ACBC Theology Exam 10 - Dichotomist View of Man

00:00:00.000 | function and the Q&A function if you have any questions or comments on anything that we're

00:00:05.440 | talking about tonight. And we do have a section in tonight's session that I want to get some

00:00:15.600 | interaction using the chat function and show you some things and get your input on it.

00:00:21.680 | So feel free to participate in that way. But I hope you're doing well. I hope that your studies

00:00:27.280 | are going well and that you're walking in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and finding his

00:00:33.360 | peace and joy through this season of life. And I'm looking forward to tonight's session

00:00:38.960 | on the dichotomous view of mankind. We're looking at theology exam number 10 tonight,

00:00:46.720 | and trust that this will be a good and profitable study for us all tonight.

00:00:52.960 | So if you've been following with us in the class, we're broadly moving from the essay questions

00:01:00.400 | that deal with the doctrine of God to the essay questions that are now dealing with the doctrine

00:01:06.160 | of man. So we did two exam questions dealing with the attributes of God and then the nature

00:01:13.760 | of the Trinity. And now we are moving into the general session dealing with the doctrine of man.

00:01:20.640 | And the two really go hand in hand. We can't understand who man is unless we understand who

00:01:27.440 | God is. And it really is, as I mentioned last week, the doctrine of man, which is the foundation for

00:01:35.520 | all that we do in biblical counseling. It's really when it comes to the doctrine of man that

00:01:41.120 | the viewpoints of secular psychology and the viewpoint of biblical counseling diverges.

00:01:48.320 | We believe that man is made in the image of God and that man is made in the likeness of God to

00:01:53.760 | reflect God's glory and his character. Man was made to live in relationship with God.

00:02:00.080 | And so if you take out the understanding of the true and the living God from your understanding

00:02:07.120 | of man, then you're going to end up with an inaccurate understanding of who man is. And I

00:02:12.000 | think that's what's happened in secular psychology and that's why biblical counseling is so important

00:02:19.280 | because we want to hold forth a true understanding of the doctrine of man. So that's a little bit of

00:02:26.080 | why these essays are so important and why I trust you will give yourself in faithful study to these

00:02:33.520 | doctrines. I want to do a devotional tonight from 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and I'd like to

00:02:45.040 | both encourage us in a wonderful passage from God's word that is actually a passage that we

00:02:53.120 | use often in counseling. I know that our counselors in this ministry use this chapter and this passage

00:03:00.160 | often to encourage counselees, but I think it's also a passage that is very relevant and applicable

00:03:07.200 | to our study tonight. When we're talking about the dichotomous view of man, we're talking about

00:03:12.960 | the idea that man is material and immaterial, that man has a body and a soul. A man has an outer man,

00:03:23.520 | which is his physical body, and man has an inner man, which is referred to by various terms such

00:03:30.960 | as heart, soul, spirit, mind. All of that refers to the inner man, the immaterial aspect of man.

00:03:42.880 | And by man, I'm referring to humanity broadly. I'm not using the term man to refer to gender,

00:03:49.760 | but I'm using it in the way that the Old Testament uses the Hebrew term adam in reference to

00:03:57.440 | humanity. And so when we're talking about man is material and immaterial, we're saying that

00:04:06.320 | man has a physical aspect, a physical component, and also an immaterial aspect. Man has an inner

00:04:18.240 | man or the soul, and that's what we mean by the dichotomous view of man, that man has two aspects

00:04:25.920 | or two facets to his being, although man is an essential unity. So we can never really distinguish,

00:04:36.720 | like if I'm talking to my wife, I don't say, "Well, I'm going to talk to the physical aspect

00:04:43.200 | of my wife," but not talk to the immaterial aspect of my wife. If I'm having a conversation

00:04:48.880 | with my wife, she's hearing me using physical ears, but she's also hearing me from the heart.

00:04:56.480 | And so there is a difficulty in knowing sometimes where does the physical aspect of man end

00:05:07.280 | and the immaterial aspect of man begin? Because man is an essential unity, it's sometimes hard

00:05:14.720 | to figure all of that out, like which side of me is reacting to this? Is my physical

00:05:19.760 | nature reacting to what I'm seeing before me, or is it my heart that's reacting to what's

00:05:26.960 | before me? And in most cases, it's both because you're an essential unity. Man is essential unity,

00:05:35.760 | although he has a body and a soul. I think that perspective of man being

00:05:43.120 | immaterial and material is so foundational for counseling. It's so foundational in how we

00:05:50.960 | understand counseling methods and interpretations of counseling issues. And one example of this

00:05:59.040 | is in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and Paul in this chapter is talking about the intense

00:06:07.040 | physical struggles that he encountered in ministry. As you know, that apostle Paul was

00:06:13.680 | enduring just incredible sufferings as he brought the gospel to the Gentile world and preached the

00:06:21.120 | gospel. He talks about those sufferings in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 8, where he says, "We are

00:06:27.840 | afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not

00:06:37.360 | forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that

00:06:43.360 | the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." So that is a very vivid description of

00:06:52.560 | the sufferings and the pressures that Paul endured in his physical body. Those words "afflicted,"

00:07:00.560 | "perplexed," "persecuted," "struck down," and then he uses this vivid description of his physical

00:07:09.760 | sufferings, "always carrying in the body the death of Jesus," describing the death as a process,

00:07:21.760 | that as you look at my life, you are seeing something of a reflection of the sufferings

00:07:28.000 | of our Savior when he walked to the cross. This is a very intense description of the

00:07:36.000 | physical sufferings of Paul, and then he adds quite beautifully the phrase, "so that the life

00:07:45.360 | of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." The reason why I'm suffering is to bring to you

00:07:52.080 | the gospel. So he continues, "For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake,

00:07:59.120 | so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh." So death is at work in us,

00:08:06.320 | but life in you. So that was Paul's reality, afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down,

00:08:17.600 | and he refers elsewhere in the book of 2 Corinthians to the toil and hardship, the hunger

00:08:26.720 | and the thirst, often without food and cold and exposure, beatings, imprisonments. He suffered

00:08:35.760 | much for the sake of the gospel, but here is the key statement I want you to get down in verse 16

00:08:43.440 | where he says, "In the midst of all of this, we do not lose heart." Now watch this, and this is

00:08:50.960 | going to tie into our study tonight, the immaterial and the material aspects of man. Why do we not

00:09:01.520 | lose heart? Why are we not discouraged? Why are we not downcast? Why do we keep being encouraged,

00:09:09.200 | and why do we keep having hope in the midst of all the suffering? He tells us, "Though our outer

00:09:15.040 | self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day." That's just a tremendous

00:09:23.600 | statement there. Paul acknowledged that his outer self, his physical body, was wasting away.

00:09:33.600 | He just acknowledged that, that in this life, and it was not just aging, but it really was the

00:09:39.520 | sufferings and all that he went through, the beatings and the imprisonments, but

00:09:44.400 | there's also the aspect of everyone ages. Everyone is living somewhere in the reality of

00:09:51.760 | that statement that our outer self is wasting away. Our physical body is decaying.

00:10:03.280 | The word "waste away," listen to this, it means to rot thoroughly.

00:10:09.440 | It's not exactly an encouraging statement, but it is true nonetheless. It means to ruin,

00:10:18.320 | to utterly decay, to corrupt, to destroy, and ultimately to perish. That's just a stark reality

00:10:29.360 | of what's happening to our physical bodies. Anyone who's lived any length of time past the age of,

00:10:35.200 | say, 35 or 40 can relate to that statement. Our outer self, our physical body is wasting away,

00:10:46.160 | but Paul says at the same time, our inner self,

00:10:52.560 | the immaterial aspect of man, our hearts, our soul, our spirit, the inner man is being renewed

00:11:02.080 | day by day. So, the idea here is that if you're only focused on the outer man, if you're only

00:11:13.120 | living for the physical body, then you have plenty of reasons to lose heart. Your outer self

00:11:22.480 | will waste away. Now, I know we're all trying diets, and supplements, and creams, and potions,

00:11:30.240 | and all sorts of different things to kind of delay the reality of that, and by all means,

00:11:39.440 | I think we should be responsible and be a good steward of our bodies, but

00:11:44.080 | in the end, everyone lives in the reality of our outer self will waste away.

00:11:51.440 | If that's what you're living for, then you have every reason to lose heart, but Paul says our

00:12:01.120 | inner self is being renewed, present tense, day by day. Our inner self is growing strong,

00:12:10.320 | vibrant. Our inner self is experiencing spiritual transformation.

00:12:18.320 | We are not wasting away in the inner man. We are ever growing stronger,

00:12:28.880 | ever more being infused with hope and with joy. Why? Because the Spirit of God does a work in

00:12:39.280 | the inner man to produce a heart that is filled with spiritual vitality and life, and so we do not

00:12:49.760 | lose heart. Bible teacher John Gill said this, that the internal hidden man of the heart

00:12:57.920 | is in a prosperous condition. Our souls are in good health. The work of God is comfortably

00:13:04.960 | carried on in us. We have a sweet and repeated experiences of the love of God. We are growing

00:13:11.920 | in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, and like the palm tree, the more weight is hung upon it,

00:13:17.360 | the more it thrives, and like the children of Israel and Egypt, the more they were afflicted,

00:13:23.760 | the more they grew. That is the joy of seeing what God is doing in the inner man, and then Paul

00:13:35.920 | ends up this beautiful statement and saying, "For this light momentary affliction is preparing for

00:13:42.560 | us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen but to

00:13:49.360 | the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are

00:13:54.400 | unseen are eternal." So the counseling implication for all of us is as biblical counselors, we

00:14:03.920 | minister to the inner man. That's our focus. That's where we are tasked to do our ministry.

00:14:12.000 | You have heard me said, and I'll say again, we are not medical professionals. We are not licensed

00:14:18.960 | physicians. We don't prescribe medication. We don't take people off medication. We are not

00:14:25.680 | authorized to practice physical medicine in the local church. Now we do data gathering where we

00:14:33.280 | ask people about their physical health, but our role in our realm is not really in terms of the

00:14:40.240 | physical body. We incorporate that in our counseling, but our focus really is in taking

00:14:47.520 | the word of God and ministering it to the heart so that the inner man of our counselee can thrive

00:14:54.160 | and grow strong even in the midst of the trials and the sufferings of life. Our focus is on

00:15:02.400 | the inner man, and we believe that no matter what goes on in this life, that the soul can prosper,

00:15:09.600 | that the inner man can thrive, that the heart can grow strong in trust and in confidence

00:15:17.200 | in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that is basically what we do in counseling ministry.

00:15:27.040 | We work with our counselee to renew their inner man day by day, and that's why as biblical

00:15:34.720 | counselors, we do not lose heart. We continue this ministry, and we've received it as a mercy.

00:15:41.680 | We understand all of the sufferings of this life. We join with our counselees in groaning for the

00:15:50.560 | day when Christ will return and when there will be no more sorrow, pain, or suffering in life.

00:15:58.160 | We look forward to the day of our future physical resurrection where we will be given new glorious

00:16:05.840 | bodies that will be brought into conformity with the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we just

00:16:12.640 | long for that day. And in the midst of our waiting, we groan in the midst of this life with

00:16:18.240 | all that is going on, and yet we believe that if the Word of God is heard and believed and trusted,

00:16:24.880 | that the soul can be satisfied, the inner man can thrive, and that is our joy and our privilege as

00:16:34.640 | biblical counselors to help people with that. And as I've often said, if we want to impart that to

00:16:42.320 | others, we need to be experiencing that ourselves. And so let me just encourage you, don't lose

00:16:47.600 | heart. Take the Word of God and learn it. Eat of its glorious truths. Taste and see that the Lord

00:16:55.840 | is good so that your soul may prosper in the day of adversity. Let me pray for us, and we'll get

00:17:02.640 | into our handout tonight. Father, thank you for this truth that we do not lose heart. We thank

00:17:08.880 | you that your Word is just very clear and stark on the realities of physical aging, physical illness,

00:17:18.960 | that Lord, all of us are in some stage of that process of seeing the outer man decay, and yet

00:17:28.560 | we thank you for this promise by the apostle Paul that the inner man can be renewed day by day.

00:17:35.680 | We pray that, Lord, you would help us to experience that for ourselves. We pray that you would

00:17:41.520 | bless our hour today in looking at this topic, that, Lord, we would get focused as biblical

00:17:49.760 | counselors and know what our task is and know what it is not. And we just commit this time to

00:17:55.120 | you. Thank you for each student here. Bless them in their studies. In Jesus' name, amen.

00:18:02.320 | Okay, amen. Let's look at our handout, and I want to cover tonight the dichotomous view of man.

00:18:09.920 | By the way, that whole discussion of inner man and outer man,

00:18:14.480 | just know that, I mean, I incorporate that all the time in my pastoral ministry.

00:18:20.320 | If someone asks me to pray for their arm, and they say, "I'm going in for surgery, and

00:18:28.640 | I want you to pray that the Lord will heal my arm," I will definitely pray for their outer man,

00:18:33.600 | their arm, and I'll pray that the surgery does go well, but I will also pray for their inner man.

00:18:39.600 | So I'm not just content to pray for my friend, John, that God would heal his arm. I'm praying

00:18:46.000 | that, Lord, please heal John's arm and also bring his soul to you. Help his soul to prosper.

00:18:53.920 | May his heart trust in you and grow strong in the promises of God. And so you want to incorporate

00:18:58.640 | that in your ministry, that we're ministering to both outer man and inner man, both the material

00:19:04.560 | and immaterial aspects of man. So let's look at the question tonight, and this is theology exam

00:19:11.440 | number 10, which is, "Provide a biblical description for the dichotomous view of mankind.

00:19:18.880 | Explain the counseling implications of this doctrine with regard to the inner and outer man."

00:19:25.520 | Now, I've given you a handout. I'm going to walk through some of the suggested reading,

00:19:30.400 | but I'm not going to slavishly go through our handout tonight. I think the material from Grudem

00:19:37.120 | and also from Lambert is going to help you. Charles Ryrie has a great chapter on the

00:19:44.800 | dichotomous view of man. I highly commend that to you, and those resources are going to help you

00:19:50.560 | walk through this doctrine. I'm going to spend most of my time tonight on that second aspect

00:19:56.960 | of the question, "Explain the counseling implications of this doctrine with regard to

00:20:02.720 | the inner and outer man." How does this doctrine inform the way that we counsel? How is it practical,

00:20:09.920 | and how does it help us view counseling ministry? So I would commend to you the reading of Wayne

00:20:17.360 | Grudem's Systematic Theology. Grudem has a very good chapter there on the dichotomous view of man,

00:20:24.400 | and then he gives a very good defense of the dichotomous view of man over and against the

00:20:33.040 | trichotomous view of man. And trichotomy would see man as having three facets or three aspects.

00:20:43.360 | Trichotomy would make the distinction between body, soul, and spirit, where dichotomy would see

00:20:53.360 | man as being essentially body and then soul or spirit. There's not a real clear distinction

00:21:00.640 | between soul and spirit, but there are two terms that refer to the same essential

00:21:06.720 | aspect of man, which is the immaterial side of man. And so Grudem does a great job in just

00:21:15.360 | explaining that and giving a good defense for dichotomy versus trichotomy. And he has a number

00:21:24.320 | of passages in his chapter that demonstrate that the term soul and spirit essentially

00:21:32.800 | refer to the same aspect of man, that they're virtually interchangeable and used that way

00:21:39.600 | in scripture. And then Charles Ryrie has a good section in his work, Basic Theology,

00:21:47.440 | The Facets of Man. He calls man, I like this phrase, he calls man a bipartite unity,

00:21:55.280 | which emphasizes the two parts, body and soul, while also emphasizing essential

00:22:02.560 | unity. And so Ryrie does a great job articulating those truths. I want to

00:22:08.080 | commend that to you. And then a couple of counseling related resources. We have Heath

00:22:14.160 | Lambert's A Theology of Biblical Counseling. I really encourage you to read that. Lambert

00:22:21.760 | walks through the counseling implications of the dichotomous view of man. And this was a helpful

00:22:28.640 | statement. I'll put this on the screen for us. Lambert says that biblical counselors will address

00:22:36.720 | problems that are both physical and spiritual. It is a simplistic denial of a complex biblical

00:22:44.720 | teaching to insist that counseling problems could only be physical or spiritual. Counseling

00:22:51.840 | problems can be physical, spiritual, or combinations of the two. The complex interaction

00:22:59.120 | of body and soul combined with our limited knowledge as human beings may make it complicated

00:23:05.200 | or even impossible to identify a singular genesis of a given problem as physical, spiritual,

00:23:13.120 | or both. And I think that's a helpful perspective that it isn't always apparent where the physical

00:23:24.000 | struggle ends and the spiritual struggle begins. But you have that basic framework of man being

00:23:31.520 | material and immaterial, and that is a framework that we use in counseling ministry. So one example

00:23:40.720 | of this is, let's say I'm struggling to sleep at night. So do I have a physical problem or do I

00:23:53.200 | have a spiritual problem? Well, sometimes it's difficult to tell, right? I mean, it may be a

00:24:01.760 | physical issue. There may be some issue of aging or it may be some undiagnosed illness that is

00:24:09.360 | keeping me up at night. It may be a side effect from a medication or it might be a spiritual

00:24:16.720 | problem. It might be I'm just anxious and I can't get my thoughts to calm down. And it may be that

00:24:23.200 | I need to learn to trust the Lord. It's hard to know. I mean, where does this physical problem

00:24:28.800 | and where does the spiritual problem begin? And I think that's just the complex

00:24:35.360 | idea of it's not always so clear cut that man is a unity. He has two essential aspects, but

00:24:45.040 | the idea of bipartite unity is helpful in understanding that there is that tension of

00:24:52.560 | the two aspects of man, but essential unity. So we are always thinking through these categories

00:25:04.720 | when we counsel. We don't always know which part is physical and which part is spiritual,

00:25:09.840 | but we have these categories in mind. Let's say that I meet with a counselee who's really depressed

00:25:18.240 | and I find out that, well, he's sleeping two hours a night because he's drinking

00:25:27.040 | Red Bull or Monster every two hours during the day. And he only eats carbs. He eats no protein.

00:25:37.600 | And then he's working 80 to 100 hours a week because he's being driven by a boss who's mad at

00:25:45.760 | him. Well, it's not my job in that scenario to be the counselee's physician, but it is for the sake

00:25:53.840 | of data gathering helpful for me to gather those aspects of what's going on in his physical life.

00:26:00.960 | How much is he sleeping? What is his diet like? Is he exercising? What is happening physically?

00:26:09.200 | Even though my goal in counseling is to help him spiritually, understanding some of those

00:26:16.160 | items is helpful in my interpretation of how best to counsel and how best to help him.

00:26:26.000 | And it would probably be a good suggestion to ask those questions. Why are you drinking Red Bull

00:26:34.560 | every two hours during the day? And to get some kind of answer of, well, I'm really anxious that

00:26:41.200 | my boss is getting mad at me, so I'm really working hard at my job. And to do that, I need

00:26:45.840 | to have some kind of stimulants. It's good to explore that physical side of what's happening

00:26:55.920 | in the counseling ministry so that you can minister the Word of God to the immaterial

00:27:03.680 | side of man, so you can minister the Word of God to the heart. So the point here is

00:27:08.560 | it isn't always easy to make a clear distinction between physical and spiritual, but we do have

00:27:14.160 | those categories of inner man and outer man in mind as we proceed with biblical ministry.

00:27:21.440 | So read Heath Lambert's The Theology of Biblical Counseling. And then I gave you in your Dropbox

00:27:27.040 | Winston Smith's article from the Journal of Biblical Counseling. It's called

00:27:30.800 | Dichotomy or Trichotomy, How the Doctrine of Man Shapes the Treatment of Depression. Now,

00:27:37.920 | that's just a really good article talking about the counseling implications of a dichotomous view

00:27:45.200 | of man. And let me just throw this in at this point and just throw this out there

00:27:51.520 | and show you kind of why this matters in counseling and why ACBC wants you to write this

00:27:59.760 | essay. So under a dichotomous view of man, you basically have this idea of outer man, inner man,

00:28:06.720 | physical versus spiritual, with a practical application that man needs a physician to

00:28:14.560 | treat the body and man needs a pastor to minister to the soul. So under a dichotomous view of man,

00:28:20.880 | the counseling implications would be that we would want our counselees to see a physician,

00:28:28.160 | to have a good medical doctor, and we would want them to be under the spiritual care

00:28:32.400 | of the local church. I think by pastor, I would broadly include all those who are

00:28:39.120 | counseling and giving shepherding care to the flock of God. I don't mean just pastor as an

00:28:45.440 | office, but I would refer to anyone who is giving spiritual care under the broad idea of shepherding

00:28:54.080 | ministry. So we would basically break that up into our counselees need a doctor and they need

00:29:03.680 | to receive shepherding care from the church. So we, as biblical counselors, would be on the right

00:29:12.640 | side of that table. We would want to focus on the inner man and we would desire to work cooperatively

00:29:19.360 | with a good physician to rule out any physical causes of the counseling problem. Now that's how

00:29:28.000 | a dichotomous view of man would impact biblical counseling. What do you have under a trichotomous

00:29:35.840 | view of man? I have here, you have the medical professional on the left and the biblical

00:29:40.480 | counselor on the right. What about a trichotomous view of man? So under trichotomy, you have

00:29:49.200 | body, soul, and spirit. And a trichotomous would use passages such as 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 23

00:29:57.760 | to argue for the idea that there are three essential aspects of man, body, soul, and

00:30:06.240 | spirit. Now, as Winston Smith says in the article, that really the modern day argument for trichotomy

00:30:15.680 | is not so much a theological argument as it is a counseling argument. It's a means to get to

00:30:24.000 | an end in counseling. And basically what you have under a trichotomous view of man, you have

00:30:31.280 | the body. And so man needs a physician to treat the body. You have this category of soul,

00:30:39.280 | which would include thoughts and emotions. In Greek, literally means soul. And so psychology

00:30:47.120 | would be the study of the soul. So you have the idea that man needs a psychologist for the soul.

00:30:54.240 | And then you have the third aspect, which is spirit, which is under trichotomy, the aspect

00:31:02.480 | of man that most directly relates to God. And so man needs a pastor, man needs a church

00:31:09.440 | to minister to the spirit. So under this view of who man is, your spirit really does need to

00:31:17.440 | connect with God, but that can be done in a worship service at a church where you worship

00:31:23.600 | the Lord in song and you connect with God in that way. But in order to deal with the soul,

00:31:31.360 | you need a psychologist. So you have a third aspect of who man is. So body, soul, and spirit

00:31:40.560 | requires physician, psychologist, and pastor. Now this is, if you look at that table there,

00:31:49.920 | this is what essentially many Christians, what they're doing. I mean, this is essentially,

00:31:58.160 | I think, describes a broad section of what the evangelical church is involved with. I think

00:32:06.000 | you have many Christians who would go to a physician because they have

00:32:11.360 | illnesses and sicknesses and you have, they go to church because they want to worship the Lord.

00:32:20.400 | But when it comes to the issues of the soul, they go to a psychologist. And that would be

00:32:28.400 | kind of a typical structure for many Christians. I don't want to overstate that. I don't know if

00:32:33.680 | it's majority of Christians, but I would say a broad section of Christianity today would involve

00:32:39.120 | church, psychologist, and medical professional. So today's session is not a full-throated defense of

00:32:48.400 | integrationism or a biblical counseling over integrationism or biblical counseling over and

00:32:54.240 | against secular psychology. My purpose is really just to point out the counseling implications

00:33:00.160 | of taking a dichotomous versus trichotomous view of man. The majority of biblical counselors in

00:33:10.240 | ACBC would hold to a dichotomous view of man, that man is physical and spiritual.

00:33:18.080 | That is what is in the ACBC standards of doctrine. You have this statement that God created the human

00:33:26.160 | person with a physical body and an immaterial soul, each possessing equal honor and essential

00:33:31.840 | to humanity. And the statement goes on, but you have that statement on dichotomy in the standards

00:33:40.480 | of doctrine. And so most biblical counselors who are certified with ACBC hold to a dichotomous view

00:33:47.120 | of man. And the question would be, can you take a trichotomous view of man and be certified

00:33:54.080 | with ACBC? I think theoretically, it's possible, but you need to be very careful as to how you

00:34:00.880 | define your view and also the counseling implications of that position. The majority of

00:34:10.080 | counselors in this movement would say that man has two parts, body and soul.

00:34:17.200 | So here's Smith's article, and he's really helpful on this. He says, "Trichotomy's current

00:34:28.240 | popularity, however, is not the product of a theological movement per se, but rather a

00:34:33.760 | counseling movement. Christian counselors such as Clyde Naramore, Tim LaHaye, and others have used

00:34:39.920 | the soul-spirit distinction to establish the pertinence of psychology to Christian counselings."

00:34:46.400 | He's saying they're not making so much a theological argument as they're trying to

00:34:50.400 | arrive to an end to justify this whole section of ministry to people that would be served

00:35:02.560 | in light of secular psychology or integrationist psychologists.

00:35:08.320 | And so they're really justifying this middle category of we need a psychologist to minister to

00:35:17.920 | the soul. Now, Smith is going to say in that article that the soul underneath a trichotomous

00:35:25.280 | view encompasses thoughts and emotions. So if you want to connect with God, your spirit needs to go

00:35:35.040 | to church. You need to worship the Lord and sing songs to the Lord so that your spirit can connect

00:35:40.000 | with God. But when it comes to the issues of life, your relationships, how you're dealing with just

00:35:46.480 | stress or how you're dealing with your job, and you've got all these thoughts and emotions from

00:35:51.920 | Monday to Saturday, that's where you need a psychologist. And that would be a general

00:36:00.080 | application of the trichotomous view of man. In some ways, this is an oversimplification,

00:36:05.280 | but I hope you get the point that they're trying to justify this middle section of

00:36:10.000 | you need a psychologist to deal with thoughts and emotions.

00:36:17.600 | Now, if you look at that, thoughts and emotions, I mean, that is just

00:36:24.000 | probably just the broad section of life you're living there. I mean, that's a huge category.

00:36:34.080 | If your thoughts and emotions can only be addressed by either a secular psychologist

00:36:43.200 | or an integrationist psychologist who borrows from secular psychology,

00:36:49.360 | then we have just conceded a huge section of ministry to secular psychology. We have conceded

00:36:59.200 | anything dealing with thoughts and emotions is not going to be dealt with by pastors in the church,

00:37:06.560 | but are going to be dealt with psychologists who operate outside of the local church.

00:37:12.400 | And I think that's why ACBC wants you to write this essay, is they want you to think through

00:37:18.000 | the implications of whether you take a dichotomous or trichotomous view,

00:37:23.280 | and how does that impact counseling ministry? Do we need a psychologist to minister to the soul,

00:37:29.600 | or are we sufficient in the church because we have the word of God to address the issues of

00:37:36.560 | the soul? Now, you've heard me say in year one, and I've said again in year two, that I'm not

00:37:41.840 | going to concede the study of the soul to secular psychology because the Bible talks to issues of

00:37:46.800 | the soul. If you just do a concordance review of the word soul and how many times the Bible addresses

00:37:55.360 | the soul in scripture, you will find that the Bible does not concede the turf of the soul to

00:38:01.040 | the secular world. The Bible is written to address the soul, and the Bible is written to address

00:38:05.760 | the thoughts and the emotions that are characteristic of the soul. So in the

00:38:11.360 | biblical counseling world, we are not conceding that middle section to secular psychology. We

00:38:16.880 | are saying that that is exactly what the Bible addresses, is the inner man. But if you read

00:38:27.360 | Smith's article, and I really encourage you to read that, he applies this understanding of

00:38:34.240 | trichotomy into a critique of Merneth and Meyer's book, and I think it's called Happiness is a

00:38:42.880 | Choice, a very popular book in the Christian world dealing with depression. And he just gives a

00:38:48.400 | critique in saying that according to Merneth and Meyer, they acknowledge that the thoughts and

00:39:03.520 | feelings affect the spiritual aspects, but problems and thoughts and feelings are understood primarily

00:39:08.080 | through the use of psychological categories. For them, scripture serves primarily to validate

00:39:14.640 | psychological theory and to act as a guideline or guardrail for the soul rather than as a soul's

00:39:19.760 | explanation and cure. As an example of such thinking is Happiness is a Choice by Merneth

00:39:24.880 | and Meyer examined below. So what he's saying here is that under a trichotomist view of man,

00:39:33.440 | secular psychology is needed to address thoughts and emotions.

00:39:37.680 | How does Merneth and Meyer address the thoughts and emotions of the soul?

00:39:44.720 | They borrow from secular psychology. They explain depression in terms of these four

00:39:54.080 | influences or factors, grudge bearing, childhood influences, personality disorders, and unmet

00:40:00.400 | needs and self-worth. We could do a further study on that, but that's just to enforce the idea that

00:40:07.360 | those concepts are being borrowed from secular psychology. They're not being taken from the

00:40:13.440 | Bible. So I think in functional reality, what it does is it starts to look like this. That category

00:40:22.800 | of thoughts and emotions is huge. That's where we live. That's Monday to Saturday of every week. I'm

00:40:33.520 | living in thoughts and emotions and how am I dealing with the issues of life? If you concede

00:40:39.600 | that middle category to secular psychology, you really conceded a huge portion of the Christian

00:40:45.840 | life to the secular world and to secular thought. I know that was a long explanation, but

00:40:57.520 | that's why this essay is so important, and that's why we want you to think through what you believe

00:41:04.640 | about dichotomy and a trichotomy, and the resources I've listed will help you to do that.

00:41:12.800 | Now, with the time I have remaining, let me walk through some counseling implications of this

00:41:18.160 | doctrine. If you look at your handout, you'll find under the heading the simple statement that

00:41:26.080 | man is material and immaterial. Scripture is clear that man has essentially two parts. Man

00:41:33.360 | is material part, the body, and an immaterial part, the soul or the spirit. Scripture seems

00:41:39.120 | to use the term soul and spirit interchangeably, and you have a, even from the very beginning in

00:41:47.440 | Genesis 2 verse 7, you have a physical component and a non-physical component. The Lord God formed

00:41:53.600 | the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man

00:41:58.800 | became a living creature. What affects the body affects the soul. What affects the soul has an

00:42:09.760 | impact on the body. I can tell you that I am a much more godly person when I've had a good night

00:42:19.680 | of sleep, and so are probably you. If I've slept well, I've eaten a good breakfast, I'm much more

00:42:27.760 | likely to engage with worship on a Sunday morning and to hear God's word. What happens to me

00:42:34.560 | physically affects me spiritually. The converse is true as well. If my soul is troubled,

00:42:43.920 | then I don't sleep very well. If I'm having conflicts, major conflicts with people in the

00:42:52.960 | church or people in my family, then it affects my soul. I mean, it affects me physically

00:43:01.600 | from blood pressure to whatever else. There are physical ramifications of how you conduct

00:43:09.040 | your spiritual life, and you can think through a number of examples of how this is true.

00:43:17.120 | I have a ton of examples. One would be before I teach any class like this or before I teach

00:43:23.200 | any class in the church, I make sure that I eat protein, and whether that's eggs or chicken or

00:43:31.360 | whatever it is, I make sure that I have some kind of protein in my system, and I make sure that I

00:43:37.600 | stay away from sugary soda pop. Why do I do that? Because I don't want to be really excited the

00:43:46.080 | first 15 minutes of my teaching and then crash in the middle of my teaching session, and so how I

00:43:52.960 | handle my diet in that sense has an impact on what happens spiritually in terms of ministry,

00:44:00.720 | and it would not serve you if I have a sugar crash in the middle of a teaching session.

00:44:11.520 | Sometimes eating a couple of eggs before a teaching session is one of the most godliest

00:44:18.000 | things that I can do because that's one way that I can serve others, and so you see the physical

00:44:25.520 | and the spiritual are always interrelated. Now, you can see how this is helpful in counseling.

00:44:35.680 | Sometimes in counseling, you have someone who's really depressed or just anxious,

00:44:43.120 | and you start asking questions, and you just find that they're not sleeping, they're not eating,

00:44:51.360 | they haven't seen a doctor in years. I mean, those are just things to explore. Sometimes

00:44:58.960 | seeing a medical professional will help to rule out certain issues so that you can focus

00:45:04.720 | on the heart, and sometimes someone will say, "I'm just fighting with demons. I'm

00:45:12.800 | just battling with Satan," when really they're not going to sleep on time,

00:45:17.840 | and you need to deal with the physical issue before making a spiritual issue of it.

00:45:25.520 | Now, what I'm going to do, I'm going to skip to the end of your handout. You can read that

00:45:32.000 | on your own. There's some good material there, but on the page of your handout that says page 27,

00:45:39.120 | at the bottom of that handout, there is a letter D that I want to skip to. I think this is three

00:45:44.720 | or four pages in, but I'm going to skip some material here, but I want to highlight this.

00:45:52.880 | You have under letter D on page 27 that the physical body is affected by spiritual condition.

00:46:01.200 | Okay, so this is David in Psalm 32, where he says, and I'll read verse 1, "Blessed is the one whose

00:46:13.040 | transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts

00:46:17.920 | no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit," and then he says in verse 3, "For when I

00:46:23.360 | kept silent," so David's saying there, "There was a time when I didn't confess my sin. I didn't turn

00:46:32.320 | with my heart to the Lord," and it began with a spiritual issue. You see how these two aspects are

00:46:42.480 | always relating together? It began with a spiritual issue at the bottom, unconfessed sin, that's

00:46:48.640 | dealing with the immaterial aspect of man, but you'll note that in Psalm 32, David

00:46:57.120 | notes the physical effects of that unconfessed sin. He says, "Because I kept silent,

00:47:06.080 | my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long."

00:47:10.080 | He says that, "My strength was dried up by the heat of summer." In this particular case,

00:47:20.640 | there was a spiritual cause for these physical afflictions. Be very careful with this. Not

00:47:30.240 | everyone who has a physical illness has an illness due to unconfessed sin. Job would be the balancing

00:47:38.400 | example in contrast to David. Job was suffering with illness, but it was not because of sin. It

00:47:45.280 | was just because of God's sovereignty and God's sovereign plan, but in this case, in Psalm 32,

00:47:53.440 | David did not confess his sin and there were physical effects of that spiritual issue.

00:48:01.680 | And so, David needed to confess sin. He says in verse 5, "I acknowledge my sin to you. I did not

00:48:09.120 | cover my iniquity. I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. You forgave the iniquity of my sin."

00:48:13.760 | But you see how the physical and the spiritual are relating to each other. You see another

00:48:22.720 | example in Psalm 38 where David says, "There is no soundness in my flesh because of your

00:48:30.080 | indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin. My iniquities have gone over

00:48:35.760 | my head like a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and fester because of

00:48:40.240 | my foolishness. I'm utterly bowed down and prostrate all day long. I go about mourning."

00:48:47.200 | And so, no soundness, no health, festering wounds, burning sides, he's feeble, he's crushed. There

00:48:53.680 | are physical aspects to his life because he has unconfessed sin in his life. Now,

00:49:04.640 | you can see how the physical and the spiritual are always interrelating.

00:49:14.240 | What if you have a believer who is experiencing the physical consequences of unconfessed sin,

00:49:23.120 | and then instead of confessing sin as David did in Psalm 38, let's say this believer responds to

00:49:34.240 | those physical issues sinfully. This believer started off with unconfessed sin,

00:49:42.480 | experienced physical limitations because of that sin. Instead of repenting, confessing sin before

00:49:51.120 | the Lord, he or she continues to sin and complains to the Lord and argues against God and refuses to

00:49:59.120 | submit. You can see that there will be even further physical effects and consequences because

00:50:07.600 | of the further sinful response of the believer, and the cycle will continue in that way until it

00:50:14.240 | is broken by confession and humbling before the Lord. Now, this is just real life. This is what

00:50:23.920 | we see in counseling ministry. We see the cycle going back and forth oftentimes, and I'm very

00:50:32.080 | careful not to draw conclusions that a person has illness because of sin, but there are times once

00:50:41.920 | you begin counseling, you see that it is obvious, and even the counselee will tell you that it is

00:50:47.600 | because of sin that they're having these physical issues. You see how the spiritual and physical are

00:50:54.560 | always relating to each other. In this case, the cycle was broken when David confessed to sin and

00:51:03.520 | drew near to the Lord. I think you get this, and we'll walk through some examples of this. Now,

00:51:11.760 | let me ask for some participation here if you've got your chat function ready. We've got a few

00:51:17.280 | minutes here before we close, and let me walk you through some examples. Let's start with

00:51:26.000 | stress. Let's say that the issue begins with a physical issue, and the issue is stress.

00:51:39.440 | This is going to be relevant to all of us at some point, especially as we're

00:51:43.040 | working through these essays. The DSM-5 actually has a category called trauma and stress-related

00:51:51.680 | disorders. There are people who have just been through tremendous stress and the after effects

00:51:58.800 | of that, but for our purposes in this example, let's just talk about normal, everyday

00:52:06.640 | garden-variety stress. You burn the toast, or you've been on the traffic in the freeway.

00:52:12.480 | You're late for work. Your boss is mad. You're stressed because you're trying to write these

00:52:18.880 | essays, and your word processor's not working. Let's talk about normal, everyday stress

00:52:25.040 | in our life. Now, in some ways, that's a physical issue. It's a matter of getting from point A to

00:52:33.600 | point B in a certain amount of time. You don't have enough time, but help me out here. What would be

00:52:42.160 | some sinful responses to a stressful situation? Help me out on the chat here, and let me get your

00:52:53.280 | input on what would be some sinful responses to a stressful

00:53:01.360 | situation. We have anger. That's really good.

00:53:07.520 | I can't relate to that at all. You're on the freeway. You're sitting there. You're late for

00:53:20.800 | work. You're supposed to be there 15 minutes ago. You didn't check your SIG alert before you left,

00:53:27.840 | and so you're sitting there, and who are you angry with? Maybe you're angry at God putting

00:53:34.800 | in that situation. You're angry at yourself. Why didn't I check the traffic and take an alternate?

00:53:39.680 | Life seems so unfair. We have complaining. Yeah, you're sitting there, and you're just

00:53:50.240 | – I'll just be real life with you that it's difficult to sit on that traffic and be in that

00:53:55.680 | situation and say, "Well, thank you, Lord, for the sanctifying trial, and I receive it from your

00:54:01.600 | hand. I know that you're making me more like Christ." I mean, that is how we all ought to

00:54:07.200 | respond to stress, but many times it's complaining, "Why do I have to deal with this?" Rudeness,

00:54:16.800 | snapping at people. Excellent. Impatience, irritability. Very good. Grumbling, being short

00:54:25.840 | with others, becoming a recluse. Very good. Anger sometimes shows itself in raised voices,

00:54:34.320 | in unkind words, and oftentimes it shows itself in a cold kind of withdrawal.

00:54:43.280 | Feeling sorry for yourself. Very good. I mean, those are absolutely – when you're dealing with

00:54:52.320 | stress, you can respond in that way of just, "Woe is me. Everyone's invited to my pity party."

00:55:02.000 | I think we have pity. Very good. Excellent input. You see here that what began as a physical issue,

00:55:11.920 | which is stress, has now become a spiritual issue. The issue now is, how are you relating

00:55:17.600 | to the Lord? Now, let's reverse this, and let me ask this question.

00:55:24.080 | So, you have here spiritual – when you respond in this way, when you're sitting in traffic,

00:55:36.240 | and you're responding with anger, complaint, having a pity party, and so forth and so on,

00:55:41.680 | does that relieve your stress, or does that increase your stress?

00:55:45.840 | Because I know in my case, that tends to increase stress. It doesn't help you get to your

00:55:54.480 | work any quicker. It just makes the ride more unpleasant. And if you have someone in the car,

00:56:03.040 | and you're taking out your anger upon them, then that increases the stress as well. But let's

00:56:08.800 | reverse this. What would be some godly responses to being in a stressful situation like being in a

00:56:17.840 | freeway or burning the toast? You can think of your own examples of that. What would be

00:56:24.400 | some godly responses to that situation? Yeah, give it to the Lord. I mean, that's

00:56:37.600 | exactly – you know, all of it is theological. That's where life is, is when you're in that

00:56:44.400 | stressful situation, it's a theological – it reveals what you truly believe about God. Is He

00:56:48.800 | faithful? Is He sovereign? Is He wise that He's put you in this situation?

00:56:55.360 | Some great scriptures there, 1 Peter 5-7, 1 John 1-9, excellent.

00:57:02.800 | Praising God, a prayer would be a godly response.

00:57:05.840 | Thanking God that He's in control, praising Him for His faithfulness,

00:57:12.560 | praying that the Lord will get you to your office in a speedy way is better than complaining against

00:57:22.000 | the Lord. Being thankful that you got to listen to the sermon you're listening to while on the drive,

00:57:29.280 | excellent. Yeah, I mean, there are good things even in those tough situations.

00:57:36.080 | Trying to see the offender as someone who may be hell-bound and praying for them. Yeah, I mean,

00:57:43.280 | anyone who cuts you off and maybe yells at you on the streets should have an occasion

00:57:53.920 | for mercy and for compassion, not anger. So, you see in this that, going back to this,

00:58:05.440 | if you have a godly response to that physical issue, then you most likely will have a little

00:58:14.560 | less stress. Not always, it doesn't always relieve the pressure, but I've been in those

00:58:20.800 | situations where if I respond in a godly way, even on the freeway, that some of the stress

00:58:30.160 | is lessened or at least doesn't get worse because of an ungodly response. Okay, let me work through

00:58:37.840 | one more example with you and then we'll close, but I just want you to see how the physical and

00:58:44.080 | the spiritual are always interrelating. What if we begin with the spiritual issue

00:58:50.960 | and the spiritual issue is anger? What are the physical effects of anger in your heart? What

00:59:02.320 | happens to your body? And let's have a situation where maybe you're angry at a family member or

00:59:07.840 | someone in your extended family and it's not like just a quick burst of anger, like a five-minute

00:59:12.480 | anger. It's something that lasts over a week. You're brooding, bitter, upset, thinking ungodly

00:59:20.800 | thoughts, and it's kind of festering in your heart for over a week. What's going to happen

00:59:26.480 | to your body when you have anger in your heart? Yeah, we have hair loss, heart palpitations,

00:59:35.920 | stomach hurts. Yes, yeah. Anxiety, high blood pressure, rapid pulse. Very good.

00:59:45.200 | Any effects on diet? I mean, do you guys eat well when you've got this bitterness in your heart? Do

00:59:55.520 | you eat well? I mean, they say, you know, physically you eat best when, you digest best when you're

01:00:02.640 | relaxed. But when you're angry and your stomach's churning with anger, you know, there's effects on

01:00:08.880 | your diet. Losing weight. You know, there can be, in an unhealthy way, you can lose weight because

01:00:18.320 | of unresolved anger. Not sleeping well. You know, insomnia. Just sitting in bed and just thinking

01:00:30.720 | of all the things this person's done wrong to you. Now, when you're living that way physically,

01:00:36.720 | what happens to your soul? It began with anger. There were physical effects. But what happens

01:00:46.320 | when you're not sleeping well? What happens when you're not eating well? What happens when you

01:00:50.720 | have these bodily effects? You're going to have difficulty concentrating on the word. We have

01:01:03.440 | moving away from the Lord. Very good. Not wanting to spend quality time with God. That's right.

01:01:09.840 | Yeah, excellent. I mean, there's going to be issues. You know, if you're up late Saturday night,

01:01:20.720 | and you're angry and bitter, you're going to have a hard time waking up Sunday morning and

01:01:25.520 | hearing the sermon in a good frame of mind. And so we don't always know, and we have some more

01:01:33.840 | examples here, but I'm going to end here. But we don't always know when does the physical end,

01:01:38.960 | where does the spiritual begin. But we have these categories in mind as we're working through

01:01:46.480 | counseling issues. We need to have this framework when we're asking questions, doing data gathering.

01:01:52.960 | We need to ask about the physical and then move to the spiritual. But the idea here is that we

01:02:01.040 | as biblical counselors are tasked to minister to the soul. That's our turf. That's where the

01:02:10.080 | word of God is sufficient to transform the soul, to minister to the heart. And so we want to be

01:02:16.400 | there. We don't want to spend all of our time on the physical. It's a good discussion. We should

01:02:25.680 | pray for that. But that's not our expertise. We are experts as biblical counselors on soul issues

01:02:34.640 | because we have the word of God and the word of God is able to transform the soul. So I trust that

01:02:40.640 | that will be a helpful primer for you for this essay. And work through just explaining dichotomy,

01:02:49.200 | demonstrating from scripture your understanding of dichotomy. Work through

01:02:54.800 | why you're a dichotomist, not a trichotomist. And I think there's really good resources in

01:03:01.920 | Grudem Systematic Theology to help you with that. Many verses there that just kind of

01:03:05.920 | walk you through how the soul and the spirit are used interchangeably in scripture. And then talk

01:03:13.440 | through some physical, some counseling implications. What are the implications of this

01:03:20.160 | doctrine in how you would approach counseling? And just what are some ways that you would

01:03:27.600 | use this framework to minister and to help people with the issues of life? So I hope that's helpful

01:03:36.160 | for you, and I hope that that's a good overview of this topic. So what I'm going to do, I'm going

01:03:42.000 | to pray for us. If you want to hang out for five, ten minutes, and if there's any questions I can

01:03:45.520 | answer, I'll be happy to answer those questions. But this will kind of conclude the official

01:03:50.320 | meeting, and thank you so much for joining us. And I do pray, as Apostle John said,

01:03:57.280 | that I pray it would go well with you and with your health, and also that your soul,

01:04:03.680 | that it would go well with your soul. John was concerned with both the physical and the

01:04:09.200 | spiritual as he ministered to his people. So let me pray for us. Father, thank you for this

01:04:15.760 | overview of what your word says about the body and the soul. And we just thank you, Lord, that

01:04:24.240 | you've given us this clear teaching. And we pray that we would be faithful stewards of our bodies,

01:04:31.440 | that we'd be able to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices to you, that we would be able,

01:04:39.760 | Lord, to steward both the health and the illnesses of our physical body for your glory.

01:04:47.920 | And Lord, we pray that you would help us to be well in soul, that our souls would prosper, that

01:04:54.720 | even as the outer man is decaying, that the inner man would be renewed day by day,

01:05:00.640 | and that we would not lose heart, that even in the midst of physical challenges,

01:05:05.520 | that our hearts would be filled with joy and with hope and with confidence. And we pray that

01:05:13.520 | it would be well with our souls. And I pray this for each of my brothers and sisters here. Thank

01:05:18.800 | you for gathering us in this online format. Pray that you would bless their weeks and give them

01:05:24.080 | your grace. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Amen. Well, I'll hang out for five,

01:05:31.680 | 10 minutes, if any of you have any questions that I can answer with the

01:05:34.720 | essays. Otherwise, God bless you. And we'll sign off for tonight.

01:05:41.680 | All right. God bless you guys.

01:05:57.840 | Okay. Great question. We had a question. How do you determine when you've spent enough time

01:06:02.480 | on the physical and transition to the spiritual issues when counseling?

01:06:06.560 | It's a great question. I think the general approach is really to eliminate physical factors.

01:06:18.560 | So, you know, asking about a person's sleep schedule, diet, exercise, work schedule,

01:06:28.640 | really is there to eliminate certain physical factors. I mean, having them see a physician

01:06:36.800 | would be helpful in just ruling out, okay, is there any illness here that is not diagnosed,

01:06:44.160 | or is there any medications that are causing side effects? And you're not there to fix or to

01:06:51.280 | treat the body. You're trying to eliminate the physical factors so that you can focus on the

01:06:57.040 | spiritual issues. I'm trying to think of an example here, but I think the easy one is depression. If

01:07:02.560 | someone is depressed, well, there could be physical factors to that. There could be spiritual factors

01:07:09.200 | to that. And I would be asking questions on the physical just to eliminate, you know, that,

01:07:15.520 | you know, if a person's saying that they're depressed and you find out that

01:07:22.160 | ever since they went on a certain diet, they've just been depressed all the time,

01:07:27.680 | then you might want to talk through, you might want to adjust your diet just to eliminate that

01:07:33.600 | as a factor. And then once you've worked through all that, then now you have the issues of the

01:07:37.680 | heart and you can address those because that's all that's left. But I wouldn't be exploring every

01:07:44.720 | physical issue. I would just be trying to eliminate those factors so that I can minister God's word to

01:07:53.520 | the heart. But it's an excellent question. And data gathering takes time. Inventory takes time.

01:08:02.000 | It all takes a lot of time. When in doubt, ask more questions. So it's a great, great input.

01:08:09.840 | Okay, great question. When answering the question about the dichotomous view,

01:08:17.920 | do you need to explain and contrast the trichotomous view? So great question. I don't

01:08:26.160 | know if I've seen essays that have passed that have not touched the trichotomous view. I would

01:08:33.680 | encourage you to deal with the trichotomy view and just list a couple verses that the trichotomists

01:08:42.000 | would use to justify their position and then give the contrasting response. I think, you know,

01:08:50.960 | a brief response is helpful. You don't need to go into all of the details. But if you list,

01:08:56.560 | for example, 1 Thessalonians, I think it's 1 Thessalonians 5.23 that, you know, a trichotomist

01:09:02.560 | would use this verse to justify that there's body, soul, and spirit. And then just give

01:09:09.040 | two to three verses which use spirit and soul interchangeably. And there's a number of those

01:09:16.160 | in Grudem's chapter.

ACBC Theology Exam 10 - Dichotomist View of Man

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