A Word from Bob: You’re reading Part 1 of a mini-series on Biblical Empathy: How to Care Like Christ. I’ve taken this blog post and mini-series on biblical empathy from my book Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ. In Gospel Conversations, you learn 22 biblical counseling skills. Empathy is one of those relational competencies.
Caring Like Christ
Our High Priest is able to empathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:14-16). When a friend is hurting, how do we care like Christ?
Learning Rich Soul Empathy from the Black Church
Octavia Albert knew something about suffering and about comforting others in their suffering. Albert 
was an ex-enslaved college-educated African American pastor’s wife living in Louisiana. In the 1870s, she ministered to many other ex-enslaved men and women by recording their stories of suffering. One of those individuals was Charlotte Brooks. Of Brooks, Albert writes:
“It was in the fall of 1879 that I met Charlotte Brooks…. I have spent hours with her listening to her telling of her sad life of bondage in the cane-fields of Louisiana.”[i]
If we would do what Albert did, then we would be miles ahead in our biblical counseling: spend hours listening to sad stories. Rather than rescuing and compulsively fixing, we need the courage and compassion to listen to stories of suffering.
As we listen to our spiritual friends’ earthly stories we need to empathize with them in their story. Empathy is not some secular Trojan Horse. It is a biblical word and a scriptural concept. Think of the word: em-pathos: to enter the pathos or the passion of another, to allow another person’s agony to become your agony, to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15).
Climbing in the Casket
Notice how Octavia Albert allowed Charlotte Brooks’ agony to become her own.
“Poor Charlotte Brooks! I can never forget how her eyes were filled with tears when she would speak of all her children: ‘Gone, and no one to care for me!’”[ii]
Albert pictures for us the essence of sustaining empathy: climbing in the casket. I use this rather macabre image to capture the essence of biblical empathy. I’ve developed this picture from 2 Corinthians 1 where Paul says he does not want his brothers and sisters in Christ to be ignorant about the hardships he had suffered. Paul goes on to say:
“We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death” (2 Corinthians1:8b-9a).
When Paul despaired of life and felt the sentence of death, he wanted the Corinthians to “climb in his casket,” to identify with what felt like a death sentence.
Jesus with Skin On: Compassionate Commiseration
Not only must we feel what another person feels, we need to express and communicate that we “get it,” we feel it, we hurt too. Consider how Octavia Albert does so with Aunt Charlotte.
“Aunt Charlotte, my heart throbs with sympathy, and my eyes are filled with tears, whenever I hear you tell of the trials of yourself and others.”[iii]
What she modeled in 1879, the Church has long called “compassionate commiseration.” Don’t let these two beautiful, powerful words intimidate you. Co-passion: to share the passionate feelings of another. Co-misery: to partner in the misery of your spiritual friend.
Aunt Charlotte describes the result of Octavia Albert’s ministry in her life.
“La, me, child! I never thought any body would care enough for me to tell of my trials and sorrows in this world! None but Jesus knows what I have passed through.”[iv]
Octavia Albert was Jesus with skin on. Her care gave Aunt Charlotte a human taste of Jesus’ care—a taste Charlotte thought she would never receive this side of heaven.
In empathy we seek to enter into another person’s soul and experience their suffering as they experience it.
Empathy is rejoicing with those who rejoice, mourning with those who mourn (Romans 12:15).
Empathy is suffering along with those who suffer (1 Corinthians 12:26).
We suffer in the soul of another person, feeling with and participating in their inner world while remaining ourselves. We seek to understand their outer story and their inner story from their perspective.
The Rest of the Story
I don’t know about you, but I often learn best from poor examples. In the second post in this mini-series on biblical empathy, we’ll learn how not to counsel by listening in on Job’s miserable counselors.
Join the Conversation
Who has been an Octavia Albert for you, spending hours listening to your sad story of suffering, engaging in co-passion and co-misery, and helping you to know by their care that Jesus cares?
[i]Octavia Albert, The House of Bondage, 2.
[ii]Ibid., 15.
[iii]Ibid., 28-29.
[iv]Ibid., 27.
