• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sermo Humilis

Humble Speech

  • Home
  • Topics
    • Just a Thought
    • Who we Are Instead
    • Life in Christendom
  • Series
    • Words that Matter
    • Rock of Ages
    • Let the Lady Speak
    • Life and Times of Jesus
    • Jesus Through all of Life
    • 8 Weeks Before Marriage
    • The Ten Commandments
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Words that Matter / Empathy

Empathy

April 3, 2022 By David Trounce Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Words that Matter - Sermo Humilis

Empathy is a word that only came into use during the 20th century and means to join yourself to the identity, feeling, problem, trauma or ideology of others.

In an amoral culture such as ours, empathy means getting drunk with the drunkard, comforting the sodomite in his sodomy, saying that she is he, and defending the distraught adulteress in her adultery. It means to drop your winning standards and join the losing team, because, you know, love.

Yes, we are to weep with those who weep. But we weep because we share a common humanity under a universal judgement not because we share a common skin colour, lust or STD.

Empathy is, for the most part, the sin of cowardice. It’s often driven by our insatiable appetite to virtue signal, belong and find approval.

It’s not the standard we find in scripture. It also fails to provide any meaningful comfort or a way forward.

Distraught mother of three: My husband just left me for another woman.

Empathy: Yeah, my husband did that. All men are bastards.

Sympathy: Why don’t you and the kids come around this weekend for a BBQ and we’ll spend some time together. Our kids would love that too.

The best way to help a blind man cross the street is emphatically not by blindfolding yourself (Luke 6:39).

Sympathy, means to identify with the suffering and struggle of others by drawing alongside them without losing our own bearings and is entirely biblical.

Not em (in), but, sym (with).

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Jesus became one with us in our humanity, but He did not join us in our sinning.

He stands at the corner of the street and calls us into His house. He holds out redemption and deliverance from our shame, without becoming shameful and without making a shipwreck of His own standards to suit the current zeitgeist.

Sympathy. It’s an art. One that requires wisdom, courage and biblical love in a world that has lost it’s anchor.

Related...

Unity
Shame
Trust
Image is Everything

Filed Under: Words that Matter Tagged With: Courage, Empathy, Sympathy


Writing Ideas on Sermo HumilisWhat do You Want to Read About?

 

Nothing like real-world issues to focus the mind. If you have something you would like me to write about, send me a message and let me know.

 

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Sermo Humilis

For the love of all things true, beautiful and good.


Welcome to Sermo Humilis, a digital home for biblical discipleship and cultural Christianity. A few new thoughts every week.

Please remember to like, subscribe and share. It really helps me out.

Subscribe for Weekly Updates

As per our Privacy Policy, we will never hand your information to a third party.

please check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Categories

  • Life in Christendom
  • Just a Thought
  • Who we Are Instead

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Series

Sidebar - Words that Matter Sidebar Series - Proverbs - Let the Lady Speak Sidebar - Jesus Through all of Life Series

The Most Popular Guff

Low-fat Christianity

We live in an age of doubters. People who are constantly worried about

Extraordinary Evidence

Someone once said, that, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary

Food and War

There is very little more discomforting than hunger. It has been used

For the Joy Set Before Him

My deepest desire is not that my kids will obey the 10 Commandments.

Forgetting the Hand that Feeds You

When a man comes to Christ and starts to obey Him, it's not long

Jesus, The Priesthood

After the resurrection of Lazarus Jesus moves to a place called

#8 Jesus and Education

Jesus was taught by His Father, "I do nothing on my own authority, but

See and Hear

On the move? Weekly content can also be seen and heard via Youtube.

Topics

Beauty Charity Children Covenant Creation Death Discipleship Evangelism Faith Faithfulness Fear Fellowship Gospel Grace Grief Guilt Holiness Idolatry Image Jesus Joy Judgement Kingdom Law Liberty Life Love Marriage Mercy Money Prosperity Redemption Rest Resurrection Righteousness Sabbath Sacrifice Salvation Sin Truth Victory War Wisdom Work Worship

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe to Sermo Humilis

Find us on Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Support Sermo Humilis

If you enjoy Sermo Humilis and want to say thanks you can support me here.

Support

Copyright © 2022 · Sermo Humilis

Thor's Oak

Around 723 AD, a missionary named Boniface entered Hesse in Germany. Upon finding a sacred tree named Thor’s Oak, he took an axe to it, cut it down and built a church. Many in the town, believing that the God of Boniface must be greater than Thor, left their paganism behind converted to Christianity.