Two divergent accounts of sanctification run through the biblical counseling movement, and the difference between them shows up in the counseling room. Colin R. McCulloch, a biblical counselor himself, goes back to John Owen to adjudicate.

Examining both approaches, he argues that Owen's emphasis on Spirit-infused habitual grace offers a more holistic vision for the care of souls. Far from a merely historical exercise, this is a work of retrieval aimed at method: what the counselor thinks the Spirit is doing determines what the counselor does.