This book will prepare the Biblical counselor to aid people facing the many types of crisis situations that they inevitably will encounter in a world of sin. The counselor will be shown how to help in three vital areas:

- To make a biblical analysis of the crisis situation

- To take a personal inventory of his state, attitudes, behavior, and resources.

- To follow biblical directions in responding to the issues in the crisis situation.

Dr. Adams demonstrates how to apply Biblical concern wisely and productively. He concludes the book with ten sample cases that may be used by students, either individually or in a class, to provide practice in applying the biblical principles of crisis counseling presented in the book. Questions and answers for role play accompany each case.

The Bible is the only textbook believers need to help counselees with their problems. Jay Adams explains why this bold statement is not only true, but gives hope to both the counselor and his counselee. Here he outlines the basis and purpose for using the Scriptures in counseling and lists these goals for the Biblical counselor:

- Understand and evaluate the counselee's problem scripturally.

- Seek to understand the Holy Spirit's purpose (telos) in every Scripture passage used in counseling.

- Strive to meet each counselee's problem with God's full solution.

He cautions that the goals can be achieved only by counselors who allow neither a distortion, dilution, nor admixture of the Biblical data to enter the counseling situation, whether introduced by the counselee or the counselor's own misuse of the Scriptures.

Here is specific help for all who want to do truly biblical counseling. As all have come to expect from the pen of Jay Adams, his guidelines are clear and understandable, the directions are explicit, and the examples given are pointed and practical.

If the people who are closest to you were polled, would they choose compassionate as a word that describes you?

In the Bible, God sets forth a picture of the estate of sin and misery that all men are in but then proclaims the remarkable way in which He has shown compassion upon human beings by providing a way out of their misery through Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 10:13). Sometimes biblical counselors are (falsely) accused of lacking compassion. But they should recognize that, above all else, they must counsel in God's presence in ways that honor Him. Therefore they must compassionately counsel people who come to them suffering from the ravages of sin.

A central concern of this book then is to search the biblical record to discover what compassion is, the place it ought to have in counseling, and how it is to be shown to others. True compassion involves taking the time to learn what God has to say about human difficulties and how He expects us to confront them. Are you a genuine biblical counselor who rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep (Romans 12:15)?

Compassion can be studied, understood, encouraged, and directed, but it cannot be generated. This book has no such power. Yet, it is my hope that this book may assist you in bringing about that inner visceral concern for others that insists upon helping them.

In addition to over 100 books, Jay Adams wrote scores of essays and delivered hundreds of lectures during his life. Many of those essays and lectures were compiled into stand-alone books which have gone out of print over the years. Other essays were published in various journals, festschrifts, booklets, magazines, and compilations edited by others. With this series, INS is pleased to be able to bring these essays back into print.

This initial volume contains lectures Dr. Adams delivered during the first two years following the publication of Competent to Counsel. That book turned the Christian counseling world upside down and because Adams was a skillful public speaker, [1] he was not able to accept the countless invitations to speak and present his views in person. As a result, he decided to put many of the lectures he was giving into print.

The Big Umbrella was the title of one of these lectures and became the title of his first book of lectures, published in 1972. This volume contains all of the lectures originally published in that book and has been edited only for clarity and updating some archaic 1970s language.

[1] Adams' PhD was in speech, not counseling.