There are things in life that if used properly can be used as great tools. Whether to understand others, to spend time with others, for fellowship, for growth, etc.
As with most things, there is a pendulum. When not used at all, or not using because you believe you’re better than it, you become self-righteous and legalistic. When you become obsessive over it and can’t have a conversation without bringing it up, you make it an idol and swing the pendulum towards licentiousness.
There is a healthy medium in the pendulum. If you can balance the thing as a tool – the way God has designed it to be used, it’s a good thing. It can even be a great thing.
The trick then is figuring out what are the things that can be used for good, and what is plain evil? Everyone has thoughts on what the line is here. The little old grandparents at the church might say the unredeemable sin might be rap music. “That music is straight from the devil. Only a heathen would listen to that evil music.” I can see them saying it now.
Some might swing the other way and say everything can be used as a good thing. Maybe it’s the teenager saying that weed helps them connect to God on a much deeper level. Or that they feel closest to God when they’re drunk. What’s the truth? Can you die on these hills?
The problem with pendulums, is they have a tendency to swing, and rarely do they stay in the middle. When one generation pushes it one way, the next pulls back the other way. If you don’t have a standard to go on, you never know where to hold that swing. What is the true middle? How do you know you’re standing on truth?
The simple answer is that God wrote a book for us to guide us on these decisions. Over and over again in the old testament, we see that when people tried to pursue truth on their own, Things didn’t go well. “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes” – a saying that is said throughout the old testament when people were following God for a time and then put away the words he had spoken to them (the law) and they tried to pursue Him without His guidance.
When they put away the book of the law that God had given to them to follow, they always stumbled down the path to evil. The Bible is our source of truth. When we don’t know what to do (and when we do) we should be reading it. It’s not a magic genie that will give you the answer to any question (though some use it as such), but instead, it’s a way for us to gain wisdom through the inspired word of God, and learn from the teachings of Jesus, and those who followed Him, how to follow and glorify God in everything that we do.
But how, you may ask, do we deal with things like the enneagram? It seems half of Christians are completely obsessed with it and want to hear people’s number before they hear their name. The other half believe it’s a form of satanism and won’t touch it or go anywhere near the study or thought of it. What’s right? Are these the two extremes, or is one right and one wrong?
There’s no verse in the Bible that says enneagram is wrong, so does that mean it’s okay?
As with anything that’s not specifically addressed in the Bible, this is up to the wisdom ascertained from the rest of reading the Bible to determine the good/bad/ugly of things outside what is in the Bible.
My rule with most things is to give them the benefit of the doubt. When used in moderation, almost anything can be used for good. However, when I see something that is taking the Christian world by storm, my initial reaction is to be extremely cautious of it. The problem is that something that a mature believer might use in moderation as a tool, a new believer might see as permission to completely devote themself to it, thus distracting them from the real prize of following Christ.
So, my own opinion on the matter of if the enneagram is evil is no. It’s a tool. And when used in moderation and not as a prescription, it can even be a healthy and fun thing. Don’t devote yourself to something that is from this world. Look to the Bible for your source of truth. Everything else is perks.