Jay Adams

Jay Edward Adams (1929-2020) was an American Reformed pastor, professor, and author whose 1970 book Competent to Counsel launched the modern biblical counseling movement. A graduate of Johns Hopkins, Reformed Episcopal Seminary, and the University of Missouri, he taught practical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia for many years and co-founded the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF).

Adams argued that Scripture is sufficient for addressing the non-organic problems of living that secular psychology had claimed as its territory, and he proposed "nouthetic counseling"—from the Greek word noutheteo (to admonish or instruct)—as a biblically grounded alternative to the Freudian and Rogerian models then dominant. His work decisively shaped the curriculum of CCEF, the founding of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), and the broader recovery of pastoral counseling within evangelical churches.