于，我们用哪个故事和怎样的叙事手法来看待我们所处的世界和解读自己的生活？
这恰恰就是圣经神学可以发挥作用的地方！从《创世纪》到《启示录》不断展开的圣经叙事所给我们提供的内容回答了前面的问题，如果我们真有受教的耳朵，它也将我们引向真正的现实。
1. 我们在哪里？在神创造美好的世界中。（创1-2）
2. 我们是谁？神形象的承载者，按着祂的样式被造，并要将祂美善且智慧的统治带到世界的各个角落（创1:26-27）。
3. 哪里出了问题？我们选择自主地生活在自我创造的故事中。 我们不敬拜创造的神，反去敬拜受造物（创3，罗1:25）。
4. 解决方案是什么？救赎，从以色列的历史开始，直到耶稣基督的到来才得以完成，耶稣来“赐下祝福/消灭咒诅 ”。
每次你对着孩子大吼大叫，或是将某个人往最坏想，或是在赶去上班的路上堵车，或是逃避现实而陷入网络色情中，你表现出的是那一刻你为着什么而活，就是俘虏你的、自我专注的故事。
辅导事工倚靠圣灵的帮助，帮助别人在生活中找出异常的情节线索，并寻求重新连接到耶稣基督赐生命的故事中去。正如耶稣帮助去往以马忤斯路上的两个愁苦的门徒明白旧约怎样具体地指向他自己那样，我们也帮助别人明白他们生命中具体的片段。如果他们的人生故事与福音一致，我们为之欢喜。如果他们的人生故事偏离了福音，我们温柔地指正并修复。
研读圣经本不应当脱离于生活实践，而辅导也不应当脱离于圣经大故事的基础。如此一来，圣经神学和辅导必然联系在一起。
Biblical Theology and Counseling
What is the connection between biblical theology and counseling in the local church? Perhaps at first glance you might say, not much!
Why? When you hear “biblical theology,” you tend to think of overarching categories such as creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. You think in terms of major biblical themes such as sin, suffering, exodus, sacrifice, law, kingdom, and exile, and how they develop in Scripture over the course of redemptive history. When you hear “counseling,” what comes to mind are topics such as interpersonal ministry, conversation, discipleship, personal struggles, and crisis. You see specific names and faces.
Biblical theology, as edifying and important as it is, can seem a bit abstract compared to the concrete, flesh-and-blood realities of life on the street this side of glory. But I would argue the two are intimately related. Their interrelationship provides the foundation to carry out a truthful, wise, and contextually relevant counseling ministry in the church.
The great biblical theologian Geerhardus Vos said, “All that God disclosed of Himself has come in response to the practical religious needs of His people as these emerged in the course of history.”[1] This means the Scriptures come to us jam-packed with relevance for problems in living. The Bible not only gives us biblical theology, but is in fact, practical theology.[2] Scripture and life are intertwined!
What is the best way to highlight their interconnection in one-on-one ministry situations?
I find the concept of narrative or story particularly useful. This is true whether we are reading Scripture or “reading” (listening to and seeking to understand) people. We must read the Bible as one true story centering on the coming of Jesus Christ and his renewing rule. All bits and pieces of Scripture fit into that larger narrative.[3] But to apply Scripture to our contemporary lives we must also discern how the bits and pieces of the stories of people’s lives cohere, or don’t cohere, with the biblical drama.
A way to speak of the storied quality of human life is to affirm that all people ask and answer four foundational questions about the nature of life, whether consciously or not:
Where are we? What is the nature of the world in which we live?
Who are we? What is the essential nature of human beings?
What’s wrong? Why is the world—and my life—in such a mess?
What’s the remedy? How can these problems be solved?[4]
These questions—and how we answer them—form the narrative backbone of our lives. They shape the way we interpret life events, from the mundane to the horrific. They shape our view of ourselves and others. They shape our vision of what constitutes a meaningful life, even a meaningful moment. They shape our beliefs, emotions, and decisions every day. Everybody has an overarching story he or she lives moment by moment. Everybody is a meaning maker with categories for making sense of life. The question is this: what story, what narrative, will we use to see our world and interpret our lives?
And this is where biblical theology hits the street! The unfolding biblical narrative given to us in Genesis to Revelation answers the preceding questions and orients us toward true reality if we have ears to hear.
1. Where are we? In God’s good world. (Gen. 1-2).
2. Who are we? God’s image-bearers, created to bear his likeness, bringing his good and wise rule to the ends of the earth (Gen. 1:26-27).
3. What’s wrong? We have chosen to live autonomously, by story lines of our own creation. We have exchanged the worship of the Creator for worship of created things (Gen. 3; Rom. 1:25).
4. What’s the remedy? Redemption, initiated in Israel’s history and completed by Jesus Christ, who “comes to make his blessings flow / far as the curse is found.”
Every time you yell at your kids, or assume the worst about someone, or cut someone off in traffic in your rush to the office, or escape to internet pornography you show what you’re living for in that moment. You show the self-absorbed story lines that have captured you.
Counseling ministry helps others recognize the aberrant plot lines by which they are living and seeks to reconnect them, by the Spirit’s enablement, to the life-giving story of Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus helped the discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus understand how the details of the Old Testament pointed to him, we help others understand where the details of their lives point. We celebrate when they are in line with the gospel story. We gently correct and restore when they are out of line with the gospel story.
The Bible is not meant to be studied apart from its application to life, and counseling is not meant to be practiced apart from its foundation in the story of Scripture. In this way biblical theology and counseling are inexorably linked.
编者注：本文选自 CrossTalk: Where Life and Scripture Meet (New Growth Press, 2009)一书，已获得出版社许可。
[1] 圣经神学：旧约与新约（大急流城，密歇根：埃尔德曼，1948；重印，爱丁堡：真理旌旗，1975），9.（中文版待出）
[2] David Powlison, “Counsel Ephesians,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling 17:2 (1999).
[3] 请参考耶稣如何在路24:44-47总结旧约圣经的焦点
[4] Brian Walsh and J. Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1984), 35.
作者：Michael Emlet
翻译肢体：侯淑婧
用圣经视野和实用资源装备教会领袖
进而通过健康的教会向世界彰显神的荣耀
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▼▼▼好好预备给人讲福音