Myths of Marriage: "The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a good determiner of marriage compatibility"

So, once again, First OPC of Sunnyvale has generously let us use their building.

We're part of a different church, Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church. If you don't have a church, we'd love for you to come join us.

It's very important to be connected with Christ's body. It's very important not to forsake the gathering, as it says in Hebrews 10 .25,

and so we'd love it if you would join us in the worship of God. It's very exciting every

Sunday to gather in the presence of God and worship him, and so we'd ask that you would come join us for that.

Every month that we do this dinner, we address a different myth about marriage.

Tonight's myth is that the Myers -Briggs type indicator can determine compatibility between you and someone else.

All right, and the fact is that people can change, okay? So, Myers -Briggs can determine compatibility.

In fact, people can change. Who here has ever done a Myers -Briggs type indicator test before?

I have, yeah, a lot of, most people here have. All right, does anybody remember what they got? You all remember what you are?

Yeah. I remember what I got. Yeah, a lot of people really invest in that.

If you've never heard of Myers -Briggs before, it was a mother -daughter pair in 1944 published a personality test that determines what kind of a person you are on four different axes, on four different dimensions.

Now, a lot of people really invest a lot into this. You know, they try to understand themselves this way.

They try to understand other people this way. They try to understand compatibility this way, and that's why we're addressing it tonight here at a singles dinner.

Now, you might think to yourself, well, I think very little about Myers -Briggs. I've never done the test, or maybe

I did a long time ago, but I don't think about it, but a lot of the terms that it uses, you're probably used to, you know, putting, considering people in boxes like extrovert and introvert and a thinker versus a feeler, things like that, and this can be very harmful to actually understanding yourself, actually understanding other people because it's very reductionistic in the way that you view others, that you view yourself.

It's not, yeah, it's not helpful to reduce things down, or people down into very fixed sorts of personalities that deny the transformative power of the gospel.

Now, why is it that so many people really like these kinds of tests?

I think a verse that helps us understand that is Proverbs 25, two.

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.

Okay, the glory of kings is to search things out, to understand things deeply. Now, what kind of things would you wanna understand if you're trying to understand things deeply?

The famous theologian John Calvin, in his largest work, his greatest work, the Institutes of the

Christian Religion, the very first opening sentence says that human wisdom consists primarily of two things, almost completely of two things, knowledge of God and knowledge of self.

And then he goes further to say that it's not even clear whether or not one precedes the other because to know yourself, you must know yourself in relation to God, and to know

God, you must know him in relation to yourself. And so it's not even clear that one precedes the other.

So if you are to know deeply who God is, it involves knowing deeply who you yourself are.

And so this is what Myers -Briggs and other kinds of personality tests try to do is they try to tell you who you are, and it really scratches that itch in the human soul to know deeply who you are, and even by implication, who

God is. Now, what then is the problem with Myers -Briggs?

Let me start off with a few obvious things. One of the obvious things, if you look into it, is that all the experts reject it as being meaningful.

So this is just a bunch of quotes that Wikipedia had gathered together. I didn't really do a lot of research to pull these together, but these are coming from real sources.

Smithsonian Magazine says it is pretty much meaningless. Scientific American says it's one of the worst personality tests in existence.

Psychology Today says the fad that won't die. And then another expert says it's an elaborate

Chinese fortune cookie. And another expert says it is a fascinating example of disguised astrology masquerading as science in order to claim respectability.

Okay, so not even experts really buy into this. Now, so the first thing is not even the experts even really agree with this.

But then the next thing is that it's very subjective. And I don't say that meaning that it's fuzzy as opposed to firm.

I say that very definitionally it's subjective. If something is subjective, then it as the subject is evaluating itself as opposed to objective where something else is evaluating that thing.

So who is best equipped to know who you are objectively? God would be best equipped to know who you are objectively from the outside.

Next best would be someone else around you, right, to observe you and objectively decide what kind of a person you are, who you are.

And then who is the least equipped to judge things objectively? That would be you yourself.

You yourself are the absolute least able to judge yourself objectively because you are the subject. You are the subject evaluating yourself.

And so it is definitionally very subjective. Jeremiah 17, nine says, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

Who can understand it? You know, the human heart is something that is very difficult to understand. The idea that you could know yourself without any kind of help is a very misguided notion.

So what ends up happening as you fill out these sorts of personality tests, as you fill them out, you're not answering necessarily objective judgments about yourself.

You tend to answer aspirationally about who you would like to be. And it's not even necessarily the right kind of aspirations because in our pride, what we want is to be unique.

And because things like Myers -Briggs are not weighing out necessarily good or bad, you just want to make yourself unique, right?

And so you really lean into the unbalances where you say, oh yeah, I really am that kind of person.

And you go harder that way so that you're more unique. That's the way this tends to work.

And then it ends up becoming a self -fulfilling prophecy as you affirm this about yourself. Oh yeah, I really am that kind of person.

That's just who I am. So the next problem with personality tests like this is that they are flattering, okay?

They're very flattering. They function off of what's known as the Barnum effect.

If you've never heard of this, this is what fortune tellers do where they say something that's specifically to you, but it is vague enough that it could apply to anyone, right?

You know, they hold their crystal ball and they say, there's some loved one in your life whose name starts with a

J. Is that ringing any bells? Something like that, right? And so you're like, oh wow, there really is.

I looked up a list of fortune cookies and I'm gonna share some of these with you. You tell me whether or not this really resonates with you and rings true of you.

You are talented in many ways. I know that applies to me. You can keep a secret.

You desire recognition and you will find it. You have a deep interest in all that is artistic.

You have a shrewd knack for spotting insincerity. Ah, I really am shrewd and discerning.

You know, all these kinds of things really stroke our ego.

Now you might, so consider what the Proverbs say about flattery. Proverbs 26, 28 says, a lying tongue hates its victims and a flattering mouth works ruin.

So one who flatters ultimately harms. Also Proverbs 14, 15 says, the simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

So if you are a simple person, you will end up believing all kinds of flattery and being very susceptible to flattery.

Now you might look at Myers -Briggs and you might say to yourself, well, it's not necessarily flattering because none of the axes are good or bad or anything.

It's just, you know, things that are fairly neutral assessments. It doesn't really matter because it determines uniqueness.

And I can give you an example of this. I used to live over in Mountain View and I worked over at the edge of Mountain View at 101, not in Ringstor, but in, oh, now

I'm forgetting the location, but it's right where that Scientology building was built. Not too many years ago, right?

One of the Church of Scientology buildings. And there was one day where my whole team was out and so I didn't go with them for lunch.

And so I took my lunch break and I went down to the Church of Scientology to check out what kind of things they do. If you know anything about the

Church of Scientology, the first thing they have you do is fill out what's called the Oxford Capacity Analysis.

So it's a test kind of like Myers -Briggs, right? A personality test. Except, and you know, they call this

Oxford even though it has nothing to do with Oxford. That just sounds very formal and sophisticated. And what it's designed to do is not to highlight good things about you.

It's actually designed to highlight bad things about you. And so it inevitably ends up showing that you have severe weaknesses that need to be addressed by the

Church of Scientology. This is what it decides every time. But it really is flattering to feel known and understood.

Even, you know, as I filled it out and as I talked to the guy and he pointed out all the problems about me, it's like, you know, there is something a little alluring to this, even though, you know,

I'm seeing through it all. You know, there is something a little alluring about this guy treating me like a very special individual who has, you know, very special needs.

So that's what these kinds of tests are designed to do.

They end up flattering. Next, in addition to being flattering, they are reductionistic.

Okay, and so by reductionistic, what I mean is they take people and they describe them simply as something immutable and flexible that can't end up being changed.

Right, they just, that's just who you are. And then if you really believe this and you lean into it, then you have no opportunity to change.

You won't try to change because this is simply who you are. Now, the problem with that is that the things that Myers -Briggs and other kinds of personality tests evaluate are not things that are fixed.

Okay, they're things that change and they're things that must necessarily change because they are things that lie on moral dimensions.

Our God has commanded us to obedience. He has told us that we ought to be certain kinds of people.

We ought to do certain kinds of things. And so if he has given us a command to be a certain kind of person, but we say, no,

I'm this kind of person, then we're at odds with God's word. And we can look at every single dimension on Myers -Briggs and see that it lies on moral dimensions, even though you might not see it at first.

Okay, so Myers -Briggs is four different dimensions. The first one is attitude. Okay, so attitude is between introvert and extrovert.

All right, something that a lot of people identify is if I asked you if you're an extrovert or an introvert, you probably have an answer right now.

Now, how hard do you lean into that as who I am and I can't change is another question, but chances are you probably have some kind of answer as to whether or not you're an introvert or an extrovert.

Now, is that something that has no moral implications, that it's just okay to be an introvert, it's okay to be an extrovert?

There's no, it's just, you know, God made different people different and that's just who you are.

Not necessarily. Proverbs 18 .1 says, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire, he breaks out against all sound judgment.

So what does that say to the introvert, right? Who says, well, I'm just an introvert. It's right for me to hide myself away from people and not interact with others.

No, it says that they need to correct this. Now, the extroverts say, well, I'm in the clear. 1st

Timothy 5 .13 says, besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies saying what they should not.

So it's describing people who go around spending way too much of their time socializing and interacting to the point where it's excessive, it's improper because of the things being spoken.

And so the Bible has things to address those who are sinfully acting in an introverted way, sinfully acting in an extroverted way.

And these are not matters that are amoral, they are matters that are moral, right?

Okay, so the next one is the perceiving function. This is whether or not, this is when you're gathering information, whether or not you are intuitive, recognizing patterns and principles, or whether or not you are someone who's more of a sensor, you know, learning by observation rather than constructing patterns in your head.

So is that something that's amoral? Matthew 10 .16

says, behold, I am sending you out a sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents, innocent as doves.

If someone said, well, I'm not going to pay attention to the practical things that I'm observing,

I'm only just going to think in high -minded principles, and because I'm an intuitive person, they would be sinning in this regard if they're not following this verse, being as wise as serpents.

What about those who consider themselves censors? John 7 .24 says, do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

This is saying don't judge by just mere observations, okay? So there's a sinful way to be intuitive, there's a sinful way to be a censor.

These are not moral things. The next is judging function. So this is not the perceiving function where you're gathering information, this is where you come to conclusions about those things that you've gathered.

So there's the two different kinds of Myers -Briggs are thinkers and feelers. For the thinkers,

James 2 .19, you believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder.

Would it be right to just think without any kind of emotion behind it, any kind of feeling to back up the things that are true?

It would not. Even the demons believe and shudder, right? They don't have the right kind of zeal or emotion or feeling to go along with that thinking.

And so that would be a simple form of thinking. What about feeling? James 1 .14, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires.

If you decide what's right and wrong just based on how it feels to you, ah, yes, I'm at peace with this decision.

That must mean it's right. My conscience feels good about this, et cetera, right?

That is someone who's operating in a feelings -oriented way. And if he is rejecting the word of God, in that then he's operating sinfully in a feelings -oriented way.

The last one in Myers -Briggs is the dominant function. So whether you are primarily a judger, making conclusions about things, or whether you're primarily a perceiver, gathering information about things.

So what if you're a judger and you're very willing to make judgments about things?

Proverbs 18 .13, if one gives an answer before he hears it, it is his folly and shame. Proverbs 29 .20

says that there is more hope for a fool than for someone who speaks too hastily.

So what about perceivers? Those who would gather information and be pretty open about not making any judgments, just leaving things out there for someone else to decide, kind of sitting on the fence indefinitely.

Revelation 3 .16 says to the church of Laodicea, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold,

I will spit you out of my mouth. All right, so any of these dimensions, it would be very easy to lean into it and say this is what kind of person

I am, therefore this is the kind of action I do, and this ends up justifying all kinds of sinful actions.

And the right way to evaluate these things is to see them as strengths and weaknesses, weaknesses that need to be corrected, strengths that need to be embraced, not as amoral distinctions within you that have no moral implications.

That's not to say that God hasn't made people different from one another, but it is to say that you should not put your personality in a box so that you are stuck being whoever it is that you think you are, so that you cannot change as needed.

Romans 12. Romans 12 says the following.

Romans 12, verse two. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We're not supposed to be people who are fixed, we're supposed to be people who are transformed and continually transforming, conforming ourselves,

God conforming us to his image, to the image of his son. All right, and so this is, what

I'm pointing out here while I'm focusing on details about Myers -Briggs, this is really true about any kind of personality test, doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if it's far out there stuff like astrology tests, it doesn't matter if it's the

Enneagram, it doesn't matter if it's spiritual gift tests, all kinds of different things, people evaluate themselves and then put themselves in a neat little box, feel very flattered by them being a special kind of person and then lean into it so that they are not willing to change and acknowledge the call that God has given to grow in all areas.

And then people make all kinds of decisions based on this. They'll make important decisions about their career, employers will make important decisions about candidates based on Myers -Briggs types and then people will make important decisions about marriage and once again, even if you're not building out

Myers -Briggs tests to decide this, you very well may be giving too much merit to the notion of fixed personality, to the notion of I'm an introvert, she's an extrovert, compatibility, et cetera.

So what is the answer to all of this? What is the answer if you really do want to understand yourself?

If you want to self -psychologize, how should you go about it? Well, first of all, the word psychology, words in etymology are about the study of something.

Who here knows what the psych in the beginning of psychology refers to?

It means soul. Yeah, so psuche means soul. Psychology is the study of the soul.

You know, and very ironically, modern psychology has very little to do with the soul or that's not what they're talking about anyway.

They're talking about the brain typically. But how do you know more about the soul?

This is what I pointed out before about subjectivity and objectivity. It's really difficult to know yourself just from the inside.

You really have to know yourself from the outside but how is it possible for the soul to know itself from the outside?

There is a poet that I very much like named John Davies from,

I think he was from the 1700s. He wrote this following poem.

Well, it's a very long poem. This is just two stanzas. To judge herself, this is speaking of the soul, the soul is her.

To judge herself, she must herself transcend as greater circles comprehend the less.

But she wants power, her own powers to extend as fettered men cannot their strength express.

This is saying that for the soul to know herself, she must be outside herself so that she can encompass herself.

But she lacks the power to extend that far just like a fettered man cannot break free of the fetters.

But thou bright morning star, thou rising sun, which in these later times has brought to light those mysteries that since the world begun lay hidden darkness and eternal night.

And so this incredibly long poem that he wrote which is all about the soul and the difficulties of understanding the soul and what is true about the soul.

He starts off this poem by explaining that the only way we can know about ourselves and who we are, this poem is called no se te upsum which means know thyself.

The only way we can know ourselves is through the son of God. It's through one who is outside us who comprehends all things.

The soul can't comprehend itself but God comprehends all things and he gives us such knowledge.

Consider what it says in his word in Hebrews 4.

Hebrews 4 .12 says for the word of God is living and active sharper than any two edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from his sight but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Now it's not that you can't know anything by some self observation but it's very, very limited what you can know.

And scripture tells us that it is limited. Scripture tells us that it is only through God's word that we can know ourselves more fully that we can be split open and understand ourselves to the fullest.

Consider also in 1 Corinthians 14 describing the worship of the church. It says, but if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters he is convicted by all and he is called to account by all.

The secrets of his heart are disclosed and so falling on his face he will worship

God and declare that God is really among you. So what is the key to having the secrets of someone's heart disclosed for them to know who they are and to be astounded by that understanding to have those depths of wisdom?

The answer is through the word of God. It is the word of God that has been given to us for this task of knowing ourselves for knowing ourselves more deeply.

And so what about determining compatibility? What is the secret there?

What is the answer there? Well, first of all, it's to recognize that there are two kinds of compatibility, right? There's that which is necessary compatibility according to the word of God and that which is some additional forms of compatibility.

So necessary things, someone of the opposite sex, right? Someone of a marriageable age, someone who's not already taken.

Let's see, what else can I throw in here? I had a couple more. Someone who is not a eunuch, someone who's capable of marriage and then someone who's a believer, right?

Just like it says in 1 Corinthians 7, to marry in the Lord. Now, these are things that are necessary for compatibility and they really are the most important things and there's a lot of freedom outside of that.

Now, there are certain kinds of compatibility beyond that that would be additionals.

For example, this is a real obvious one. If you are someone who only speaks

English and you meet someone who only speaks Korean, chances are there's not gonna be a lot of compatibility there in any kind of marriage unless someone wants to learn the other language, right?

That would be a good example of some kind of additional compatibility that would be lacking. But really, these things can be understood not necessarily in the categories of personality so much as just the biblical categories of male and female roles, what the roles are, right?

The man's supposed to be the provider and protector. The woman is made as a helper for the man. And so, you have to ask yourself, given my strengths and weaknesses, given her strengths and weaknesses, given his strengths and weaknesses, what am

I equipped to do my role? Given the things that he intends to do, am

I going to be able to help him with this? Given the things I intend to do, is she going to be able to help me with this, right?

These are the kinds of questions you should be asking, biblically speaking, looking at this in the categories of those roles.

And that will give you a much more holistic and reasonable and wise way of thinking about things is simply what the objectives of the

Christian ought to be and whether or not the two in working together, being mutual helpers for one another, the man in his particular role, the woman in her particular role, working together towards that same purpose that God has for them in marriage.

This is the primary way that you should be thinking about this. Now, what about change?

If these aren't fixed traits, if extroversion, introversion are things that can actually be changed, if you can become someone who enjoys being around more people as you ought, if you can be someone who does not, who in the other direction, does not go around just enjoying social time but is able to be alone as needed, how should you go about changing these different parts of your personality that seem so fixed?

First of all, recognize that you have the power to change if you are in Christ. If you're not in Christ, then you're dead in your sins.

There's no real hope of change. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ, if you have your sins washed away by his blood, then there is a great hope for change.

Second Corinthians 5 .17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is passed away, behold, the new has come.

Galatians 5 .22 -23, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

Against such things, there is no law. If you're in Christ, you're a new creation. If you have the spirit, the spirit will bear fruit.

You have, in Christ, you have the power to change, even in ways that you may have considered fixed.

Now, how do you go about this? Let me just remind you of the power of the word of God. Psalm 119 .11

says, I have stored up your word, my heart, that I might not sin against you. Very excellent antidote against sinful patterns, against sinful behavior, is the word of God.

Matthew 26 .41 says, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Prayer, also an excellent antidote against sinful temptations. So the word of God and prayer.

Now, beyond this, Scripture describes that we are not to merely avoid sin, but we are to pursue things that are good.

Ephesians 4 describes this as putting off and putting on. Ephesians 4 .20 through 24 says, but that is not the way you learned

Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus. To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and is to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.

Okay, so you're supposed to put off the old self, put on the new self, the new man.

And so what this looks like is not just ceasing to do sinful things, but doing those things that God has called you to.

One example, and there's several examples given in here, but one example that's very clear is, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

So if you're a thief, it is not sufficient for you just to stop stealing. Okay, it's not good enough just to cease stealing.

This isn't God's plan to fix your sin.

What his plan for you is, is not just to cease from evil, but to do good, is to work so that you have something that you might share with another.

And this, following God's ways, trusting in the work of the spirit in your heart, applying the word of God, trusting him in prayer, these things that God has given us have powerful, have great power to transform, so that you do not have to see yourself as someone fixed who could not be with someone who is different than you in certain ways, but rather you can see yourself as one who has the power to pursue whatever

God calls you to. Now, ultimately, this has to come back to the gospel.

Recall that Jesus Christ, when he gave himself up for his bride, he did not do this as one who was looking for someone who already had everything all together, already had the exact right personality type, says in Romans 5.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Okay, those things that you might be identifying just as simply as personality may be things that lie on a moral dimension that have the potential to change.

You should see the capacity of someone else who is in Christ to change. And likewise, you should see your own capacity to change.

Romans 8 -11 says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised

Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

You know, this hope for compatibility is not, yeah, it's not something where you've got to make absolute certain that you have all the right boxes checked off about compatible traits so that you don't end up making the wrong move and ending up with the wrong person.

If you marry someone who you are free to marry, then you have married the right person.

And you are people who are necessarily compatible with one another. And so you should not be, you know, as it says in Colossians 2 -8, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

You don't have to be taken captive by some kind of philosophy that would tell you that you are simply incompatible with this other person that you have married.

You don't have to buy into those kinds of lies. You don't have to see this as something that must be navigated with the utmost caution so that you would never make the moves that you need to make in order to pursue marriage with confidence, knowing that God can, that God can carry you through every trial that you face.

If you believe this philosophy of the world, if you believe those kinds of lies, you're going to think that, okay, I need to make sure that I am super compatible with this other person, or else when

I find out that I'm not, I'm hosed. But if you trust in the power of God, the power that has happened through the cross, through Christ, giving us his spirit, then you have the power to weather any storm.

It doesn't matter if it's in marriage or elsewhere, and you have the power to pursue what he has called us to. Marriage is a good thing.

You can pursue that with confidence and joy. Let me go ahead and pray for us. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening.

We thank you for the promises in your gospel, promises of transformation. We pray that we would not be deceived by the philosophies of the world, and that we would be eager to pursue all that you have called us to, in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, we're going to do a little bit of guide discussion here through some discussion questions, and about 10 or 15 minutes, we'll do

Q &A after that, and then back to just, yeah, free time. All right, thank you very much.

I'm so proud of you, thank you. Well, we need one more, do we have one more?

One more over here, I have two already. One, let's do

Q &A, you're free to ask questions about this topic, about other topics, even unrelated ones.

I will ask this time, though, let's keep the questions to questions.

Several times in the past, a lot of the comments are answers to other people, right, and so it starts crosstalk and everything, and I don't want this to go too long, so people want the free time afterward.

So, yeah, let's keep it to questions. All right, who's got any questions? Yes, Brayden.

What are, I guess, like, because we were discussing this earlier, it's like, yes, there is a level of, what, there are personality traits that can be observed by other people about a person.

Right. Do you think that there is some sort of, are there metrics by which we can, like, observe other people kind of in the same way, not necessarily that a, maybe it's just like the basics of how the

Myers -Briggs work, but is there, like, you know, a spectrum or an understanding of, like, oh, these are character traits of a person, and I can accurately measure them in comparison to other people that you would potentially use?

Yeah, like I said, these things are, a lot of these things lie on a moral dimension, and scripture very frequently makes judgments about people's character along a moral dimension.

Right, and so, so yeah. Absolutely, you can make statements about someone's character.

Now, I guess another question you might have is are any of these truly un -moral, right?

Can you make any observations about differences between people that are, that don't lie on some kind of moral dimension?

I would suggest that might be fewer than people would typically think, a lot fewer than people would typically think.

Yeah, at the same time, sure, you can observe strengths and weaknesses about the way that God has constituted someone that would make sense.

In fact, God is very, yeah, it's pretty clear in his word that men have certain strengths and weaknesses, women have certain strengths and weaknesses.

Right, and so that is something that, those are personality differences that are appropriate, right, that aren't like, like this one is flawed and this one is not flawed, right?

So that would be, that would be an example. Yes, sir, what's your name? Owen. Owen, okay, nice to meet you. What is a wall dimension?

A wall dimension? Yeah. Okay, sorry if I'm not enunciating well. I think

I've just said a moral and amoral. So like a moral dimension would be something that's like right or wrong.

Oh, okay. Right, and then amoral would be that there's no rightness or wrongness to it. That's usually how people think about this, right?

So they usually think about extroversion and introversion as, you know, just different people are different. You know, you could be,

God could have made you so that you just wanna be a hermit, and that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Or God could make you so that you just wanna talk everybody's ear off, and that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that, right? And it's not that simple, right?

There's clearly a kind of hermitage that the scripture forbids in Proverbs 18 .1. Like I mentioned, there's clearly kind of talking to, talking each other's ear off that's inappropriate, you know, according to the

New Testament. So there's all kinds of, there's all kinds of examples of where extroversion or introversion would be wrong, and it's not okay just to identify yourself as this is who

I am, and that justifies all my behavior along that axis. Thanks for the question.

Ruben. No, let's let this gentleman go, go ahead. Okay, sure. I had a question in regards to what he was saying in terms of being able to like measure whether or not, in terms of like the metrics or whatnot, couldn't you categorize it as like, like his character's of the spirit, or whether or not it's of the flesh, like?

I don't know all the. Right, yes, yeah, so that's what I was saying is that scripture is very willing to make moral judgments to say that this is godly character, this is ungodly character, and those are things that we should be able to judge.

But we should not do it in such a way that puts someone in a box, right, where we say, oh, this person is, you know, this person's a liar, and they can never be otherwise, because that's just how

God made them, as a liar, right? That's the danger, is if this becomes, this is their personality that is fixed.

But yeah, certainly we can observe moral characteristics of people. Yes, Peter?

Yeah, I was just curious, I guess, sort of the moral and immoral dimension of these, maybe the way that I think about them, is sort of right between the, whichever access, whether it's the extroverted access of like, someone who is separating themselves and not participating in the gathering together, versus, right, somebody who's a dizzy body, but that there would be essentially like a pretty wide band in the middle of that, which would not necessarily have a moral component, but could represent personality, gender, or other kind of, you know, sort of shaped middle ground.

Right, yeah, so there's a moderation that's appropriate. Sure, that's,

I mean, that's one way of thinking about it. I'm not sure that, so what, how would you see that as different than what

I was saying? Well, yeah, I'm just trying to clarify, I guess, in the sense of that, I guess maybe the way that I thought of it is to say that there's things which are sinful on either side, maybe, of all these things, but then there's like, kind of a variety of things in the middle that are not necessarily.

Right, that are wisdom issues or something? You know, or just sort of impermanence, maybe, right? You know, that someone, you know, maybe tends to think a lot before they say something, and right, versus somebody kind of just, right, is out there and speaks quickly, but like not foolishly?

Right, yeah, certainly there's a range of things where it is too close to perfect that it would be impossible for another human to judge.

I do believe that on the day of judgment, everyone will have to give an account for every careless, you know, thought, word, or deed.

And so, so yeah, I might not be in a position to judge whether or not someone was too careless, but there is like, there is a right thinking through things, and there is a wrong amount.

So, yeah, God has given us freedom, but that does not mean that we won't have to give an account, right?

As long as we're within this, like, wide berth or something, right? Hopefully that, hopefully that helps.

Tim, I don't know if you have anything to add to that. I'm mic'd him up, so he can answer some of this stuff, too.

Am I on now? Yeah, I think so, okay. I think related to the discussion of is there, are there neutral ways to categorize people that are helpful, that just categorize people on the basis of different strengths and weaknesses.

Bible does also talk about people as being hands, and foots, and eyes, and brains, and mouths.

So I think a lot of those things have to do with different strengths and weaknesses that people have, and different orientations that they have.

So a lot of those things can be just natural giftings that God has made people to do.

So if you imagine a brain, for instance, there might be many, many people who gravitate towards the life of the mind over and against those who gravitate towards tangible, physical, practical works.

Those things, I think those things would be the kind of things that would be more neutral in one way, meaning if someone gets a lot more enjoyment out of solving puzzles in their brain,

I don't think that that's a moral issue, but at the same time, you can even take those kinds of creative differences and then basically say, because I like solving puzzles in my brain,

I don't like, I never have to work with my hands or something along those lines. So everything that God's made us to be different kinds of people,

I think there's any number of ways that you can observe how people are different and have different orientations. But then at the same time, if you press these things to the absolute, that you can paint yourself into a corner where you don't have to fulfill everything that God has said.

I think with the extrovert kind of discussion, what separates introversion from extroversion is the idea of like the social battery that undergirds that, right?

So the introvert says that my social battery is recharged when

I'm by myself. The extrovert says my social battery is recharged when I'm around other people.

And I would say that if that's what we mean by introversion and extroversion, I don't know that when we get to heaven, you're gonna feel drained by being around people, okay?

In that way. So I don't think that a lot of the ways that we think about these things are all that helpful.

Now, if you mean by introversion that you're more of a brain person and you excel at doing things by yourself,

I do think that God has made certain people to be scientists and a scientist might be an introvert kind of person.

Okay, but then you can obviously paint yourself into that box and then prevent yourself from ever having to interact with other people.

I imagine like in heaven too, a lot of these things will come in more, but there may be some distance still between different types of personality.

So yeah, I wouldn't want to sanctify everything that goes underneath these labels. But then I would acknowledge that, yeah, there's some people who are more gifted at speaking.

There's some people who have more mental capacity. So I think there's observable differences.

You just have to be very careful how much weight you put on those things. Right, but a lot of those strengths and weaknesses are, yeah, in areas outside of like a lot of the psychological labels.

Like a lot of the psychological labels are designed specifically to justify certain kinds of behavior, right?

Like, oh, I'm a feeler, so it's totally right for me to act with my gut and not think things through, right?

That's like the, that's the danger, is that even though people are different, do have different giftings, the one, the kind of giftings or weaknesses that these labels focus on are ones that tend to justify particular actions.

Okay, what I'm throwing out is something of far less value in there.

Tim, would you have something to say about that? Yeah, I think related to, related to compatibility issues is where this is the most important to understand,

I think what Conley is talking about here. I really don't think a compatible personality is the thing that's gonna hold your marriage together at all, really.

So I think the presupposition that undergirds that expectation is the presupposition that people are fundamentally selfish.

And if they're fundamentally selfish, then what you need is you need a person who does what you want them to do in order to have a good relationship with them.

And I would just challenge that assumption from the outset. Like, meaning, the Bible does say that it's more blessed to give than receive.

And I think a lot of times what we think, when you're looking for a spouse, what you're often thinking is you're thinking, I need to find someone who is going to be like my everything, right?

Who is gonna, like, I'm looking for this person who is just going to, I'm always going to enjoy being around.

And if I could just find this person that checks all my boxes and does what I want them to do, and if they can somehow keep from changing, then we're gonna be all right.

And so I think that's the big lie that undergirds the personality as an essential component of compatibility.

When the thing is, like, men and women are just very different. And men and women don't, we really don't make natural friends in the same way that we might, in the way that we would think.

Like, there's something that's, like, what's attractive about women is that they're so different. What's attractive about men is they think so differently.

And those things are attractive at first, but then when you see how that plays out in the context of marriage, that's when the fights start to happen.

If you have an expectation that, in order for everything to work out, it needs to be, like, it needs to go the way

I think it should go, right? And so I think, in general, the Bible does say it's more blessed to give than receive.

Let's not look to our own interest, but the interest of other people. If you go into marriage not thinking about trying to find someone who checks all your boxes and acts the way you want them to act in the way that you imagine that they should be acting, then what actually happens then is, if you're looking, like,

I want someone who's going to help me fulfill God's mission in the world. Like, and you're thinking about it that way, that's a very different way of thinking about marriage.

And you have a lot less temptation for being upset because you're not looking for this person who's kind of a opposite -sex version of you, or does everything the way you want.

You're looking for someone who's going to help you in the mission. And I think when you see that, you see, what you'll see is they're different, but then you can see all the ways in which

God's designed those differences to help you do what he's called you to do. I think that's just a much firmer basis for compatibility than the idea of trying to find someone who, you know,

I have these bad traits, they have these different traits, and they all kind of get together and we both get what we want at the end kind of approach.

But that'd be how I would think about some of those things. All right, next question.

Any other questions? Yes, what's your name? Jordan. Jordan, okay. What's your opinion on spiritual gift tithes?

I think a lot of the same kinds of things where it's self -fulfilling prophecy, it's not objective, it's aspirational.

You start answering not with what is necessarily objectively true, but with what you want to be.

And so, I forgot to use this illustration and the message a minute ago, but it becomes more like the

RPG character generator thing, you know, where you're deciding what kind of character you want.

You know, oh yeah, I wanna be a strong warrior, et cetera, right? And so you tend to answer aspirationally rather than objectively.

So first of all, there's what are they actually measuring? And then two, once you do that, you end up putting yourself in a box, not thinking that you can change, thinking that this is who you are, right?

Because that's what the tests are designed to do. They're supposed to show you who you are. Not who you're supposed to be, but who you are, right?

And then, how do spiritual gifts come about? The spirit gives them, right?

The spirit empowers you for what you are called to. And you don't even know what you're called to in this moment because it may not have even arrived.

And so God may not have equipped you yet for that thing because it's not even here yet. So it's even more foolish to do the spiritual gift tests in a sense because at least with this, there'd be a little more reason to consider things fixed with psychology.

There's a lot less reason with spiritual gifting. So then we're talking about something even more divine, something even more transformative, changeable material.

Yeah, God equips people for things. And so what you should do if you're a

Christian trying to figure out what God has called you to, like look where needs are and try to fill them and then see how he gifts you in trying to fill them.

That's the way the Christian should pursue it rather than saying, this is what I'm good at, this is what

I like. I'm gonna wait for these opportunities to come to me and if they're not here at my church, well,

I'm gonna find a different church. You know, that's what some people do, it's like, oh, the church doesn't wanna use me the way that I'm gifted, the way that I've assessed myself.

Then they're not affirming me and my spiritual gift. That's the approach a lot of people have.

All right, anything else? Yes.

I have a follow -up question for your response. And it has to do with what you said instead of even getting into the space of personality tests of any type, this idea of this kind of north of saying, fulfilling

God's will for my life and someone that will help me achieve that. If that's kind of the litmus test, but then

Connelly is saying, sometimes you might not even know you're calling. And of course, as the man, you know, headship, the man is the head, he doesn't know he's calling it.

How then is he supposed to pick a wife that's supposed to support him if he's called to do missions in Africa, right?

And she's called to do workplace ministry in Silicon Valley. I think that's when they're not compatible, I think.

But if the man doesn't even know what his calling is, how then are these things navigated?

I'm curious. Yeah, but... Some of the things that we've been teaching on in the course of our

Sunday teaching is that when you think about God's mission for humanity in Genesis 2 .24,

it's be fruitful. Genesis 1 .28, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the animals.

And then Genesis 2 .24 says, for this reason, man shall be his father, mother, whole fester his wife, the two will become one flesh.

God has given humanity a mission, like a foundational primary mission. And I think you see that in the opening chapters of Genesis, that mission is to fill the earth full of people.

And so a lot of that has to, we have to think about, well, what, take a step back beyond just like what your specific vocation is in the world.

Take a step back and think about what God's mission is for humanity in general. And God's mission for humanity in general is that we fill this place up full of people.

Then you think about the Great Commission. The Great Commission is that we fill the place up full of disciples. Let's go and make disciples of all the nations.

So our overarching goal is to fill it up full of people and make disciples out of them so that the knowledge of the

Lord covers the earth as the dry land covers the sea. And so when you think about our mission in that fundamental sense, there's some things that are very fixed about that.

And so I think when we think about marriage, we're thinking about marriage and not as like a duty or an obligation that God has put upon us to the human race.

If we think about it as something that I think in the first instance is very self -focused and that causes us to delay marriage and causes us to be overly picky because we don't see this as an obligation that we need to fulfill.

And so God's made men with strengths and weaknesses and he's made women with strengths and weaknesses and he's given them particular roles.

And so one of the roles that he's given to men is to be the leader, the head in the home. And so I do think that if you think about it like that, man's roles would be leader, protector, provider.

Woman's role is to be a follower. She has a follower role in marriage. I think it's her role to be a homemaker, to be a beautifier of the home, to bring forth children into the world.

So I think she's uniquely designed to excel at her roles. Man being the leader, protector, provider, he's designed to excel at his roles.

I think we should be looking at marriage in a lot more simple of a way and less of a complicated way.

Like go back to the basics and just think, what are we here for? What are we made for? And I think that would cause you to be a lot less picky with what you're looking for in a way that I think former generations were a little less picky than what we are today.

Like today we're looking for someone who's so unique and so particular because what we're doing is we're trying to find someone who's gonna fix certain parts of ourself.

So we have a very unique vision of what we're looking for. But if you think about humanity's overarching mission,

I think that would just cause you to think, you know what, I can be faithful with any number of people. I'm looking for someone to help me do those things that I know are clear.

So if you think about it that way, I'm looking for someone who's gonna help me do the things I know are clear that God has called us to do.

And then whatever vocation you end up doing in light of all those things,

I think that's a secondary concern to the primary. So you don't wanna make the secondary the most important thing.

Make the primary the most important thing. And I think it makes things a lot simpler, less headache. All right, anything else?

Last call. All right, let's close it. Yeah, feel free to hang out.

We'll be here for as long as you all need us here. We'll be cleaning up.

We're not trying to rush you out, just cleaning up. But yeah, feel free to hang out and talk as long as you like.