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Jay E. Adams

Jay Edward Adams is a Reformed Christian author. He has written over 100 books and these have been published in sixteen languages.

He received a Bachelor of Divinity from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from Johns Hopkins University,a Masters in Sacred Theology from Temple University, and a PhD in Speech from the University of Missouri.

Adams' book Competent to Counsel launched the nouthetic counseling movement, a movement whose aim was to use strictly biblical counseling methods. He is the founder of the Intitute for Nothetic Studies.


“The Christian is free from all other human beings. He does not have to live over against others, controlled by their actions and responses. Rather, he lives according to Christ's commands. This is Christian freedom. It is a freedom unknown by others. It is not just when others do the things that we like that we act properly toward them; we are free to do good even when they don't because our actions are not dependent on their responses. It is the Lord Christ when we serve!”
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“Love is not first a feeling. Though the feelings come later and grow thick in the basic loam of love, they don't constitute the sum and substance of love. Love is doing whatever good God says you must do for another, to please God, whether (at first) it pleases you or not. You must do so because He says so; and you don't wait until you feel like doing so. Love begins with obedience toward God in which one gives to another whatever the other needs. Love is not a gooey, sticky sentimental thing; it is hard to love. Often it hurts to love. Love meant going to the cross through the garden of Gethsemane. Christ did not feel like dying for your sins, Christian, but He did so nonetheless. The Scriptures teach that he endured the cross while focusing on the subsequent joy that it would bring.”
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“Evil is powerful, but good is more powerful. In fact, evil is so powerful that only good has the power to overcome evil. Darkness can be driven away only by light.”
Jay E. Adams
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“I don't care what problem you face; it has no power to defeat the cross of Christ.”
Jay E. Adams
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