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Wim Kerkhoff and Pastor Jim Butler discuss the role of pastors in providing marriage counseling. Pastor Jim Butler compares pastors to general practitioners who can offer initial help but may refer couples to specialists for more complex issues. He emphasizes that many marriage problems stem from a failure to obey God, such as husbands not loving their wives as Christ loved the church or wives not submitting to their husbands. Pastors should offer basic help, including prayer and encouragement, but may need to refer couples to professionals for specialized assistance. Wim Kerkhoff agrees, noting the complexity and nuances of marriage issues.

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Marriage counseling, pastoral ministry, specialist referrals, obedience to God, marriage complexities, pastoral support, prayer, church preaching, nuances, repentance, family doctor, remedies, encouragement, failure to obey, submission.

SPEAKERS

Wim Kerkhoff, Pastor Jim Butler

Wim Kerkhoff  00:07

All right, so we’re back here to record more questions. This is batch number four. We’ve done some previous ones with Pastor Mike and with Dr Renihan and Dr Barcellos. So glad to have Pastor Cam [Porter] with us. So welcome here. Thank you. Good to be here. Yeah, yes. This is question, 34 already done. We’ll see how many we get through.

So this question, I’m not going to read the question that was given those just, I think it’s just not something we should answer here. To kind of rephrase this: how much marriage counseling should pastors be able to provide like should they? And you can’t be experts on everything, as you say, right?

Pastor Jim Butler  00:50

I always liken pastoral ministry to your general practitioner, your family doctor, he can troubleshoot quite a few things, but sometimes people need specialists. So if somebody needs specialists, then I think a good pastor has some names or numbers that he can refer people to to get that more in-depth help for their particular problems. But I think for the most part, in my observation, it usually comes down to a failure to obey God. Either the husband’s not loving his wife as Christ loved the church, or the wife is not submitting to her husband as unto the Lord, usually one or the other, or oftentimes both aren’t doing what God calls them to do. So I think that’s a pretty you know, in terms of complexity. It’s pretty simple response. You need to repent and obey God and do what he says in terms of your marriage. But as I said, there are complexities. I think there are specialists, and it’s fine for people to go see that seek that out.

Wim Kerkhoff  01:54

Yes, marriage is messy, right? Because all right, back to Genesis 3, so there’s a lot of nuances there. That’s right, we got to be able to help them navigate that somehow, that’s right. Yeah, yeah, not just reject them. Say, well, go talk to the psychologist.

Pastor Jim Butler  02:15

I think it’s very important that the pastor takes a kick at the can and tries to prescribe some helps and remedies and encouragements and definitely prayer, prayer for those people. But as I said, sometimes it may need a bit more. You know, a pastor is busy, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, but he’s preaching to the whole church.

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