Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
    we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Experiment finds hurried pastors fail “Good Samaritan Test”

Here’s a story about an experiment which sought to “test” the parable of the “Good Samaritan” on a group of pastors.

It found that performance was most related to two factors:

  1. Whether the pastors were intrinsically motivated by religion, or saw it as a means to an end.
  2. How rushed they were.

It found that many “failed” the “Good Samaritan test” when they were hurried.

In low hurry situations, 63% helped, medium hurry 45% and high hurry 10%

Here’s the original journal article, which requires payment to read online:

“From Jerusalem to Jericho”: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Darley, John M.; Batson, C. Daniel.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 27(1), Jul 1973, 100-108

Greer: Prodigal Son & Self-righteous Son

She’s not a selfish person. But she’s always at the center of everything she’s doing. “How can I witness better? How can I do this better? How can I take care of this person’s problem better?” It’s me, me, me disguised in a way that is difficult to see because her spiritual talk disarms us.

.. Jesus told this parable to outline two types of people estranged from God: amoral hedonists and the morally righteous. Both paths are spiritual dead ends.

Hedonism and heroism (doing good) are brothers, not polar opposites. Both are focused on ourselves. At their core, both are about wanting our own way. One is wrapped in good deeds and religious service, but both are empty.