5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 7

Note: I’ve developed the follow post from my book Spiritual Friends. In Part 1 and Part 2, we learned about Grace Connecting. In Part 3 and Part 4, we learned about Rich Soul Empathy. In Part 5 and Part 6, we learned about Accurate Listening.

In this ten-part blog mini-series, we’re learning five biblical counseling skills of sustaining by using the acronym GRACE.

• G—Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6

• R—Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15

• A—Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43

• C—Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

• E—Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3

Caring Spiritual Conversations: Sustaining Theological Trialogues—Ephesians 4:29

People in pain need whispers, not shouts. Don’t holler curses; whisper grace.

In caring spiritual conversations, we use biblical wisdom principles to engage our spiritual friends in discussions that help them to think through their external and internal situation. The core relational competency necessary for this soul care art is the ability to trialogue.

In monologues you speak to me; in dialogues we speak to each other; and in trialogues together we listen to God. In trialogues, we want to make the presence of God the central dynamic in our conversation. We interact in Jesus’ name helping people to face personal issues on a personal level.

Our personal relationship with them helps them to deepen their personal relationship with Christ. Spiritual conversations invite our spiritual friends into an exchange so they can experience the passion of having been changed. They invite our spiritual friends into a vivid, robust experience of grace narratives through grace relationships.

Consider just a sampling of biblical passages that depict trialogues:

• “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).

• “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:12-13).

• “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith . . . And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:22, 24-25).

The Nature of Spiritual Conversations

The tongue has the capacity to offer life-giving resources that nourish the soul, or to be a power for life-draining energies that poison the soul. “Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach; good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest. Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose” (Eugene Peterson, The Message, Proverbs 18:20-21). Spiritual conversation is simply good talk about our good God in the midst of our bad life.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29). Spiritual conversations are grace conversations. Law conversations crush people and destroy relationships (compare Matthew 23). Grace conversations edify people and build relationships.

“Unwholesome” words are corrupt and rotten like decaying fruit. They’re putrid, defiling, and injuring words. They’re toxic speech—words that poison others, making their spirit sick. Paul’s emphasis is clear in the original language: “All words of rottenness, do not let come out of your mouth.” Spiritual friends restrain themselves, refusing to speak until they understand what words will be:

• Helpful: Good because they flow from moral character and promote beautiful living.

• Strengthening/Building Up Others: Edifying words that bring improvement and promote maturity.

• According to Their Need: Carefully chosen words that specifically fill up a need, meet a lack, minister to a want, or express care in a difficulty, where it is most necessary.

• Beneficial/Ministering Grace: Attractive speech that helps others to receive God’s love poem and become God’s love poetry. They are gift words—generously given, freely granted words that accept, that free, that empower, and that give hope.

To the Colossians, Paul writes, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6). Grace words are words of connection, giving, affirming, accepting, freeing, and justifying. They are seasoned with salt—they preserve relationships with God, others, and self.

James, after describing the fiery and poisonous nature of words (James 3:1-8), notes that, “with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness” (James 3:9). In James 3:10-16, James teaches that Satan is the ultimate source of cursing words—harmful, hurtful, damaging words that wish a judgment upon someone. The most harmful words involve cursing conversations, law relationships, and condemning speech filled with wrath and scorn. Grace words, by contrast, are motivated by purity, pursue peace, and produce the fruit of righteousness (James 3:17-18).

The Careful Use of Spiritual Conversations

Throughout Spiritual Friends, you will read literally thousands of sample spiritual conversations. Because of the nature of the printed word, you will not be able to hear the inflection and tone of these sentences. You also will not be able to fully sense the spontaneity and individuality necessary in the skillful use of spiritual conversations. In other words, if you simply repeat to your spiritual friends these samples, then you will come across wooden, generic, academic, and out of touch. The samples are simply meant to stir your imagination, not to limit your creative, individual, personal interaction with your spiritual friends.

Additionally, be careful in the use of questions. I put many of the dialogues/trialogues in question form because they need to be so generic. However, think of spiritual conversations more as a quest to invite Jesus in, not as questions that push Jesus out and people away.

It is wise to question the use of questions, especially the poor use of questions. A few principles might help.

• As a spiritual friend, you’re not an interrogator. You’re not like Detective Joe Friday saying, “Just the facts, Ma’am. Just the facts.” Spiritual friendship is a conversation, not a cross-examination.

• Be aware that questions can cause your spiritual friend to feel like an object to be diagnosed or a lab specimen to be dissected.

• Never use questions as an excuse to avoid intimacy.

• Don’t use questions as filler because you’re unsure what to say. Instead, simply say, “I’m not sure where to go from here.”

When you do use questions, consider some suggestions for using them effectively:

• Always ask yourself, “Will this question further or inhibit the flow of our relationship, of our conversation?”

• Normally ask open-ended questions—ones that can’t be answered with a “Yes” or “No.”

• Use indirect questions that imply a desire for further exploration, without having a question mark at the end of your sentence. “That must have been hard when your wife left the room.” “I bet a million thoughts were going through your mind when your boss said that.”

The Rest of the Story 

In Part 8, we’ll learn The Practice of Spiritual Conversations.

Join the Conversation 

Who trialogues with you—listens together to God with you? Who do you trialogues with?

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth 

Tags: Biblical Counseling, Spiritual Conversations, Spiritual Friends, Trialogues

5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 6

Note: I’ve developed the follow post from my book Spiritual Friends. In Part 1 and Part 2, we learned about Grace Connecting. In Part 3 and Part 4, we learned about Rich Soul Empathy. In Part 5, we introduced Accurate Listening.

In this ten-part blog mini-series, we’re learning five biblical counseling skills of sustaining by using the acronym GRACE. 

• G—Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6

• R—Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15

• A—Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43

• C—Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

• E—Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3

Listening with Relational Competence: LISTEN

We can use the acrostic LISTEN to remind ourselves of basic components of competent spiritual listening.

• L— Loving Motivation: Proverbs 21:13

• I—Intimate Concern: Galatians 6:1-3; Colossians 4:6; James 3:17-18

• S—Slow to Speak: Proverbs 18:13; James 1:19

• T—Timing: Proverbs 15:23; 25:11

• E—Encouraging: Hebrews 3:7-19; 10:24-25

• N—Need-Focused Hearing: Ephesians 4:29

Loving Motivation: Proverbs 21:13

“If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13). Relationally competent spiritual friends are motivated, like God, to listen for, hear, care about, empathize with, and respond to the hurts of the wounded. Neither secular theory nor human curiosity drives careful listening. Care does. Concern does. Compassion does.

Intimate Concern: Galatians 6:1-3; Colossians 4:6; James 3:17-18

Paul (Galatians 6:1-3; Colossians 4:6) emphasizes the humble, spiritual, gentle, and gracious concern that ought to accompany spiritual listening. James (James 3:17-18), in a context sandwiched between the use of the tongue and the cause of quarrels, explains that true wisdom for living flows from a heart that loves people and peace, a heart that is considerate and submissive, impartial and sincere.

Slow to Speak: Proverbs 18:13; James 1:19 

James is quite emphatic. “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). Solomon explains why. “He who answers before listening—that is his folly and his shame” (Proverbs 18:13). Relationally competent spiritual friends hear their friend’s story before they tell God’s story to their friend.

Timing: Proverbs 15:23; 25:11

“A man finds joy in giving an apt reply—and how good is a timely word!” (Proverbs 15:23). “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). “Apt” means fitting, timely, given in due season—words said at the right time, in the right way, for the right reason because of right listening.

Exploring: Hebrews 3:7-19; 10:24-25

Both Hebrews 3 and 10 speak of encouraging and clearly imply the necessity of exploratory listening before profitable encouraging. Before encouraging, spiritual friends tune into, see, listen, and hear what is going on in the heart of their spiritual friend.

Need-Focused Hearing: Ephesians 4:29

To benefit others, spiritual friends listen for specific needs. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29). Spiritual friends ask, as they listen, “What is it that my spiritual friend most needs? What are his hurts and wounds? What are her fears and scars? What wholesome words relate to her specific situation? Specifically, given his situation, what words will benefit him?”

The Rest of the Story

In Part 7, we learn about Caring Spiritual Conversations.

Join the Conversation 

Using the LISTEN acrostic, rate yourself on each of the six aspects of listening. How could you improve your spiritual listening skills, especially in those areas where you rated yourself lower?

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth

Tags: Biblical Counseling, Listening, Spiritual Friendship

5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 5

Note: I’ve developed the follow post from my book Spiritual Friends. In Part 1 and Part 2, we learned about Grace Connecting. In Part 3 and Part 4, we learned about Rich Soul Empathy. In this blog mini-series, we’re learning five biblical counseling skills of sustaining by using the acronym GRACE.

• G—Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6

• R—Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15

• A—Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43

• C—Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

• E—Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3

Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: Faith-Drenched Alertness—John 2:23-4:43

Think of spiritual listening as reflective paying attention. It is passionate love that says, “I am not the center of my attention. God is. You are. I am third.” As Deitrich Bonhoeffer teaches:

“The first service we owe to others in fellowship is to listen to them. If we fail to listen, there are spiritual consequences. He who can no longer listen to his brother, will soon be no longer listening to God either.”

Jesus listened spiritually to Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. John places a “narrative marker” just before these two encounters. “He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man” (John 2:25). Jesus knew the scriptural, universal nature of human nature. He also tuned into the unique nature of individuals. Jesus could not have encountered two more unique individuals. His approach to them was idiosyncratic—uniquely fitting for each. Jesus listened to their souls and knew their individual stories. To follow His model, spiritual friends:

• Listen to Biblical Principles of Spiritual Listening: God’s Word about Human Words

• Listen with Relational Competence: LISTEN

Listening to Biblical Principles of Spiritual Listening: God’s Word about Human Words

Listening carefully to people’s words is biblical, not secular. God’s Word teaches that:

• Words Are Powerful

• Words Are Meaningful

• Words Convey Soul Messages

• Words Are Worthy of Soulful Attentiveness

• Words Reflect One of Two Life Interpretations

Words Are Powerful: Proverbs 18:21

“The tongue has the power of life and death” (Proverbs 18:21). That’s power. The tongue, says James, is a small body part with power far beyond its size (James 3:1-5a). “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire” (James 3:5b-6). That’s power. Listen carefully to the powerful, life and death words of your spiritual friends.

Words Are Meaningful: Proverbs 18:4; 20:5

“The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters” (Proverbs 18:4). “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5). Words carry the soul’s longings, beliefs, purposes, and feelings. Through careful, caring listening, you perceive the depth of the soul. Through active, accurate listening, you draw out the meaning of the soul—the hidden desires, convictions, goals, and emotions.

Words Convey Soul Messages: Psalm 39:1-3; Matthew 12:33-37 

“Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Spoken words flow out of the depths of the heart revealing the content of the heart. The good heart bears nourishing fruit conveyed by wholesome words, while the evil heart bears poisonous fruit conveyed by unwholesome words. If you want to know your spiritual friends, then listen skillfully to their words.

Words Are Worthy of Soulful Attentiveness: Proverbs 18:13; James 1:19

“He who answers before listening—that is his folly, that is his shame” (Proverbs 18:13). “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). The caring soul carefully listens to words spoken from the soul.

Words Reflect One of Two Life Interpretations: Job 42:7 

“After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has’” (Job 42:7). Job and his three friends witnessed one situation, but derived two vastly different interpretations. The set of information involved Job’s life experience. The first interpretation consisted of the works, condemnation, cursing, and shame narrative of life inspired by Satan. The second consisted of the grace, faith, openness, and acceptance narrative inspired by God. According to God, Job got him right; Job’s friends got God all wrong.

Whenever you listen, you listen for three sets of stories. Listen for your spiritual friends’ life stories—listen attentively to what they’re saying about what they’re experiencing. Then listen to two possible interpretations of their stories. Listen attentively for signs of Satan’s narrative creeping in. Additionally, listen attentively to God’s narrative gaining dominance. These competing interpretive frameworks are at work in every life story.

The Rest of the Story

Join us for Part 6 as we learn to LISTEN—six basic components of relational listening.

Join the Conversation 

What application could you make to Bonhoeffer’s quote? “He who can no longer listen to his brother, will soon be no longer listening to God either.”

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth 

Tags: Biblical Counseling, Listening, Spiritual Friends

5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 4

Note: I’ve developed the follow post from my book Spiritual Friends. In Part 1 and Part 2, we learn about Grace Connecting. In Part 3, we began to learn about Rich Soul Empathy. In this blog mini-series, we’re learning five biblical counseling skills of sustaining by using the acronym GRACE.

• G—Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6

• R—Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15

• A—Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43

• C—Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

• E—Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3

How to Empathize with the Soul: Climbing in the Casket—Hebrews 4:15-16

Soul empathy involves our capacity for “as if” relating. Ambrose wrote:

“Show compassion for those who suffer. Suffer with those who are in trouble as if being in trouble with them.”

Soul empathy requires compassionate imagination. We need to imagine what it is like for our friends to experience their life stories. To understand others with intimate knowledge, we must read into their experiences asking, “What is it like to experience and perceive the world through their stories?”

Hebrews 2:14-18 and 4:15-16 teach that empathy is not less than, but more than, intellectual. It is also experiential. Biblical, Christ-like empathy shares the experiences of another, connecting through common inner experiences. Such soul sharing occurs by way of incarnation—entering another’s world and worldview.

As a spiritual friend, the more human we are, the more real, the more fully alive and passionate, the more we will tune into others. Then we’ll experience a sympathetic resonance no matter the melody, dirge, minor or major key, or discordant note.

The God of All Comfort

Empathy, however, does not come from sharing the same experience, situation, or suffering. No two people experience a situation identically, nor do they share the identical experience.

Empathy comes from sharing the same dependency upon God. The God of all comfort, comforts us in our specific trouble so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the infinite comfort we receive from the God of all comfort.

I derive a core spiritual friendship principle from these concepts:

We will be empathetic with others to the degree that we are facing our struggles face-to-face with God.

When our soul is attuned to others, then we “pick up their radio waves, the vibes of their inner reactions.” Having accomplished this, we need to go the distance. We need to communicate to our spiritual friends in a way that helps them to “have empathy with our empathy.” They need to feel that we feel with them. Otherwise, their sorrow is not shared, it is simply “understood.” When both our “soul radios” are tuned to the same frequency, then we can share our soul friends’ experiences. We share their sorrows by climbing in the casket with them, and they know we are there.

While death is separation; shared sorrow is connection. It is the stitch connecting the wound. It is the healing balm. However, shared sorrow must never be a healing replacement. It must not replace grief. Shared sorrow does not purpose to eliminate sorrow, to rescue, or to cheer up. Shared sorrow purposes to help another to face and embrace sorrow.

“Levels” of Empathy

Effective soul empathy includes several “levels.”

1. Level One Empathy: “How would that affect an image bearer?”

Here we understand our spiritual friend through God’s eyes. A foundational level of empathy, it builds upon a universal biblical understanding of people.

 2. Level Two Empathy: “How would that affect an image bearer like me?”

Here we understand our spiritual friend through our eyes. A filtering level, we use our life as a filter through which we relate God’s truth to our friend’s life.

3. Level Three Empathy: “How would that affect an image bearer like him/her?”

Here we understand our spiritual friend through his or her eyes. We move from universal to unique empathy. In this final, deepest level of soul empathy we need to:

a. Adopt Our Spiritual Friend’s Viewpoint:

We replace our internal frame of reference with his. We neither condone nor condemn, agree or disagree, at this point. We simply seek to see what it is like to be him—through his mindset and frame of reference.

b. Express Our Spiritual Friend’s Viewpoint:

We express in our own words what we sense that she has said, felt, and thought about the situation. We then seek clarification.

c. Encourage Our Spiritual Friend to Accept His/Her Viewpoint: 

We nudge him to acknowledge his own experience. We help him to verbalize how he sees things and to accept his own perspective.

d. Help Our Spiritual Friend to Evaluate His/Her Viewpoint:

She needs to begin to assess how near or far her viewpoint is from reality.

The Rest of the Story 

The relational competencies of Grace Connecting and Rich Soul Empathizing provide the first two sustaining “skills” necessary to help our spiritual friend’s faith survive. Through them, we build a trusting, mutual, caring relationship.

Having done so, what next? In particular, how do we use the Scriptures to skillfully discuss and explore applications specific to our spiritual friend? In our next post we begin to learn how through Accurate and Active Spiritual Listening. 

Join the Conversation 

Who do you have in your life who empathizes deeply and compassionately with you?

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth

Tags: Biblical Counseling, Comfort, Empathy, Spiritual Friends, Sustaining

A Prayer for Sunday Worship: “Family”

On Mother’s Day, here is a Puritan prayer for family worship from The Valley of Vision entitled “Family.”  

“O Sovereign Lord,

You are the Creator-Father of all, for you have made and do support them;

You are the special Father of those who know, love and honor You,

Who find Your yoke easy, Your burden light, Your work honorable, and Your commandments glorious.

Let those that are united to me in tender ties be precious in Your sight and devoted to Your glory.

Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion, instruction, discipline, and example,

That my house may be a nursery for heaven,

My church the garden of the Lord, enriched with trees of righteousness of thy planting, for thy glory.”

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth 

Tags: Family, Moms, Mother's Day, Prayer, Puritan Prayer, Sunday Worship, Valley of Vision, Worship

5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 3

Note: I’ve developed the follow post from my book Spiritual Friends. In Part 1 and Part 2, I introduced Grace Connecting. In this blog mini-series, we’ll learn five biblical counseling and one-another skills of sustaining by using the acronym GRACE. 

• G—Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6

• R—Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15

• A—Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43

• C—Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

• E—Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3

Rich Soul Empathizing: Climbing in the Casket—Romans 12:15

Biblical empathy is the ability to sense your spiritual friend’s suffering and communicate that “it’s normal to hurt.” Picture soul empathy with the phrase “climbing in the casket.” Many biblical passages urge rich soul empathizing:

• Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15).

• If one part suffers, every part suffers with it (1 Corinthians 12:26).

• . . . who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (2 Corinthians 1:4).

• Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (Hebrews 2:18).

• For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).

• In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will (Romans 8:26-27).

Empathy, like connecting, is incarnational. Jesus entered our story (Hebrews 2; John 1). He is not only the Author of our story; He is in our story.

Empathy means to suffer along with another, to suffer in the soul of another. It involves feeling yourself into or participating in the inner world of another person while remaining yourself. Through empathy, you see your spiritual friends’ world through their eyes as if their world was your own. You seek to understand their inner and outer world from their perspective.

You can picture empathy as placing yourself in the role as a lead character in Becky and Alonzo’s stories. They are the lead characters in their stories; you are their friend, their protagonist. You are no longer simply a reader of their stories; you participate with them in their stories.

How Not to Empathize with the Soul: Slamming the Casket Shut—Job’s Miserable Counselors

If empathizing is climbing in the casket, then slamming the casket shut pictures its opposite. A return to Job’s miserable “comforters” pictures how not to practice soul empathy.

1. Eliphaz: Job 4-5, 15, and 22 

Eliphaz is the master of discouragement and dismay. He provides Job with conditional love while he curses God. Eliphaz teaches that God is good to the good, but bad to the bad. He does not know grace. He does know works: “You can manipulate God into being good to you by being good to him.” What a petty God Eliphaz worships. Eliphaz says to Job, “Don’t live coram Deo. Don’t tell God your heart. Be surface.” He misinterprets Job’s words as venting rage at God rather than soul-sharing with God.

2. Bildad: Job 8, 18, and 25

Bildad has a somewhat right theology with very wrong application. “The issue is your sin!” Seeing only sin, he is wrong in Job’s case. For God, the issue was Job’s response to him in his suffering. The issue was Job’s privileged opportunity to be a universal witness to God’s goodness. The issue was not Job’s sinfulness. Bildad does not know the man he calls “friend.” He labels (and libels) Job “the evil man who knows not God.”

3. Zophar: Job 11 and 20 

Zophar also presents a works righteousness. He believes that good works can cover shame.

4. Job’s View: Miserable Comforters 

How does Job view their counsel? He longs for the devotion of his friends (6:14), which they aren’t. He calls them undependable brothers (6:15), which they are. They can’t handle Job’s doubts, treating the words of a despairing man as wind (6:26). He feels they say, “Forget it! Smile!” However, “Don’t worry; be happy,” does not cut it for Job. His dread remains. “If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression, and smile,’ I still dread all my sufferings, for I know you will not hold me innocent” (Job 9:27-28). He experiences their total lack of empathy. “Men at ease have contempt for misfortunate” (Job 12:5).

Miserable comforters (Job 16:2) they are. Rather than communicating that “it’s normal to hurt,” they increase Job’s hurt. Having no compassionate discernment, they claim that his wounds are self-inflicted. “How we will hound him, since the root of the trouble lies in him” (Job 19:28). They crush Job’s spirit through their long-winded speeches, argumentative nature, lack of empathy and encouragement, failure to bring relief/comfort, and their closed-minded, arrogant, superior, hostile attitudes based upon wrong motives and a condemning spirit (Job 17:1-5).

Of them, Job concludes, “These men turn night into day; in the face of darkness they say, ‘Light is near’” (Job 17:12). They are like the counselor who says, “Don’t talk about your problems, don’t think about your suffering, and don’t remember your past hurts. Forget those things which are behind!” They have no night vision, no 20/20 spiritual vision, and no long-distance vision; so they have to call the darkness light. Job, however, has long-distance vision. His heart yearns for God and he knows that he will see God (Job 19:25-27).

Job feels no rapport with them. “They torment me, crush me with words. I sense their reproach as they shame me. They exalt themselves. I feel so alone when I am with them. So alienated and forgotten. Here’s how my ‘spiritual friends’ make me feel: alienated, estranged, forgotten, offensive, loathsome. All my intimate friends detest me; they have turned against me, having no pity on me” (author’s paraphrase of Job 19).

They are unwise. They offer nonsense answers because they’re not paying attention to life, not learning life’s lessons. “You have not wisely paid attention to how things work in the real world. Your academic knowledge, your theologizing, is out to lunch. How can you console/comfort me with your vain nonsense, since your answers are falsehood? You are wrong about life, about me, and about God!” (author’s paraphrase of Job 21).

They are “sin-spotters.” They know confrontation only. Thus, they become co-conspirators with Satan the accuser who condemns men and curses God.

5. God’s View

What was God’s view of their counsel? After speaking to Job, Yahweh says to Eliphaz. “I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). They failed to speak of God’s generous goodness and grace. Their God was a tit-for-tat God who could be easily manipulated by and impressed with works.

Our greatest failure in counseling arises when we speak wrongly of God while we speak to one another. 

The Rest of the Story 

Return for Part 4 where we learn How to Empathize with the Soul.

Join the Conversation 

What additional examples of non-empathy would you add?

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth 

Tags: Biblical Counseling, Empathy, Spiritual Friends, Sustaining