Dale Cresap's blog

Do you know the difference between empathy and sympathy? These terms sound similar, but they have different meanings. Sympathy is feeling for and empathy is feeling with. If these still sound similar consider the concept of feeling sorry for. This can also be described as pity and it is something that can be done from a distance, with no personal relationship or connection. Empathy is not something that can be expressed with detachment. It requires a sense of solidarity with the one who is suffering.

I told you not to be like those who attract attention to their giving and their praying, announcing it with fanfare or doing it as a public performance. Rather when you give you should not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, and you should shut yourself in your closet and pray in secret to your Father and in both cases he will reward you openly. Why hide the good things that you do? One benefit is to purify your motives. Can you be indifferent to even your own thoughts about how people view your actions if they are done in public?

Do you like to connect with other people? This is a universal human longing. I put it in you. It is not good for the man to be alone. This extends beyond marriage. You can encounter people without being unequally yoked with them. People do not thrive on isolation and alienation, so you benefit others as well as yourself by connecting with them. Can you extend this valuable process to the next step? Do you introduce your friends to each other when you think they are a good fit and it would be beneficial for both? Do you see yourself and relationships enhanced or diminished in the process?

Are you familiar with the concept of a strawman? If you take the worst example you can find of your enemies, and assume that they are all alike and are all this bad it is easy to dismiss them as evil, but this is a dishonest approach and a classical fallacy based on the rules of logic alone. Strawmen have no defense and are easily defeated. Have you ever seen anyone make a strawman of me? People reject me based on misconceptions that they create themselves. They create an image of me as distant, judgmental, harsh, exacting, and indifferent. Do you see me this way?

Do you identify as an evangelical? This implies that you take the Great Commission seriously, and are willing to work in my fields and vineyards for the harvest. You have a message and a mission, but in another sense you are the message. Will unbelievers be convinced of the validity of your claims if they don’t see something desirable in those who have already responded to the message? And so I have told you to let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify me. Paul described his life as an open book. This applies to yours as well. What does yours say?

Have you ever raised objections? These can happen casually in everyday life and are frequent, but the term has a formal meaning in legal proceedings. If an attorney for one side of a court case doesn’t like something the other side does with respect to process, they can raise and objection and the judge rules sustained or overruled. Have you ever raised objections with me? What if I let someone into the Kingdom of God that you don’t think meets the entrance criteria? Will you raise an objection? What ruling would you expect the judge to give in such a case?

Do you like to read? Do you prefer biographies or novels? Which is the story of your life? Do you know people who live in a fantasy world, full of distortions about their true nature as people, with dreams and goals you know will not be realized, with delusions of heroic grandeur? These people are alienated from their own reality, and the stories of their lives are novels. Living a biography is more difficult. It requires facing your own reality and recognizing your own limitations.

Do you like to travel? Do you go as a tourist or an explorer? It is possible for affluent people to travel as if they never left home. An industry exists to provide familiar comforts in faraway places to those who can afford them, and those who take this approach can go places without ever engaging with the local people or learning about their manners, customs, and way of life. But those who go to explore will find a richer and more rewarding experience. Do you think the people in the places you visit can tell which sort of traveler you are?

What do you expect when you go to church? Being beat up for your sins? Being reminded of how righteous you are and always have been? Hearing those who are outside your group denounced for their unrighteousness? Hearing detailed insights into obscure passages of scripture? Have you experienced any or all of these? Which of these practices do observe in me from the time of my ministry on earth? I spent my time declaring the Kingdom of God with illustrations that were as simple and familiar as they were timeless and profound. In the end I said it was enough.

Do you live in a ghetto? This term has a strong negative connotation of poverty but the actual meaning only describes a neighborhood with a common background or characteristics. The term could be extended to a group of people who join together. If all of your friends are of the same race, income level, educational level, and political ideology, then you are in effect living in a ghetto even if they are educated and well-off. In a church you would expect everyone to have a similar position on matters of doctrine and theology.