Empathy and how we use it today drags you so deep into another person’s feelings that you lose the big picture and the power to help. Jesus didn’t model empathy; He modeled compassion—seeing clearly, feeling deeply, and moving decisively. Stop aiming for empathy. Aim for compassion.
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Why I’m saying this out loud
Empathy sounds like the safe Christian word right now. But the cultural script goes like this: get in the pit, stay in the pit, mirror the feelings, call it love. Before long, you can’t see the world outside the circle of pain. You validate everything you feel together—even when those feelings are lying to you.
On the other extreme, some stay so far from the pit they never touch real pain. That’s not Jesus either.
Compassion stands where it can see the big picture and reach the person. It climbs down with wisdom, anchors a rope with courage, and pays the price to lift. Empathy fixates on immersion; compassion is about incarnation—God with us, for us, moving us toward wholeness.
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A (Very) Brief History of “Empathy”
Here’s something most people don’t realize: empathy is a brand-new word.
The term was coined in 1909 by psychologist Edward Titchener, who was trying to translate the German word Einfühlung—literally, “feeling into.” German aestheticians like Robert Vischer and Theodor Lipps had used it in the 19th century to describe how people project their own feelings into art or nature. For example: “That painting feels sad because I feel my sadness in it.”
Titchener pulled it into English as “empathy,” and psychologists expanded it beyond art to mean entering into another person’s emotional state.
In other words, empathy wasn’t even in the English language until the 20th century. It’s not an ancient biblical category. It’s not a church-fathers’ virtue. It’s not in Wesley, Augustine, or Aquinas. It’s a modern psychological term invented for emotional projection and then broadened into emotional pampering.
By contrast, words like sympathy and compassion are ancient. They appear in Scripture, in the Greek (sympatheo, splagchnizomai), and in the Latin (compassio). They carry the weight of centuries of Christian witness.
Now, language…
The word sympathy comes from two Greek roots:
“syn” meaning with
“pathos” meaning suffering or feeling
So sympathy literally means “to suffer with.”
That’s the same core idea behind compassion, which comes from the Latin:
“com” meaning with
“passio” meaning suffering
So both words-sympathy and compassion-mean the same thing at their roots: to suffer with someone.
The word empathy comes from two Greek roots:
“em” meaning in
“pathos” meaning suffering or feeling
So empathy literally means:
“to suffer in someone else’s experience.”
Or, more simply:
“to feel what someone else feels from the inside.”
Unlike sympathy (to suffer with) or compassion (to suffer with and respond), empathy is about entering into another person’s emotional state and feeling their pain as if it were your own.
So when we elevate “empathy” over “compassion,” we’re not being biblical or traditional—we’re being trendy.
Recap: Terms so we don’t talk past each other
• Empathy (popular use): “I feel what you feel from the inside.” The goal is emotional mirroring or to project what you would feel in an attempt to understand.
• Sympathy: “I suffer with you.” Real presence. Shared burden.
• Compassion: “I suffer with you—and I act for your good.” Holy love in motion.
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Jesus didn’t “empathize.” He had compassion (and then He moved)
The Gospels are painfully consistent:
He saw the crowds and “had compassion on them, because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Then He taught and healed.
— Matthew 9:36 (NLT)
He said, “I feel compassion for these people.” Then He organized, gave thanks, and fed thousands.
— Matthew 15:32 (NLT)
He saw a widow at a funeral; “His heart overflowed with compassion.” Then He raised her son.
— Luke 7:13–15 (NLT)
In His story, the Samaritan “felt compassion.” Then he bandaged, carried, paid, and returned.
— Luke 10:33–35 (NLT)
Pattern: Sight → Stir → Step.
Empathy is a vein attempt to see. Only compassion makes you see and move.
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“But doesn’t the Bible tell us to feel with people?”
Yes—as a doorway at times, not a destination.
“Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep.”
— Romans 12:15 (NLT)
But New Testament love refuses to stall at feelings:
“Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.”
— 1 John 3:18 (NLT)
“Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing… and you say, ‘Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well’—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?”
— James 2:15–16 (NLT)
“Show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames.”
— Jude 22–23 (NLT)
Biblically, feeling-with is faithful when it leads to doing-for.
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Why Empathy Backfires (and Compassion Doesn’t)
Empathy pulls you so deep into the pit you can’t see the ladder.
You begin to treat every shared feeling as sacred. Scripture is frank about that impulse:
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things…”
— Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT)
Compassion honors the person and the truth.
It doesn’t drown with you; it dives, secures, and brings you up for air. It bears cost—time, prayer, money, presence—without surrendering to hopelessness.
Empathy centers us. (”Look how deeply I feel.”)
Compassion centers Christ. (”Look what Jesus can do.”)
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Why empathy won’t work now anyway
Let’s be honest: even if empathy were the ideal, it’s collapsing under the weight of our culture.
The West—especially America—is polarized beyond recognition. Asking people to empathize with “the other side” feels impossible. How do you empathize with someone who celebrates your suffering? How do you “feel with” someone who publicly cheers when someone like you is murdered in broad daylight?
And flip it: do you think they’re empathizing with you? No. If empathy worked, there wouldn’t have been violence in the first place. Empathy collapses when sin runs the show. Compassion, on the other hand, still works—because compassion isn’t about validating feelings; it’s about acting in Christ’s name with truth and power.
In an age this divided, empathy only deepens tribalism. Compassion still crosses lines. If we as Christians don’t stop trying to empathize and start showing genuine Christ-like Compassion, I fear we will spiral in our empathy efforts and only deepen the divide, continually being the catalyst for the realization that, at times, it’s impossible to see how the other side could possibly think “that way.”
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“But the hierarchy feels… cringe.”
Totally hear you. Many avoid the word compassion because it implies a helper/helpee gap. That discomfort is cultural, not biblical.
There is a hierarchy in every rescue—and it’s good when the higher is Jesus:
• He is Lord; we are His body.
• He gives authority; we steward it as servants.
• He stoops lower than all of us, then lifts us higher than we could lift ourselves.
Christian “hierarchy” is not domination; it’s incarnation authority. The only crown in the story is made of thorns. If Christ empowers me to throw a rope, there’s a difference between my footing and your footing—and that difference is grace.
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The Holy Emotional Order
1. The Spirit stirs compassion.
2. Compassion produces sympathy. (I’m with you.)
3. Sympathy calls for response. (I’m moving with you toward wholeness.)
Not to sit forever in someone’s feelings, but to lift them with Christlike love.
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When Is Empathy Okay?
Here it is—the one time empathy belongs in the Christian life:
Empathy is only ever safe and right when you are empathizing with Jesus.
Not trying to become swallowed by another person’s interior world, but asking to share the mind and heart of Christ so you can love with His strength and His wisdom.
Jesus is the only person to know what it’s like to be a perfect human. That means we can trust his feelings. His emotions. His will. His anger. His sorrow. His love. His grace.
When we empathize with Jesus, it’s okay to say “Lord, I want to feel exactly what you’re feeling right now.” It’s good. It’s holy. We want to be like Christ. So trying to understand what He is feeling for the lost, now that’s an emotion we can trust.
Empathy Belongs to Jesus Alone
We’ve been sold the lie that empathy is the missing key. That if we can just “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes,” the world will finally heal. But that idea falls apart the second you try it. The truth? The only person worthy of our empathy is Jesus Christ.
His Empathy Is Salvation
Jesus didn’t model empathy so we could imitate it. His empathy is not a social skill—it’s salvation. God didn’t just imagine what it felt like to be human; He stepped into it. He walked among us, felt hunger, carried betrayal, wept at graves, and sweated blood in Gethsemane. Hebrews 4:15 reminds us:
“We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
His empathy saves us because He not only felt it—He conquered it. We can’t. He can.
Our Empathy Is Confusion
So let’s compare that to ours. When I try to feel what another person feels, all I expose is my own limits. I don’t know what’s trauma and what’s sin. I don’t know what’s woundedness and what’s willful rebellion. And when I try, I end up more confused than when I started. Empathy doesn’t bring me closer—it often pushes me further away. We look at someone full of hate or evil and try to imagine their headspace, and instead of softening, we harden. Instead of compassion, we get disgust. That’s the trap: empathy doesn’t unite us, it fractures us.
Empathy With Jesus Changes Everything
But empathy with Jesus—that’s different. If empathy is stepping into another’s feelings, then let me step into His. Let me see the world through His eyes. Let me burn with His heart for the suffering. Let me weep with His grief for the lost. Empathy with Christ unlocks His compassion in me. It teaches me to love beyond my natural limits. Even the wicked look different—not because I excuse their sin, but because I see their story isn’t over. If Jesus still offers redemption, then I can still pray, still hope, still see the image of God in them.
The Spirit or the Knockoff
And here’s the insanity of the modern church: we’ve traded the supernatural vision of the Holy Spirit for a cheap knockoff called empathy. We’re preaching psychology when we should be preaching Pentecost. The Spirit of God is closer than our next breath—why would we choose anything less? Empathize with people, and you drown in emotions you can’t untangle. Empathize with Jesus, and you inherit His heart, His clarity, His love.
That’s the bottom line: empathy belongs to Christ alone. And only when we fix our feelings on Him do we get the power to love people the way He does.
“We do not have a High Priest who is unable to understand our weaknesses… So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
— Hebrews 4:15–16 (NLT)
Empathize with Jesus, then act with Jesus: the same Spirit who lets you share His heart sends you to heal, feed, carry, pay, return.
Everything else? Sympathy and compassion will do the work better—and safer.
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Practicing compassion this week (no capes required)
• Pray for sight. “Lord, let me see as You see.”
• Move toward need. Close the distance. Text. Walk across the room.
• Ask, don’t assume. “What would be most helpful right now?”
• Meet one concrete need. Groceries, gas, childcare, a ride, a bill.
• Bring Scripture and hope. Read it with them. Pray it over them.
• Engage the body. Loop in your small group/deacons/care team.
• Return. The Samaritan came back. Put it on the calendar and follow through.
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Feel it? Good.
Now move it.
Don’t just “be in the pit.”
Anchor the rope.
Don’t just nod at pain.
Bind the wound.
Don’t just post a tear emoji.
Pay the bill. Return tomorrow.
The world is harassed and helpless.
Christ’s church is not.
Empathy is hurting the church*.
*With one exception.
The word is compassion.
Use it. Live it. Pull people out.