WWUTT 1925 Q&A End Times Views, Critiquing the Enneagram, Personality Tests

Psalm 104 and God’s Sovereign Majesty

What are the different views of the end times? Should your church require members to have a particular end times view? And does the Bible say anything regarding personality tests? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Be sure to tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome. Psalm 104. Bless Yahweh, O my soul. O Yahweh my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, wrapping yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching out the heavens like a tent curtain.

He lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters. He sets up the clouds to be his chariot. He walks upon the wings of the wind. He makes his angels the winds, his ministers flaming fire. Our God is sovereign.

He sits in the heavens. He does all he pleases. Fret not. The God who has situated the heavens the way that they are is on our side for all those who are in Christ Jesus. This is the Friday edition of When We Understand The Text.

When we take questions from the listeners and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Babe, I said this week we're going to be talking personality. Oh, yeah. The Enneagram.

Yeah. Yay, fun. And other such personality tests. Sure. Because we've had a few questions about this, reviewing comments since that video which I posted, let's see, that was Saturday last week, I think that I.

Was it really? I posted that one. Yep. Okay. So in. I didn't feel like it was that long ago. Within a span of about four or five days had over 20 ,000 views. Wow. Thank you so much for watching. Yes. Thank you for sharing.

You can find the YouTube channel, youtube .com slash WWUTT. But in case you don't know what video we're talking about, I'm going to play it for you in just a moment. Okay. You won't get the fun slides and graphics, but the audio will be enough for you to be able to capture everything that's going on there.

Sure. Yeah. It'll just be audio. If you want to watch the video, you got to go to the YouTube channel. Before getting to that, I got a couple of Twitter polls that I did recently. We're going to look at the results of that.

Okay. First, we want to mention. I did not partake. You didn't vote in either poll? No, I didn't know they were going on. Oh, babe. Well, they're only 24 hour polls. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I'm not on Twitter that often.

But both had to do with the end times. Okay. So we're going to look at the results of this. Oh, one of the polls I posted. So our homeschool group came to an end this past Monday. Right. Like the year is over.

They did their year end sort of. What would we call that? End of year celebration. That's what it's called? Yeah. So our end of year celebration was on Monday night. How old is he now? 20 months?

How old is Bubz? I don't know. I tell everybody he turns two in September. Okay. So there you go.

We passed 18 months, which is a year and a half.

And then we stopped keeping track. I have a hard enough time keeping track of my own age.

Well, yeah, because you keep telling everybody you're 27. Well, it's easier. Every year you turn 27.

This year I actually turned 40. That was easy math.

As I get older and you keep saying 27, that's starting to make people go, hmm.

Well, I don't look 27 anymore, so it's okay.

When did Gabe and Becky start having kids? A little curious there. So anyway, yeah. So he was 18 months on March 1st. Yes. So 19 months, 20 months. He's at 20 months. Okay. There we go. You were right then.

I had that right. So anyway, he was carrying on, cannot keep him quiet to save our lives. Oh, yes. On Monday night at the year-end thing. Yes. Yes.

Okay. So anytime anybody has the stage, whether it be at home, at church, or during these sort of events, he has to compete. That's right.

He's got to carry on and make noise. So I went outside with him because he loves to watch cars go by. Oh, yes. And this was where I came up with this poll question. So while I'm standing out there with him, making sure he doesn't leave the sidewalk, kind of standing between him and the road, I did this poll question and posted it.

Where would you say your eschatology most closely aligns? Okay. Your view of the end times, where would you say that you settle? The four options were dispensationalism, premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism.

Mm-hmm. There's the four views of the end times. I had 4 ,066 votes. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, good response to this poll. Dispensationalism, and when I was watching it for the first few hours, it really was a horse race.

Okay. Dispensationalism came out really strong, really fast. Yeah. Like way ahead of everybody else. I wasn't too surprised by that. Amillennialism was dead last. Premillennialism was close second to dispensationalism after a little while.

It kind of started to catch up. Postmillennialism might have been in third. Postmillennialism did end up in first place at one point, so it pulled out ahead of dispensationalism and premillennialism. Okay.

No, wait. I'm confused because I thought that premillennialism and dispensationalism go together. Hang on. Hold on to that.

Okay. Okay. Hold on. That's in the responses that we're going to read. Okay. Okay, good. From some of the comments that we got from people, too. Check. Eventually, amillennialism came out in front and held the position.

Oh, wow. Okay. It came out this way. Even though dispensationalism was in first place right out of the gate and a strong lead out of the gate, it finished with 12 .5 of the vote. Oh, wow. Dead last and not even anywhere close to third.

In third place was postmillennialism, which had 27 .3 of the vote. Very close to premillennialism, which was second, 27 .7 of the vote. Okay. And the leader was amillennialism with 32 .4 of the vote.

Now, some had made the comment that there were probably some dispensationalists that voted premillennial because they didn't recognize the difference. Right. That's a possibility. Yeah. Really, there's only two categories here.

There's premillennialism and postmillennialism. Mm-hmm. When I did my what video on the end times, I mentioned that. These are the two views of the end times. We typically think of there being four views.

Mm-hmm. But there's only two, and then those two views are split into two more views. Sure. So, you've got four. Under premillennialism, you have premillennialism and dispensationalism. Okay. Or what would be called dispensational premillennialism and historic premillennialism.

Oh, okay. Then under postmillennialism, you have amillennialism and classical postmillennialism. The term amillennialism didn't even come about until just a couple of hundred years ago. Mm-hmm. And it really, there was kind of a faction among postmillennials because amillennials were taking a more pessimistic view, whereas the classical postmillennials had a more optimistic view of the world getting better and things are improving as Christianity is spreading and things like that.

Like you hoped for. Right. So, the postmillennials were making fun of the amillennials and came up with that term. Okay. And so, it was a critical term.

Was it more like, ah, millennials.

Might have been. Like it was kind of like, you don't even believe in a millennium. So, it became amillennial. Of those four views, amillennial apparently was the one that got picked on the most because it has the most negative name.

Okay. It's like the amillennial doesn't actually believe in no millennium, but that's what the name means. Right. So, that means somebody that didn't like the viewpoint gave them that name. Uh-huh. They didn't decide, no, I don't believe in a millennium, so I'm going to be amillennial.

That isn't where that came from. In case you're not familiar with these two views, so the main difference between premillennialism and postmillennialism is where the millennial reign of Christ is. Uh-huh.

So, both the amillennials and postmillennials believe we're in the reign of Christ now. Right. The amillennials believe that Christ's reign is in heaven. Postmillennials do believe that his reign will be on earth, but it's as the kingdom is expanding presently as Christians are being added to the kingdom.

Okay. Premillennials believe that the millennial reign of Christ is going to be after his return. So, postmillennials, it's before his return. Premillennials, it's after his return. Almost sounds like the names are backwards.

Yeah, it does. Does that mean if the millennial kingdom is going to be after his return, wouldn't that be postmillennial? Right. Yeah. So, it does sound like somebody got a little mixed up in how we were throwing these names around.

So, Christ will return and he will set up his earthly kingdom and will reign from Jerusalem. Uh-huh. Both the dispensational premill and the historic premill believe that, but a dispensational premillennial believes that there's a rapture, then seven years of tribulation, and then Christ returns again.

Uh-huh. That's the distinction between dispensationalism and premillennialism. Okay. But then again with amillennialism and postmillennialism, the amill will say Christ's kingdom is in heaven where he reigns presently.

The church is kind of like the outpost of that kingdom. Postmillennialism believes Christ is reigning in the present millennium and that his kingdom is expanding through his church. Okay. So, anyway, I'm pretty sure I kind of summarized that the best I could there.

There's the four different views of end times and there you have the percentages of how people came out. Uh-huh. So, here's the comments that we got as a result of that. Katie, the Berean Millennial.

Okay. Who, by the way, you can follow on Twitter. She's also got a snappy Instagram account. Has more followers on Instagram, I believe. And that's probably her platform. But she's got some good apologetic videos, ladies, if you're looking for some good stuff like that.

I don't have Instagram. No, that's fine. That's fine. You don't need Instagram. See, one more thing. That's right. It's one more thing. I just use it to post memes. I'm glad she's on it, though. Yeah.

She's got a good ministry there. So, she said, everyone that doesn't believe exactly like me is absolutely wrong. But I'm not going to tell y 'all what I believe because it's Twitter. So, you'll just have to accept wondering if you're wrong.

Fair enough. David from Baltimore. You're asking for trouble with this one. I believe that. I responded to David, hey, I'm not capping anybody. Yeah. I'm not saying this view is bad and this view is good.

It's just an even end times question. Uh-huh.

That's where you're stirring the pot already.

Just that I'm suggesting the fact that there's more than one view is going to make somebody angry.

Because more than one view is an option. Right. There's only one. There's only one. There can only be one.

And watch us all be wrong. Well, I really think, you know, I've said that I align more on the amillennial side of things by default. Right. Because it's the system that I have the least number of problems with.

Uh-huh. It doesn't really mean that I think that amillennialism is foolproof. Right. I really think that when Christ returns, we're all going to be pleasantly surprised. Right.

Well, that's what the Bible says we're going to be. Yeah. So, you know.

Yeah. 2 Thessalonians 1 says, we will marvel when he returns. Amen. With his angels. And he gathers up his saints. Toby from Washington says, I'm amill with no problem making perfect sense of Zechariah.

Okay. Nice. This goes back to the Shepherd's Conference in March. Because the sermon that John MacArthur said. I wondered about that. Yeah. He said that Zechariah is an amillennial's worst nightmare. Uh-huh.

I'm sitting there going, nope, I have no problems with Zechariah. Yeah. It does not demolish my eschatology at all. Adam from Florida, depends on the day, brother, I fall on amill or postmill. You know, it's interesting that he says that.

Because I've had postmillennials tell me that I sound amillennial. And I've had amillennials tell me that I sound postmillennial.

Like you said, you can't like say you're one without. Yeah.

It's in the same category. Yeah. They're both on the side of postmillennialism.

And you're kind of like not completely there. Yeah. So, yeah.

I'm sure the Dispies are out there going, yeah, that's what we think. You're not all there. I'm not in the category. So, this one from Smash Bales, which one do you belong to? Well, I answer that one.

It's the Amillennial Camp. In fact, you can find my blog on it. It was the sermon that I preached back in 21 on amillennialism. So, if you search for, if you do a Google search for Pastor Gabe amillennialism, that article will come up.

Baptist Knox in Montana. I don't see panmillennialism, and I am offended. Everything's going to pan out in the end. Yeah, that's right. That's panmillennialism. Which, by the way, if you're panmill, you're amill, just so you know.

Bernard says, if someone were to get ratioed on a poll, I believe it's appropriate that this would be the one. You understand the concept of getting ratioed? No, I have no idea. It's where your comments exceed, like, number of likes.

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. But in this particular case, since it's a poll, it would be votes. Right. But I did not get more comments than votes. So, I wasn't ratioed. Interesting. Crystal said, I don't know.

I come from an Arminian background, and I just don't know. I didn't even know there was more than the dispensational point of view. No one has helped me figure it out after that. You know, I was attending a youth group.

This was when I was in my 20s, and I was at this particular youth group, I think because I was speaking there or I was helping out or something. I can't remember why I was there. Okay. You were just there.

I was there. Okay. And I know they had just finished up a series on the end times, and they said something about it. Like, one of the youth leaders said, hey, if you missed our series, if you didn't get all the packets with the information, here we have the packets here.

And at some point at the very end, we were talking about the series that they had just been through. This wasn't like I wasn't teaching anymore. We were kind of just mingling around and talking. Sure.

And I asked a question that was something to the effect of, so how did you do the whole end times thing? Did you do, like, here's a dispensational view, and here's what the pre-meals believe and what the post-meals believe?

And as I was asking that question, the youth were just kind of standing there staring at me, bug-eyed. They're like, what are you talking about? Oh, interesting. And then it was somebody that said, no, no, no, no, no.

We just talked about, and then what they explained was only dispensational. So I said, okay, so you were only doing the dispensational view. You didn't go through all the different other views. And that was when the other student spoke up and said, we didn't even know there were other views.

Oh, wow. So I may have sowed some seeds of division that night. May? Just as a guest speaker being there.

Well, that's okay, because then they can go and study on their own and with help, and they get to know the word more. That's right. There is nothing wrong with that.

Broaden their horizons a little bit. That's right. You know, every time I heard R .C. Sproul talk on the subject, he would say where he fell, but then he would also give other views. Right. Briefly. It wasn't like an exhaustive explanation of each view.

Right. Then it would be a whole sermon. Right. But he was always very respectful. And I remember a Q &A that he did once where somebody asked him what his end times view was, and he said, well, it depends on the season.

You could ask me, and I might have changed my mind. I think he kind of waffled between amillennialism and postmillennialism. He said, I can tell you what I'm not. I'm definitely not dispensationalist, and I'm definitely not a full preterist.

So full preterism, by the way, is the idea that all of the prophecy that we're reading about in Scripture already came to fulfillment. Okay. So there's really nothing we're looking toward. It's already all happened.

Revelation was written before 70 AD. Yeah, right. So it's entirely a past. See, I don't like the view that everything is futurist. Yeah. So we're only looking toward the future, and there's really only going to be one generation of human history that these things absolutely pertain to.

Oh, wow. And then the opposite of that is preterism, which is all these things have already happened. So we're looking back at something that's already taken place. Okay. And it's kind of like, okay, well, then, how does this apply to us now?

Either one of those. So next one, this is from Pastor Keith in Nebraska. I'm a premill dispensationalist, but I most definitely will not die on that hill. It's okay. You can change your mind. Yeah. I've changed my mind over the years.

I have a fellow elder, Doug, at our church. He said he's been through all of them. Oh, really? I started out dispensationalist. I became a historic premill, then amill, and now I'm postmill. So, yeah, you just run the gamut.

Brewster from North Carolina. It's strange that you offer two options that overlap with each other. And then Jameson from Oklahoma. I've always understood dispensationalism to be a subset of premillennialism kind of messes with the poll a little bit.

Well, like I said, they really fall into two categories. So I'm looking at the two broken up into four. Yeah. And, yeah, that's why you had those options. But it could be that between the premillennials and the dispensationals, those numbers may have evened out a little bit more than that.

Yeah. Rather than leaving the dispensationalists in the dust like that. Yeah. There probably were more, and they were just selecting premillennialism. Emily said, I still don't know what these words mean, and at this point, I'm too afraid to ask.

Oh, no. There must have been some conversations. Well, look for my explainer video. It's just 90 seconds, or it might have been a two-minute video. I can't remember. But that was the one I did. The first video I did this year was on the four views of the End Times.

The what video? All right. So then after that, I did another poll. OK. And this poll was a two-question poll about End Times views. Number one, does your church have, in their statement of faith, a particular view of eschatology, premill, postmill, etc.?

And number two, does your church require that someone must hold that view in order to become a member or serve in the leadership? Yes to both, 7 .6%. So their church would... How many votes? Oh, yeah.

Sorry. This was over 1 ,000. I didn't write it down, but it had over 1 ,000 votes. OK. Another good turnout. Yep. So 7 .6 said yes. We have a particular End Times view in our statement of faith, and you have to hold to that in order to be a member or serve in the leadership.

18 .7 said yes to one. So the End Times view is in the statement of faith, but no to two. You don't have to hold that view to become a member or serve in the leadership. OK. That's a little confusing.

Say that again. That's a little confusing. So they have it in the statement of faith, but you don't have to hold to it to become a member.

Yeah. Why would you have it in the statement of faith? Yeah, I'm not sure. OK. I don't know. Just to let people know what you'd be preaching about? Possibly. OK.

Could be that. Maybe. It could be the sort of a thing where, like, when you ask them, if you interview this family for membership at the church, and you ask them something like, have you read our statement of faith?

Is there anything in there that you disagree with? And they might say, well, I don't hold that End Times view. OK, was that going to be a problem for division? No, it's fine with me. You know, that sort of thing.

It could be that. OK. But with leadership, too, you would think that that'd be important if it's in their statement of faith.

So, yes, it's in the statement of faith. No, you don't have to hold to that particular End Times view in order to serve in the leadership. Be a member or serve in the leadership. Right. Yeah. Anyway, OK.

That's interesting. Our church is no to both. We do not have it in our statement of faith, and you're not required to hold a specific End Times view. You just have to believe Christ is coming back bodily, just like he ascended into heaven bodily.

He's gathering up his saints. He's going to judge the living and the dead. We'll live with him forever in his glorious kingdom. Amen. We understand the basics. The important part. I mean, the very, very important part.

The very important part. Yeah. Yeah. We might disagree on the order in which all of these things are going to happen. But we still hold to the same.

Which is fine. Yeah. OK, so how many percentage had that?

70 .5 said no to both. Oh, wow. That's a lot. And then 3 .1 said other. I just threw that in there. I really don't know what I meant by other or what I intended by that. Maybe they were just looking.

They didn't know. That's right. So they were looking for results. I don't know. So I'm clicking on something.

I can see the results. Yeah. Justin Peters commented on that. OK. And he said yes to one, but a split decision on two. You do not have to hold the same eschatology to be a member, but you do in order to serve as a pastor, elder, or in the leadership.

See, I can see that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. But I was just kind of curious.

Fellow by the name of Big Blue, yes to number one, no to number two. But when I was searching for a church, I attended a Reformed Baptist church and went through the membership classes, found out they are pre-mill.

And I told them that I was post-mill. And they said if I join, I'm not allowed to share my eschatology with anyone at the church. Whoa. Yeah, that's pretty harsh. I was interviewed by a Reformed Baptist church who was interested in me becoming their senior pastor.

Mm-hmm. And I'm like, OK. I'm willing to have that conversation. I found out in those conversations that they were dispensational pre-mill, which I'm not. And I said, you're a Reformed Baptist. And they said, yes.

And I said, so you hold to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. And they said, yes. And I said, in your dispensational pre-mill? That doesn't fit with the LBCF. Yeah. Needless to say, the conversations came to an end at that point.

So I didn't cut it off. Like, I was OK. You just have to accept that that's not what I'm preaching when I get up there. But yeah, anyway, I get it. If a church has settled that that's going to be their end times position, it's good that you state that out front.

If it's really going to be a source or rather, you want to prevent it from being a source of division. So you're setting that out front at the first. Right. So that people are aware this is where our leadership sets.

This is the view of the end times that they're going to present. And so if I'm comfortable with that, I can become a member. But if not, I have to be willing to bite my tongue if I want to be a member of this church, at least over end times stuff.

I mean, I don't think you should have to bite your tongue. But just don't cause a ruckus. You know?

Well, I think that's what Like, get all heated. I mean, if they have that in the statement of faith, and they want you to adhere to it to become a member, that's pretty much what they expect. That's true.

Yeah. We're not teaching all the end times views. We're going to say the other three are wrong, and this one is right. That's the way they're going to approach it. And that's when you bite your tongue.

Yeah. Right. Right. I get it. So this person, Casey, for my current church, yes to one, unsure about number two. Interesting. So it's in the statement of faith, but whether or not a person has to hold to that to become a leader or a member.

And Casey went on to say, for my last church, I went to the website and just realized there's absolutely no statement of faith on it. Nothing. And they don't ask leadership to hold to any particular view as well.

Okay. Yeah. Colin from Iowa, the PCA holds that you cannot be dispensational premill and be an officer. However, that belief system doesn't prevent someone from becoming a member. There you go. So in the Presbyterian Church of America, you can't be dispensational premill in order to be an officer.

I guess that would be either pastor or deacon, elder, lay elder, et cetera. Yeah. But dispensational premills can become members of Presbyterian churches.

Yeah, because you can persuade anybody. Just teasing.

All right. So before we transition into the next part, we're going to be talking about the Enneagram and personality in general. But first of all, I want to mention G3, again, coming up in September. Yes.

We're going to be there. We've got a booth at G3. We hope to see you there as well. To register, go to g3min .com. Org. I do this every time. You do. I do this every week. Anyway, you'll figure it out.

It's one of those. Go to the website. You'll find one or the other. And then what was the other thing I was going to mention? Next week, we're going to be in Garden City, Kansas. Yes. And I'm going to be preaching at New Life Community Church on North Campus Road.

So if you're in the Garden City area, I haven't been to Garden City in, I think, 10 years or something. Or more. Yeah. You've driven through there more recently than I have, I think, haven't you? Probably.

I know we've been. But I didn't really stop. We went through Dodge City on the way to your grandparents. Right. Maybe.

We don't go through Garden on that way. But I think I went on a trip with my family to go to Garden for something. Right.

I want to say I did too, though, because it seems like I remember we left Ulysses and we were heading north and we went to Garden.

I was pretty sure we did. I think it was a fridge that we were going for. A fridge? A fridge. I wasn't part of that trip. Grandma and Grandpa's fridge went out.

So we had to book it. Gotcha.

So we're going back. We're going to see some of Becky's family. I'm going to be at a church while I'm there as well. Again, that's New Life Community Church on North Campus. Worship starts at 9 .30. Yeah.

9 .30 a .m. Sunday, May 14th. That's Mother's Day. Yes, it is. Yeah. Come worship with us. Yeah. If you're in the area, would love to see you. Okay. Let's get to this deal about the Enneagram. Yeah. What in the world is it?

I was surprised at the number of people that commented and said never even heard of this until now.

That's fine. I thought that it was more of a well-known than that. It is pretty widespread.

Yeah. And the more research that I did into this, the more I came to realize just how widespread it is. But I'm glad if you hadn't heard of it. That's a good thing. Right. Because that shows that you're attending a church that's not dabbling into any of this stuff.

Yeah. So here's the video that I did. This is about 10 and a half minutes. Becky's got the tag at the very end. And then we'll read some of the comments that we got after sharing this video on the Enneagram.

In 1 John 4, 1, the Bible says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Let's test the spirits behind the Enneagram.

What is it? How has it become so popular in many churches? Where does it really come from? And what does the Bible have to say? The Enneagram of personality, or simply the Enneagram, is a nine-sided star polygon used to classify human personalities into nine interconnected personality types.

The word comes from the Greek words enia, meaning nine, and grama for writing or drawing. Each number at each point of the Enneagram corresponds with a different personality. The Enneagram is utilized anywhere from business management to religious contexts.

Some believe it can help a person understand their own personality and the personalities of others, improve interpersonal dynamics, and become healthier and more productive. The religious believe it can help a person know God or achieve enlightenment.

Others do it just for fun. Though the Enneagram is largely regarded as pseudoscience, it has developed into a cottage industry with seminars, conferences, books, jewelry, candles, and more. This became quite the fad in many American churches.

Franciscan priest Richard Rohr was one of the first to promote the Enneagram to Christians with his book, The Enneagram, A Christian Perspective, published in 1995 and again in 2001. Over the next few years, Rohr's teaching on the Enneagram caught on with the emergent church movement, including teachers like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren.

In 2016, Christian publisher InterVarsity Press released The Road Back to You, An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile, who is called the Enneagram Godmother. Ivy Press has since published dozens of books on the Enneagram, including an entire series devoted to each personality type.

Andy Stanley had Ian Cron, an Episcopal priest and psychotherapist, on his Leadership Podcast to promote the Enneagram. Stanley said Cron is responsible for introducing the Enneagram to its broadest audience, evangelicals.

Rick Warren has hosted Enneagram seminars for teachers at Saddleback Church. Tyler Zack is an Enneagram pastor who has organized the Gospel for Enneagram Summit. Speakers included Russell Moore of Christianity Today and Lisa Vischer, the voice of Junior Asparagus from the popular children's series Veggie Tales.

She's now an Enneagram coach. Other speakers included Beth and Jeff McCord, who founded Your Enneagram Coach so Christians can use its power to harness and transform self-limiting behaviors into life-enhancing personal empowerment.

The gift of the Enneagram, they say, is that through self-discovery, one can create and sustain meaningful and lasting relationships with others, God, and themselves. Not through Christ, but through the Enneagram.

Other Enneagram enthusiasts include Beth Moore, who says she is an Enneagram 7, and Scott Sauls, who's an Enneagram 4. In a Passion Talk, Sadie Robertson-Huff said,.

I'm a six-wing seven on the Enneagram. I can tell you everything there is to know about it.

Late Southern Baptist pastor Darren Patrick said,.

I think the Enneagram is like the image of God broken in nine pieces. In the same answer, he said, You've got to understand, really. The Enneagram is to show you your dark side more than your.

Sunny side. Two weeks later, Patrick committed suicide. His widow was invited to speak at Tyler Zack's Enneagram Summit. Some churches have utilized the Enneagram to hire new staff, not according to their biblical qualifications, but according to their Enneagram number.

Here's Troy Frazier of the Revive Thoughts podcast. I was working with getting hired at a church.

Everything was going very, very well. However, at the very end, they just sent me a link and they said, Hey, everyone who we would want to hire for this position is taking this Enneagram test. And I don't remember what my numbers were, but let's just pretend for the sake of remembering these things.

It was a four. The message I got back the next day was, Oh, you are a four. I am really sorry, but actually, you know, I'm a four. Dave's a four. We actually have several fours already and we're trying to have a well-rounded staff here.

We appreciate you taking all the time on this, but yeah, not looking for a four right now. Thank you. This is not the only time, not the last time I would have an Enneagram test come up at Christian ministry.

It's happened actually a few different times.

At best, the Enneagram is pop psychology. At worst, it's of the occult. Now, this is something that many evangelical teachers pushing the Enneagram try to ignore. Bill Gaultier, who led the seminar at Saddleback, has said the following about its origins.

I did some research about the history of it and I became convinced that I feel like God has had his hand in the development of this tool. Now, you might say, but wait a minute, Bill. I've heard about, you know, all these different influences, Eastern religions and Sufi Muslims and you know, all this stuff.