Sympathy or Empathy, which should be the nature of the Christian?
The idea that we are to show love and compassion towards others is a fundamental concept in Christianity. We are a loving people, and we strive to express that love to others as our Father in Heaven shows that love to us.
Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful. Empathy involves actively sharing in the person’s emotional experience.
Sympathy and empathy share a common root: the Greek noun páthos, meaning “experience, misfortune, emotion, condition.” Sympathy, which has been in use since the 16th century, comes from a Greek word that combined páthos with syn-/sym-, meaning “with; together with.”
Empathy was modeled on sympathy; it was coined in the early 20th century as a translation of the German word Einfühlung (“feeling-in” or “feeling into”), and was first applied in contexts of philosophy, aesthetics, and psychology. So why is it that sympathy comes from páthos plus something that means “with,” but empathy is the word the refers to an active sharing in someone else’s emotional experience?
Well, it’s because empathy stole that job from sympathy. That’s right: from the time when sympathy came on the scene in the 16th century all the way until the mid-20th century, sympathy was the go-to word for the active sharing in someone else’s emotional experience.
Compassion means ‘to suffer together,’ which is an expression of caring and warmth. Someone who expresses compassion recognizes the pain in another person and is motivated to help them.
Empathy is not found in scripture, primarily because the word didn’t come into use until the 20th century. However, sympathy is found in 4-verses of scripture.
- Job. 2:11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him.
- Job. 42:11 Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.
- Php. 2:1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,
- 1Pe. 3:8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
Compassion is another term found in scripture and in the contexts refer to the active voice of wanting to help a person to alleviate their distress. While compassion and empathy are often used interchangeably, the two are very different. The word “Compassion” is found in some 49-verses of scripture, in both old and new testaments.
As Christians, we need to understand these distinctions because having “empathy” for someone can involve emotions that can cloud judgement. Empathy is somewhat of a misnomer because a person can never actually feel another person’s anguish. It attempts to foster a connection that could never exist. However, sympathy with compassion fosters a more complete concept of what is possible between two people.
You don’t really need empathy for another when sympathy and compassion get the job done.
Sympathy is often misunderstood to be a disconnection with a patient while empathy appears to be more connected. Empathy can be a problem because one cannot feel what another is feeling and because it is purely emotion-based. There’s no doubt that emotions cloud judgement when resolution is sought. Emotions can cause a person to do whatever is necessary to alleviate the problem, even if such action results in more problems.
Scripturally, it can be said that Jesus had sympathy for people and compassion enough to go to the cross. This is what is needed in the world today. We should have sympathy for the lost and enough compassion to teach them the gospel.
