A Word from Bob: 4 Guest Posts by Joe Hussung
You’re reading Part 2 of a four-part blog mini-series by my friend and guest blogger, Joe Hussung. Here’s Joe’s bio.
Joe Hussung is the Director of Recruitment and Remote Counseling Coordinator at Fieldstone Counseling. He holds an MDiv in Christian Ministry and DMin in Biblical Counseling from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
To learn more about Joe, check out his longer bio at the Fieldstone Counseling site here.
To read Part 1, visit: Tilling the Ground.
As regular readers of my blog, you know that I’ve written a great deal on Empathy. For a free 42-Page PDF that collates some of my thinking on empathy, see my Empathy Is Biblical PDF. For a summary of my writings on empathy, along with links to a ten-part blog series on empathy, see my Empathy Is Biblical blog post.
I’m thankful for Joe’s insightful contribution to the important topic of biblical empathy in our lives and ministries.
Empathy, Compassion, and Sympathy
Step 2 in grounding empathy is defining biblical categories that seem to have similar ideas at play. Many people have done this.
My gracious host, Dr. Bob Kellemen, is one of the main surveyors of empathic qualities in Scripture. When Bob identifies these passages, he generally points to two major biblical concepts:
Compassion and Sympathy.
Bob encourages counselors to notice our “Compassionate Father” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) and our “Sympathetic High Priest” (Hebrews 4:14-16). We will take time to look at both ideas scripturally, starting with compassion.
What Is Biblical Compassion?
So, what is compassion?
We should think about compassion on two levels. The first level is what does the word mean scripturally, and the second level is what does compassion require?
What Is Compassion/Mercy?
Herman Bavinck defines compassion/mercy as “the goodness of God, when shown to those in misery, is called mercy .”[1] Whenever we are thinking about compassion we should start with God. When God defines himself for Moses he states,
“The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God . . .” (Exodus 34:6).
The first descriptor is compassion. Not wrath, justice, faithfulness, or any other terms that seem more closely knit to how we conceptualize God. He instead says He is compassionate. Now, as we saw from Bavinck, it isn’t that compassion is at odds with God’s love or goodness; compassion is His goodness.
God’s compassion is central to who God is toward His people. Because God’s people, on account of sin and suffering, are in a perpetual state of suffering and misery, God is compassionate toward them. This is the way God is towards those in need.
So, what are some characteristics of God’s compassion? Let me give you three.
First, God’s compassion assumes sin.
Many people think, “Sure, God is compassionate towards those who are suffering, but those who are suffering because of their sin, that’s a different story.” However, that is not the case. God is compassionate towards His people when they are suffering under any weight, even their own sin. Think of Exodus 34. Israel had just worshipped the golden calf and had dire consequences for that act, and yet God still says He is compassionate.
Second, God’s compassion is active.
God’s compassion seeks to alleviate the suffering of individuals. Time and time again God does this. He does it in the Old Testament as He sees His people in distress and rescues them from their affliction. But ultimately, He does this in Christ. He sees people in their sins and sends His son to rescue them from that affliction.
Third, God’s compassion is affective.
Not only does compassion describe what God wants to do, it describes His disposition toward His people. The Hebrew term racham, which is primarily translated as compassion in the CSB is a viscerally affective term.
Its Greek counterpart, used of Jesus in the gospels is splagnizomai and it describes the movement of the gut towards people in distress. Both, describe a God who genuinely and powerfully has affection for people who are in need.
What Does Compassion Require?
When we turn to the human component of compassion, we should look at the fact that compassion is commanded of us as Christians. Luke 6:36 says,
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
This command is straightforward; we are to imitate God in His compassion/mercy. The question is, how do we do this? What does it require to be compassionate?
There are two factors at play here. First, we need more knowledge than we are capable of on our own. When God has compassion, He knows exactly what is causing the suffering and how to alleviate that suffering.
We don’t know those things. We have all had situations where we have walked in sure that we knew what the problem is and realized we had no idea what was going on. We are limited in knowledge.
Compassion without knowledge isn’t compassion at all. Remember Job’s friends? They felt bad for Job, so the affection was there, but because of their hubris and pride, they thought they knew what the problem was but had absolutely no idea. In turn, all their counsel ceased to be compassionate when it was not in line with an understanding of Job and his particular problem.
A more positive example is Jesus in Matthew 9:35-38. He sees the crowds, judges that they are, “Like sheep without a shepherd,” and then based on this right assessment, he preaches to them and heals them. This “compassion” (Matthew 9:36), feels for the crowds, knows their problem, and seeks to alleviate the suffering. This is the type of compassion we must imitate. But there is an implied question that we are left with in this command.
Where do we get the information that we need to complete compassion?
There are pitfalls in every direction.
Pitfall #1
The information comes from the sufferer’s perspective alone. Doing this can result in a mishandling of people’s problems. What if the person doesn’t understand their problem in a very profound way? What if you are helping someone in an abusive situation, but has no understanding that what they are experiencing is abuse at all? We would be less than helpful to someone who comes to us for parenting advice while they are being abused and we do not address the abuse.
Pitfall #2
The information comes from the helper’s perspective alone. This is Job’s friends. They are convinced that they understand the problem with zero consideration for Job’s perspective. This leaves people feeling unheard, unseen, unhelped, and damaged.
Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:12 help fill in the gap for this question.
“Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus implies that both of these perspectives are essential for this type of love. Listen to the words of Martin Luther here on this passage,
“Now everyone is always so disposed, if he be sick, that he wishes the whole world would come to his help. Am I a poor sinner, steeped in shame, have I a heavy afflicted conscience: then I ought to wish for the whole world to comfort and help me, and cover my sins and my shame. Just such should my attitude be to my neighbor, not to judge and condemn forgive his failings, help him, counsel, loan and give to him as I would that others should do to me, if I were overwhelmed with anxiety and want, with misery and poverty.”[2]
The implication of Matthew 7:12 and Luther’s explanation is that when we are trying to help people in need, we have to understand what they are suffering from before we consider what they need. This means that a necessary implication of Jesus’ command here, and the larger command to have compassion, is that:
One must be able and open to consider someone’s suffering: the nature, cause, and context.
We should note that this is much of what the modern understanding of empathy is about.
The Rest of the Story
In my (Joe) next post, Empathy, Part 3: Understanding, I want to look at empathy as a disposition of understanding and love for those who are suffering in front of us.
Notes
[1]Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2, God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 213.
[2] Martin Luther, Martin Luther Sermons: Vol. 4, trans. John Nicholas Lenker, Accessed on Nov. 4, 2022, http://sermons.martinluther.us/Luther_Lenker_Vol_4.pdf , 90.
