Catherine Claire, in her blog post “Short on Time–Short on Compassion“, talks about a convicting sociological experiment involving seminarians (this is self-convicting as well, I freely, but sadly, admit).
She says in the concluding paragraph of her post:
…there are other factors in play in altruism, but I thought this one was particularly relevant in the busy world in which all of us live, even Christians.
It is the “even” that caught my attention. Granted, I am unable to read minds, but I wonder if “even” is what she really meant. I believe the word should be “especially” Christians. We are charged to love our neighbors as ourselves, which is what the parable of the Samaritan represents. The experiments shows it in spades.
Theoretically, Jews are supposed to as well. However, as they (those that are not Messianic Jews) do not view Jesus even as a valid prophet, his admonishments fall on deaf ears. Those that view themselves as Christians, however, have no such excuse.