As well as completing the Psychology Diploma this year, I’ve been teaching a Year 9 Psychology class. The last unit of the year was all about personality.

Yes, I am about to psychoanalyse in this post. I’m a teacher. We diagnose everyone, including ourselves.

One thing I’ve been reflecting on recently is the link or the tension between personality and spirituality. Or, perhaps reworded, the extent to which our personalities influence the way in which we engage with God and the extent to which our walking with the Spirit – or refusing to walk with the Spirit – impacts our behaviour.

Take the key players in the nativity using the Five Factor Model.

(For those who argue against the FFM, or prefer the HEXACO, or have other critiques… just go with me)

So the Five Factor Model is usually shortened to the acronym, OCEAN which stands for:

Openness to Experience

Conscientiousness

Extraversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism

Mary straight away strikes me as being very open to experiences and agreeable:

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

That’s what she says when she’s told she will give birth to the Messiah. But this is tempered with her question as to how exactly this will take place.

Mary is open to experience but there’s a conscientiousness that is going to ask a question or two.

What about Joseph?

His key role comes when he gets Jesus out of the clutches of Herod, on the escape to Egypt. At this point his conscientiousness is high.

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. 

During the night means he wastes no time.

Speaking of Herod.

I was reflecting on Herod and Jezebel the other day. When it comes to the two of them and personality, read personality disorder on the cards.

Like I said: I’m a teacher. We diagnose. I also have a diploma now which makes me even more inclined to do something I’m not qualified to do.

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 

Narcistic Personality Disorder.

Or just a complete maniac.

If nothing else the “Dark Triad” of Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy is in full swing. And the Cluster B Personality Disorders seem fitting.

Emotional Regulation issues for sure. Having a conversation with someone like Herod would not be easy. Talk about volatile and walking on eggshells.

So… at what point is this personality and when does it clock over into a heart either softened or hardened towards God?

Is Mary open to new experiences or faithful to God?

Is Joseph conscientious or desiring to be obedient?

Is Herod a PD walking or one with his heart turned completely against God?

Or am I asking so many questions that I’m almost gaslighting myself?

Perhaps in the end it’s both. As Christians we frequently pray and ask that our lives will be shaped to be more and more like Jesus. We use descriptive words to talk about Christ and Christian characteristics that are personality based.

Loving, Patient, Humble.

Now this doesn’t mean that everyone who is a Christian is going to have the same personality. That’s a cult.

But we will have some similarities in the ways that we behave. Not because we are trying to be the same but because we are trying to be like Jesus, the baby born at Christmas.

Yours diagnosing herself,

Alison