JESUS THE BIBLICAL THERAPIST

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus established the Biblical Therapy process of exposing and correcting lies. He exposed a whole series of religious lies in Matthew Chapter 5 by using the phrase:

“Ye have heard it said, but I say unto you . . .”

EXPOSING THE LIES

In Matthew Chapter 5, Jesus exposes these lies:

• In verses 21-22, the lie about murder.
• In verses 23-24, the lie about forgiveness.
• In verses 27-28, the lie about adultery.
• In verses 31-32, the lie about divorce.
• In verses 33-37, the lie about taking an oath.
• In verses 38-42, the lie about impressments.
• In verses 43-47, the lie about love.

In Chapter 6 of Matthew, Jesus continues the process.

• In verses 1-4, the lie about giving.
• In verses 5-8, the lie about prayer.
• In verses 14-15, the lie about unforgiveness.
• In verses 16-18, the lie about fasting.

NOT BELIEVING ENOUGH

There are eleven lies and/or half-truths in these two groups alone. They reflect a mind-set or mind condition of the most religious people of Jesus’ day. What they believed caused them to think, feel, and act in ungodly ways. People can believe wrongly about right things and be wrong. Fasting, forgiveness, prayer, giving, and love are all good. However, if what you believe about them is wrong, you are wrong no matter how religious you are. It is amazing how much we can believe without believing enough.

LIES CAN BE AS STRONG AS THE TRUTH

Illustrations of this fact are fresh in our memory with David Koresh, Jim Jones, and the Heaven’s Gate cult. Though they are examples of the extremes in believing religious lies, they are indeed modern classic cases. Lies are as strong as the truth if a person believes them. Religious lies are the most commonly acceptable.

Mark Twain once said:

“A lie runs around the world, while truth is putting on her boots.”

He was right. Fallen human nature wants to believe lies, especially “religious lies,” which makes it easy for the lies to take root. Of all demagogues’ activity, the religious ones who promote religious lies are the most despicable. They know how to bait the hook.

WE BECOME LIKE THE GOD WE WORSHIP

What we believe determines how we behave, and both determine what we become. If we believe the truth, the truth will satisfy us as in John 17:17 and make us free as in John 8:31-32. If we believe lies, we will gradually become a lie as we lose our integrity and begin to practice duplicity. It is fundamentally true that we become like the god we worship. If that god is false, we become false. This is shown in Psalm 115:8:

 “Those who make them false gods are like them. So is everyone who trusts in them”

DR KRIGE AND HOUSE REGENERATION

This adapted content was extracted from A Biblical Approach to Psychotherapy authored by Dr Ado Krige, the Founding Director of House Regeneration, a South African drug rehabilitation centre offering a comprehensive discipleship training program. By applying principles of Biblical Therapy, using the Scriptures to teach, rebuke, correct, and train in righteousness, House Regeneration counsellors show anyone who has suffered from addiction how to fully understand why they do what they do and how to bring their belief systems in line with the Word of God.