My Neighbor’s Shoes: Following Jesus in Empathy Toward Others

By Becki Rogers and Doug Bell

Christians today are very discriminating in who they consider to be a "neighbor" they should love, and what that love should look like. Jesus commanded his followers to love their neighbors (and enemies) as they love themselves. Believers are commanded to put themselves in their neighbors' shoes, and love them accordingly. This type of love is an empathetic love; it answers the question, "What would I need if I were in this person's situation?" My Neighbor's Shoes: Following Jesus in Empathy Toward Others encourages Christ-followers to live a life of empathy, outlining the life and teachings of Jesus as the model for this life-changing love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: May 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666769111

Becki Rogers

Becki Rogers is a mom, wife, and author who grew up in church, attended a Christian school, and graduated from a private Christian college. Becki believes Christians have often overlooked the commands Jesus gave in favor of the allure of power and moral superiority. She writes to challenge believers to study the Scriptures and reevaluate what it looks like to truly follow Jesus. She is the author of Not Quite SuperMoms of the Bible (2018).

Book preview

Introduction

There’s a misconception surrounding the idea of empathy; some people believe that it’s a virtue you’re either born with or without. While it’s true that some people are born empaths, empathy within a person can either grow or diminish, depending on the value placed on its practice.

In this book, my goal is not to simply define the word and outline its commanded use; instead, my goal is to highlight the nuances in which we are already empathetic and the areas in which we could stand to grow. Often in Scripture, empathy is interchanged for words like compassion or love.

How, exactly, does one show compassion? How does one truly love another person? Is it enough to say we are compassionate or that we love another person? Are words enough on their own? I submit that they are not. It is my firm belief that Jesus exemplified a life of empathy and that His command to love others is a command to live a life of empathy as well.

Despite all of this, despite writing an entire book on the subject of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, I must admit that I still struggle in this discipline. As I’ll discuss in chapter eight, my personality is naturally empathetic, but fear has kept that empathy at a distance; the argument could be made that empathy at a distance is not really empathy at all.

Nevertheless, in spite of my struggle, I believe with my whole heart that I can grow and change to be more Christlike in the way I love others, and that you can, too. I believe that it is not a simple suggestion made by well-meaning do-gooders. I believe that the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself is an imperative spoken by the Son of God, and we, as His followers, should live every day endeavoring to fulfill that command.

A Nest of My Own

1

My parents took me to church for the first time when I was six months old. After attending kindergarten and first grade at our local public school, I was enrolled in a small Christian school, where I later graduated high school. By the time I was ten, my dad was an assistant pastor at our church. After high school, I attended a private Christian college, graduating with a degree that qualified me to teach at private Christian high schools.

I was raised in a bubble of Christianity—an incubator of sorts—and cannot remember a time outside of the year 2020 that I didn’t spend every Sunday in church. In my family, we attended church even when we were on vacation. To say I have spent my life as an insider in Christian circles is an understatement.

I was listening to a podcaster recently who described Christian parenting in the latter half of the 20th century as a pipeline.¹ Parents took their children to church, sent them to a Christian school, and guided them to a Christian college. There, they’d meet a Christian spouse, who had, presumably, grown up the same way. At each juncture, children of Christian parents were handed off to the next adult or mentor who would (hopefully) disciple them. It was an excellent metaphor, and one I knew firsthand, having grown up in such a pipeline.

I did not have friends outside of the pipeline. I think the numbers speak for themselves; the pipeline, as easy as it was to follow, did not result in the success it seemed to promise. So many of my generation (and others) have seemingly left the faith of their childhood. Nothing in the pipeline was in and of itself bad. But if there’s anything it taught us, it taught us that we cannot rely on the faith of others to produce lasting faith in our own hearts.

Making Faith My Own

Coming of age in such a bubble or pipeline—or whatever metaphor you prefer—naturally leads to questions. I imagine this to be true for any culture, religious or otherwise. In fact, part of growing up involves a process of evaluating the beliefs instilled in us as children and choosing whether or not to embrace those beliefs. This is true for issues outside of religion as well.

For example, frequently shared memes on social media call out my generation (I’m 38) for not using top sheets on our beds, not separating our laundry by color, and not balancing (or using) a checkbook. Those are things my parents and all of their friends still do every day. It’s as if sometime in 2004 those of us stepping into adulthood decided that those practices were unnecessary; we collectively quit doing them. My mother cringes at my laundry practices.

In the same way, it is good and healthy to evaluate our childhood faith as an adult. I would venture to say that faith reflection should be common practice for any believer. After all, growth can only take place when one is willing to move on from previously-held convictions and acknowledge that there is a possibility those convictions might have been in error—or at the very least, superfluous.

This process of personal faith-making is not an indictment on the faith of our parents, teachers, pastors, or mentors. Baby birds who leave the nest do not do so because the old nest is condemned; they must build a nest of their own. I am not an ornithologist (yes, I had to look the word up), but I would be willing to bet that we would be hard pressed to tell very much difference from a younger bird’s nest and the mother’s he left.

At times, however, the nest may be lacking. Social media today is rife with stories of church abuse, trauma, and pain. Nothing serves to undermine the truth of the Gospel more than power players who wield it as a weapon against the vulnerable.

Personally, I can trace my journey of faith back to middle school. My prayer journals were full of questions like, God, are You real? Will You show me how real You are? I talked to friends about it. And then I’d find myself in seasons of dismissing my faith entirely, still going to church multiple times a week and acing my Bible class at school. I am living proof of the assertion that anyone can go through the motions of Christianity while not being fully convinced of its role in one’s life.

Attending a Christian college provided me with ample observations of what faith might look like. Every professor claimed to be a Christian, and I don’t recall meeting even a single student who claimed to be anything but a believer. Power politics were, however, very present. Students in leadership were given authority to assign demerits, or infraction slips, and this dynamic—perhaps more than any other—revealed the Christ-like qualities (or lack thereof) in many of my peers. I, too, was given leadership responsibilities, so I saw firsthand the way I and others would treat people if given an ounce of power.

In short, it wasn’t a good situation, in my experience. Students who were genuinely trying to follow Jesus sometimes inadvertently broke the rules of institutions. Student authorities rarely regarded their peers as believers who needed discipling or counsel. It was understood that good Christians obey the rules. Bad ones did not and would receive just punishment.

These observations were the subject of many internal faith debates for me. One semester in particular, I walked the track field every day to spend time thinking. I wondered where Jesus was on campus. I wondered how He’d treat me if I messed up. I wondered what He’d think of my faith.

I began to see disconnections in the actions of believers and the Christ they claimed to follow. These disconnections plagued me into my twenties and thirties. I saw some of those same disconnections in my own life. What could it mean?

The Words in Red

Even though I read my Bible often as a child, teenager, and young adult, I really began to study the Scriptures (outside of class requirements or sermon notes) for myself in my early thirties. We were attending a church whose pastor preached about