For our devotional, we will focus on the sociopathic or psychopathic personality disorder. A person with this disorder seems to lack any kind of conscience and is unable to feel remorse for anything he/she does. Examples are Jeffrey Dahmer and Bernard Madoff. Dahmer killed 17 men, seeming to find nothing wrong with that. Madoff bilked people out of millions of dollars with an attitude that seemed to say, “If you are foolish enough to give me your money, you deserve to lose it.”
Judas Iscariot shows some traits of a personality disorder. To be clear, Judas demonstrates willful disobedience toward God, yet the behavior itself is consistent with the personality disorders (which are diagnostic descriptions based on behaviors).
Judas is described in John 12:4-6:
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag,
he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Judas certainly did not believe his own words; he would never give money to the poor. Of course, later he makes a deal with Jesus’s enemies to betray Him for 30 pieces of silver. On the night of his betrayal, Jesus finally points out that Judas Iscariot is the one who has and will betray Him, even though the disciples did not catch on as yet (John 13:21-30). Until he received the 30 pieces of silver, Judas seems to have no remorse over what he is doing, which is a very common response for a person with a personality disorder.
Jesus knew everything, yet he did not confront him on his embezzlement and indicated to him to do what he had planned to do.
- Why do you think Jesus handled the situation in this way?
- What does this tell us about how much He loves us?
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