Thursday 22 March 2018

Empathy & Evangelism

Empathizing with others leads to greater effectiveness in evangelism.

In his bestselling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey explains that empathy is a key to effectiveness. He exhorts us to “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” It’s so easy to jump right into the point that we want to get across, but if we don’t first take the time to understand where others are coming from, there can easily be unintended miscommunication.

Cultivating the ability to empathize with others leads to greater effectiveness in all forms of communication, including evangelism. In fact, Jesus himself models this as he empathizes with our brokenness.

Hebrews 4:15 explains that “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” After emphasizing that Jesus can empathize with our weakness, the writer of Hebrews goes on to say “Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

The fact that Jesus stepped into our world and chose to humble himself in order to understand our brokenness is exactly what paves the way for us to understand God and approach his throne of grace with confidence. This same dynamic is true for us as we reach out to others with the gospel.

As we engage those who don’t know Jesus and humble ourselves to empathize with their weaknesses, God becomes more approachable for them.

Since empathy is crucial to our evangelism, how do we intentionally cultivate it in our lives so that we can be more effectively and clearly communicate the truth of the Gospel? Here are four practical steps to ...

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from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/uL-eC_GHU4U/empathy-evangelism.html

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