Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 177

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a great weekend.

00:00:04.400 Today we are going to be talking about personality tests. This is something that a bunch of you have

00:00:09.280 asked me to talk about specifically to address and explain the Enneagram, and I'm going to do that,

00:00:14.380 but I really want to talk about personality tests in general and how we as Christians

00:00:18.300 should be thinking about them and how we should approach them and some of the problems

00:00:22.820 that we should contend with as believers in God's Word. Let's get into this. So I haven't

00:00:29.260 wanted to talk about personality tests. I haven't wanted to dedicate an entire episode to it because

00:00:33.700 I think a lot of Christians seem to have been talking about this recently. This is a hot topic,

00:00:38.900 and I just wasn't sure if I had anything unique to add to the conversation. A lot of this stuff,

00:00:43.800 a lot of the critiques that I've been hearing from Christians about the Enneagram have been really

00:00:47.740 solid, really thorough, really good. So I thought, does Relatable really have anything original to

00:00:54.140 bring to the table here? But because so many of you have asked me to talk about this,

00:00:59.000 I realized that you might not be listening to all of the podcasts that I listen to,

00:01:02.820 and you might just be coming to Relatable for your information, which I love. Thank you for that,

00:01:06.560 by the way. So I decided that it is my duty to my audience who has been asking me to address this

00:01:12.120 to do so. If you haven't noticed, young people, young women especially, and that makes up the

00:01:19.720 majority of this audience, and young Christian women even more especially, love personality tests.

00:01:26.340 The Enneagram has seen a surge in popularity among Christians. There are Christian Enneagram

00:01:32.000 Instagram accounts. There are church and ministry teams that I know personally that require their

00:01:37.340 team members to take the Enneagram. When they join their team, Christians and non-Christians alike

00:01:43.160 put their types in their Enneagram or in their Instagram profiles. There are discussion groups about

00:01:49.700 the Enneagram. You can get certified in the Enneagram. There is a Christian Enneagram account

00:01:55.420 that I know that I think actually sells some kind of course that you can walk through to better

00:02:00.880 understand and analyze the Enneagram. This is wildly popular and pervasive stuff, and it's only gotten

00:02:08.340 more popular and pervasive recently. And even though personality tests have been around for a long time,

00:02:13.660 and we're actually going to get into a little bit of the history of it, because that's really important

00:02:18.560 as we discuss this, they seem to be more prevalent than ever. And I think that there are probably,

00:02:25.360 in my opinion, a few reasons for that. One reason personality tests are popular is a really basic

00:02:32.260 reason, and it's true in all areas, no matter what, not just right now, because it's really human

00:02:37.740 nature to love learning about ourselves. We naturally love ourselves. That's something

00:02:42.440 that we've talked about on this podcast. When Jesus says in the Bible to love your neighbor as

00:02:47.580 yourself, it is not a directive to love yourself. It's because that comes naturally. And again,

00:02:53.120 I just want to clarify, those of you who have listened to my podcast for a long time, you already

00:02:57.000 know what I'm about to say as I kind of explain this. But for those of you who are new, when I say that

00:03:02.580 it's natural to love yourself, I'm not saying that it's natural to wake up and think that you're

00:03:06.740 beautiful and awesome and capable and wonderful and worthy all the time. What I'm talking about is

00:03:11.860 that it's natural to care for yourself. It's natural to meet your own needs. It's natural to

00:03:16.280 avoid your own pain. Anything outside of self-love, like self-sacrifice, takes effort. It takes

00:03:22.660 discipline. It takes getting away from your basic human instinct or basic human nature to just serve

00:03:29.080 yourself and to go outside of yourself to serve others or to do something that's good for everyone else

00:03:35.640 around you and may be disadvantageous to you. So self-love is natural. Self-preservation is natural.

00:03:43.360 Even people who struggle with anxiety or depression even get to the point of suicide, they're doing

00:03:48.480 that not necessarily because they hate themselves, but because they are trying to avoid pain. Now, you

00:03:55.500 might feel some kind of self-deprecation, but even that is a symptom of self-centeredness. The antidote

00:04:03.020 to self-deprecation or feelings of self-loathing or low self-esteem is not self-love. It is God's love.

00:04:11.640 That's what we've talked about many times on this podcast before. So I think that is one of the

00:04:18.320 reasons why this is so popular because we love ourselves naturally. We love learning about ourselves.

00:04:24.560 We love talking about ourselves. We want to be understood. We like reading about our quirks. We

00:04:30.220 like reading about our strengths, our weaknesses, what drives us, and that we are simultaneously

00:04:35.620 special and that we are also like other people who share our same personality types. Personality

00:04:42.920 tests meet two deep and fundamental needs in all of us, and that is to be known and to belong,

00:04:49.980 to be a part of something that's bigger than ourselves. We learn that we are a certain type

00:04:54.460 and that within that type, we see what we already know about ourselves reflected, and we may feel

00:04:59.600 like we learn new things too. And we are part of a group now that is not just us as an individual,

00:05:05.580 but other people who are like us. I also think they're more popular now because of the increased

00:05:11.800 focus of our society and self-love. Yes, self-love has always been around. If you read John Calvin's

00:05:17.820 little book on the Christian life, which is a compilation of teachings on John Calvin, he talks

00:05:22.440 about the evils of self-love and the obsession of self-love, and that was hundreds of years ago.

00:05:27.920 So this has been around since the dawn of time, but it used to be regarded, especially within

00:05:33.360 Christianity, as a vice. Now it's seen, even within Christianity, as a virtue. And this has become more

00:05:42.320 and more true recently, this obsession with self-love, with self-care, with self-help,

00:05:47.880 with self-empowerment. We are told by the mainstream culture, whether that's via mommy blogs or fitness

00:05:54.260 gurus, or even supposedly Christian influencers, that we can meet our own needs. And in order for us to

00:06:01.100 meet our own needs, whether it's a need for confidence or success or weight loss or whatever,

00:06:05.920 we have to understand our needs. And to understand our needs, we need to know ourselves. And to know

00:06:12.520 ourselves, we are typically told that we need these personality tests as tools to aid in that

00:06:18.960 introspective journey. We are today obsessed with introspection, with analyzing and thinking about

00:06:26.100 ourselves, assessing what we want, how we think, why we are the way that we are. And we are told by the

00:06:32.880 same very self-focused group, that this is a necessary exercise in being all that we can be.

00:06:40.240 In order to become fully, in order to become, to become our full selves or come fully into our own,

00:06:48.760 to reach our potential and to be happy, we must understand what makes us tick. Personality tests

00:06:55.100 are also used to help people interact with, work with, understand those around us, whether that's

00:07:00.840 friends, spouses, co-workers. I have taken probably every personality test out there. I can even tell,

00:07:09.420 well, I think I can tell you what I am. This goes to show that I haven't spent a whole lot of time

00:07:15.220 thinking about this, but I've taken the test before. Myers-Briggs, I think that I'm an INFP. It

00:07:21.680 might surprise you that this test tells me that I'm an introvert, but I think that according to Myers-Briggs,

00:07:27.200 I am. And I think according to the Enneagram, I've taken it. I used to take it in college. I was

00:07:33.340 obsessed with this stuff. So I think that in college when I took it, I was like a one with

00:07:38.500 the two wing and then I've taken it again at a certain point and I'm an eight. I don't really

00:07:44.040 know. I haven't done as much digging into this as a lot of people have. So I say this to say,

00:07:49.040 as I'm talking about this, I've had personal experience with this. And as always, know that

00:07:53.780 I'm not coming from a place of judgment or not, you know, not knowing what I'm talking about,

00:07:58.180 because I haven't ever taken one of these tests I have. I'm not coming from a place of self

00:08:01.560 righteousness. As I talk about some of the problems that Christians need to wrestle with

00:08:05.440 when it comes to personality tests, I talk about them as someone who has wrestled with them myself

00:08:10.580 as recently as over the past year. It's been over the past year that I've been learning about this

00:08:15.680 stuff and kind of realizing, well, maybe this is something that Christians, that Bible

00:08:20.740 believing people should be wary about. Maybe we should pause and reconsider the importance and

00:08:28.100 the validity of these tests. And what made me start to kind of take a step back and say,

00:08:33.880 hmm, I'm not so sure about this anymore was seeing, like I said, very recently within the past year or two,

00:08:41.480 the obsession of people on social media with these tests, especially the Enneagram, especially in

00:08:47.360 Christian circles and Christians that I was talking to in these ministries and local churches saying,

00:08:52.520 oh yeah, we use the Enneagram as kind of our way to not just get to know one another, but to decide

00:08:58.140 how we're going to work with one another and how we're actually going to accomplish our goals.

00:09:02.640 It started becoming to me, from what I could see, a kind of primary or at least secondary identifier

00:09:10.680 or a lens through which people are seeing the world and other people. People saying, you know,

00:09:17.740 I'm, you know, I'm Allie and I'm a one. What are you? Saying things like, well, because I'm a one,

00:09:23.240 this is how I see it, or this is how I react, or this is my struggle. And it has seemed like the

00:09:28.380 Enneagram is becoming a, not just a lens, but a dominant lens through which its users are seeing the

00:09:34.000 world, are seeing themselves and are seeing other people. I also have started to wonder if the focus on

00:09:39.960 personality types is being used as a way to trivialize or even normalize sin. So for example,

00:09:48.120 saying, haha, you know, I'm an eight, so I might just say something that hurts your feelings. That's

00:09:53.640 just who I am. I'm just going to be blunt. I'm just going to be insensitive or saying, oh, I'm a two.

00:09:59.760 So I'm probably just going to make or say anything that makes you happy, whether or not it's true,

00:10:05.280 but that's just how I am. And these things may even be framed as struggles when Christians are

00:10:10.620 talking about them, but really they're seen and characterized as nothing more than quirks.

00:10:16.060 So watching this happen in real time in Christian social media circles and wondering if I have been

00:10:22.180 guilty of doing this, which I have, by the way, using my personality type to excuse sin, I've realized

00:10:28.960 that this world of personality analysis deserves a deeper look. Because remember, we Christians know

00:10:37.000 that there is no neutral ground. Here is a quote by C.S. Lewis, a quote that I personally need to keep

00:10:42.860 in mind a lot more than I do. There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every

00:10:49.600 split second is claimed by God and counter claimed by Satan. I just want to repeat that because I think

00:10:55.980 it's so good. Those of you who've been following me for a while know how much I love C.S. Lewis.

00:11:02.220 There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God

00:11:09.580 and counter claimed by Satan. That means that this subject, which may seem like no big deal,

00:11:14.860 it might seem like I'm just blowing something up or blowing something out of proportion that doesn't

00:11:19.140 even need to be talked about. It's not worth any of our future thought or any kind of deep analysis.

00:11:25.980 It's important because there is no neutral ground. So first, I want to talk about the history of

00:11:32.200 personality tests. We don't always talk about history on this podcast, but I like to give context

00:11:37.420 when necessary and when possible. And as it turns out, it is both necessary and possible in this case.

00:11:45.380 Personality tests have been around for a long time. Carl Jung, you've probably heard of him,

00:11:49.780 was a Swiss psychiatrist born in 1875. He founded analytical psychology and his studies

00:11:55.840 were the basis for tests like the Myers-Briggs. He developed what is known as individuation,

00:12:01.620 which is defined as the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated from other

00:12:07.400 human beings. In particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct

00:12:14.800 from the general collective psychology. That's fun. So individuation is known as a healing process

00:12:21.960 for the individual as they learn to fully integrate their psyche. It's known as self-realization and

00:12:29.060 self-actualization. It is a journey taken through your whole life. There is a spiritual aspect to this

00:12:35.980 as Jung believed this journey led to what he deemed the highest experience. Jung was extremely influenced by

00:12:44.020 mysticism. He believed that this process of individuation and self-actualization or self-fulfillment

00:12:50.740 is at the center of all religions. So that includes Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and others, which

00:12:57.580 he essentially believed shared this common core. He believed that the journey to the self is

00:13:04.120 simultaneous with the journey to the divine and that the purpose of getting to know God is actually

00:13:09.460 getting to know yourself. And I hope that you can start to see, even as I'm explaining, who is known

00:13:16.360 kind of as the father of at least the psychoanalysis that is the basis of personality tests, I hope that

00:13:23.360 you can start to see that this line of pantheist mystical thinking is still influencing how people

00:13:29.800 see and use personality tests today. People see it as a spiritual experience and still believe that

00:13:36.540 the journey is of self, the journey to the self, the full self, is necessary to fully knowing God.

00:13:43.860 And even if you haven't seen that outright, I hope that you can kind of see how that's underneath a

00:13:49.120 lot of the pseudo-Christian slash new age things that we're seeing today. Jung had an interest in

00:13:56.240 the paranormal and the occult. He believed in the ability to connect to the spirit world. His later

00:14:02.560 writings, really after 1940, focused on alchemy. Jung, who supplied the psychological foundation for a lot of

00:14:10.300 popular personality tests, has played a huge role in the new age movement, which has waxed and waned

00:14:17.320 in popularity since the 1970s and now is experiencing another uptick. You've probably seen a lot of people

00:14:24.880 really into crystals and alters and connecting to the divine and the inner soul. Marianne Williamson has

00:14:32.260 been a big influencer in this movement, but certainly there are a lot of celebrities in Hollywood who

00:14:39.460 believe this and probably some of the people that you follow on social media. It's hard to define what

00:14:44.980 exactly the new age is, but in general, it is the belief that God, little g, God, of course we know

00:14:51.840 as Christians, or the divine, imbues the universe. That he is not just, or she probably in this realm of

00:14:59.080 thinking, is not just a monotheistic entity. He is not defined by the Bible, certainly not any ancient

00:15:06.180 texts like that. He is not one single being. He is everywhere in everything. They also believe that the

00:15:13.020 divine is found in human beings themselves, which is different than what we believe that we are made in the

00:15:18.460 image of God, but the divine is actually in the core of who you are. That's why you have to take this

00:15:22.940 introspective journey to actually find it. That's why they believe that the journey of self-actualization is

00:15:29.400 also the journey to the divine. There's a focus on healing and the natural world and the desire to

00:15:35.640 unite somehow the spiritual and the scientific. Its roots, the new age roots are in the occult.

00:15:43.860 Occultism can be defined by a variety of viewpoints, but it includes, it's not limited to, but it includes

00:15:49.920 the belief in magic, including vampires and witches and werewolves and all of that. Theosophy, which is the

00:15:57.900 belief that there's a deep higher truth embedded in the mysteries of the ancient past and is found in

00:16:07.380 no one religion, but can be searched out using mysticism and magic. This was popularized in the

00:16:13.000 West in the 19th century by a woman by the name of Helena Blavatsky. She believed that theosophy would

00:16:19.380 eventually take over all of the other world religions as humans realized that this higher truth found

00:16:24.700 simultaneously in themselves and the divine became more popular. It is heavily influenced by eastern

00:16:33.720 religions. So as a recap, Jung, often known as the father of these personality tests or the

00:16:41.080 psychoanalysis underneath these personality tests, was affiliated with the occult outwardly, apparently,

00:16:47.580 even in his writings. And Jung, in the beliefs of the occult, influenced the new age movement that

00:16:52.760 started in the late 20th century and has now reached a new peak of popularity. You have seen this new

00:16:59.100 age movement yourself. And even if you haven't noticed it until now, everything that we're seeing

00:17:04.800 about the importance of the self, the love of self, the worship of the self, the care of self,

00:17:10.680 the discovery of self, the fulfillment of self as not just forms of self-help and not just forms of being

00:17:18.440 healthy in general, but as tools to holistic spiritual healing. You have probably seen a rise

00:17:25.880 in the popularity of zodiac signs, which is also a tool of the occult. You may have even seen a

00:17:31.380 popularity in women identifying as witches. Here's a recent headline from Teen Vogue, my least favorite

00:17:39.900 publication, I think, in all of the universe. And that is saying something. There's a PG-13 warning to

00:17:46.060 what I'm about to say. So if you have kids in the car, you might just want to fast forward.

00:17:49.500 This is a headline, How to Make Your Orgasms Magical, Literally. Sex Magic Can Help You

00:17:55.000 Manifest Your Best Self With or Without Actual Sex. Here's another one, Winter Solstice 2018,

00:18:01.320 Witches Offer a Look Into Their Yule Rituals. But the new age isn't always that obvious, although it should

00:18:07.100 disturb all of us that young people are reading this kind of stuff and are encouraged to read this kind of

00:18:12.000 stuff. But it also seems or it comes across as a little more innocuous than that and a little bit

00:18:18.500 harder to detect. Here's one. Decide what you care. Decide that you care about creating your magic and

00:18:24.540 pushing it out into the world than you do about how it will be received. Let me repeat that because I

00:18:30.380 kind of butchered it. Decide that you care more about creating your own magic and pushing it out into

00:18:35.640 the world than you do about how it will be received. That is from Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel

00:18:42.100 Hollis. Anything you see about the manifestation or the fulfillment of the self and the connection to

00:18:49.220 the universe or the divine, no matter how much it tries to tell you it is Christian, it is not.

00:18:54.720 It is part of or at the very least influenced by, whether it knows it or not or whether its author

00:19:00.060 knows it or not, by the new age. And personality tests are a part of this world, not just because

00:19:06.200 of Jung and his influence, but also because of the very similar roots of the Enneagram. The Enneagram

00:19:12.220 has its roots in Eastern mysticism. It was first made known by the early 20th century Russian-Armenian

00:19:19.020 mystic philosopher and occultist. I cannot say his last name. We're going to try. George Gurdjieff.

00:19:26.180 He was known for the idea that most humans exist in what he called waking sleep. So in order to

00:19:32.260 awaken the true full self, one must take what he called the fourth way, which is the discipline

00:19:37.800 of uniting the body and the mind and the spirit to achieve a higher consciousness. This is not that

00:19:43.480 dissimilar from what Jung believes. Not a lot is known about the sources of Gurdjieff's, I don't know,

00:19:50.520 I don't know how to say his name, Gurdjieff's philosophy, but according to his book, Meetings

00:19:55.680 with Remarkable Men, his teachings were very much inspired by his wanderings through the Eastern

00:20:00.880 world. The Enneagram shape that you're probably familiar with, with the nine points that kind of

00:20:06.120 looks like a star, it's an occultist shape. It was used by Gurdjieff as a symbol of connection to the

00:20:11.720 cosmos. But even his students didn't fully understand its significance. Much of the occultist

00:20:19.780 lessons are like that. They are esoteric, they are mystical, combining different parts of religious

00:20:25.160 traditions in an effort to create a worldview that is, quote, whole. Gurdjieff and his pupils

00:20:30.780 emphasize the importance of the self. Again, that's self-actualization, self-betterment,

00:20:36.100 and self-empowerment. His ideas were spread to the West by his own efforts and also his followers'

00:20:42.000 efforts. It wasn't actually until the 20th century, so a little bit later, when another occultist,

00:20:47.500 Oscar Acaso, also don't know how to say his last name, and his student, Claudio Naranjo,

00:20:53.060 developed the Enneagram of Personality, that the Enneagram was considered a tool for personality

00:20:58.500 analysis with the aim of aiding self-observation and transcendence of suffering. Acaso claimed that

00:21:05.300 the Enneagram, get this, this is, this is important to know, that this test that so many are putting

00:21:11.320 stock into, that I put stock into at one point, but people are really basing their whole lives on this

00:21:15.740 test. This is how this guy claims, this occultist claims that it was revealed to him by the Metatron,

00:21:22.540 the Prince of the Archangels, while he was in some kind of ecstatic state or trance. Naranjo,

00:21:27.940 who spearheaded the integration of psychotherapy with spirituality and fantasy-enhancing drugs,

00:21:34.020 was a leader in what is known as the global human potential movement of the 1900s. In the 1970s,

00:21:40.740 Naranjo students brought the Enneagram to Catholic communities. It is still promoted by a few Catholic

00:21:45.820 leaders today, like Franciscan, like the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, as well as embraced by many

00:21:54.060 evangelical Christians, as I have already discussed in this podcast. These men were also affiliated with

00:22:00.240 theosophy, the same magic-centered religion pushed by Helena Blavatsky in the 19th and 20th century,

00:22:05.980 so it all comes together. The roots of personality tests, in general, the psychoanalysis of personality

00:22:13.740 tests, from the Myers-Briggs to the Enneagram, I can't speak for every single personality test,

00:22:18.020 but even the idea of personality tests, are in paganism. They are in mysticism. They are in magic.

00:22:25.260 They are in the occult. They are all connected by the idea that our purpose of life is to understand the

00:22:30.320 self, to discover our best self, to manifest our best self, and while we do so, we are connecting

00:22:36.800 with the spirit world, which is, as pantheism believes, in everything. So, the question is,

00:22:43.520 knowing the context, knowing the history, does any of this really matter? Aren't Christians in the

00:22:48.540 business of redemption? Isn't there a way for us to separate personality tests from their roots and use

00:22:55.220 them for good purposes? Can they actually help us, maybe some of you might be thinking, become more

00:23:00.860 like Christ as we understand what our struggles are and why they exist? Can we use them to help us

00:23:07.520 love other people as we understand what makes them angry, what makes other people feel most love, how they

00:23:14.740 ticked, how they're best managed or worked with? There are going to be a variety of opinions on this,

00:23:23.720 I know. And I think that I know that there are genuine, Jesus-loving, theologically sound

00:23:30.360 Christians who do believe that these tests can be redeemed and repurposed for good, just as there

00:23:36.240 are solid Christians who think that there is no good, that there is no good use to these tests at all.

00:23:42.080 But here's what I think. I don't think that if you have taken a personality test, let me just lay this

00:23:48.540 out there that you are a witch or a Satan worshiper, obviously. But while it may be true, this is what

00:23:55.880 we need to think about. When it may be true that you learn things about yourselves and other people

00:24:00.800 through these tests, while it may be true that you are able to identify with a certain personality

00:24:05.940 type, it's important to know that ultimately these mean nothing in light of who we are in Christ and

00:24:13.040 who we are called to be as Christians. They mean nothing. Because these assessments are not based

00:24:19.700 on God's word, they have no power to tell us who we are or what to do. Because they have roots in an

00:24:28.580 anti-God worldview, they do have the power to lead us astray, to emphasize the self-fulfillment

00:24:35.680 and self-actualization that the world demands of its followers rather than the self-denial and the

00:24:42.040 self-sacrifice that Jesus demands of his followers. It is true that according to the Bible, we are all

00:24:48.880 given different gifts. We are all different members of the body of Christ, bringing our own abilities

00:24:54.140 to build up the church. I believe that God and his amazing creativity made us all unique and that this

00:25:00.940 uniqueness helps create dynamic workplaces, close friendships, complementary relationships, thriving

00:25:07.460 churches, and intimate marriages. But it is not true according to the Bible that our personality type

00:25:13.900 in any way dictates how we are to act or whom we are to serve or whom we are to love or how we are to

00:25:21.400 love them. God calls us all, no matter our type, to be holy as I am holy. God calls us all, no matter

00:25:28.620 where we are, to love our neighbor as ourselves. God calls us all, no matter who we are, to obey

00:25:34.300 him. Moses certainly didn't have the personality type for leadership, for example, and yet God called

00:25:40.940 him to leadership. God continually uses people that the world would deem unsuitable, no matter what their

00:25:48.820 personality assessment is. 1 Corinthians 1 26 through 31 says this,

00:25:53.660 For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards,

00:25:58.380 not many of you were powerful, not many of you were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish

00:26:03.500 in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what

00:26:08.740 is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,

00:26:13.560 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus,

00:26:19.820 who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written,

00:26:27.160 let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. There is so much that we could unpack there that really

00:26:32.200 informs this specific conversation, who we are, where wisdom comes from, what our identity actually

00:26:38.400 is, and why we have no reason to boast in any kind of personality assessment result. The results of our

00:26:47.100 personality assessment are not considered before God calls us, and they are ultimately irrelevant to how

00:26:55.260 he calls us. Here is the comfort for us. God knows us much more deeply, much more intimately than the

00:27:03.100 Enneagram. He knows each of our struggles and our quirks and our strengths and our weaknesses and wants

00:27:09.620 and fears more than any test ever could. Our desire to be fully known, to be unconditionally loved,

00:27:18.140 is found through Christ in God, not in an analysis of our personality type. And this God who knows us

00:27:25.980 better than we know ourselves calls us to the same thing, to holiness for ourselves and to sacrifice

00:27:32.700 for others. Think about this. When we put stock into the Enneagram or any other test, we are saying that

00:27:40.580 we believe that God created human beings as, for example, nine different types. And we are thus claiming

00:27:48.200 to know some kind of hidden truth in the universe and of human beings that God did not reveal to us

00:27:55.900 in his word. This is a new age philosophy, not a biblical one, because God doesn't tell us this

00:28:03.900 in the Bible. He doesn't suggest it or indicate that in the slightest. He says that he created all

00:28:11.020 human beings and his image with one purpose, and that is to worship him. And while we do have

00:28:16.640 different personalities and different talents that will lead us into different jobs and careers and

00:28:21.580 relationships, our sole purpose in this life is to follow our maker and to bring him glory, no matter

00:28:27.600 what. A personality test can very easily become an idol when we use it to claim a sense of identity

00:28:34.660 and belonging that is meant to be found in our Redeemer alone. Or when we wrongly use it to view

00:28:42.580 ourselves as ultra special or as different or as better than someone else, when we use it to decide

00:28:50.060 whether or not to obey God, to tell God no, when we assume that surely he wouldn't be asking

00:28:56.140 our personality type to be patient with our kids or hospitable to our neighbors or submissive to our

00:29:02.640 husbands or bold with our co-workers, when we use our personality types as an excuse to laugh at sin,

00:29:09.460 to stall sanctification, or to resist holiness. I am sure that there are many of you here who could say,

00:29:17.700 like me, that you've benefited in some way from personality tests. I believe that. I can't take that

00:29:23.400 away from you. But there are also people who would say that they've benefited from meditation,

00:29:29.800 from magic, from crystals, from hypnosis. These things that we know are not Christian, not biblical.

00:29:36.800 A couple weeks ago, my mom and I did an episode on Christians and Halloween, and she suggested

00:29:42.500 using Halloween as an opportunity to share the gospel rather than to glorify death and evil.

00:29:49.700 So the question is, and I think it's a good question, how is that different than using

00:29:53.780 personality tests with sketchy roots for Christian purposes? But I do think that these two things

00:30:00.280 are different. Some things are worth redeeming, perhaps, depending on their use. And you guys,

00:30:06.100 of course, you can correct me if you think that I'm wrong. I love hearing your alternative biblical

00:30:10.840 perspective on this. But changing Halloween to Holyween is a way to share the gospel with our neighbors,

00:30:17.160 doing something tangible that is actually in obedience to God, something that we know that

00:30:22.180 we are called to do. I'm not sure that personality tests can be used in the same way, but rather in my

00:30:28.060 experience tend to obscure the calling that God has on all of our lives and can so easily lead us

00:30:35.200 into idolatry. And I'm not sure that Holyween has the same effect. Although if you think that it's

00:30:43.180 the same principle, then like I said, I would love to hear from you. And I do want to go on,

00:30:49.400 I want to end on one other note or just make one bit of clarification. One thing I do think is

00:30:54.580 different than personality tests, which can lead us to idolatry. And as we've talked about, have all

00:31:00.060 kinds of problems in its foundations and its psychoanalysis. I do think something like career

00:31:05.120 assessments are different than that. I do think that something that helps you understand how your

00:31:13.320 talents can be best applied to what the world needs to give God glory, I do think that those can be

00:31:20.560 helpful. And that can be a little bit different, I think, than this introspective journey to self

00:31:25.740 fulfillment. It's just saying, okay, this is how God created you. And here's how you can use these

00:31:31.860 talents to the best of your ability for God's glory and to meet the needs of the world around

00:31:37.060 you. I do think that there are different purposes for that. And there are different results for that

00:31:43.120 that don't end in idolatry. So I just wanted to make that clarification. I hope this was helpful

00:31:47.960 for you. And I hope that it spurs your own thinking. I wanted to give you food for thought rather

00:31:53.980 than just cramming down your throat everything that I think about this. But of course, I wanted to share

00:31:59.900 the perspective that I think is found in God's word on these things. And just give Christians a

00:32:05.400 warning to maybe not to definitely not dive headfirst into this and to use these personality

00:32:12.200 tests as a lens through what you're seeing in the world. That's simply not biblical. And it's always

00:32:15.900 going to lead you into a place of confusion like anything that is extra biblical does. So I hope that

00:32:21.240 you guys have a great rest here Monday. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on this. I will hear you.

00:32:24.840 I will not hear you back here on Wednesday. I will see you back here on Wednesday. Have a great week.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 21, 2019

Ep 177 ｜ Personality Tests

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