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Biblical Compassion: Suffering Together
By Jeremy | August 4, 2006
... if we open up those Bibles the meaning of "compassion" becomes clear; after all, Hebrew and Greek words commonly translated as "compassion" are used over eighty times in the Bible. Their most frequent use is not as an isolated noun but as the culmination of a process. Repeatedly, in Judges and other books, the Bible shows that when the Israelites had sinned they were to repent and turn away from their sin–only then, as a rule, would God show compassion. ... As compassion has become indiscriminate, many Americans have become so fed up with waste of money and time that cynicism about "homelessness" is rampant. Yet, some helpless individuals (particularly abandoned mothers with young children) are truly needy. Furthermore, when individuals responsible for their own plight are willing to change, biblical compassion means refusing to settle for the feed-and-forget principle or its equally depersonalizing but harsher opposite, the forget-and-don’t-feed standard. It means paying attention to the literal meaning of compassion, as given in the Oxford English Dictionary: "suffering together with another, participation in suffering." The emphasis, as the word itself shows–"com" (with), and "passion" from the Latin pati (to suffer)–is on personal involvement with the needy, suffering with them, not just giving to them. "Suffering together" means helping the unemployed-but willing-to-work, adopting hard-to-place babies, providing shelter to women undergoing crisis pregnancies, tutoring the determined illiterate, and so on. Our societal problem, however, is that in the twentieth century a second definition of compassion has become common: "The feeling, or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it." Currently, in Webster’s Third International Dictionary, compassion is defined as a "deep feeling for and understanding of misery or suffering and the concomitant desire to promote its alleviation." There is a world of policy difference between "suffering together" and feeling sad: One demands personal action; the other, emotion that can be relieved by sending a check or passing a piece of legislation. Words carry a political charge, as Orwell pointed out so well in his essay, "Politics and the English Language." Words shape our ideas, and the shifting definition of compassion has so shaped our understanding that the New York Times, usually a stickler for precise language, prints oxymoronic phrases such as "compassionate observer." The corruption is general: The Washington Post refers to "personal compassion," as if compassion does not have to be personal. The corruption of our language, the related corruption of our thought, and the sadly abundant evidence of the past several decades, suggest that the road to effective anti-poverty work in American cannot be paved with more well-intended legislation. Instead, we need to look at ourselves and our society more honestly. We celebrate America as a compassionate, caring society. But most of us are actually stingy–not because we refuse to spend more government money (we’re doing quite well there, thank you), but because we no longer offer time and spiritual challenge to the poor. Our willingness to do that shows whether we care for hearts, minds, and souls, and not just bodies. As a society, we fail the test and will continue to do so until we read our Bibles and show love for God and man by doing what God commands. - Martin Olasky. Article. HT: Matt
Topics: compassion, economics, faith, politics, poverty, theology | No Comments »
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