A friend feels rejected. A counselee is angry. A church member's child is ill. You want to help, but where do you begin? Author and counselor Michael R. Emlet outlines a model of one-another ministry based on how God sees and loves his people primarily as saints, while bringing comfort to the sufferer, and faithfully speaking truth to the sinner.
Filled with everyday illustrations as well as counseling examples, Emlet demonstrates what it looks like to approach fellow believers simultaneously as saints, sufferers, and sinners. Emlet unpacks Scripture and draws on his many years of counseling experience to help counselors, pastors, and friends love others wisely and well.
As part of CCEF's Helping the Helper series, this guide for ministry provides an overall framework for wisely helping any person by loving others in the same way that God loves us.
"In this Scripture-saturated book, Michael Emlet uses real-life counseling interactions and insights gained from years of counseling and training counselors to demonstrate how we can love, listen to, grieve with, challenge, and accept the people around us in ways that befit the gospel of the grace of Jesus."
Nancy Guthrie, Author of Saints & Scoundrels in the Story of Jesus
"Michael Emlet has written a very compassionate, biblical, and helpful book, with practical guidelines for how to love others as God loves us. It emphasizes the need to hold all three truths in a balanced perspective for every person: as a saint in Christ, a sufferer, and a sinner. Highly recommended!"
Siang-Yang Tan, Professor of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary; author of Shepherding God's People and Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Christian Perspective
"Dr. Michael Emlet has given us a treasure. He's primarily focused on how we relate to others through the triple lens of saint, sufferer, and sinner. He's particularly strong at blending those lenses together. The result? You can begin to look at and treat people as fully human. His experience as a counselor grounds his thoroughly biblical insights in real life. This immensely helpful book isn't just for counselors it's for all of Jesus's followers."
Paul Miller, Author of A Praying Life and J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life
"As Christians, we know we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, but it can be hard to know what it means to offer love to our neighbors on the ground in concrete, daily ways. In this deep, rich, and practical book, Michael Emlet draws on Scripture and years of experience as a Christian husband, parent, church member, and counselor to help us more faithfully and fully love our neighbors, our spouses, our children, and all whom God brings into our lives. Through this exploration of what it means that we are all simultaneously saints, sufferers, and sinners, which is shaped by the wisdom of the Bible on every page, those who read this book will come away better equipped to fulfill the Great Commandment in the quotidian moments of everyday life and ministry."
Kristen Deede Johnson, Award-winning author; dean and professor of Theology and Christian Formation, Western Theological Seminary
"This book will give you a fuller view of yourself and those you love. It is clear, helpful, gentle, and wise, which just happens to be the way I would describe Mike."
Edward T Welch, Faculty and counselor, Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF); author of A Small Book for the Anxious Heart
"Every person who seeks counseling brings a unique blend of history, beliefs, behaviors, circumstances, and relationships, but there are fundamental truths that apply broadly to every person we minister to. Our identity before God as saints, sufferers, and sinners is perhaps the foundational truth upon which our counseling stands. Saints, Sufferers,and Sinners offers a deeply biblical and theological understanding of this reality and demonstrates how this broad principle fleshes out in the counseling experience with ground level practical application."
Curtis Solomon, Executive Director, The Biblical Counseling Coalition
"Two things I appreciate about Michael Emlet's new book: 1) Its clarity regarding the realities of believers being saints, sufferers, and sinners while we walk this earth, and 2) Its realistic application of our identity in Christ affecting each of these dimensions of our lives in the way that we live, love, counsel, encourage, correct, and repent for the sake of others."
Bryan Chapell, Pastor; author
"Too often we speak only to parts of people because we only see part of them: they just need to get over their sin, just need compassion because life has been hard, just need faith because it's all that matters. Mike Emlet's Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners refuses to over-simplify. Instead, Emlet enables his readers in concrete, biblically rich ways to simultaneously take all three aspects of our Christian, human reality seriously. Full of winsome case studies, this book brims with wisdom in action about gently responding to sin, practical ways to encourage, and how to offer meaningful comfort to those who suffer. Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners is the product of a lifetime of godliness from a man whose compassion and humble grace come through on every page. This must become a foundational book for biblical counselors of every type for generations to come."
Alasdair Groves, Executive Director, Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation(CCEF);coauthor of Untangling Emotions
"As a counselor, the value of seeing how the gospel speaks in unique ways to sin, suffering, and our identity as saints has been pivotal. As a pastor, these balanced truths are essential to being a good ambassador of the gospel. Michael Emlet's work in Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners is a must read for anyone wanting to accurately apply the gospel to the full breadth of human experience."
Brad Hambrick, Pastor of Counseling at The Summit Church; assistant professor of Biblical Counseling, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; general editor for Becoming a Church that Cares Well for the Abused
"Many of us err in tending to see 'the problem' in ourselves or in others as only one of sin or idolatry, or entirely one of suffering, and in focusing on either we can forget that all God's people are also saints in whom the Spirit is at work already. Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners helps us see people as they really are. Where others stop, this accessible yet profound book also equips us for talking to those not yet safe in Christ's kingdom. This book is everyday practical, richly biblical, and wonderfully re-balancing."
Andrew Nicholls, Director of Pastoral Care, Oak Hill College, London
"With the precision of a physician and the compassion of a counselor, Michael Emlet offers readers a template for engagement and relationship that will help you reimagine gospel-centered counseling. Saturated in Scripture and brimming with real-life case studies, one can quickly recognize this is the fruit of many years of study in Scripture and walking with our Savior. Michael is the exact type of counselor I would want walking alongside me in my journey of faith."
Jonathan D. Holmes, Pastor of Counseling, Parkside Church; executive director, Fieldstone Counseling
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If you've ever asked God to help you love someone well, or if you've ever desperately wanted to do that while wading into deeply difficult things with them, you will probably find this book both insightful and inspiring. To that end, it will be a book I return to again and again as I continue repeating that prayer, "let me love others well," and as I submit my relationships to God and ask Him to keep them healthy and to make me a blessing. Chapters are short and accessible, and the content is well-considered and Spirit-filled. Definitely recommend this one!
This book is a great tool for understanding and growing deeper in relationships with others and God. Basically exactly in line with the greatest two commandments, love God, love others.
Excellent book! Such a helpful and convicting read on our identity as Christians being simultaneously saints, sufferers, and sinners. I feel that I have already been able to apply these truths with navigating my own feelings as well as with asking deeper questions to others!
Truth - God's truth - is the absolutely essential ingredient to genuine, gracious, forgiving, healing, enduring love.
The author points us to Christ and His Word as the best source for caring for and counseling those precious individuals whom God brings into our lives.
Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners: Loving Others As God Loves Us by Michael R. Emlet uses real life examples of how to love one another through counseling and relating to others as Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners. Foremost, we must find our identity in Christ, as an adopted son/daughter of the living God. While in the midst of suffering and sin struggles, we may struggle to see ourselves as saints, but this is an already-but-not-yet identity. Emlet rightly shows that it is part of our current identity as believers in Christ, but also points us towards the final glory to be revealed in us. Throughout the book, Emlet uses examples from his counseling background to vividly express the biblical truths he is proclaiming. He doesn't just proclaim biblical truth, but he illustrates it. The book is organized in a five parts. Parts 1 and 5 serve as the book ends that cast a vision why these three categories matter. Parts 2-4 are each on a different aspect of loving others through seeing them through the lens of this three-fold identity. Each of the 27 chapters are short and easily read during a short devotion time, or consumed as a full discord at one time. The primary audience is to the church, especially those desiring to walk with others in one another ministry and those interested in biblical counseling. It is vital resource of the elemental truths necessary to care for one another in the church. I really enjoyed reading Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners. It gave me a great perspective to view others through, especially as a saint. Overall, I think this is a great book and a helpful resource for the church. It helps others enter into the beauty found in the mess of helping one another. Emlet's heart for the sinner and suffer shows as well as his wisdom in engaging in the difficult conversation that ensue. The illustrations had a way of drawing you in to the personal struggle of others. Though, there were times I felt the chapters seemed a little disjointed. I agreed with the points he was making, I just did not understand the flow. Others times, I would prefer Emlet further clarify the point he is trying to make. This may be due to the introductory nature of the book and the desired audience.
Our Pastor did a study on this book at our church over the past few weeks. Our Deacon chairman even bought one for each of our Deacons because it includes so much valuable information on how to minister to their families.
As a biblical counselor, I recommend this book to all who desire to help others in any struggle they may face on this Earth. Mike Emlet writes with great compassion and eloquence on who we are in Christ as image-bearers. Then he helps us understand what it is like to be sufferers and how to help sufferers effectively and with kindness. Then he goes on to address how we help people who are sinning. All categories need to be addressed. I appreciate the care he took in helping us be better people helpers that look more like Jesus if we apply what was written. With each category, he addresses possible pitfalls and how we can work with each category biblically and most helpfully. I really appreciate this book because there has been much damage done by well-meaning people helpers who have said damaging things. We need to move beyond that and truly help people in a way that they can actually be helped. This requires looking to Christ, the best example of a people helper, and learn from Him and how He actually helped others.
Michael Emlet has brought his biblical wisdom and counselling skills together to create this fantastic resource for anyone who wants to pastorally care in a balanced and nuanced way. Whether you minister to others in your personal circles, your ministry, or in a more formal counselling space, he provides a short yet comprehensive way to consider our approach to people and the complexity of their lives. His first book CrossTalk introduced the idea of people as saints, sufferers and sinners, and this develops that concept in more depth. He addresses each category in order: how scripture speaks to it, how God loves them, and how we love people in these categories in everyday and counselling contexts. All of these chapters were biblical, wise, helpful, logically structured, and easy to read and digest. The barriers to loving others were particularly insightful in each category, considering why we might find it hard to encourage saints, note suffering or challenge sin. My only issue was that I wanted more detail in some areas. In almost every case, Emlet encourages us to start with people as saints. Consider the good, consider how God is at work in them. Our identity is shaped by our relationship with God, and so our designation as saint is more foundational than sufferer or sinner. Emlet finishes with considering what balance looks like as we hold the triad of saint, sufferer and sinner together, and explores the risks when one is overemphasised over the other. He leaves the reader with the hope and promise of the day to come when we will only be saints, no longer sufferers or sinners. This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to love and counsel others in a well-rounded, biblically grounded, caring way that desires growth and change in the context of a living relationship with our saviour God.
Your friend from church needs some help. You're not a counselor so what do you say? How do you act? Emlet gives us valuable instruction in this book on helping others. While the Bible is not specific, it does give foundational ways to understand and help others. He notes early that what he teaches in this book is primarily for helping fellow believers. Emlet says every person needing your counsel is facing one of two issues. Every person is struggling with identity at some level which also knowing one's purpose. Every person is struggling with evil on some level, either done to them (suffering) or from within (sin). How God ministers to His people is the model. We are saints who need confirmation of our identity as children of God. We are sufferers who need comfort in our affliction. We are sinners who need to challenge our sin in light of God's mercy. Here is a concept I found particularly insightful. With regard to identity, we forget who we are and need to be reminded we are saints loved by God and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. A surprise for me was Emlet noting that we might have difficulty helping someone because we are not living our identity in Christ. That was thought provoking. Emlet's suggestions are so biblical. In helping those suffering, for example, he looks at how Jesus approached those suffering. He did not compare a person's suffering with that of another. He never gave an explanation for the suffering. Those are two areas where I have missed properly helping another. I am impressed with the teaching in this book. It is focused on how God approaches these issues and is quite practical. He includes many examples of his own work so we get a good feel for how this helping others is done. I highly recommend this book to every Christian.
