A Word from Bob: 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. You’re reading Part 4 of a mini-series on Biblical Empathy: How to Care Like Christ.

Read Part 1: Biblical Empathy: How to Care Like Christ.

Read Part 2: How Not to Empathize: Job’s Miserable Counselors.

Read Part 3: As If Empathy.

Journey Markers on the Road to Empathy 

As this mini-series has emphasized, empathy is richly relational. So, the last thing I would want to convey is that we can or should turn something relational into something mechanical. That’s why I’ve titled this blog post The Empathy Journey.

And it’s why I’ve titled this header Journey Markers on the Road to Empathy. When you hear “levels,” think of two friends connecting on a mutual journey…

Empathy is so much more than information collection.

Empathy is soul connection.

Effective soul empathy includes several potential “levels” or “journey markers.”

Level One Empathy: Experiencing Our Friend with Biblical Lenses

“How would that affect an image bearer?” “How would this situation impact anyone and everyone created in the image of God?” “How would this situation impact any soul?

Here we seek to understand our friend through God’s eyes. The Bible depicts image bearers as designed by God with the capacity to feel deeply, relate richly, grieve candidly, and lament intensely.

This is a foundational level of empathy. It builds upon a universal biblical understanding of people.

Level Two Empathy: Experiencing Our Friend Through Our Eyes 

Now we ask, “How would that affect an image bearer like me?” Or, “How would I feel if I were experiencing this?” “What would my soul be experiencing if I were in the midst of this situation?”

Here we seek to understand our friend through our eyes, through our soul. This is a filtering level—we use our soul as a filter through which we seek to understand their soul.

We prayerfully ponder what it would be like for us if…we were facing our own death, or if…we were facing the loss of a loved one, or if…we had just been fired, or if…our spouse had just left us…, or if…we were middle-aged and single but longing to be married…

Level Three Empathy: Experiencing Our Friend Through His or Her Eyes 

Here we ask, “How would that affect an image bearer like him?” “Like her?” “What is her soul experiencing?” “What would it be like to be in his soul right now?”

We move from universal to unique empathy. In this       final, deepest level of soul empathy and rich soul connection we seek to:

*Adopt our friend’s soul experience. We replace our internal frame of reference with their way of seeing and feeling. We seek to sense what it is like to be him or her. We seek to sense her or his longings, perspective, motivations, and feelings.

*Express our friend’s soul experience. We express in our own words what we sense she has communicated about her longings, perspective,   motivations, and feelings about the situation.

*Encourage our friend to accept his or her soul experience. We nudge them to acknowledge their own inner responses to their outer situation. We help them to verbalize how they are responding internally.

Level Four Empathy: Helping Our Friend to See Their Soul Through God’s Eyes 

Here we:

*Help our friend evaluate his or her soul experience. We want to help them to begin to assess how they are responding to their unmet longings (hope differed), how near or far their perspective on their situation is from God’s perspective, how near or far the motivations of their heart are from God’s will, and how well or poorly they are facing their feelings face-to-face with God.

*Encourage our friends to invite God into their soul situation. Some people avoid empathy because they think it means we only stay with the person in their soul situation. We certainly do join them in their soul situation. However, over time, we help them invite God into their soul situation.

Compassionate and Comprehensive Soul Empathy 

I’m sure you’ve detected that empathy is much more than a hug.

Empathy also is more than trying to sense how someone feels.

Rich soul empathy is a comprehensive and compassionate joining with and journeying with another person on their soul journey to the Shepherd of their soul.

Rich soul empathy is a comprehensive and compassionate sensing of what the whole person longs for in their situation (relational being), what they think about their situation (rational being), what their goals are in their situation (volitional being), and then how they feel about their situation (emotional being).   

Rich soul empathy like this not only helps us to better understand how someone is responding to their suffering. It helps them to better understand and honestly face their own inner responses—face-to-face with Christ.

We become a mirror reflecting back to them what is going on in their soul. The more clearly they understand their inner responses, the more powerfully and profitably they can take their soul to the Shepherd of their soul.

In rich soul empathy:

• The Bible is our guide.
• Our friend’s soul is our focus.
• Our soul is the mirror.
• The Shepherd of the Soul is the Healer.

Join the Conversation 

Were these two statements surprising to you? If so, how so? Empathy is much more than a hug. Empathy is more than trying to sense how someone feels.  

How might this summary impact how you engage with a hurting friend or a grieving counselee? Rich soul empathy is a comprehensive and compassionate joining with and journeying with another person on their soul journey to the Shepherd of their soul.