The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Why Christians Should Avoid The Enneagram

00:00:00.480 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:00:11.480 Hi, this is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries. We have another episode of our podcast and show, Theology Applied.

00:00:18.080 Today I'm honored to have as a returning guest, Doreen Virtue.

00:00:22.040 If you were with us with her last episode, we talked about New Ageism in general, and

00:00:28.340 we also talked more specifically about yoga and Christians being involved in the practice

00:00:33.220 of yoga and how it's not merely an exercise, but a spiritual practice that Christians should

00:00:37.780 be very cautious and wary about. 0.92

00:00:40.680 Today, kind of in that same vein, looking at false religions and false doctrine and

00:00:46.680 kind of cult practices that have seeped their way into the church. Today's topic is the Enneagram.

00:00:53.380 And so we're going to focus on why Christians should quit using the Enneagram, and Doreen is 0.99

00:00:58.540 going to make a case for that. So Doreen, before we get started, could you just introduce yourself, 0.95

00:01:02.620 your ministry, and some of the relevance with your ministry, you as an individual towards the

00:01:08.260 Enneagram, our topic today? Thank you, Pastor Joel and everyone at Right Response for having

00:01:13.100 me back on. It's an honor. And I'm so excited to talk about this topic because it is one of the

00:01:19.720 new age methods that are creeping into the church and causing division and deception,

00:01:26.240 in my opinion. So let me give my background to back up that statement. So I have a BA and an MA

00:01:33.260 in counseling psychology from Chapman University. And I was a psychotherapist for many years before

00:01:39.340 I was saved and I studied personality and mental health tests as part of the requirement of getting

00:01:45.620 my degrees. In fact, Chapman requires that you pass mental health tests in order to get a master's

00:01:52.300 degree in psychology there. So I've studied this topic extensively from a secular worldview.

00:01:58.600 And then as a Christian, since I've been saved, I've been in full-time seminary. I'm in my last

00:02:03.560 semester of earning my master's degree in biblical and theological studies. So I now have a combined

00:02:09.980 view where I can look back at psychology, and in this case, personality tests through a biblical

00:02:16.900 worldview. And I'm here to warn your listeners today that the Enneagram is completely filled

00:02:23.820 with problems, and we need to be very aware of it, and as you said, avoid it.

00:02:29.060 great well thank you for coming on the show it's an honor to have you let's start with this just

00:02:35.220 I don't want to completely presume that all of our listeners may be familiar with the Enneagram

00:02:40.260 it's become quite a cult sensation and so many people probably are familiar and have probably

00:02:47.280 taken a personalized test themselves but for the few people who have been just diligently

00:02:55.260 studying their Bibles under a rock and haven't seen the sensation and the popularity of the

00:03:02.240 Enneagram. Could you just tell us what is the Enneagram? Absolutely. The Enneagram is a very

00:03:08.940 popular personality test that supposedly will give you insight into who you really are and also is

00:03:19.080 purported to help with relationships, especially marriages, it divides people up into one of nine

00:03:26.100 any types or personality characteristics. And then it gives you subcategories called wings.

00:03:33.140 And so you're supposed to take this test and identify who you are so you can understand

00:03:38.320 yourself and then understand other people better. Okay. All right. Well, real quick, that just

00:03:44.240 has me thinking, what's, you know, kind of getting to the origin of the Enneagram and the dangers of

00:03:51.380 the Enneagram, but another way to phrase that question would just be the way you just defined

00:03:55.720 it and described the Enneagram, what's the key distinction, the difference between the Enneagram

00:04:00.100 and something like Myers-Briggs? Why is, what's so unique and potentially harmful in regards to

00:04:06.840 the Enneagram from any other personality test? Great question, Pastor Joel, thank you. I'm here

00:04:13.260 to say that actually there's not much difference between the Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram and

00:04:18.360 that they should both be avoided. Number one problem is they're both rooted in occultism.

00:04:24.660 So the Myers-Briggs, people might be surprised to learn that it wasn't created by a team of

00:04:29.080 psychologists. It was created by a woman who was a Michigan farmer in the late 1800s, early 1900s,

00:04:36.560 who was a big fan of Carl Jung, J-U-N-G.

00:04:40.680 Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist from the turn of the century

00:04:44.420 who was an occultist who attended seances,

00:04:48.600 was really big on trance channeling

00:04:51.180 and believed in universalism

00:04:54.480 and getting answers from within.

00:04:58.260 In other words, a very secular worldview

00:05:00.860 and combined with occult.

00:05:03.100 So Catherine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, studied, they were both homeschooled, so they didn't study this at any university. I'm a big fan of homeschooling, by the way, but it's relevant to this story.

00:05:16.920 they read Carl Jung books and they decided because Isabel was going to marry a man that Catherine

00:05:24.440 didn't really relate to so they were going to study her son future son-in-law's personality

00:05:29.520 by coming up with this personality test of extrovert introvert egalitarian etc these four

00:05:36.700 personality continuums that Jung had identified and that's how the Myers-Briggs was created through

00:05:42.640 the inspiration of trans-channeling. And it's not a psychological test. I can tell you that

00:05:49.600 at Chapman University, through my BA and MA, we did not even mention the Myers-Briggs or even look

00:05:55.120 at it because it's not a valid scientific instrument at all. And then the Enneagram,

00:06:00.900 just like Myers-Briggs, was born out of trans-channeling. And so the innovator of the

00:06:07.320 nine personality types of the Enneagram. His name is Claudio Naranjo, and you've got a clip of him

00:06:12.720 admitting this publicly, that he got the inspiration for these nine personality types

00:06:18.980 through the process of automatic writing. Now, automatic writing, now this is something that I

00:06:24.680 can attest to as a former New Ager. I was the top-selling New Age author before I was saved. 0.52

00:06:31.220 Praise Jesus for saving me out of that deception. But what I was doing, Pastor Joel, at the time I

00:06:36.620 was a new age author is I was using automatic writing, like Claudia Nerano, the innovator of

00:06:43.780 the Enneagram, and like Carl Jung, I would sit there and I would pray, but who was I praying to?

00:06:50.440 I don't know at this point. And I would, I would ask for messages to come through my pen or my

00:06:56.080 typewriter, my laptop, and I would kind of just go into a trance where I wasn't really aware what

00:07:03.240 was coming through. And then lo and behold, there would be coherent messages on my paper or on my

00:07:10.760 laptop document. And so that's, and I repent for those products. And there's some of them still

00:07:17.900 for sale, which I'm always telling people, do not buy, destroy them. They're going out of print,

00:07:22.660 praise God. I'm here to attest that those automatic writing books that I was involved

00:07:28.600 with, I thought they were from angels. They're from demons. And that's how the Myers-Briggs

00:07:33.580 and the Enneagram were born. These are doctrines of demons. And the Bible's very, very clear.

00:07:39.560 I know we're going to get into this more, that we are not to be a part of any ungodly counsel.

00:07:45.320 The advice that the Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram seems to be helpful. And that's where people go

00:07:51.120 with new age methods and new age teachings is they always focus on, oh, this is helpful. It

00:07:57.540 makes me feel good. It makes me understand myself. It seems to help me understand my husband and our

00:08:02.900 marriage is better. But beware, a little leaven can contaminate the dough as we've been warned

00:08:10.640 in Galatians and Jesus warned us. And we see in Genesis 3 that the serpent said, oh, this fruit

00:08:17.380 will taste good. It will give you secret wisdom and you'll be like God. That's the same mixture

00:08:22.440 of truth and lies that we see with the Enneagram, with the Myers-Briggs, and any New Age method.

00:08:28.200 It may make you feel good, but it's ungodly, and it should be marked and avoided.

00:08:34.720 Amen. I agree. As you were talking about automatic writing and just kind of describing,

00:08:40.740 defining that practice for us, this basically just seeking to empty the mind of all cognitive

00:08:47.240 thought of all rationale and becoming aware of nothing but awareness itself and then hoping that

00:08:54.460 from this kind of transcendental stasis that you would somehow begin to channel some kind of content,

00:09:02.360 some kind of writing and communication. It reminded me, and maybe in the future we could

00:09:07.280 do an episode on this because I know you've spoken to this particular topic at great length as well

00:09:12.380 on your YouTube channel and with your ministry,

00:09:15.360 but it just reminded me of the similarities

00:09:17.700 between the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs

00:09:21.880 and how those things came about,

00:09:24.980 but also with centered prayer or the idea of contemplative prayer,

00:09:35.060 this idea that Christians don't recognize,

00:09:37.700 but it's distinctly in opposition to Christianity.

00:09:42.380 Nowhere in Christian thought do we have this idea of emptying the mind. So to try to make that a virtue, and I think I'm concerned as a pastor that it has been made a virtue in the mind of many Christians, that many people would say that's a key component of my quiet time, of my devotions, that I just want to listen to the Lord.

00:10:07.140 And I understand that the language sounds right.

00:10:10.740 And I think the motive in many cases, the motive is noble, but it's the wrong practice.

00:10:16.940 It's the wrong method that I want a word from the Lord.

00:10:20.200 I want to hear from the Lord.

00:10:21.480 And so I'm, you know, and the verse that always gets quoted is be still and know that I am God.

00:10:28.280 But this stillness, I mean, the very next phrase, be still and know.

00:10:33.580 You know, no, it's informative. It's knowledge. To be still is to not rely upon ourselves. It's to rid ourselves not of cognitive thought, not of rationale or logic or substance, but rather to rid ourselves of self-reliance, of self-dependence, independence, our own resting in our own strength, our own ability.

00:11:01.080 And so I'm always reminded of Psalm chapter one, where it talks about the man who delights, the blessed man who delights in the law of God and on God's law, he meditates day and night.

00:11:13.360 And so meditation, there is a biblical category for Christian meditation, but it's directly in opposition to pagan meditation, meaning that Christian meditation, meditating on God's law, it's actually the opposite of emptying the mind.

00:11:29.900 But it's rather to fill the mind, or we could even say to feast or focus the mind on the content, the substance of God's word, God's law in the case of Psalm chapter one, that we're looking at the law of God, we're delighting in it, we're meditating on it, meaning we are thinking deeply and we are thinking faithfully, biblically upon the word of God, the law of God, the precepts and truths and doctrines of God.

00:11:59.340 And so I'm always wary when Christians incorporate into their private devotional practices this method of emptying the mind of cognitive thought, emptying the mind of substance, of all substance, which would include the written word of God, in order to somehow have this transcendental experience with God. 0.63

00:12:21.200 And I always just want to kind of shake Christians by the shoulders a little bit and just say, you want a word from God? 0.93

00:12:27.180 Here's the good news.

00:12:28.060 He wrote a book.

00:12:29.400 He wrote a book.

00:12:30.700 You don't have to get still and quiet and thoughtless to have some kind of mystical interpersonal experience.

00:12:38.720 You can just crack open the Bible and you've got thousands of words from God that you can begin reading.

00:12:45.120 You don't have to question their validity or accuracy.

00:12:48.680 that's the beauty I think of Christianity is it's substance based it gives us something to

00:12:54.840 to hold on to it's it's not subjective it's not mystical it's not it's it's not transcendental it

00:13:02.120 is it is ontological it is it is based on fact and truth it's historical a man really did come

00:13:11.200 to earth and and live a life and I mean there's there's more historical validity to the existence

00:13:17.480 of jesus of nazareth than caesar of rome we don't have to there's there's something to hold on to

00:13:23.940 it's it's it's objective and and i think that's the beauty of christianity and and i i am along

00:13:30.740 with you doreen concerned that so many christians um makes make little make light of of one of the

00:13:38.180 the greatest strengths of the christian faith that it is fact-based it is substantive it is

00:13:45.120 objective, it is thoughtful, and that they want to abandon that thought. And I think part of it

00:13:51.260 comes from this rising aversion in our society and in church culture even towards theology,

00:13:58.800 towards doctrine. I think people are intimidated by doctrine, intimidated by theology. And so

00:14:04.000 they somehow want to demonize thoughtfulness. They want to demonize intellectualism. They want

00:14:10.920 to demonize facts and, and say, well, that may be good for you, but I have this other thing over

00:14:16.520 here. But, but it's, it's empty, it's anemic, and, and it just creates, and I think you'll agree with

00:14:22.380 this, but what it does is it just creates this, this opportunity, a target, an opening, right?

00:14:29.780 It kind of leaves a foothold for the devil to come in and, and, and begin to influence. Would

00:14:35.620 you agree with that? Can you elaborate maybe some more? Yeah, I just want to say big capital

00:14:40.100 amen to everything you said. I think more Christians today are getting their so-called 1.00

00:14:45.460 theology from the Jesus Calling books than they are from the Bible. In Jesus Calling, there's

00:14:51.040 another so-called Christian product that is from automatic writing. A woman named Sarah Young was

00:14:57.100 highly influenced by an occult series called God Calling, which those authors openly admitted that

00:15:03.540 they were automatic writing some voice that they said was God, but clearly wasn't because God's the

00:15:09.000 same yesterday, today, and forever. And that God contradicted the Bible. So Sarah Young,

00:15:13.880 saying that she wanted more than the Bible, which the Bible is sufficient, went outside the Bible

00:15:19.360 to channel a voice that is identifying itself as Jesus. And it is one of the top bestsellers

00:15:25.440 in Christianity right now. And it's not Christian, because it contradicts the Bible. And it has 0.97

00:15:31.280 this portrait of the false Jesus that we are warned about by Jesus himself, that this false

00:15:37.480 Jesus in Jesus Calling says that God loves everyone, and God is love. Of course, the

00:15:45.200 apostle John said that. And there is some truth that he loves his creations, but not everyone's

00:15:49.920 a child of God. If someone wants to know their identity, they don't need to turn to false gospel

00:15:56.360 personality tests. They need to turn to the Bible, as you said, Pastor Joel. There they will find who

00:16:01.340 they are. If they're a saved believer, they are a child of God. They're adopted into God's family.

00:16:07.620 What great news is that? That's better than any Enneagram number. That's better than any

00:16:12.260 horoscope name. That's better than anything you could find with the Myers-Briggs. To know that 0.60

00:16:17.200 you're adopted into God's family, that's the best news ever, especially since we were saved while

00:16:22.640 we were still dead in sin. Amen. Well, before we continue, I have a few more questions for you,

00:16:28.680 But because both Doreen and I want to be above reproach and we take the qualifications in scripture for Christians seriously, we don't want to open up ourselves to the charge of slander.

00:16:42.180 So we want to validate the claims that have been made so far in this episode.

00:16:47.400 So it's only about two minutes long, but I want to play a quick clip from, remind me the name of the person.

00:16:56.860 Yeah, this is Claudia Naranjo, who talks about how the Enneagram was created through the process of automatic writing.

00:17:05.600 Great. I didn't even want to attempt the pronunciation on that name.

00:17:09.020 So let's go ahead and play that clip to validate automatic writing.

00:17:13.340 It's really a confession from the author of the Enneagram that will validate the claims we've made so far.

00:17:19.480 So here's a quick clip. 0.68

00:17:20.280 So at the conference I told them I had made up this tale that all this came from millennia ago and the disinformation came from the Sufis.

00:17:32.000 I told him that actually Oscar Richardson had not described any of the Enneatypes either.

00:17:38.800 Actually in the seven months we spent with him, he devoted about six hours to talk about the Enneagram, but he never came to describe any one of the types.

00:17:49.200 That was in Eureka. In Eureka, Chile. In Eureka, Chile, yeah. So that came from my own observations, but mostly from automatic writing. Automatic writing? Yeah, it came to me through automatic writing. What did? The specific information about any types, which I then verified through observation, because I was surrounded by people I was teaching and exploring with.

00:18:13.400 And I had friends in Eureka who told me essentially the same story, that there was no mention of, no others besides, there was no mention of anyotypes except from you.

00:18:26.980 Yes.

00:18:28.600 So that you were the origin of the anyotype concept.

00:18:31.360 And you were the origin of the word anyotype.

00:18:34.540 Yes.

00:18:35.040 You suggested it and I adopted that idea.

00:18:37.080 All right, so I hope you can see from that clip that everything that Doreen has said so far is absolutely true.

00:18:44.220 This isn't some kind of practice that has its origin from a thousand years ago or back in the time of the apostles.

00:18:51.260 It doesn't have Christian origin.

00:18:53.040 It is a very modern invention that ultimately came out of one individual practicing this kind of mystical transdental stasis and channeling thoughts that have no basis really in scripture.

00:19:12.960 Would you agree with that, Dury?

00:19:14.060 Yes. And in addition to him admitting openly that he used this occultic dangerous practice to get the Enneagram information, they also admit in this clip that you just played, that they're using it for marketing purposes, they're using it to fool people, and they're, they're just blatant about their, their children of the father of lies.

00:19:35.940 I mean, it's just really clear in this. And just like I was saying with Sarah Young, she doesn't see that she's deceived and she's passing along the deception. There is so much that is contradictory of the Bible and Jesus calling.

00:19:49.340 there's there's and then she'll put a little scripture name she'll put like Galatians 5 9

00:19:55.920 at the bottom of the page so that people who don't read the Bible will feel safe but it's not safe

00:20:01.460 the Enneagram has been popularized into churches recently by a man named Richard Rohr who's good

00:20:07.840 friends with Oprah Winfrey and he has openly talked it's all over YouTube you can type in

00:20:14.040 Richard Rohr, and you can see clips of him saying that Jesus is the same as Buddha, and that

00:20:21.420 Christianity could learn a lot from Buddhism, and that the Jesus he knows, he wrote a book about a

00:20:27.920 Jesus that is different than the biblical Jesus, and that this Jesus is much more loving. That's

00:20:33.560 the false Jesus that I used to follow before I was saved. That Jesus is like this laid-back hippie 0.99

00:20:40.200 that says you can do whatever you want as long as you're happy. Follow your bliss, like Joseph

00:20:44.520 Campbell said. That's the false Jesus that Richard Rohr, he's some sort of, some monk. I don't know

00:20:54.740 his exact denomination background, but he wrote a book that helped to usher in so-called Christian

00:21:03.280 books that were published by some otherwise Christian publishers, you know, like IVP is

00:21:09.700 published a lot, The Road Back to You, which should give Christians pause. Because one of 0.96

00:21:15.860 the big issues with the Enneagram is that it's about self-glory. And we know if we read the

00:21:22.360 Bible that our purpose is to glorify God and to delight in him. Our purpose is not to glorify

00:21:28.740 ourselves. We were doing that before we were saved. We were all about me, me, me. And that's

00:21:33.460 what you see the false teachers giving these sermons that are all about eisegesis, that are

00:21:39.780 all about me-centered theology. And the Enneagram just has you completely focus on yourself,

00:21:47.360 which has you away from focusing on Jesus and the true gospel.

00:21:52.640 Amen. I completely agree. So that kind of really sets us up for exactly where I wanted to go next.

00:21:58.740 The question that I have written is this. What do you think about Christians taking personality tests in general? Is self-assessment really that accurate? The idea of, I don't really, to me, I always find it ironic. I'm going to take a personality test, so I'll just go ahead and show my hand real quick.

00:22:16.140 So I'm going to take a personality test for what purpose, right?

00:22:20.100 To what end?

00:22:21.140 Because I want to know more about myself.

00:22:23.200 Okay, well, who's taking the test?

00:22:25.720 Me.

00:22:26.200 So the guy who doesn't know enough about himself to know who he is is now going to assess himself to tell himself who he is.

00:22:34.740 And so I just, even the basic principle of I'm lacking self-assessment, so I'm going to gain self-assessment by self-assessment seems to be a little bit counterproductive to me.

00:22:47.080 So, however, I think that there can be some benefits, perhaps, but I just wanted to throw it to you.

00:22:53.500 What do you think about Christians taking personality tests in general, and is self-assessment really that accurate, and what balance should we strike?

00:23:02.040 Because certainly there's a certain point where we can be so introspective and so navel-gazing, so self-focused that it's really man-centered.

00:23:13.940 It's not seeking, as you just said earlier, to glorify God, but rather to glorify ourselves.

00:23:19.060 What are some of your thoughts on that?

00:23:21.000 Well, you know, we first should be really honest with ourselves and with God.

00:23:24.980 Why do I want to take this test?

00:23:26.780 What is my end goal in taking it?

00:23:28.540 Am I doing it to go along with the crowd?

00:23:30.880 Do I want to socialize because there's an Enneagram class at church?

00:23:34.960 Is my marriage in trouble?

00:23:36.960 And why am I wanting to take this and turn to God for wisdom?

00:23:40.240 He's the source of all wisdom, not a test.

00:23:42.760 And I loved what you said, Pastor Joel, that you are taking the test with your own answers.

00:23:47.940 So it's like a snake eating its own tail.

00:23:50.600 And it reminds me of some of those hokey spiritual gifts tests that I used to be into when I was first saved.

00:23:56.460 I repent for that.

00:23:57.520 So the spiritual gifts test, you write, oh, I frequently will speak in an unknown language, and we would answer no on that.

00:24:08.680 And so lo and behold, it says that our gift is not speaking in tongues.

00:24:12.900 Wow, how did that happen?

00:24:15.620 And it's not accurate to identify yourself that way.

00:24:19.140 It's just there's nothing of value in Enneagram test except for a value to the devil.

00:24:25.680 And he's winning because he's got he's successfully got people to waste their time once again,

00:24:31.340 when they could be using that time to study God's word and to glorify him.

00:24:37.060 I love what you said earlier about meditating.

00:24:40.080 A lot of people who have not read the Bible get very confused and they they write me nasty

00:24:45.500 letters saying, well, the Bible tells us to meditate, and that's why they justify doing

00:24:49.940 contemplative prayer, mindfulness, Lectia Divina, all these New Age, so mystical, they're just

00:24:57.800 mystical practices. Carl Jung, who was the basis of the Myers-Briggs test, famously told people

00:25:05.260 that the way to know God was through experiences. I used to say the same thing when I was a New Age

00:25:10.460 teacher. So I understand where Carl Jung as an unsaved, spiritually blind person would think

00:25:15.800 that because that's what I used to think. That's a secular worldview. It is not a biblical worldview

00:25:20.940 at all. The way to know God is to read and study his word. As you said, he's given us thousands of

00:25:26.360 word. And we must read the whole Bible. I know it's, it sounds intimidating. And there's parts

00:25:32.580 of the Bible that are super challenging. But that's why you have Pastor Joel and Right Response

00:25:37.100 ministries, and you have commentaries, like all these books that I turn to, that help you to

00:25:43.240 unpack what's being said in the Bible. It will tell you who God is, why you're here, why there's

00:25:50.680 suffering in the world, why there's evil in the world, all those questions that we all have,

00:25:55.060 you know, what happens after death, it's all answered in the Bible. That's why it's sufficient.

00:25:59.500 We don't need anything else. So in terms of should personality tests be taken by Christians, 0.99

00:26:04.100 There's no reason for it. And I would say, from my background, don't do it. It's too much temptation. It's like, like I said, a little leaven. It's ungodly counsel. It is taking false advice, which the Bible warns us about, that we are not to partake of worldly wisdom. Check out 1 Corinthians 3, 18 through 20. 1.00

00:26:28.120 people also argue pastor joel that the enneagram even though it has occultic roots can be redeemed

00:26:34.940 just like the meat was redeemed i think it's first corinthians 8 but check out that chapter

00:26:40.800 and you'll see that it's really about redeeming people not objects and it is it is really focused

00:26:48.760 on not causing someone to stumble and i'm here to argue that taking the enneagram and then later

00:26:54.220 boasting about it will cause a new weak believer to stumble because then they'll get mixed up in

00:27:00.980 it and it could leave them away from it. A lot of great thoughts. Yeah. The only tests I would

00:27:07.180 recommend is the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphase Act Personality Inventory, because that was done

00:27:13.940 scientifically with a built-in lie detector. So it asks the same question four different ways,

00:27:21.380 so you can't cross up. And that actually is a detector if you've done things like you have

00:27:26.940 dissociative disorder or hallucinating or things like that. So the MMPI would be the only truly

00:27:33.240 valid psychological test. But even then, I would use caution with that because it's a secular test 1.00

00:27:41.860 that should be administered by someone who's very knowledgeable with it. It's not to be used

00:27:45.920 lightly. It's not to be used in a church setting, but that would be the only test I would say could

00:27:52.620 be valid for Christians. Gotcha. That's really helpful. Just to add to that, I think part of what 1.00

00:27:58.880 I would say is both Doreen and I, just for the record, maybe as a helpful disclaimer, we both,

00:28:05.240 as Bible-believing Christians, do believe in spiritual gifts. Now, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:28:10.540 Doreen, but I think we would both be in the position of being a cessationist, but that

00:28:15.020 doesn't mean that we believe all spiritual gifts have ceased. And so, although we do think that

00:28:19.400 there are some gifts that were reserved in the beginning of the New Testament age, that apostolic

00:28:26.760 age, such as the gift of tongues or the gift of prophecy, we certainly still believe that the

00:28:32.540 Holy Spirit sovereignly gives gifts to individual believers for building up the body of Christ and

00:28:38.700 bringing glory to God, such as teaching. You know, we believe that the gift of teaching is a spiritual

00:28:43.800 gift, and we believe that the gift of teaching is something that still operates among Christians,

00:28:49.340 among believers in the church today, and so we do believe that individuals have been given

00:28:54.500 sovereignly by God spiritual gifts, gifts of help, administration, service, generosity, teaching,

00:29:01.460 all these things are gifts still operating in the church today, and it is important for Christians

00:29:06.920 to become aware of the individual spiritual gifts that they possess by sovereign decree of the Holy

00:29:15.840 Spirit so that they might, well, so that they might work to staff their weaknesses and yet at

00:29:21.620 the same time that they might work to play to their strengths for the service, for the upbuilding of

00:29:26.080 the body of Christ as a whole. They need to be aware, I need to be aware of what it is that the

00:29:31.040 Lord has gifted me in so that I can devote energy and time and effort in that vein so that I might

00:29:38.640 be as fruitful as possible for the good of the church and the glory of God. And I think all that

00:29:45.480 Doreen and I am saying is that that principle exists, that people have distinctions, that God

00:29:51.300 doesn't make everybody exactly the same. So there are differences, not only between men and women,

00:29:57.260 but also between individual men and individual women in the church.

00:30:02.260 But this idea that you would be the most qualified individual to assess you

00:30:10.900 seems to be a little bit, well, just kind of an oxymoron.

00:30:16.420 And so what we believe is that in the church,

00:30:19.400 one of the ways that God helps individuals identify their spiritual gifts

00:30:24.380 so that they might have more direction

00:30:27.240 in how to serve the body of Christ at large,

00:30:29.620 one of the ways that God does that

00:30:30.880 is through other believers in community.

00:30:34.640 That we're not just taking a spiritual gifts test

00:30:39.000 in the privacy of our home, you know,

00:30:40.940 or doing it online and then going to the church

00:30:44.180 or to the leaders of the church, the pastors,

00:30:46.520 and announcing, you know, I am Joel Webin

00:30:49.340 and I have this gift and you can't even question

00:30:52.600 whether or not I have this gift

00:30:53.800 Because I have my little certificate that I printed off from online, you know, that proves it. I think in some ways, the self-assessing personality test, spiritual gift test phenomenon, I think in some way, it's a quest for validation and significance.

00:31:12.060 I think it's a quest for people who, all of us, myself included, so I'm not above this, but I think all of us, we all wrestle with feelings of insignificance.

00:31:23.340 We all wrestle with feelings of lacking worthiness and those kinds of things, lacking worth.

00:31:31.560 And so I think it's a quest to find worth and significance, but misdirected, that we're going about it the wrong way.

00:31:42.880 First and foremost, we find worth in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

00:31:46.620 God didn't send his son to the world because we were lovely.

00:31:50.200 He sent his son to the world in order to make us lovely.

00:31:54.200 And so first, we have no worth outside of Jesus Christ.

00:31:57.460 Yes, there's a sense in which we are image-bearing creatures, and there's value in that as simply image-bearing creatures of a living God, and so there's value in that, but ultimately we have taken the image of God, it's been tarnished, it's been twisted because of original sin and our personal rebellion towards God.

00:32:19.560 And so ultimately, it's not until God redeems us by his grace and begins to sanctify us that we really gain true, ultimate, eternal value in the sight of God, where it really counts.

00:32:33.560 And so first, if you're lacking self-worth, if you're lacking a feeling of significance and those kinds of things, first, look to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

00:32:44.720 That's where true value originates.

00:32:47.920 Secondly, if you're looking for not so much that ultimate self-worth, but you're looking simply to identify your strengths and gifts so that you might be a further blessing to the body of Christ in your local church, co-discern those things with those who are mature.

00:33:07.440 And yes, there is a biblical principle for having sober judgment about yourself, right?

00:33:13.100 You shouldn't think of yourself more highly than you ought.

00:33:15.360 You also shouldn't think of yourself more lowly than you ought.

00:33:17.700 But each person should view themselves with sober judgment.

00:33:20.380 You can make a case that from that scripture, that is self-assessment, viewing yourself

00:33:24.180 with sober judgment.

00:33:25.400 But the question is, how do we arrive at that accurate self-assessment?

00:33:29.540 And I would argue that that verse does not make a case for doing that individually in

00:33:34.960 isolation.

00:33:35.480 I think that the verse, all the verse is saying is that we should arrive. It's speaking to the destination, not the journey, not the process of getting there. But the conclusion is that we should all have a proper, sober view of ourselves.

00:33:48.760 The verse does not say really anything about how we arrive at that proper view other than exemplifying humility.

00:33:56.280 And I think part of humility is subjecting ourselves to not just subjecting ourselves to ourselves,

00:34:03.720 but subjecting ourselves to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, allowing them to speak into our lives,

00:34:09.240 giving them a view, letting them see ourselves, not just showing up at a local church and saying,

00:34:14.700 this is my spiritual gift. I'm gifted to teach. I assume that I'll be preaching next Sunday. No,

00:34:21.140 why don't you just get there and serve and be faithful and be humble and allow God to exalt

00:34:27.860 the humble, right? He humiliates the proud, but he exalts in his proper time those who are humble,

00:34:34.880 and he'll use others, not just you, but others in the church to confirm and to help identify and

00:34:44.100 say, yeah, you know what? I really think that so-and-so is gifted in this and we should provide

00:34:48.520 an opportunity. The Bible says a man's gifts make room for him. So you just get on the ground and

00:34:54.660 start serving and commit your calling, commit your gifting, commit your future to the Lord

00:35:05.980 and allow him in his providence and in his sovereignty to speak to others, to help them discern,

00:35:15.800 help them recognize and identify those gifts and provide whatever platform the Lord has ordained

00:35:21.940 for you to have in his proper timing. So both Doreen and I, we believe in spiritual gifts.

00:35:27.940 We believe it's important to have sober judgment, to have an accurate self-assessment.

00:35:33.160 but what we're contesting is the process on how we get there how we identify those spiritual gifts

00:35:40.480 and how we come to a sober judgment of ourselves and i think one of the biggest things that we

00:35:44.940 would say is we've already said is is the word is the the word of god is the final arbiter

00:35:50.920 on those things but it's also the word of god interpreted and and and applied to you by the

00:35:58.360 body of Christ as a whole, not just individuals in isolation taking a test with the presupposition.

00:36:06.460 That's the irony. You're going into this with the presupposition of what you want to be.

00:36:11.060 You think that's not going to influence how you take that test, right? It's like, I've always

00:36:15.020 wanted to be da-da-da-da-da-da. Well, sure enough, my test results came back exactly how I hoped they

00:36:22.880 would well that's because you took the test you know it's just it's a bit dishonest i and i think

00:36:28.300 really a bit a bit naive and i think christians just we have to be more discerning um in regards

00:36:34.340 to those things and one of the things we need to be discerning of is is our own hearts which the

00:36:39.180 bible says is deceitful above all else it's so easy for us to deceive ourselves and so why why

00:36:46.480 not welcome others into the equation so that we're not tempted by self-deception or self-flattery or

00:36:53.840 self-focus? Would you agree with those things, Doreen? Oh, completely. Yes. I am a cessationist

00:37:01.240 in terms of the apostolic gifts are not needed after today. Hebrews 1, Peter the apostle makes

00:37:06.640 that very clear, but the gifts of administration are still here like teaching and mercy,

00:37:11.860 but they're not assessed by a spiritual gifts test. One of the things that you mentioned that

00:37:18.100 I wanted to highlight is that these tests lead to pridefulness. And we all know that the Bible says

00:37:24.500 that pride leads to a fall. And we want to be very careful because, as you said,

00:37:31.620 we'll be humbled in very painful ways if we go into pridefulness. And yet that's what we see.

00:37:36.540 I remember going to one Christian conference, Pastor Joel, where people were bragging,

00:37:41.680 including the main speaker about what number they were from the Enneagram test. And they were saying,

00:37:47.540 well, I'm an eight. I'm an eight. Me too. I'm an eight too. Oh, I hate ones. I hate twos.

00:37:52.300 And it's gobbledygook. I mean, nobody would do that at a Christian conference about their 1.00

00:37:57.240 astrological sign. You would never hear them say, oh, I'm a Sagittarius. Oh, really? Me too. I hate

00:38:02.300 Tauruses. Nobody would do that. But that's exactly what they're doing with the Enneagram numbers.

00:38:07.840 I recently interviewed a woman named Jill Lancour, who's a pastor's wife. And she said that when she

00:38:14.020 was in the Enneagram, into it, and she had been deceived, she ran Enneagram classes at her

00:38:20.220 husband's church. And she now has repented because she was more focused on her Enneagram number

00:38:26.740 and boasting about it than she was focused on the gospel or boasting about Jesus and what he's done

00:38:32.280 for us. And so there's, it's real subtle. In fact, the newest thing is that there's Christians who

00:38:38.500 are calling their little sect of Enneagram study, gospel Enneagram, and Christian Enneagram, 0.98

00:38:46.040 which should be a red flag. You know, it reminds me of some of the yoga instructors calling it

00:38:51.220 holy yoga, just because they stick scripture in front of this worship of Hindu deities through

00:38:56.900 poses. It doesn't work that way. You can't just put the name gospel in front of Enneagram and

00:39:02.980 redeem it. It's an unredeemable practice. And the Bible is very clear that we are not to

00:39:09.260 go to man-made ideologies. As you mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter if it's ancient.

00:39:15.380 The geometric shape, which to me reminds me of a pentagram or an astrological wheel,

00:39:22.020 that that shape is ancient but the the nine enneotypes which we listened to in that clip

00:39:27.760 you just played are very recent and they were originally hailed as something in the new age

00:39:33.560 community uh they were taught at esalon which is a new age uh kind of commune facility in northern

00:39:39.720 california and it was only in the new age community until richard roar popularized it he's a he's a

00:39:46.120 new ager who claims to be christian or catholic and and people listen to him because they're not

00:39:51.940 comparing things to the Bible. Why? Because the studies show, like the Pew Research and the

00:39:57.220 Ligonier studies show that only about 5% of Christians have read the whole Bible. I mean,

00:40:03.220 it's just, that's the guardrails we need. It's not legalism, because legalism is saying that

00:40:09.500 your actions save you. That's heresy. Only Jesus's actions saved us on the cross. We're

00:40:17.360 saved through God's mercy and grace through our faith in Jesus. But once we're saved, we want to

00:40:24.020 obey God. And Jesus even said in John 14, 15, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments. And one

00:40:30.740 of the commandments that he highlighted is to love God with all your heart and your mind and your

00:40:35.120 soul. To love God means to obey him. It means to trust him. If you're not trusting God, you're going

00:40:40.620 to go outside of God to astrology, to a Ouija board, or to Enneagram, which are all the same.

00:40:48.040 You're right. I just want to highlight one of the last things you said there that I was hoping we would get to, and I think it's a great way maybe to conclude our episode, but the greatest commandment for any Christian who might still be kind of pushing back at this point, they're watching and they're saying, well, the automatic writing or centered prayer, you know, or contemplative prayer, this idea, you know, it sounds like you're just making this case that, you know, unless I care about theology, I'm a second rate Christian, you know,

00:41:16.320 Or, you know, you're making me feel like because I'm not intellectual, then I'm less.

00:41:22.380 And I think that's part of the draw.

00:41:23.840 I think part of the draw is you're trying to find worth in something, trying to find that self-significance.

00:41:29.440 And you don't feel particularly gifted in one area.

00:41:33.080 And so you're trying to, you know, gravitate as an alternative to another.

00:41:37.160 And I would just encourage any Christian who's listening to this by saying the greatest commandment is to love God.

00:41:45.380 But if we're going to be honest and flesh the whole thing out, it's not just to love God however you want.

00:41:52.840 It's not just to love God your way.

00:41:56.120 Jesus is very clear.

00:41:57.340 It's to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

00:42:03.120 But also, he says, with all your mind.

00:42:05.780 with all your mind. And so genuine Christian love for God, it is a thoughtful, a thinking,

00:42:17.060 a reading, a studying love. It is. Is it heartfelt? Is it filled with zeal and passion?

00:42:27.520 you bet you it's a heart love but it's also a mind love uh it's and and i think christians look at

00:42:35.920 that and and i used to do this um christians will look at that the greatest commandment love the

00:42:42.860 lord your god with all your heart your mind your soul your strength and and what they'll do is

00:42:46.880 they'll kind of divide it up into three or four sections and they'll say i'm i'm called and the

00:42:53.440 way that God's gifted me the way that he created me I'm one of those individuals who's loving God

00:42:58.460 with all my heart and there are some who are loving God with all their mind and they basically

00:43:03.880 I guess what I'm saying is they they they fracture the commandment they they they divorce it they

00:43:10.780 divide it they break it up into as though it were three different commandments or four different

00:43:16.200 commandments and and as though uh as though it's optional not not the whole thing but you know

00:43:21.940 everybody has to pick one. You got to do one. You got to love God. But here are three different

00:43:27.000 options of how to love God. And all you have to do in order to be faithful to obey this commandment

00:43:32.360 is select one of them and really devote yourself to that. That is a horrible exegesis of the

00:43:38.540 greatest commandment. Each of us is called to love God with everything. If I was to exegete

00:43:44.260 that commandment as simple as possible, I'd say the commandment is to love God with all that we

00:43:50.540 have. And Christian, you may have never thought of yourself or identified as an intellectual.

00:43:58.780 You may have never felt like you were particularly intelligent or gifted when it comes to study,

00:44:06.900 but God gave you a mind. You're not a thoughtless, brainless person. God did not just give you a 0.98

00:44:14.560 heart. He didn't just give you emotions and zeal. He didn't just give you strength and a body to

00:44:20.520 walk out the faith in action. He didn't just give you an eternal soul, but he also gave you

00:44:27.480 a mind. And to the best of your ability, with what God gave you, use it. Just like the parable

00:44:33.620 of Jesus with the three servants, and they each are given different degrees, different measurements

00:44:38.260 of talents. One has five, and one has two, and one has one. You may feel like I just have one talent

00:44:44.700 in the mind category. Well, put it to work. Don't bury it in the sand out of insecurity or fear.

00:44:53.720 Put your mind to work, and I bet you that you will be surprised by how much you really can grasp

00:45:05.780 in deep ways the truths of God if you apply yourself. I've talked to so many Christians who

00:45:11.000 who they were never before being converted they were never um they weren't bookworms they weren't

00:45:16.920 nerds they weren't you know that's just not who they were they were always into sports or things

00:45:21.940 maybe more physical or less mental um or maybe more artistic than they were you know studious

00:45:28.040 but but but god so changed their heart they they became so zealous and so interested so desirous

00:45:35.680 of the things of God, they were like, well, yeah, I've never really been much of a studious person,

00:45:41.380 but I want to know God. And all of a sudden, this person who was, you know, if you look at

00:45:47.120 their childhood, they were a lot more interested in PE, you know, than they were math or, you know,

00:45:52.200 arithmetic or English. And now all of a sudden, I've talked to people who, before being converted,

00:45:58.060 they only read two or three books all the way through in their entire life. And now they just,

00:46:02.600 they're a ferocious reader and it turns out they actually were a lot more intelligent than they

00:46:07.520 gave themselves credit for they just didn't have something that interested them but if you're a

00:46:13.620 christian guess what you have something that you should find very very interesting namely someone

00:46:20.300 the triune god and he wrote a book for us and uh and and we are called to love him christians

00:46:28.900 do not have the prerogative to opt out of loving God with their mind, I guess is the short way to

00:46:37.840 say. Any final thoughts, Dori? Yeah, I love everything you said. I completely agree with

00:46:43.100 you, Pastor Joel. Thank you so much. My final thought is that when people take the Enneagram,

00:46:49.280 a lot of times it's because they want to know about their relationships. That's their stated

00:46:54.840 goal. They want to know about their marriage. But the most important relationship is with our

00:47:00.100 triune God. And if we're in a relationship with God, you want to know everything about your

00:47:06.240 beloved. So the way to know about our triune God is to read his word. And that is to study the Bible

00:47:12.840 every day. I know everyone's busy and distracted. I'm busy, I get distracted. For me, it's word

00:47:19.700 before world. It's just before I allow myself to do anything else. I'm in the seat with the Bible.

00:47:25.600 I go through a book at a time. I just started Proverbs again. And every time you read it,

00:47:31.420 the Holy Spirit will illuminate something new for you that you learn about our triune God

00:47:35.480 and really about yourself too. You're right. Absolutely right. Well, in each of our episodes,

00:47:42.900 What we do is we conclude the episode, and then we also just kind of, before completely cutting off the episode, we kind of give for our listeners our bonus question, and we have each of our guests stay on for another five to ten minutes to answer the bonus question.

00:48:01.460 So our bonus question today is this, what can you tell us about the concept of soul ties, the concept of soul ties, this idea of, you know, that somebody has been physically, you know, intimate with someone and now they're bound to them in some eternal or lifelong way.

00:48:20.140 So what can you tell us about the concept of soul ties and is this concept actually biblical?

00:48:25.700 So we're going to come on in our bonus hours edition for our responders.

00:48:30.660 If you're not a club member, we call them our responders.

00:48:33.420 We encourage you to take a moment and go ahead and subscribe.

00:48:37.460 Become a responder today.

00:48:39.100 The minimum tier is $10 a month.

00:48:42.080 This helps to fund the ministry so that we can continue to put out biblically faithful and relevant content such as this episode.

00:48:49.780 And as an incentive for all of our responders, we have our bonus edition material.

00:48:56.460 And again, it's going to be for this particular episode with Doreen, what can you tell us about

00:49:01.740 the concept of soul ties?

00:49:03.240 And is this concept actually biblical?

00:49:05.640 So let's go ahead and conclude our episode.

00:49:07.540 Doreen, could you let our listeners know how they can be following you and keeping up with

00:49:11.660 your ministry?

00:49:12.840 Absolutely.

00:49:13.600 I have a YouTube channel called Doreen Virtue for Jesus, F-O-R, Jesus.

00:49:18.180 and also I'm on Instagram at Doreen Virtue.

00:49:22.260 People can see my posts and videos that way.

00:49:25.340 And if they have questions,

00:49:26.760 they're absolutely invited to write me

00:49:28.780 at Instagram Direct Messages.

00:49:31.100 I am the only person reading and answering.

00:49:33.840 So sometimes I'm slow,

00:49:35.320 but I do my best to answer everyone as much as I can.

00:49:39.480 Great.

00:49:40.140 Thanks so much for coming on, Doreen.

00:49:41.860 Thank you.

00:49:44.260 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount,

00:49:46.720 we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store to access this offer visit

00:49:51.880 right response ministries.com slash offer we highly recommend pastor joel's book am i truly

00:49:57.900 saved if you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of god this would be a great

00:50:03.340 resource as a reminder to get this offer go to right response ministries.com slash offer

00:50:08.720 and thank you for your generous support

00:50:16.720 Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - April 21, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Why Christians Should Avoid The Enneagram

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