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EPISODE 50: Q&A

Date: 10/7/2020

Release date: 10/13/2020

Lighting Round

  1. How do you choose to name or not name a pastor/theologian in your sermons? And why?
  1. Does Josh regularly indulge in the viewership of the quality children’s program known as Veggie tales?

Questions

  1. I have been hearing various people throughout our church talking about the Enneagram.  We’ve done some surface level reading about it (the Gospel Coalition has a good article describing the history and recommendations on how Christians should approach it). We’d like to hear your thoughts on not only the pros and cons of the Enneagram, but also how we as a church should communicate our relationship with it. We have had a number of conversations with people in and out of the church where it has come up, and given that it has history in some unbiblical sounding things (Islamic mysticism, the occult, etc.) we’d like to make sure we aren’t confused about how our church might be using it. Does it align with and reaffirm God’s Word? If not, should it be used as a tool for discipleship? I believe that we can learn from secular things, but the concern is more of the origins and perception.
    1. TGC articles
      1. I love TGC, but feel like they sometimes feel pressure to put out an article on everything even when they haven’t really done their research.
      2. Kevin DeYoung did a review of one enneagram book (my least favorite of all enneagram books). 
      3. Joe Carter did one of his FAQ posts on the enneagram that linked to some rather strange places (like oceanmoonshine9.wordpress.com, which is titled “the enneagram…info from the underground. An anonymous website that was created in 2005-06).
      4. Both seem to imply that Christians should be cautious with the enneagram as a personality tool because of its origins (we’ll talk about that in a bit) and offer other personality tools that they recommend. But one of those personality tools was created by an Episcopal priest who was married four times. 
      5. The final post on TGC, gives a great reminder, but coats it as a warning: Make sure the Bible doesn’t get replaced with a personality tool. Of course we don’t want to do that. We also don’t want TGC to replace the Bible either.
    2. Enneagram origins
      1. No one really knows for sure. My wife was assigned a paper in her Master’s Counseling program on the enneagram and had to research its origins. And after her research her conclusion was, “While original roots of the enneagram are a bit mysterious…” and then went into all of the different possibilities of where it began. Including what TGC states as the origin.
      2. But the point is that there are lots of theories as to when and where it began. So my caution would be to watch how we read into the origin of it with whatever bias we have towards the enneagram (or whatever bias we’re getting our information from — like TGC).
    3. Receive, Reject, Redeem
      1. Myers-Briggs creator based her personality test on theories by Carl Jung. He’s someone who wrote a book called Answers to Job where he claims that Job is more morally upright than God. And that God will have to incarnate again with man — like Jesus — but this second time instead of being good, this incarnation will be the evil side of God. So that’s some of the influence behind the Myers-Briggs personality test that I’m sure most everyone has taken. Yet we’re so far removed from the origins and have seen its usefulness that we’re not concerned about all of that.
      2. 1 Kings 11:1-13 (King Solomon worshipped other gods and was punished by God for his disobedience; do we reject or even question what he wrote? “But it’s in the Bible…” which means that God can use someone who worshipped false gods to write Scripture, so why can’t God use someone today to write things that will benefit us?)
    4. What is the enneagram?
      1. To keep it simple, it’s a personality profile tool.
      2. What makes it different is how it targets the motivations behind why we act and do the things we do. 
      3. These motivations can be unhealthy (sinful) or healthy (godly).
      4. The tool doesn’t excuse sin, but for many folks it helps them to get past behavior modification to really dig into why they do the things they do.  
    5. Personally
      1. Most helpful personality tool for my wife and I in our marriage.
      2. Other personality tools have us being the same personality. And we always knew there was something different. Myers-Briggs, strengthsfinder, DISC, etc…we were always the same. But with the enneagram, we discovered that we are different!
    6. Staff
      1. We spent a year as a staff using the enneagram as a personality profiling tool.
      2. Becoming more self-aware and understanding how to work with each other better.
    7. Recommended resources
      1. 9 Types of Leadership by Chestnut
      2. The Complete Enneagram by Chestnut
      3. Personality Types by Riso and Hudson
      4. The Path Between Us by Stabile
      5. Self to Lose Self to Find by Vancil
      6. Typology podcast
      7. Leeann and Michelle (youtube)
  1. When Acts 13:48 says, “All who were ‘appointed’ (chosen) for eternal life believed,” is that not confirming predestination? Not that anyone knows who was preselected so to speak, if that is so. On another note is that saying once saved always saved?
    1. Confirms predestination? It definitely supports it. 
    2. Once saved always saved.
      1. This is different.
      2. Order of salvation.
      3. Romans 8:29-30
      4. Hebrews 7:25