Steve Viars pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Indiana tells this story that explains so vividly how the church has lost the purpose and vitality of the bible. Pastors are trained to preach and teach but at the end of the day Christian seminaries and colleges don’t teach students how to apply the bible to their lives and the lives of those they minister to. Here is what Steve says: [this quote is taken from the NANC Track 1 audio series, Lesson two: What Makes Biblical Counseling Biblical?]

Listen to the Audio Version Here:

“I’m …sure that in many of our churches that we [haven't] done a good job of mining the truth from the word of God in a way that presents the practical answers to everyday life in ways that people can really get their hands on them and change and grow biblically. In fact I’m not sure that many believers in Jesus Christ have a well honed doctrine of growth themselves even people who are in leadership…

…If that’s true, if many people in ministry leadership do not have a well honed biblical doctrine of how to change and grow, if they’ve not worked that through themselves then what does that mean for the kind of things they are teaching to their people?

…we have a whole generation of people, their heads are stuffed with bible facts but they don’t know what to do with them. People are not changing and growing and applying the truth to every day life…who’s fault is that?

…the problem lies in part in colleges and seminaries in the way the bible is treated, the way the bible is taught…many times …the bible is viewed as a book of problems. And class after class is solving all the problems in the bible…then you appear before a board of professors at your oral exam, and what did they ask you about?

…what you hear is problem, problem, problem, problem. Yiky, yiky yakity…if that’s what it’s all about…what do you think a pastor is going to be like after he’s been in that situation for a long time? The answer is…he starts preaching and its all about all the problems of the bible…we have a whole generation of people who’s heads are absolutely stuffed with bible facts but they’ve not been taught in a way that…encouraged them to change and grow and so they walk out after the benediction is proclaimed unchanged week after week after week…

…Let me tell you how I got involved in counseling. I was a bible college graduate…then I was in my second year of seminary…some of my friends came to me and said, “hey there’s a church not too far from here…that has a counseling training program based on the bible…”

Let me tell you about my first training session…in the evenings you sat in on a live counseling session. I had never sat in on a counseling session in my life! The first session…[the two being counseled] were an older couple [who] said they had been saved…but their presenting problem on that particular day was they had had a fight that week. And it got so bad that the man went out to the garage, found a little baby food jar filled with gasoline and hid behind a box. When his wife came out to look for him he jumped out from the behind the box and splashed the gasoline in her face.

…you say how did you respond to that? …on the outside I was quiet, but on the inside…I actually chuckled, not at them. That was a sad situation…but there was someone in the room I was chuckling at…it was me. Because I kept having this recurring thought; now Steve what would happen right now…what would happen if this counselor…said, “Steve would you take over for me?” …Four years of bible college, two years of seminary and I’m telling you…I would not have had a ghost of an idea of what to do. I could have parsed some Greek verbs for them…

But as far as knowing how to take the truth of the scripture, the sword of the Spirit out of its sheath and effectively minister it in the hearts and minds of troubled people I did not have a ghost of an idea.” – Steve Viars.

Emphasis mine.