Presented is an overview of current methodologies as well as a presentation of ideas for the more effective counseling of coupling from a biblical perspective. It is argued that couples must be reminded of their vows, their commitment to God and to each other-- and to the idea that "troubled waters" are often only a 'test of faith.' Predictably, marriages will be improved and strengthened when we return to a more divine perspective and methodology for relevant counseling.

For several years, "family values" have come to represent a volatile substance deposited at the crossroads between American politics and religion, with the Bible as the fuel waiting to be ignited. Marriages have been improved and destroyed over these perceived values and non-married couples have endured a similar roller coaster.

In assessing the conventional help available, it is evident that today's counselors work with a wide variety of couple and family systems. The systemic relationship combinations have be-immensely complex, with minimal experience from which the practitioner can draw. Stepfamilies, single-parent families, childless families, gay families, and so on represent a few of these evolving systems (Dinkmeyer & Carlson, 1984). The challenge for counselors is deciding how to work with couple and family systems that may need premarital counseling, marital therapy, divorce counseling, family therapy, or individual counseling.

Religiously conscious counselors of couples tend to stress the importance of commitment and honor. While other practitioners are busy with games of empathy and role-playing psychological endeavors, religiously conscious counselors offer their clients a crude but compassionate look at the importance of their shared vows. They provide them with a biblical perspective on their relationship and remind them of the sanctity associated with respect and maintenance of their union. Moreover, most religiously conscious counselors provide couples with the tools they need to more greatly appreciate their mutual belief in and acceptance of their relationship with Jesus Christ. Under such recognition of shared love and of a relationship's divine importance, the couple will be more likely to work out their problems than if a non-religious counselor were to just offer them raw insight into each other's personality. Personally, I am convinced that religion proves to be a more powerful tool in counseling couples than blind empathy.

Changes such as those cited above are some of the reasons for the increased attention given to marriage and family counseling and the demand for competent training in this field. The counseling/therapeutic response to these problems has created a paradigm shift in counseling and therapy by abandoning the traditional psychotherapeutic emphasis on individual history and utilizing interventions directed at the family system itself (Smith & Carlson, 1995). And while the idea that change was needed was certainly a correct one indeed, the path chosen was certainly incomplete. My own system of counseling couples would surely be one that returns them to the biblical ideas of relationships and the holiness of such a union.

Helping professionals (counselors and psychotherapists) first worked with the individual, then couples, followed by treatment approaches for the entire family. Marriage counseling in the United States has

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