Jared Poulton joins Camden Bucey to discuss Van Til’s Counseling Movement: A Critical Analysis of Jay Adams and Biblical Counseling. They trace how Cornelius Van Til’s presuppositional apologetics supplied key theological instincts for Jay Adams and the modern biblical counseling movement, including the God-relatedness of every human problem, dependence upon divine revelation, and confidence in Scripture’s sufficiency for pastoral ministry.

The conversation also examines tensions within contemporary biblical counseling. Camden and Jared consider the antithesis, common grace, the relation of the book of nature to the book of Scripture, and the danger of either rejecting all extra-biblical knowledge or baptizing secular methods without sufficient theological scrutiny. Throughout, they argue that faithful counseling should serve the church’s disciple-making mission and bring every claim about human life under the authoritative framework of God’s Word.

• Van Til’s Counseling Movement
• Institute for Reformed Biblical Counseling

• 00:00 Introduction
• 03:12 Jared Poulton’s path into biblical counseling
• 09:12 What is biblical counseling?
• 17:44 The sufficiency of Scripture and pastoral counsel
• 23:09 CCEF, David Powlison, and Van Til
• 27:29 A Van Tilian foundation and an identity crisis
• 32:48 Competing trajectories in biblical counseling
• 41:02 Robert K. Rudolph and Jay Adams
• 44:02 Three streams that shaped Adams
• 50:57 God is man’s environment
• 55:58 Presuppositions and borrowed terminology
• 61:37 The antithesis and secular psychology
• 67:06 Scripture’s framework for counseling
• 72:59 Common grace and the two-book approach
• 75:56 Counseling in service of the church’s mission
• 77:42 Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode:

Christ the Center 1000 Live in Austin, TX

Christ the Center 1000 Summit

Christ the Center 1000

Christ the Center 1000 Summit

Hebrews never pits the covenants against one another as law versus gospel; it presents them as grace and grace—the same house, the same people, the same promise. Yet the old was always preparatory: shadow giving way to substance, promise to fulfillment. Marcus A. Mininger traces that organic development and shows why the unity of the one covenant is precisely what makes Hebrews’ warning so urgent. The address closes where the letter does—on persevering within the covenant and resting in the sole sufficiency of Christ.

Dr. Marcus A. Mininger is professor of New Testament at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, with research on Paul and the General Epistles—including a forthcoming study of the warning passages in Hebrews.

Delivered at the 2026 Reformed Forum Theology Conference, “The Covenant of Grace: One Savior, One People, One Purpose,” at Lakeland Church in Gurnee, Illinois, on September 26, 2026.

Watch this address: https://youtu.be/DMhQflaD8PM

Watch the full conference: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJykAlOwqPCA

reformedforum.org

Mentioned in this episode:

Christ the Center 1000

Christ the Center 1000

Few passages have unsettled readers like Hebrews’ warning that it is “impossible … to restore again to repentance” those who fall away. Does it teach a sin beyond forgiveness? Marcus A. Mininger clears away the common misreadings and names the real danger the author confronts: the temptation to abandon Christ and re-lay a foundation in the old covenant alone. The warning, rightly heard, is not about a sin too great to forgive but about the impossibility of going back—and it sets up the covenant question taken up in the session that follows.

Dr. Marcus A. Mininger is professor of New Testament at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, with research on Paul and the General Epistles—including a forthcoming study of the warning passages in Hebrews.

Delivered at the 2026 Reformed Forum Theology Conference, “The Covenant of Grace: One Savior, One People, One Purpose,” at Lakeland Church in Gurnee, Illinois, on September 26, 2026.

Watch this address: https://youtu.be/9B4fCp9fems

Watch the full conference: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJykAlOwqPCA

reformedforum.org

Mentioned in this episode:

Christ the Center 1000

Christ the Center 1000