As pastors, we labor week in and week out to get people to take their sin more seriously, to see what they don’t want to see. The scrupulous see it all too well, and then some. But that’s all they see. And yet, as Richard Sibbes so famously put it, “There is more grace in Christ than sin in thee.”

Abstract

Michael Lawrence helps pastors think carefully about how to minister to those with a scrupulous conscience. Both physical and spiritual factors may be affecting those who experience unusual levels of guilt, fear, and anxiety regarding their spiritual state, and pastors are encouraged to deal gently with them, pointing them to the truths of Scripture; praying with and for them; and bringing along other church members who can speak the truth to them in love.

The young man sitting in my office was clearly in distress and had come to me for help. He was convinced that he’d committed the “unforgivable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit,” which Jesus refers to in Matthew 12:30–32. When I asked why he thought he had done such a thing, he told me the thought had entered his mind, and he simply could not escape it. I gently suggested that those who had actually blasphemed the Spirit were unlikely to be concerned about it. He acknowledged this but could find no relief for himself. It was at this point that he told me a mental health professional had given him a diagnosis of “scrupulosity.” I had never heard of the term. But as I learned more about it, I realized I had encountered it often, and so had others.

In his book Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks addresses a panoply of pastoral counseling cases, including one he called a “sad, doubting, questioning, and uncomfortable condition.” What he had in mind were people whose consciences were wracked with guilt over sin, real or imagined, that left them in despair. While many causes could give rise to this, one was clearly what we would call an over-scrupulous conscience. Brooks described his counselees as those who “mind their sins more than their Savior,” those who “make false definitions of their graces,” and those who are convinced that “their graces are not true but counterfeit.” That is to say, their conscience either sees sin where there is no sin or fails to see the grace for sin that is theirs through faith in Jesus Christ.

Examples abound. The teenager who’s never sure their repentance was sincere enough and so confesses the same sin repeatedly in their nightly prayers. The child who’s never sure their profession of faith was genuine and so prays the sinner’s prayer for the umpteenth time. The missionary who’s paralyzed in his ministry lest he say something wrong that obscures the gospel he came to preach. The mom who’s convinced that her own failings are irredeemably damaging her children and only finds temporary relief from her guilt in their good behavior. These are just a few of the overly scrupulous consciences I’ve encountered. But they stand in good company. A young Martin Luther wearied his pastor so much with prolonged, detailed, and repeated confessions that his pastor finally told him to become a Bible professor, as if to say, “Physician, heal thyself!”

As pastors, how do we help those who suffer from an overly scrupulous conscience? Puritan pastors like Thomas Brooks, Richard Baxter, and Richard Sibbes, among others, wrote hundreds of pages on cases of a conscience like this. So what follows is not meant to be exhaustive and definitive, but suggestive and directional. I want to suggest two categories to explore, three resources to employ, and one posture to adopt.

Two Categories to Explore

Fundamental to any biblical anthropology is a conviction that human beings are embodied souls. We are not Gnostics, who think the body does not matter. Nor are we materialists, who deny the reality of our spiritual nature. Some creatures that God has made are essentially one or the other. Angels are spiritual beings. My dog Hektor is alive but lacks an intelligent soul. But human beings uniquely possess both. And while body and soul are distinct, in this life, they are never separate. What happens to the body affects the soul, and what happens to the soul affects the body. Psalm 88 powerfully illustrates this. The author is clearly depressed, and it affects his body. He is like one without strength, abandoned among the dead, like the slain lying in the grave (vv. 4–5). But it also affects him spiritually and emotionally. A sense of God’s wrath weighs on him (v. 7). He feels alone, rejected, and abandoned, not only by his friends, but by God himself (vv. 8, 14). Thomas Brooks’s “sad, doubting, questioning, and uncomfortable condition” is simultaneously a spiritual and bodily experience, and we should address both categories of that experience.

This means that as pastors, we should never hesitate or fear to ask if they’ve talked with a medical doctor about what they’re experiencing. Some people suffering from overly scrupulous consciences are experiencing intrusive or perseverating thoughts and may resort to repetitive, ritualistic prayers or activities in a search for relief from their distress. These physical acts can even become compulsive, disrupting sleep and normal daily life. While no medicine can “cure” an overly scrupulous conscience, in some cases, there are medications that can help a person reassert control over what feels like thoughts and rituals that are controlling them. A doctor may also be able to help with issues that could be exacerbating their distress, like poor sleep or nutrition. It’s well known that when people came to him for counsel, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a former medical doctor, almost always started by making sure they were getting sleep, nutrition, and exercise. If the body is not well, the soul will feel it. So don’t forget to ask about it.

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