Biblical counseling under careful theological pressure.
Truth in Love treats counseling as a theological task before it treats it as a technique. Recent conversations test clinical frameworks, trauma language, memory, despair, and bodily suffering against biblical categories.
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Truth in Love is a serious biblical counseling podcast centered on the claim that counseling cannot be separated from theology. Its questions are practical, but its method is doctrinal. A typical episode names a live debate, defines the disputed terms, and then asks what those terms assume about Scripture, human nature, sin, suffering, the body, and hope. The show gives little space to banter. It prefers argument, clarification, and application. Recent episodes focus heavily on the pressure clinical categories place on biblical counseling, especially around trauma-informed care, clinically informed biblical counseling, polyvagal theory, memory, despair, and legal questions around therapy. The discussions do not treat secular observation as worthless. They do, however, challenge the idea that an insight can be cleanly separated from the worldview that produced it. That concern gives the show its central tension. It wants counselors to be attentive to bodies, histories, fear, pain, and medical realities, while insisting that Scripture supplies the final interpretation of people and their problems. Episodes on memory and trauma press toward hope in Christ rather than determinism by past events. Episodes on the heart argue that bodily symptoms and spiritual responses should not be split into separate worlds. A legal conversation considers how informed therapy is defined and why that matters for Christian counseling practice. A historical episode on Thomas Watson shows the same instinct from another angle: old theological writers are treated as practical companions for present ministry. The pacing is measured. The language can be dense, but it usually works by definition and contrast rather than by academic display. It is a podcast for listeners who want counseling categories tested before they are adopted. It is also for pastors, church members, and biblical counselors who need help thinking carefully about care without surrendering theological control of the counseling room.
Made for: Best suited for pastors, church members, and serious Christian listeners who want counseling practice evaluated through Scripture. It assumes patience for doctrinal argument and careful distinctions.
What sets it apart: Truth in Love stands apart by treating popular counseling frameworks as theological claims, not merely practical tools. Its strength is the disciplined movement from definition to critique to counseling-room application.
A podcast providing biblical solutions for the problems people face. This podcast is a resource from the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. For more information about ACBC visit biblicalcounseling.com.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Truth in Love connects counseling practice to a clearly stated biblical account of trauma, pain, memory, anxiety, and the body.
Truth in Love treats counseling as an argument about what a person is, where suffering comes from, and what meaningful care should address. Dale Johnson leads focused conversations with physicians, counselors, and seminary professors, testing clinical language against a firmly…
Dale Johnson brings Scripture into the counseling room, where your nervous system does not get the final word.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A careful discussion of anxiety, worldview, and whether counseling insights can be separated from interpretive baggage.
Counseling does not start from neutral ground, and this episode makes that point concrete through anxiety. Dale Johnson and Keith Evans consider how a clinical frame may describe anxiety as a dysregulated nervous system, a conditioned trauma response, or a maladaptive survival…
A careful look at third-generation claims in biblical counseling.
Dale Johnson and Dr. Ernie Baker shape a focused conversation around a narrow but important question: whether clinically informed biblical counseling belongs in a third generation.
A careful look at memory, trauma, and redeemed memory.
Dale Johnson guides a steady conversation with Dr. Matt Rayer on memory and trauma as counseling questions, pressing into redeemed memory, the mind of Christ, and the way the past can continue to shape the mind.
A biblical-counseling examination of polyvagal theory and dysregulated nervous system language.
Polyvagal theory has moved into the vocabulary of trauma, education, social emotional learning, and the dysregulated nervous system, and Truth in Love considers that reach from the stated purpose of biblical counseling.
A measured biblical-counseling episode on bodily concerns, medical evaluation, and the active heart.
Truth in Love's "The Heart is Always Active" returns to a core biblical-counseling conviction: people are moral agents who respond to life from the heart, and those responses are spiritual in nature.
A Scripture-centered episode on caring for believers whose physical pain has narrowed daily life.
Physical pain comes into Truth in Love as a counseling issue with spiritual weight. Dale Johnson and Manuel Herrera ask how the body produces or experiences pain, then turn toward how believers can walk with someone who is suffering.
A measured discussion of clinically informed biblical counseling, the body, professionalism, and returning other frameworks to Scripture.
The episode uses the idea of "third generation" counseling to examine clinically informed biblical counseling and how biblical counselors might assess a neighboring system. Dale Johnson and Dr.
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Catholic arguments with pint-table warmth.
Daily headlines under Christian judgment.
Catholic homilies for the next faithful step.
Catholic teaching for ordinary discipleship.
Serious Bible questions, patiently reasoned.
This episode features an interview with Dr.
This episode explores the life and works of Thomas Watson, a 17th-century English Puritan, discussing why historical Christian figures can provide spiritual encouragement and biblical wisdom.
Dale Johnson opens by treating physical pain as something Scripture speaks to with real care.
Dale Johnson raises a disputed question about clinically informed biblical counseling.
On Truth in Love, Brian Sayers defines manipulation as self-will combined with tactics that get one's way at another person's expense.
Truth in Love guest Tim Keeter describes reports that reasoning and problem-solving in high-income countries peaked in the early 2010s.
At 33 or 34, Sean Perron’s five-month cough was first attributed to long COVID before scans revealed stage-four lymphoma in his lungs, liver, bones, and abdomen.
This episode explores whether there is neutral ground in counseling, examining how biblical counselors should approach secular materials and the practical implications of these debates for real-world counseling.
Dr.
Dale Johnson opens with Dr.
This episode features pastor and counselor Kyle Gangel discussing the Polyvagal Theory from a biblical counseling perspective, exploring its implications for trauma, education, and mental health.
This episode explores the legality and implications of informed therapy from a biblical counseling perspective, featuring a discussion with lawyer Ed Wildey on how psychological therapy is defined and viewed in relation to the law and scripture.
Dale Johnson and Marshall Adkins use 2 Corinthians 4, Proverbs 4:23, and Luke 6:45 to argue that the “inner man” is the heart and that it drives speech, actions, and motives.
This episode explores the life and works of 17th-century Puritan Thomas Watson, discussing why historical Christian figures can provide spiritual encouragement and guidance.
This episode explores how Christians can biblically handle feelings of despair through examining 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and providing practical guidance for enduring desperate situations.
This episode explores how Christians can biblically handle feelings of despair through examining 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and providing practical guidance for enduring desperate situations.