God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
We are not encouraged to forsake our sin by having our senses amused or our preferences coddled. The Gospel is inherently and irreducibly confrontational. It cuts against our perceived righteousness and self-sufficiency, demanding that we forsake cherished sin and trust in someone else to justify us. Entertainment is therefore a problematic medium for communicating the Gospel, because it nearly always obscures the most difficult aspects of it – the cost of repentance, the cross of discipleship, the narrowness of the Way. Some will disagree, arguing that drama can give unbelievers a helpful visual image of the Gospel. But we have already been given such visual images. They are the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper and the transformed lives of our Christian brothers and sisters (Mark Dever and Paul Alexander).
The counselor is perhaps better equipped for his task, if he has experienced personal difficulties, problems, doubts and fears, even a sense of guilt and failure, perplexity and distress, but has come through to peace, both spiritually and emotionally.
