Sermon Central
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The Enneagram And Inner Healing - Psycho-Heresy In The Church
Contributed by Dr. Craig Nelson on Mar 8, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: Within the church there has been a great influx of human psychology mixed with Scripture. This has resulted in a convoluted understanding of the human mind and heart, as they are examined and studied from man’s perspective, rather than from God’s.
The first human beings were created good and given a free-will by their Creator, so they had the choice to be content with Him, who is love, or to want more. When a person becomes Born-Again by accepting and receiving Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, they are positionally sanctified before God and considered perfect, holy, and good, just as the first humans (Rom 1:7,8:28;1 Cor 1:2). Their condition changes every day based upon both the good and bad choices they make, but their position before God remains the same as He sanctifies their condition daily (Heb 10:14). The most profound truth about the goodness of God is that He knows everything about us and yet still loves us anyway.
The fact is that ONLY God’s written Word, the Bible, is all-sufficient to help the Born-Again Christian grow in godliness (2 Tim 3:17). To imply otherwise is to declare the Bible to be insufficient. No Christian should seek to be transformed by anything (or anyone) but the Holy Spirit.
The Born-Again Christian is called to deny themselves and follow Jesus daily. The Enneagram is ultimately self-focused. It creates a framework for identifying in a test rather than in Jesus. That is the very core problem of the human race and why Jesus became human and shed His blood so that the Born-Again Christian can be transformed and renewed daily by dying daily to self – not discovering it! The Word of God, by way of the Holy Spirit, reveals the heart of anyone open to the truth. The Born-Again Christian already has all they need for life and godliness! (2 Peter 1:3).
The Enneagram is an untested instrument, and it has opened itself to theological error, social and psychological misuse. The lack of scientific investigation means there are no controls to determine who actually is an expert, nor which advice is helpful or detrimental, nor whether the goals of the Enneagram system are sound.
The questions that need to be asked is whether one should use the Enneagram system are:
Can a tool from the occult be an instrument that has the capacity to heal, or to do harm?
How dangerous are practices derived from occult origins and considered an abomination to the Lord?
Perhaps the best question to ask is:
Can a Christian use the Enneagram to glorify God and grow into the likeness of Christ?
The Enneagram did not emanate from the Word of God. Although it helps gain some self-knowledge, it is not beneficial for spiritual growth. The Bible provides all a Christian needs for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).
The Enneagram is pure and simply just another gospel of psycho-heresy that comes directly from mysticism and the occult. Its purpose is to give insight that only the Bible has the sufficient authority to provide. It is a demonic path of counterfeit sanctification. The Occultic roots of this system have never been proven as false and can never be thoroughly purged or redeemed. It NEVER belonged to God. That is the very core problem of the human race and why Jesus became human and shed His blood so that the Born-Again Christian can be transformed and renewed daily by dying daily to self – not discovering it. The Holy Spirit doesn’t need anything like the Enneagram to reveal a person’s heart so they can become more self-aware.
