Make Smart Choices (Not Foolish Ones) Together! by Andrew H. Selle. Westbow, 2025. 415 pages, $25.99, paperback.

I have often said that baseline Presbyterianism includes the importance of “the multitude of counselors” (Prov. 11:14 NKJV); but how do you work that out in practical ways? Make Smart Choices (Not Foolish Ones) Together! provides a rich answer.

The author, though not as well known in the biblical counseling world as others, is superbly qualified to contribute to this too neglected (and extremely important) aspect of living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ according to the Word of God. Selle has served as an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for over forty years. He completed his doctoral studies with the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) and has specialized training and certification in reconciliation and conflict resolution through the Institute for Christian Conciliation (ICC). Above all, he is steeped in actual church ministry experience through his peacemaking and reconciliation labors with his organization, Christian Counseling and Mediation. The great strength of this book is that it is an overflow of those years of training and experience. The result is a unique resource to help churches do the work that he has done for so many years.

The book is described as “a practical theology of decision-making,” but that does not capture the thrust of this volume as a manual to help churches and other Christian organizations work with people to think through and resolve issues biblically and in community. It is a welcome response to and an antidote for the hyper-individualism of so many evangelical treatments of the topic of “knowing the will of God.” And its conversational style makes it an easy read, even though the material is often complex and always life-challenging.

The book is divided into three parts: “A Theology of Decision-Making,” “The Process of Decision-Making,” and “Resolving Typical Problems in Decision-Making.” It is replete with case studies (which are so vivid that the reader cannot help but think of real situations from his or her own experience). For those who appreciate graphics that illustrate the points, the book contains nearly two dozen. The treatments of key words such as “wisdom,” “transformation,” “reconciliation,” “repentance,” “forgiveness,” and “love” help the reader to get beyond clichés and to learn, by explanation and illustration, what these grand themes really mean. Its generous footnotes provide an anthology of insights from Reformed writers—whetting the reader’s appetite to dig into those primary sources. And the many probing questions throughout the book make it a feast for not only the head, but also for the heart. Beyond its specific purpose of promoting analysis and decision-making based on principle and working to resolution, it keeps real people and real relationships in mind—something that is often tragically lost in church life when the litigiousness of “appeals and complaints” can easily trump the biblical command to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).

My only criticism of the book is its overload. Selle lavishly pours out gallons of counseling water from the huge reservoir of his experience. And he does it masterfully! But how should church and Christian organization leaders (the book is especially directed to those who lead peacemaking and reconciliation efforts) use this important volume in the best way?

I suggest that church officers consider taking a year to go through each of the three sections of the book, carefully discussing and making application of the material. The book lends itself to that kind of treatment, and the results of that serious approach to this remarkably helpful manual will, I am convinced, bring the kind of transformation in counseling, reconciliation, and peacemaking work that is the obvious burden of author Selle. And, in the hand of God, that exercise by churches may well be part of the antidote to the sad divisiveness that is the equivalent of nuclear waste in far too many churches and in far too much church life.

Thank you, Dr. Selle, for this compendium of your years of counseling ministry. May the Lord use it to do just as the title calls us to do: Make smart choices (not foolish ones)—together!

William Shishko, a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, is the pastor of The Haven at Commack (OPC) in Commack, New York. Ordained Servant Online, June, 2026