One of the most profound experiences I’ve had was reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. When it was published in 1995, it upended our culture’s tendency to overemphasize IQ, undervalue gifts that aren’t intellectual, and ignore emotional insight.

For me, the book opened a door. It helped me understand my emotional numbness, suppression, and immaturity. Goleman broke through and made it okay to talk about emotion—at home, in school, at work, and beyond. Suddenly, those of us who were emotionally unaware or afraid had a path forward.

Over the years, I’ve recommended the book to many people—yet most of them never finish it. That always puzzled me. But eventually, I realized why: trying to overcome emotional limitations with insight alone is too much. People resonate with what Goleman teaches and might discover helpful insights about themselves, but they often don’t have the power to live it out. 

And that’s where I believe his book stops just short of the deeper truth: we need spiritual power.

Great spiritual teachers, like Buddha and Jesus, have touched their disciples’ hearts by speaking in the language of emotion, teaching in parables, fables, and stories. Indeed, religious symbol and ritual makes little sense from the rational point of view; it is couched in the vernacular of the heart.

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

Goleman writes about Jesus and gets close to the truth. He describes Jesus as emotionally effective, but Jesus was more than that. Jesus was also spiritually real and powerful.  

Jesus didn’t just speak the language of the heart—he transformed it. He didn’t just help people understand emotion; he gave them the power to become new people through the Holy Spirit.

How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

Galatians 3:3 NLT

Emotional intelligence opens the door to change. But without the Spirit, most people can’t walk through it. Only those who walk with God the way Jesus did will step beyond emotional intelligence into a powerful and transformative life. That’s why the spiritual intelligence of Jesus must be taught, understood, and imitated if we want total transformation. Without it, we will rely on humanistic strength, grinding and striving to become someone better by our own effort.

But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.

Galatians 5:22-23 TPT

Transformation doesn’t come by trying harder—it comes from being connected with God. This is what produces qualities like love, joy, kindness, and strength in our lives and relationships. In today’s edition of The Chemistry Lab, we will discover how these qualities can become limitless in our lives, not through self-reliance, but through the Spirit who makes it possible. 

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today.

If spiritual intelligence is the missing ingredient in our emotional growth, then we need to learn how Jesus lived it. What does it look like to follow his pattern?

First, we have to recover the real Jesus.

Because for too long, religious tradition has bled him dry—extracting his intensity, his tenacity, and his dangerous love—leaving behind a lifeless symbol. They’ve robbed us of the revolutionary who walked with outcasts and confronted power, substituting him with a harmless institutionalized figure who confronted no one and changed nothing. What they’ve stolen isn’t just his edge—it’s his heartbeat and his breath. It’s his capacity to shatter comfortable lies and awaken sleeping souls.

They’ve made him seem unreachable in an effort to depict sinlessness, detached in an effort to make him appear supernatural, and turned his humanity into a costume instead of reality.

But Jesus wasn’t a symbol. He was a man. He was a carpenter. He was built for storms and suffering. He was tough enough to face demons and tender enough to touch lepers. He was spiritually intelligent enough to read a room—and a soul—without saying a word. 

He was spiritually intelligent enough to read a room—and a soul—without saying a word.

When I try to grasp that presence, I often look to movie characters who show me glimpses of it. I see the spiritual steadiness of Jesus in Obi-Wan Kenobi. I see the focused intensity of Jesus in Jason Bourne. I see the mission-driven courage of Jesus in Mission Impossible’s Ethan Hunt. I see the relentless empathy of Jesus in Robin William’s portrayal of Patch Adams. 

But even these characters—as incredible and even superhuman as they are—fall short.

To me, Jesus was a spiritual scientist—a people scientist—who unearthed the mysteries of the human soul the way Newton revealed gravity and Einstein revolutionized our understanding of reality itself.

As a people scientist, he didn’t just understand emotions; he transformed them. He didn’t just observe people; he discovered them. And what he discovered wasn’t weakness to be fixed but potential to be awakened.

That’s the Jesus we follow. And that’s the pattern we’re called to practice.

We can become spiritual and powerful people scientists like Jesus was. Here’s what he did, and, if we are bold enough to experiment, what we can do too:

1. Open your eyes

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. [35] Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

John 4:34-35 NIV

People scientists like Jesus pay attention to the people around them. They open their eyes to notice others, but they don’t make superficial judgments. They stop, listen, and learn. People scientists make it their life’s work to study and understand those around them—their needs, interests, dreams, passions, weaknesses, and strengths—with a deep and loving curiosity. 

2. Act with compassion

Whenever crowds came to Him, He had compassion for them because they were so deeply distraught, malaised, and heart-broken. They seemed to Him like lost sheep without a shepherd. [37] Jesus understood what an awesome task was before Him, so He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. [38] Ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers into His harvest field.”

Matthew 9:36-38 Voice

Noticing people’s needs made Jesus feel compassion for them. But Jesus didn’t just feel something. He did something. 

Compassion, for Jesus, wasn’t sentiment. It was action. It was a decision each day to alter the conditions of those he came to know. 

People scientists don’t stop at empathy. They follow Jesus’s example. They move toward the hurting with a love that intercedes with prayer and intervenes with action.

3. Diagnose spiritually

But Jesus did not yet entrust himself to them, because he knew how fickle human hearts can be. [25] He needed no one to tell him about human nature, for he fully understood what man was capable of doing.

John 2:24-25 TPT

Emotional intelligence can read behavior. Spiritual intelligence reads the heart, the soul, and what’s beneath the performance.

People scientists like Jesus can do both. And that’s why they make the greatest impact—not by managing relationships, but by ministering to the soul.

Jesus didn’t just react to what people did. He understood who they were. This deeper understanding allowed him to see the patterns that no one spoke out loud and feel the brokenness that no one dared admit.

4. Live and lead with love

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.

John 15:9 NIV

Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

1 Thessalonians 4:9 NIV

The greatest people scientists are taught by God. They love from the deepest source of all—God himself. 

This is how Jesus lived his life.

People scientists who follow his example don’t rely on tools or techniques to manage or manipulate relationships. They’re not motivated by performance or pressure, but by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who lives in them. He shapes their hearts and teaches them how to love with patience, power, and purpose.

That’s what makes their love real and their leadership transformational.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

Romans 8:11 NIV

Jesus didn’t just model love; he made love possible through the Holy Spirit. Becoming a Christian isn’t adopting a moral code; it’s entering a relationship with God that rewires our hearts from the inside out.

The truth we must come to terms with this week is this: Emotional intelligence helps us manage behavior. Spiritual intelligence transforms who we are.

This is the spiritual chemistry we were made for: God’s Spirit connecting with our spirit to unlock our fullest potential—emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically—across all four dimensions of life.

Not everyone will believe this—but if you’ve ever sensed there’s more to you than self-help can reach, more to love than technique can teach, then you’ve already begun the search for what Jesus came to give.

And that’s what makes you a people scientist.
You don’t work harder to love people.
You notice them with open eyes.
You care for them with loving action.
You understand them beneath the surface.
You love God—and he teaches you how to love others.

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