Written for Christian counselors and pastors, Gospel-Centered Marriage Counseling takes counselors through a new paradigm for counselors which the author has developed over years of marriage counseling in a church setting.

After hearing horror stories of individuals and couples who went to a pastor for counseling and came away feeling more broken and discouraged than ever before, I wanted to see what a pastor had to say about pastoral counseling. Let me state upfront my belief that pastors shouldn’t attempt counseling couples or anyone else unless they have proper training and have served an internship. A little information in the wrong hands can ruin lives (telling a parishioner to ‘pray more’ when the parishioner comes to the pastor for help with depression, for example.)

State-licensed counselors go through a rigorous training, testing, and internship process that ensures they know how to help. Pastors may have one class in pastoral counseling in seminary. When you have cancer, you go to a doctor who specializes in your diagnosis, you don’t ask a pre-med student for a treatment plan.

Now you understand my bias. I started the book with a hefty dose of skepticism. But as I read, I came to understand Kelleman’s new paradigm for counseling. According to Kelleman, “Jesus’s resurrection power can change everything in a marriage, freeing each spouse to live not for themselves but for the wider purposes of God. Resurrected people don’t act the same.”

As a Christian, this concept appeals to me. What if married people stopped looking at their marriage problems as ‘his faults’ or ‘her faults’ and started by examining their own heart and faults first. Kelleman offers a method of triloguing (a conversation among the couple and the counselor) which helps the individuals understand the purpose of marriage—to glorify God.

All too often Christians believe their marriage should serve God, and this easily descends into believing one spouse should serve the other (usually the wife) in order for one spouse to better serve God. When couples see their marriage as a means of glorifying God, they avoid the service trap because they have learned to focus on others. Kelleman points out, “Within the Trinity there is unity, diversity, and equality. Within every marriage there is to be unity, diversity, and equality—distinct but equal.”

Kelleman has a new take on Genesis 3:16, where God tells Eve, “And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you” (NLT). Some people believe this verse gives men the right to rule over women. But Kelleman shows how God is warning both Adam and Eve of the sins they will struggle with after the fall. Women will struggle with a desire to control and manipulate men, and men will struggle with a desire to rule over women. Both actions are sinful.

While I love the picture Kelleman paints, he struggles to fully address the issue of headship. If he believes man’s besetting sin is to try to rule over women, how can he say, “How well or poorly is this wife being vulnerably submissive as she openly receives her husband’s headship?”?

Furthermore, Kelleman states, “To mutual submission, Paul adds the specific submission of the wife to her husband (Eph. 5:22-24). As God calls a husband to loving, sacrificial headship where he takes the initiative in feeding and caring for his wife, so God calls a wife to a gracious disposition of openly responding to and receiving her husband’s nourishing and cherishing ministry.”

One assumes that the ‘feeding and caring’ is spiritual, not just physical. These representations of headship seem to contradict Kelleman’s belief that marriage should include unity, diversity, and equality. Because he never fully unpacks his understanding of headship, the reader is left with a vague outline that women should act ‘vulnerably submissive.’

The reader wishes Kelleman had followed through with his motif of where males and females are most tempted. Men by their desire to rule over and women with their desire to control. If these are the besetting sins of humans, one must take Dr. Emmerson Eggrichs’s interpretation of Ephesians 5:21-33. Men know how to respect—but a woman’s hierarchy of needs doesn’t start with respect. It starts with love. Women know how to love—but a man’s hierarchy of needs doesn’t start with love, it starts with respect.

Depending on which translation of the Bible one reads, the words ‘submit’ and ‘headship’ have different nuances.

The Message translates them this way:
“Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.”

In other words, Paul urges women to give up their need to control a man’s love and to instead offer him respect.

In the subsequent verses, Paul makes it clear how a man needs to give up his desire to rule over a woman and offer her the love that she craves. This mutual giving up of natural desires (as outlined by Kelleman in his interpretation of Genesis 3:16), would then produce a marriage that truly glorifies God.

What I Liked About the Book

Don’t get me wrong, I liked most of the book. Kelleman divides the book into two sections—A Theological Primer for Biblical Marriage Counseling and Practical Training for Biblical Marriage Counselors. The first part gives a (mostly) good outline of what a Christian marriage could look like.

The second part outlines the specific competencies a Biblical marriage counselor will want to develop in order to help clients achieve the vision of a gospel-centered marriage. I appreciate the emphasis on the attitude and study a counselor needs to invest in in order to adequately help couples learn to counsel each other.

Kelleman believes the point of gospel-centered counseling is to help couples glorify God with their relationship through ministering to each other and counseling each other. Couples should be each other’s accountability partners as they both deepen their relationship with God and each other.

The practical advice provides readers with new ways of thinking about a counseling relationship and guides counselors through the process of enabling couples to counsel each other—a win-win situation.

For many people, marriage is about love between two persons. For Christians, marriage is indeed about love, but with an additional belief, that marriage is about being united before God. What is marriage from God's perspective? Why must we treat marriage counseling as based on the gospel of grace? Theologically and practically, what does it mean? Unlike books that dish out advice for married couples, this book is about equipping marriage counselors to help married couples. For author and pastor Robert Kellemen, marriage counseling is about helping couples "see their marriage from a larger set of eyes." In fact, he insists that for Christians, it is a no-brainer that marriages are essentially meant to be gospel-centered. So, the author gives us 22 "counseling relational competencies." He suggests that the book be used in a "small group lab setting." For couples, focus not on "solutions" but on "soul-utions." The emphasis is about forming the inner soul. A marriage with transformed inner selves will be gospel-centered. Kellemen tells us the three common approaches to marriage counseling: Family systems; narrative therapy; and solution-focused therapy. All of them have in common the need to understand people; to diagnose the problem; and then to identify the solution needed. Kellemen aims to go a step further than all of these by pointing us to "gospel connection." This is done through facilitating "gospel conversations."

In Part One, he lays forth the theological framework for the book with this plain statement: The ultimate purpose of marriage is to glorify God. For the essence of marriage is to reflect God's unity in the Trinity; the marriage of Christ and the Church; and to be more Christlike. He uses the popular metaphors of leaving, cleaving, weaving, and receiving, to describe the oneness in marriage. Recognizing the problem of sin that has marred all of life, he points out the dangers of self-centered philosophies that blame, shame, claim, and maim one another. The way forward needs to be learning to die to self and to yield to Christ. He spends time discussing the calling of both husbands and wives.

Part Two of the book covers the practical aspects, through 22 marriage counseling relational competencies. He uses the acronyms "HOPE; CARE; FAITH; PEACE; LOVE" to summarize all the 22 competencies.

My Thoughts
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How different is this book compared to other marriage counseling resources? For one, the general theme resembles Gary Thomas's Sacred Marriage which teaches that the primary purpose of marriage is not happiness but holiness. While Thomas writes to married couples directly, Kellemen is more focused on the equipper. He also differs from solutions-based therapy book by emphasizing the spiritual formation aspect of marriage. Not only that, he recognizes the many different types of coaching needed for different couples. For some, cheerleading is essential. For others, direct confrontation is needed while some would require tender loving guidance. This means the counselor would also need to listen to the Holy Spirit on his or her role with regard to the unique situation of each couple.

I like the way the author not only uses the five words as a memory mnemonic but arranges the competencies that are aligned in the general theme. For example, in HOPE, the competencies of "Having Hope," "Offering Hope," "Promoting God's Perspective," and "Enlightening Couples" are all different dimensions of hope. The same applies for CARE, FAITH, PEACE, and LOVE. Five alignments and Twenty-Two competencies. Somehow, these concepts might be too mentally bulky for the average counselor. Individuals would need to understand the rough trajectory needed before bringing in the competencies. That means discernment is needed.

When reading this book, while Kellemen highlights the soulful aspect, we should not dismiss the validity of family systems, narrative therapies, and solutions-based therapies. In most situations, we would probably require a combination of these in any marital counseling sessions. The best reason for the Christian counselor is to let this book bring us back to the Bible as the foundation of how Christians live. As long as we are mindful of the gospel, any tools available to us could be a way for us to let the gospel shine through. This is probably the biggest reason to get this book.

Robert W. Kellemen, Th.M., Ph.D., is academic dean, dean of students, and professor of Biblical Counseling at Faith Bible Seminary in Lafayette, Ind. Bob is also the founder and CEO of RPM Ministries through which he speaks, writes, and consults on biblical counseling and Christian living. Dr. Kellemen served as the founding executive director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition.

Rating: 4.25 stars of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Baker Books and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

This is a fantastic resource for counseling within the church! I will definitely be referencing often and recommending!

Robert W. Kellemen’s “Gospel-Centered Marriage Counseling” is a must have for every Christian counselor’s library! The sheer depth of Robert’s wisdom, in regard to the nuances of scripture and the complexities of relationships, is simply lifechanging. If you are looking to be infused with radical truths and life-giving principles for the couples you serve, and even for your own relationship, this is the book to get! I highly recommend it!