13/06/2026
Here is Jon's piece from this week's newsletter.
Missional Compassion
Compassion is part of the character of God. Jesus is God-incarnate, so it is not surprising that Jesus was full of compassion. Jesus had compassion not only for people as individuals, but also for people in general in crowds. In Matthew 9:36 it states, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
The word for compassion that is used in the Biblical Greek, which is the language the New Testament was mostly written in (with a few Aramaic words included) is ἐσπλαγχνίσθη [esplanchnisthē]. As Dean Drayton raised two weeks ago and I spoke about last week, this is a powerful, visceral ancient Greek verb used frequently in the New Testament to describe Jesus being "moved with compassion" or "moved with pity." The word means to be moved as to one's bowels, hence, to be moved with compassion – i.e. to feel with and for someone as to be so moved by having such compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity).
When we think about the character of God being compassionate then οἰκτιρμός [oiktirmos] is used. This word focuses on the deep feeling of pity, grace, and tender concern that one experiences when seeing someone in distress. It represents the deep emotional yearning to relieve another person's suffering. This feeling is the way God is moved by compassion to relieve our suffering and to come to save us.
Here is a video by the Bible Project about compression and the character of God.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEtyAiAQik
Jesus is not just the way God lived out compassion, that is by him being God working for our salvation, redemption, transformation and healing. Jesus is the living compassion of God. God in the person of Jesus literally experienced as a human all that we humans experience. Through the Cross and all the hardship and suffering surrounding it, Jesus as Immanuel – God with us, knows truly what it is like to be human and die in some of the hardest and most unjust ways.
Jesus also becomes the way God experiences from a human perspective compassion for people. He saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. This is whilst he went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. [Matthew 9: 35]. He had compassion for people who had personal issues. However, he also had great compassion for people in their wider human condition.
The compassion of God lived in Jesus, The Christ/Messiah, is why John 3:17 states that, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
God has compassion for us and works to save us. This is part of God’s mission. Thus, as people who are Christ-ians, who seek to follow and embody the love, grace, compassion and way of God in the person of Jesus, we are called to have compassion on others, both as individuals and in their struggles as part of the human condition and all the problems, hardships and injustice in the world we inhabit and contribute to. We are not called to judge people, but be moved in compassion to helping them.
There is a term which is about seeing the bigger picture than just the wrong people do and judging them for it. It is just culture. Just culture is usually used in workplaces to work towards a workplace environment that balances accountability with continuous learning. Instead of punishing staff for making mistakes, it focuses on identifying system flaws and understanding why errors occur.
This approach encourages employees to report mistakes and near-misses without fear of retaliation. Just culture creates a psychologically safe environment where employees trust they will not be automatically punished for human errors or honest mistakes. People may be held accountable for mistakes, but the system is also held accountable for any contributing to the circumstances which resulted in people making the choices they do, and then people are helped to learn to be and do better, as the institution works to be and do better. is a form of institutional compassion.
The story of the woman brought to Jesus after being found in the very act of adultery [John 8:1-11] is an example of how the compassion of God in Christ worked for a just culture. Jesus, knowing that there was great injustice and inequity in that no man had been brought before him as well, called the system into question by challenging the accusers of the woman, who wanted to judge and punisher in condemnation, by saying, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” All left and the woman was there with Jesus with no one else to condemn or punish her. He then said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” He still held her to account but also held the system and those who upheld it. He did not fail to hold her to account but did so with gentleness and compassion.
Institutional compassion expands the fairness of just culture into an organisational ethos. It ensures that whenever a failure or adverse event occurs, the organisation cares for all involved parties—including the patients, their families, and the staff members, who are often referred to as the "second victims." As the Church, engaging in the mission of God, we are called not to judge others. We are called to embody compassion, not just in personal acts of kindness and care to people, but in the way we create the ethos of the Church. We are called to care for all people and be seeing the complexity of need in any situation.
We all fall short of the glory of God. We all sin. [Romans 3:23] We are flawed and we fail to live and love as God wants us to. God has compassion for us. God is compassion for us in Christ and being alive in us as Holy Spirit. We need to remember that part of our work is to make sure our religious communities and our wider communities, our institutions and our organisations all foster just culture and institutional compassion.
God’s mission of compassion and how it shapes our being human as individual and as religious and secular communities is therefore something to very much think about.
God bless.
- Jon Humphries
Compassion is a deeply emotional word used to convey the strong bon...
