Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners: Loving Others As God Loves Us by Dr. Mike Emlet (New Growth Press, January 2021) is one of the most important and helpful counseling books since the launch of the biblical counseling movement half-a-century ago. As a writer-practitioner, it’s sometimes difficult to be “comprehensively compassionate.” You want to say everything, yet you want to balance depth with practicality. Mike Emlet eminently succeeds in being “biblical-practical” in Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners. If you want comprehensive and compassionate equipping in one-another care, then this is the book for you.

A Three-Fold Trellis

Writing in the 1960s, British Christian psychiatrist Frank Lake noted that, “Pastoral care is defective unless it can deal thoroughly both with the evils we have suffered as well as with the sins we have committed” (Clinical Theology, p. 25). Lake’s model is a predecessor to the common designation in modern biblical counseling of Christians as saints who face suffering and fight against sin.

Emlet takes these three concepts (saints, sufferers, sinners) and develops them as three foundational and biblical ways of understanding and ministering to friends, family members, and counselees. As Emlet describes it, “Scripture gives us a kind of trellis—a basic structure—on which love can flower in person-specific ways” (p. 4).

And what is this three-fold trellis? In Emlet’s words, “Scripture reveals that God ministers to his people as:

• Saints who need confirmation of their identity as children of God,
• Sufferers who need comfort in the midst of their affliction, and
• Sinners who need challenge to their sin in light of God’s redemptive mercies” (p. 8).

A Practical Trellis 

Dr. Emlet doesn’t write simply as a theoretician, but also as a practitioner. And he writes with his readers in view.

“Saint, sufferer, and sinner. All three of these are simultaneously true of every Christian you meet. If this is the way God sees and loves his people, then we should do the same, using these broad biblical categories to guide our overall approach to the people in our lives. They are signposts for wise love. They help you to prioritize one-another ministry, whether it’s to your friend, husband, wife, roommate, child, coworker, or counselee” (p.  8).

In each of the three major sections of the book, Dr. Emlet explores:

1. Scriptural teaching about us as saints, sufferers, or sinners.
2. Biblical examples of how God relates to us as saints, sufferers, or sinners.
3. Principles of ministry priorities for loving saints, sufferers, or sinners.
4. Everyday examples of how we love saints, sufferers, or sinners.
5. Counseling vignettes describing how we counsel people as saints, sufferers, or sinners.
6. Barriers to loving others as saints, sufferers, or sinners.

As Emlet says:

“My aim is for you to experience a greater clarity about how to love the people around you in wise, truthful, and compassionate ways. For each category, I will give an example of how Scripture models loving ministry to saints, sufferers, and sinners. And for each category I will give some practical examples of what that could look like in everyday relationships and in more formal ministry relationships” (p. 11).

Understanding ourselves and others as saints, sufferers, and sinners gives a biblical framework for personal ministry. Whether we are talking with a friend, giving pastoral advice, or counseling in a more formal setting, these categories explained and illustrated by Dr. Emlet help us know where to start and give us a Scripture-based guide for our gospel conversations. 

A Balanced Trellis 

The stereotypical criticism of biblical counseling is that it is only nouthetic confrontation of sin. This was never the case, and it certainly is not the biblical model found in Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners. In fact, Emlet sees “saints” as the Christian’s core biblical identity.

“For the believer, the designation ‘saint’ is more foundational than the designation ‘sufferer’ or ‘sinner.’ We experience a fundamental identity shift when we become believers. When we turn from our sin to God in repentance, receiving and resting on Jesus and his righteousness by faith, a seismic shift in our souls occurs. We are now people in Christ…. Ongoing struggle with suffering or with sin must be understood in this basic context of our new identity as children of the living God. We are saints who suffer. We are saints who sin. But we are saints nonetheless at our core” (pp. 25-26).

This is an important biblical distinction. In Gospel-Centered Counseling: How Christ Changes Lives, I note that in our core Christian identity we are saints who face suffering and battle against sin in our sanctification journey. So, while Emlet’s title is Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners, his conceptualization reflects the balanced biblical view that we are saints who suffer and sin.

As an experienced biblical counselor, Dr. Emlet never suggests that these categories are simplistic ways of viewing people or even “discreet or distinct” ways of understanding people.

“Most often in personal ministry we encounter all three aspects of life as saint, sufferer, and sinner in one person at the same time. We constantly toggle between the saint, sufferer, and sinner aspects of people’s lives depending on the needs of the hour (or minute)” (p. 165).

In Gospel Conversations: How to Care Like Christ, I describe this process as “spaghetti relationships.” Life is messy. So, we move seamlessly between ministering to people comprehensively as saints who suffer and sin.  

A Highly-Recommended Trellis 

Even though I have used and taught a similar saint/suffering/sinning/sanctification approach to biblical counseling for years, I am learning a great deal from Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners. I’ve taken pages of detailed notes. I’ve used numerous principles already both in my own counseling and in my supervision of other counselors.

I especially appreciate the richness of Dr. Emlet’s scriptural exploration of who we are as saints and of how to minister to one another in our suffering. These are aspects that we need to highlight in our modern biblical counseling world.

I highly recommend this significant work. With everyday examples and counseling vignettes, Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners serves as a rich training manual both for lay one-another ministry and for pastoral biblical counseling. In it, Dr. Mike Emlet equips readers to love well and wisely by compassionate relating to people comprehensively—as saints who suffer and sin.