Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners: Loving Others as God Loves Us

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.

The church should be a place where people find comfort, where people find a family and where people are cared for. Caring for others within the church is not a job reserved for the paid staff of a church. Caring for each other is the job of every Christian. We are one body, called to labour alongside each other and act as a family should. This will man that you’ll be confronted with situations and people who need care but you might feel out of your depth. Here’s something to help…

In this book Emlet, a Christian counsellor with CCEF, helps you think about how to love the people that God has put alongside you in church. The book is written to equip Christians to love one another better. The target audience of this book is those in ministry, however, I think that every Christian who reads it would find it very helpful. Emlet begins by saying that in the Bible God reveals that He ministers to His people as;

Saints who need confirmation of their identity as children of God,
Sufferers who need comfort in the midst of their affliction, and
Sinners who need challenge to their sin in light of God’s redemptive mercies.
“Saint, sufferer, and sinner. All three of these are simultaneously true of every Christian you meet. If this is the way God sees and loves his people, then we should do the same, using these broad biblical categories to guide our overall approach to the people in our lives. They are signposts for wise love. They help you to prioritize one-another ministry, whether it’s to your friend, husband, wife, roommate, child, coworker, or counselee.”

The book is split into 5 parts. Part one give you the foundational work on how to understand people and it unpacks the ‘identities’ above (saints, sufferers and sinners). Part two explores how to care for other Christians as saints. Part three is all about how to care for the sufferer, filled with examples and helpful advice throughout. Part four is about how to love fellow believers as sinners. Part five is about how to maintain a balance as you care for others and to not focus too much on one particular ‘identity’.

Parts 2-4 each take the same pattern;

Speaking of how the Bible addresses the person as saint, sufferer or sinner.
Biblical examples of how God loves the person.
The particular priorities that would help each individual person.
Everyday examples of what that could look like.
Counselling examples of what that could look like.
An exploration of some of the barriers to loving each person.
This book is very practical, it’s full of sound biblical advice and it’s got so many stories of how the Lord has done wonderful things in people’s lives because Christians stepped up and cared for one another. It’s so easy to look at other people and think that there situation is simple, easy to fix. However, that can be the result of an over simplified view of humanity. The reality is that we are messy people and that doesn’t stop when we become Christians. This book is a call to love each other well. Something that we definitely need reminding of often.

As I finished this book I wanted there to be more, it got the balance just right of giving you enough information and insight without overloading you. It was a really helpful read and I would recommend it to you if you’re in ministry and you’re confronted daily with caring for church members in a wide variety of situations.

This is a tremendously helpful book from CCEF counsellor Michael Emlet. Emlet gets to the heart of what is true of every believer: we are saints who suffer and saints who sin. He begins by telling us: “Saint, sufferer, and sinner. All three of these are simultaneously true of every Christian you meet.” This book is a Biblical guide to help us love others well. It is also a window into our own hearts. It is so compellingly written and beautifully thought out. Here are some things that stood out for me.

First, Emlet shows us that Jesus beautifully fulfils the categories of the Ultimate Saint, the Suffering Servant and the Sinless One who became sin. Then he shows us how to practically love others as saints, sufferers and sinners. Then in the final section, he brings it all together by showing us how to remain balanced in ministry, without overemphasizing or minimizing any of these three aspects of human experience. In the final chapter, he points us to that day of Christ’s return when there will be no more suffering and sin: On that day, “we will be saints who no longer suffer, saints who no longer sin.” Each chapter is brimming with Biblical insight and is backed up with practical examples from Emlet’s counselling ministry.

Emlet rightly shows us from Scripture that our identity as “saint” is foundational, more foundational than the identities of “sufferer” or “sinner”. He writes, “We are saints who suffer. We are saints who sin. But we are saints nonetheless at our core.” He shows us how Paul begins with the ministry of affirming the identity of the Corinthians as saints of God (1 Corinthians 1:1-9), even though Paul is going to address sin issues in the church. “Their very real and pressing problems don’t change their fundamental identity”, writes Emlet. He then gives Biblical and counselling examples to show us how this works out practically. This was such a helpful section for me personally.

In the next two parts, Emlet shows us how to love others as sufferers and sinners. He shows us how the suffering of God’s people is front and center in Scripture, how Jesus came to suffer and relieve suffering and how God is at work in our suffering. He then looks at Revelation 2:8-11 to show us how God loves and speaks to sufferers. He gives us four ministry priorities for loving sufferers well:
1) Taking the suffering of others seriously.
2) Working hard to understand the details.
3) Not presuming to know the reason(s) for suffering.
4) Sharing Biblical encouragement and hope.

In the third section, Emlet points to three realities of sin:
1) Sin is an ever-present reality.
2) Saints still struggle with sin.
3) Our redeemed identity is the basis for obedience.
Again, we are given solid Biblical and counselling examples to help us think through these categories well.

There is so much to commend in this brilliant book. The material is beautifully organized and the last section beautifully ties everything together. Though the first section on saints was easily the most encouraging, the last section on remaining balanced in ministry helped me examine my heart to see where I have overemphasized or minimized any of these aspects in my own life and ministry to others. I will let Emlet have the last word: “Ministering wisely means that we hold all three aspects of human experience together even if at a given point in time, we focus on one because that is most needful for the person in front of us”. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is already my top book of the year. Highly recommended. 5/5 stars.

*I received this complimentary book from New Growth Press, but was not required to write a positive review.*

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.

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.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

Explains basis for Biblical counseling so well makes sense.