There is nothing in the Enneagram that exposes us to true the knowledge of our utterly bankrupt evil nature and the good gifts which come only from the God Who is truly holy. The Enneagram doesn’t reveal our sinful condition, separation from God, His holiness, His love for us, and provision for salvation. 

Christians hold a general idea that the indwelling Holy Spirit will completely protect them from being deceived. This idea is taken from a portion of John 16:13:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…
There are two fundamental problems with attempting to use the passage in this way. The first problem is the context. As with all passages in scripture, context must be considered to gain a proper understanding of the text in question. The context of this verse is the coming persecution (John 16:1-4a) of the disciples after Jesus’ departure, the work of the Holy Spirit to help them in that regard—once He is sent to them (John 16:4b-11). How would the Holy Spirit help them in that regard? Jesus explained the type of truth the Spirit would guide them into that would help them through this devastating and discouraging time ahead:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.(John 16:13)
The disciples would need the Spirit’s presence and close guidance to keep them from falling away from their mission. (John 16:1) This is part of a much longer narrative by Jesus, which the Apostle John began in chapter thirteen. Jesus was preparing the disciples for rough days ahead and “the things that are to come.”
Second, even if this admonition was aimed not at the disciple’s immediate need but at all Christians in all times ahead, there is nothing in the context that states or implies believers will necessarily follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Christians may allow—and do allow—themselves to be deceived in spite of warnings of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. There are numerous warnings in the New Testament to believers that had been deceived.1 Paul’s challenge to the Galatians who were believers that had been deeply deceived is direct and to the point:
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.(Galatians 3:1)
Any of us can be deceived, particularly if we ignore the guidance of the Holy Spirt and the word of God. Reading Thomas Nelson’s latest contribution to the world of the Enneagram within the Evangelical church is a reminder of the importance of guarding against deception. We do not doubt the sincerity of Meredith Boggs, the author of The Journey Home: A Biblical Guide to Using the Enneagram to Deepen Your Faith and Relations (Meredith Boggs, Thomas Nelson; January 24, 2023). However, someone can be very sincere and yet be sincerely wrong—which can lead from self-deception to having a role in deceiving still others. The Apostle Paul warns Timothy of this truth in 1 Timothy 3:13:
…while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
There are “evil people” and “imposters” (pretenders to the faith) who intentionally deceive. Then there are those deceived by these intentional deceivers, who unintentionally deceive still others. Has Meredith Boggs been deceived, or is the Enneagram truly a spiritual tool God uses to supplement the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the word of God? The reader will have to decide.
In the Introduction of her book, Boggs begins “the bottom line” with:
The Enneagram is not the gospel.2
On that, at least, we completely agree. The second one is somewhat mixed:
The Enneagram can help you grow personally and spiritually, but don’t use it to replace God’s Word. That will lead you astray more than any cult.3
Anecdotally, it may be that Boggs and others believe they have grown personally or possibly even spiritually while using the Enneagram, but correlation does not imply causation. Could someone’s marriage improve as they started talking together after being introduced to the Enneagram? Sure, that could happen. But did it improve because of the Enneagram or because they began talking to each other? The Enneagram has not been demonstrated to be a valid profiling tool. Jay Medenwaldt performed the only valid psychometric test to date, and in his General Conclusion, wrote:
Unless you’ve done graduate work in psychometrics, the scientific data probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to you (which is why there are two parts to this article). For those who have studied psychometrics, it’s a no-brainer that the enneagram simply cannot do all its proponents claim it can. Any scientist who studies personality would simply look at the reliability scores and conclude the test is not accurate enough to be helpful, and therefore, they wouldn’t use it because the potential for harm will be too high.
Medenwaldt sees absolutely no reliability in the Enneagram and, in fact, warns of its potential for harm. Medenwaldt is not the only source of research on the Enneagram. Boggs, in Footnote #1 of Chapter Two on page 16, cites:
The WEPSS (Wagner Enneagram Personality Style Scales) test has been statistically validated, and that’s the one I recommend. For more information, see the Resources section.4
We have no doubt someone communicated this idea to Boggs, and she believed it, but there is no evidence the claim is true. In “The reliability and validity of the Open Enneagram of Personality Scales,”  Kayleigh Kastelein wrote on page 5:
With small sample sizes, weak support from factor analysis, and low quantity of studies, there is not enough support for reliability and validity of the WEPSS for it to be considered a strong assessment of the Enneagram.
The American Journal of Psychiatry raises similar concerns in their General Conclusions:
We advise caution in integrating these concepts too quickly, as the Enneagram is more complex than this brief overview suggests. We hope to expand on this overview in future papers targeted specifically at the practical value of the Enneagram for medical education and clinical psychotherapy.5
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We need to teach our people that there is a spiritual war, which is as real as the ground I’m standing on. There is a heavenly force. There is an eternal battle, which will be ended by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when he destroys Satan just by the word of his mouth, and he will be condemned with all his followers, to the lake of fire, never again to bother God’s creation.

In the first part, we briefly surveyed the reality of suffering because of various causes, and we concluded by saying that as pastors, our responsibility is to prepare our people both by our teaching, and by modeling the things that we teach. In this part, we will look at truths which we should know and hold to as we prepare for and face suffering.
First of all, Christians should never be surprised by suffering, problems or persecution. From the very beginning of the Bible, as early as Genesis 3:14-19, we are told that as a result of an Adam and Eve sin, a curse was placed upon this earth, it is real, and it touches everything we do. A friend of mine always says, “The fingerprint of the curse is upon everything.” It is! It is upon our marriages, our health, our minds, the work of the Lord: it touches everything. This is a fallen, broken, cursed world. And we should never be surprised by problems or by suffering. We should see it as just a normal part of the Christian life. In fact, that is when the Christian life shines its best. When we face suffering, by being faithful as those young girls in Nigeria say, in the midst of suffering.
John 16:33 is a verse that comes to my mind many times, “Jesus said, ‘In this world, you will have trouble but take hard for I’ve overcome the world.’” So our Lord Himself said, you will have tribulations in this world. And then we have some other very, very important verses. We have 1 Peter 4:12, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” Now, there is nothing strange happening. This is what it is like living in the fallen world, and especially being a Christian. We face even worse suffering and trouble. And then James 1, “Count all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” And then a very important verse is 1 Thessalonians 3: 3-4, “You should know this well. But no one Let no one be moved by these afflictions. For you, yourself, know that we were destined for this, for when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand, that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, just as you know.” Then in Acts 14:22, Paul speaking to the very first Christians on the very first missionary journey, says, “Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.” And 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” So we are destined for trials, suffering, etc. The Lord has given us ample warning. And this is why we as leaders need to prepare the people by telling them what Jesus said, and what Paul said, what James said, what Peter said. Many people do not know these great statements or the promises, and the rewards that come which we’ll look at in just a little while.
As Christians knowing that the world is cursed, and that we are in enemy occupied territory, we should never say, “Oh! Why did this happen to me? Why did I get cancer? Why did my loved one? Why did my church go through this terrible trauma?” We shouldn’t ever ask that. What we should say is, “Why shouldn’t this happen to me? It occurs worldwide, why shouldn’t I get cancer? Why shouldn’t I see a loved one? Why shouldn’t I have serious divisions and problems in my local church? Why? Why shouldn’t it happen to me?” That’s the attitude we should have.
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Despite reiterating, in case after case, that the Constitution demands government neutrality toward religion, the Court has stubbornly failed to clear away an undergrowth of older precedents that arguably suggest the opposite. Bureaucrats and judges alike cling to these outdated precedents, using them to mask their confusion, ignorance, or outright animus toward religious believers and institutions.

Religious-liberty cases have come to feature prominently on the Supreme Court’s docket. In the past five years alone, the Court has rejected Covid-19 restrictions on religious worship, disallowed the exclusion of Catholic Charities from Philadelphia’s foster care system, reaffirmed that courts may not second-guess religious schools’ employment decisions, invalidated (twice) the exclusion of religious schools from public-benefit programs, and held that Colorado unconstitutionally discriminated against a baker who refused to cater same-sex weddings. And, apparently, the Court is just getting started. This term, it is considering several important religious-liberty cases, and it recently agreed to consider another next term.
Many of the Court’s recent religious-liberty decisions sound a similar theme: namely, that the First Amendment requires government neutrality toward religion—that it prohibits the government from disfavoring religious believers or institutions, from silencing religious speech, and from suppressing religious conduct. So why do government actors persist in doing these things, necessitating the Court’s repeated corrective action?
Part of the fault lies with the Supreme Court itself. Despite reiterating, in case after case, that the Constitution demands government neutrality toward religion, the Court has stubbornly failed to clear away an undergrowth of older precedents that arguably suggest the opposite. Bureaucrats and judges alike cling to these outdated precedents, using them to mask their confusion, ignorance, or outright animus toward religious believers and institutions.
This term, the Court has given itself three opportunities to put a stop to all this by definitively rejecting older, erroneous interpretations of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause that can be read to countenance religious discrimination. The first, Carson v. Makin, argued in December, challenges Maine’s exclusion of faith-based schools from a tuition-assistance program for high school students living in rural school districts. Carson asks the Court to reaffirm what it has already twice made clear: the First Amendment forbids states from excluding religious schools from public-benefit programs, including private school-choice programs. Despite this, Maine points to language in prior decisions that it argues create loopholes permitting it to discriminate against religious schools and the students who wish to attend them. Rather than ignoring, narrowing, or distinguishing these decisions, the Court should explicitly overrule them and close the loopholes, thus eliminating the confusion that itself has created—and clearing the path for the expansion of parental choice in the U.S.
Though Carson is arguably the most important religious-liberty case this term, two others sound a similar theme. Today, the Supreme Court will hear argument in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a case challenging a high school’s termination of a football coach for praying on the field after games. The school claims that it had no choice but to fire Coach Joseph Kennedy when he refused to stop praying, pointing to prior precedents that sow confusion and discrimination to justify its action. Specifically at issue in Kennedy is the so-called endorsement test, a doctrine that the Supreme Court invented to distinguish between constitutionally protected private religious expression and constitutionally prohibited government religious expression.
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