Counseling in a world of relational brokenness is about walking with people who have sinned in their relationships, assisting them in seeing where they have wronged another person, and helping them to take responsibility through confession of sin and satisfaction of any restitution that may be required (Matt. 7:3–5). It is also about helping them to know what forgiveness and reconciliation look like when others have sinned against them (Matt. 18:15–35).

Every counseling practitioner does his or her work out of the overflow of a worldview that answers who we are, what is wrong with us, and what it would take to fix it. Counseling people means the counselor has an understanding of who people are. Counseling people also means having an understanding of what is wrong with people, since the work of giving counsel assumes the existence of a problem. Counseling people also means understanding what it takes to fix those problems, since counseling moves toward solutions. Each of these three elements in the required counseling worldview is crucial, but our focus here is the second element: an understanding of what is wrong with us.
Every counseling practitioner has an understanding of what is wrong with the people who seek out counseling services. Things get complicated at this point because there are nearly as many different understandings of what is wrong with people as there are counseling practitioners. There are a variety of explanations for why people have problems that require counseling, including parental influences from early childhood, genetic influences, chemical influences in the brain, habituated behaviors, negative responses to traumatic experiences, unmet needs, and many, many others. Very thick books have been written engaging the corpus of explanations for what is wrong with people who seek counseling help.
The examples that I have listed, like the many I have not listed, are not wrong but are incomplete. Counseling systems that seek to answer what is wrong with people are often correct as far as they go. The problem is that they address only a narrow slice of human difficulties; they fail to account for other manifestations of difficulty outside of the specific area they address, and they fail to understand the genesis of the problem in the first place. One of the ongoing problems in the counseling world is that there is no grand unifying theory that explains what is ultimately wrong with people.
This is not a problem for Christians. As believers we have God’s authoritative word, the Bible, that tells us what is wrong with us. In the Bible God reveals the master category for all counseling problems. More than that, he describes the various manifestations of that master category. In Scripture God makes clear that what explains every counseling dilemma, every problem in living, is the tragedy of sin.
Sin as the root of all counseling problems is one of the most important contributions to the counseling field from counseling practitioners who are committed to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. The biblical doctrine of total depravity teaches that, while God’s common grace protects human beings from performing the maximum amount of sinful acts (cf. Gen. 4:15; 11:6–9; 20:6; 2 Thess. 2:7), sin has completely corrupted each person. Human beings are not just touched by sin. They are not merely tainted. They are ruined.
This sinful ruin devastates our standing before God.
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How much ought we to give? In proportion with our income, as God moves our hearts. And how ought it be handled? With the utmost integrity. At the heart of giving is the matter of worship. God reigns supreme not only in believers’ heads but also in our hearts and through our hands. Christ’s lordship ought to be evident in both our affections and our practical obedience. If Jesus is Lord of our lives, our possessions and expenses will reflect that reality.

What does it mean to be godly? Far from some remote, disengaged experience, much of the Christian life involves practical obedience. Godliness in Scripture wears working clothes, so to speak. Chapter after chapter, God’s Word confronts men and women with essential issues, impressing on our hearts the urgency of living as those made new in Christ.
One example of such obedience is offered in 1 Corinthians 16, where the apostle Paul connects godliness with giving. In the chapter’s opening verses, his practical instruction regarding the Corinthians’ giving suggests that giving is itself an expression of worship, as essential to the church as preaching, singing, fellowship, prayer, etc. In short, learning to give properly is a central part of learning to worship properly. We have never truly learned to worship the Lord until we’ve learned to give to the Lord.
What Is the “Collection” to which Paul Refers?
In verse 1, Paul speaks of “the collection for the saints.” This wasn’t an isolated initiative in Paul’s ministry; he mentions it at least three other times in the New Testament (Acts 24:17; Rom. 15:26; 2 Cor. 8:2). Viewed together, these verses reveal that it refers to a collection for the poor in Jerusalem.
Despite its significance as a religious and cultural center, Jerusalem was at this time a poor city. Devout Jews who lived beyond the city’s borders would send money to those within to make sure the economy didn’t disintegrate. And Christians within Jerusalem were poorer yet. Having professed faith in Jesus, they were outsiders among their own, making it that much harder for them to make ends meet financially.
At least in the early years of the Jerusalem church’s founding, the community was self-sufficient. They “had all things in common,” sharing with the poor and needy among them (Acts 2:44). But that practice was only sustainable for so long. Resources would eventually dwindle. When the funds were depleted, the Jerusalem Christians were left in dire straits.
Why the Concern?
Being a Jew himself, we can see why Paul would be concerned with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. But why did he care to involve other congregations in relief efforts?
It seems Paul saw the collection as a tangible expression of unity in the whole body of Christ. Jerusalem believers were largely Jewish; Paul’s missionary journey converts were predominantly gentile. Each group was skeptical of the other. So in calling upon the gentile Christians to help the Jewish Christians, Paul was doing nothing less than reminding them of the Gospel: that God had reconciled Jew and gentile to Himself in His Son, making one new man in place of the two (Eph. 2:15). And that bond was to be expressed in tangible ways, including taking from one’s own resources to meet others’ needs.
The giving to the Jerusalem saints was not only an expression of corporate unity; it also was to be a mark of God’s work among the Corinthians. Indeed, to this day, giving is a key evidence that God is at work in our lives, just as a failure to give should, according to Scripture, lead us to question the very authenticity of our faith (1 John 3:17). In calling on the Corinthians to give, Paul wanted the church’s members to prove their faith genuine.
When was the Collection Taken?
In verse 2, the apostle emphasizes the importance of regular giving, instructing the church to take up a collection “on the first day of every week.” Christian giving, in other words, is to be routine without becoming merely a routine.
The day on which the Corinthians were to give their resources is also significant.
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Solomon presents us with the sum total of human existence—to eat, drink, work hard, and enjoy God. Pretty basic stuff. And don’t miss the last part: “For apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” Ultimately the good life won’t be realized without an encounter with our Creator. 

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.—Fyodor Dostoevsky
When God put Adam in the garden, he did a remarkable thing. He set him to work. This fact is even more remarkable when we remember that Eden was already a paradise. There was lots of food (Gen. 2:18), water (Gen. 2:10), and gold (Moses is even careful to mention that the gold was good—no dragon curses here). There were no weeds to pull, no graves to dig, and no swords to sharpen. In one sense, everything was already done.
And yet Adam was told to “cultivate and keep” the garden. He was to work towards its further beautification. He was to be an active agent of dominion; organizing the raw material around him by means of his own creative labour. This tells us something else important: work wasn’t an intrusion. Futility was the intrusion (Gen. 3:19). Work has been God’s idea from the beginning. This fact is reiterated in passages like 2 Thessalonians 6:10–12:
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
Paul’s command to the Thesseloninans is a call back to the Genesis mandate. He reminds them that work is the proper sphere in which we occupy the majority of our lives: pouring foundations, changing diapers, hoeing beets, teaching math, and generating spreadsheets. For those who consider work above, beneath, or beyond them, the verdict is clear: let them not eat. If you don’t sow beets in the spring, you shouldn’t expect to eat them with cheese and beer in the fall. In the words of a famous ex-nun, “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.”
Not only is it reasonable to expect a labouring people to follow in the wake of a labouring God, it is also necessary. It is through investing one’s own labour that each person is able to earn their own living. “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground.” Sweat equity is the original and best kind of equity. Lincoln had it right here:
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
The gift of labour also preserves us from the dehumanizing effects of idleness. Idleness—the state of NOT being at work—is fertile ground for sin. Which means we shouldn’t be surprised when diehard welfare states are also riddled with crime. The less people busy at work, the more time they have “to lie on their beds and make evil plans” (Micah 2:1). Through work, the effects of decay and are also kept at bay; roads can be repaired, lawns mowed, homes heated, and taxes kept low.
When only a small core of society is actually engaged in labour, the pool of capital (available wealth) dries up, and new taxes are introduced to replenish it. Which are then immediately sent back out to fund the magical endeavours of the unemployed.
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