I believe in the Power of you and I?

There is nothing wrong biblically in cheering for your country in the Olympics. But I don't get what my believing or not believing has to do with what Canada's Hockey teams do on the ice. If they are meaning that believing is the same as cheering. Fine! Then say what you mean! This sounds more like Oprah's "The Secret" or from the world of "Word of Faith. If I say I believe, I will get what I said?
Another aspect of concern is the song. As the days get closer to the Lord's Return we will hear more of this type of anthem. We are the world and we can do anything and conquer anything if we are One. I am including the song and a message by John MacArthur. This world power will sooner or later spill over to all world religions. Including the evangelical church.

Pastor Ed Young is no different then anyone else that is confronted with lots of opportunity to have all the things of the world. We don't have to be rich to have this opportunity to make idols of objects that were not suppose to take our time, money and our worship. Please pray for Pastor Young. We walk on the same ground as this man. But he needs to repent and humble himself before God's Grace and Mercy. There still is time to come back to the Gospel. It is possible for this life and this church to get back to the Gospel. Listen to this audio of Matt Chandler and his story about Village Church.

This is a good example of How a Biblical understanding of the Gospel can turnaround a church

.http://http://media.9marks.org/2010/01/01/the-story-of-matt-with-matt-chandler

The Next video is from John MacArthur talking about the Love of Money. The Love of money can come to any person, rich or poor.

Part 4 Evolutionary Spirituality

Theses will be the last videos showing the slippery slope to paganism when evolution is replacing the Biblical account of Creation.

Part 3 Evolutionary Spirituality

Part 2 Evolutionary Spirituality

Again here is Phillip Clayton talking to Spencer Burke. Keep in mind that if your starting point is not the Biblical account of Creation. Man and all his wisdom will fill in anything and everything to replace it.

Roger Oakland address the results of this evolutionary thinking with a serises of videos. For more imformation I encourage to go to his web site http://http://www.understandthetimes.org/

Biological Evolution and Spiritual Evolution

A few post ago before dealing with Psychology and the Church. There was a audio/video regarding the Emergent Church. One of the roots that is growing rapidly is the thought that Evolution and Christianity go together. That there is a biological evolutionary stream to Christianity. We are emerging and evolving in our "spirituality". This is not a new idea which I will show through a few videos. There is one faithful servant of God that has been warning the Body of Christ how biology evolution will give way to spiritual evolution and that is Roger Oakland. And that now it is beginning to eat away at the Biblical account of Creation and calls it a story. And that science can explain everything about God and man.

The first video is Phillip Clayton who says he is a theologian but uses science to show our emerging spirituality.

The second video is based on the book: The Evolution Conspiracy by Roger Oakland and Caryl Matrisciana, 1991. Here is a clip showing even in the 90's that evolution will not stop with biological evolution but will continue with man evolving by his spirituality.

Back then it was was called "new age" and it seemed so far away from the evangelical church. But now in 2010 it is a growing movement within the church. Does your Pastor believe that evolution is used by God? Is Creation/Evolution not that important to your church?

I pray that these post will rethink your views. Please go back to the Bible as your foundation for Creation!

This is the last Installment from the Book: The four temperaments by Martin and Deidre Bobgan
Here are some links for your further investigation
http://http//www.psychoheresy-aware.org/mainpage.html

http://http//www.thebereancall.org/node/2564

http://http//www.thebereancall.org/node/6951




Spiritual Warfare.
Why, then, is there so much seeming failure in the
Christian life? Why are so many Christians looking
for answers outside the Word of God and outside the
provisions promised in His Word? Perhaps there’s a
misunderstanding about what it means to be a Christian
in terms of His life at work in us. Perhaps some
have forgotten that there is a warfare going on, or
they haven’t learned to do battle against the world,
the flesh, and the devil. Rather than learning to wage
battle in spiritual warfare with the sword of the
Spirit—the Word of God—and with the shield of faith,
many Christians have entered enemy territory looking
for other ways to improve their condition.
Paul continues his letter to the Galatians with a
description of the battle between the flesh and the
Spirit:
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary
the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the
things that ye would (Galatians 5:18).
The only way to victory is to be led by the Spirit. As
Paul says, “But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not
under the law” (Galatians 5:18). The key is to be led
by the Spirit, but that requires one to die to self and
that is where the resistance lies.
How many of us still want to hang onto our old
ways? How many of us clutch some cherished part of
what we once were? God’s ways require His
eignty in our lives. Do we resist Him to be Sovereign
Lord, King of Kings, Master, and Owner because we’ve
been our own little gods for so long? Is it because we’ve
been strengthening our flesh through extrabiblical
self-improvement programs?
Rather than teaching us to find out what temperament
or personality type we are and to use our
strengths and overcome our weaknesses, the Bible
reveals that we are in a spiritual battle between the
flesh (our old life) and the Spirit (His life in us). When
the flesh wins a skirmish the works of the flesh will
be manifest:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which
are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance,
emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and
such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have
also told you in time past, that they which do
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God
(Galatians 5:19-21).
But when the Christian is walking in the Spirit
and being led by the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit will
be manifest:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance: against such there is no law
(Galatians 5:22-23).
The fruit of the Spirit are not temperament traits of
the new man; they are manifestations of the Holy
Spirit. They are essentially different from those similar
traits of natural man, because they are the result
of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is
evidence of Christ in you, the hope of glory!
The spiritual battle was initially won at the Cross.
Therefore Paul declares:
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the
flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in
the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit
(Galatians 5:24-25).
Paul describes walking in the Spirit in Romans 8 as
well. One key element that applies to the error of
using personality theories is this:
For they that are after the flesh do mind the
things of the flesh; but they that are after the
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally
minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is
life and peace (Romans 8:5-6).
Temperament and personality typologies cause
people to “mind the things of the flesh.” Even though
one of LaHaye’s purposes for using the four temperaments
was to encourage people to walk in the Spirit,
such a plan contradicts the clear Word of God. We do
not become more spiritual through minding the things
of the flesh.
Christ has given Christians His righteousness.
They need not establish their own. Nor can they attain
their own righteousness though any kind of psychological
system of self-knowledge or self-improvement.
God is the One who works in believers through His
Word and His Spirit to conform them into the image
of Christ. There is no need to use the wisdom of men.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and
sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of
the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is
there any creature that is not manifest in his
sight: but all things are naked and opened unto
the eyes of him with whom we have to do
(Hebrews 4:12-13).
The Lord, the discerner of hearts, sees what needs
to be changed. And, believers do not have to hide from
their own sin, because Christ Jesus is their High
Priest.
Seeing then that we have a great high priest,
that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son
of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we
have not an high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but
was in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin (Hebrews 4:14-15).
And through all of this He is conforming us into
His own image, “that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren” (Romans 8:29).
The Lord knows each person’s individual uniqueness.
He knows how many hairs are on the head of
each person at any given time. And He knows the
exact genetic makeup of every person born on this
planet. Nevertheless, in His Word He did not set forth
a system for understanding temperament traits. Nor
did He set forth a plan by which people could analyze
the strengths and weaknesses of their temperaments
or personalities in order to find success and happiness.
Instead, He gave us His Word and His Son. He
gave us new life to enable us to live in love and obedience
to Him. His work in a person and that person’s
response of love and obedience will bring out the
beauty of individual differences to reflect His glory
in a unique and living way. The Bible’s focus is not
the mystery of individual differences of temperament
and personality. The biblical focus is Jesus Christ and
the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory!

Psychology and the Church, part 4

Here is the first part pf the last chapter from the Book: The four Temperments
by Martin & Deidre Bobgan
This chapter gives the Biblical answer to reaching people instead of using the tools and methods of the the world system.

Biblical Categories of Individual Differences
.Individual differences of temperament and personality
can make life interesting and challenging.
But, the Bible does not categorize people according
to temperament or personality. Instead, the richness
of variety permeates the pages of God’s Word. There
were nations and genealogies, but there were no temperament
types. God used fascinating people to show
forth His glory and accomplish His purposes, but they
were not temperament types.
Biblical classifications of people are always in
terms of their relationship to God. These are the kinds
of classifications that Christians should be interested
in. Psalm 1 sets forth two types of people:
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the
counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way
of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and
in His law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers
of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever
he doeth shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff
which the wind driveth away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the
judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous.
For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous:
but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
The distinction is not made according to introversion
or extroversion, or according to whether a person
is analytical or emotional. The distinction is made on
the basis of whether a person walks in obedience or
sin, whether he is godly or ungodly. And, that distinction
is a matter of eternal life or death.
Classifications in the Bible between the godly and
the ungodly, the saved and the lost, and between babes
in Christ and mature believers have been created by
God. God uses those distinctions to call a people to
Himself so that once again His image might be
reflected as He purposed from the beginning.
Even with all kinds of wonderful temperament or
personality traits, if a person is among the lost, he is
described this way:
. . . dead in trespasses and sins . . . fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind . . . by nature
the children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Gentiles in the flesh . . . without Christ, being
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and
strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world
(Ephesians 2:11-12).
Having the understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness
of their heart: Who being past feeling have
given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to
work all uncleanness with greediness
(Ephesians 4:18-19).
From the moment of new birth, God begins His
work of transforming an individual according to His
perfect plan. He has given His Word, His Holy Spirit,
and all that is necessary for life and godliness.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through
the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
according as his divine power hath given unto
us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called
us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto
us exceeding great and precious promises: that
by these ye might be partakers of the divine
nature, having escaped the corruption that is in
the world through lust (2 Peter 1:2-4).
Notice that the Lord does not have Peter say, “Add
virtues to your temperament strengths.” Instead, he
says:
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your
faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to
knowledge temperance; and to temperance
patience; and to patience godliness; and to
godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly
kindness charity (2 Peter 1:5-7).
The only classification given in this next passage has
to do with those who respond to the life of Christ in
them and those who have forgotten what God has
done:
For if these things be in you, and abound, they
make you that ye shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind,
and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that
he was purged from his old sins (2 Peter 1:8-9).
Peter does not say, “Identify your temperament
strengths and weaknesses and add the temperament
traits of the Spirit.” Instead he says:
Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence
to make your calling and election sure: for if ye
do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an
entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly
into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:10-11).
Christianity is a very personal relationship with
Jesus Christ. It is not a religious system of formulas
or fabrications of man-made means for self-improvement.
When a person is born again by the sovereign
will of God (John 1:12-13), he becomes a new creation
in Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to indwell him and
to conform him into the image of Jesus Christ. God
works from the inside through His Word and His
Spirit. He also uses circumstances in believers’ lives
to conform them to His image (Romans 8:28-29). The
Christian’s part is to respond to what God is doing
through Spirit-enabled obedience. He becomes more
like Christ as he focuses on God rather than on self.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit
of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Freedom from Bondage.
Personality typologies and tests put people under
bondage to worldly systems and standards. Each
psychological system presents a theory to explain the
human condition, describes how they should be, and
presents a method of change. Thus each system
condemns people through a man-made standard of
judgment concerning how they should be, and each
system presents a plan and promises for change.
Once a person buys into such a system, he vainly
attempts to become what that system promises he
can be. It is a never-ending cycle of works with users
always trying to reach the standard, but never quite
making it. That is why people tend to go from one
psychological system of change to another, from one
therapy to another.
Not one of them gives all it promises. The same is
true of typologies like the four temperaments, DiSC,
and the enneagram. Each is a system that offers freedom
to become one’s very best. In reality, each is a
form of bondage.
The apostle Paul was concerned with any philosophy
or religious activity that contaminated the pure
Gospel of grace. His letter to the Galatians expresses
his concern about the seriousness of adding works
that pervert the Gospel of Christ:
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him
that called you into the grace of Christ unto
another gospel: which is not another; but there
be some that trouble you, and would pervert the
gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than
that which we have preached unto you, let him
be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again,
If any man preach any other gospel unto you
than that ye have received, let him be accursed
(Galatians 1:6-9).
Paul called any addition to the Gospel of Christ
“another gospel” that would “pervert the gospel of
Christ.” Whatever has to do with matters of the soul
that adds to the Gospel of grace will compete with
and contaminate the pure Word of God. For the Christians,
the most dangerous additions are those that
are mixed with Bible references.
During Paul’s day, the Judaizers said faith in
Christ by the Gospel was not enough. They taught
that followers of Christ had to be circumcised to
assure their salvation. Paul was not opposed to
circumcision itself, but rather to those who were
enticing people to become circumcised just in case
faith in Jesus was not enough. Judaizers undermined
the finished work of Christ and urged people to do
something to establish their standing before God.
They were, in fact, denying the efficacy of the Cross
for initial salvation.
Today, the works added to the Cross of Christ are
not circumcision. Instead of adding circumcision to
faith in Christ, countless Christians are adding the
works of self-improvement through psychological
systems, such as the four temperaments and other
typologies. Thus, they are denying the efficacy of the
Cross in terms of sanctification. Countless Christians
are trusting in self-improvement formulas along with
or instead of trusting fully in the sufficiency of God’s
provisions for living the Christian life. In so doing,
they are saying that Jesus’ death and resurrection
are inadequate, that God’s grace is insufficient, that
God’s Word is incomplete, that the Holy Spirit needs
“another helper,” and that the Gospel is limited to
saving us from the final judgment.
Today, mere psychological opinions of men are
being added to the Cross of Christ and the Gospel of
grace. The situation is much like in the Old Testament
when the Israelites were incorporating the
surrounding nations’ idolatry. The Lord grieved over
the people who turned away from His absolute sufficiency:
Hath a nation changed their gods, which are
yet no gods? but my people have changed their
glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished,
O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly
afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.
For my people have committed two evils; they
have forsaken me the fountain of living waters,
and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns,
that can hold no water (Jeremiah 2:11-13).
Today, rather than trusting God to complete the
work He has begun in every true Christian, many
are attempting to become better Christians through
secular and pagan psychological methods.

The Way of Death and the Way of Life.
After arguing that “man is not justified by the
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ”
(Galatians 2:16), Paul emphasizes the drastic separation
between attempting to secure one’s own righteousness
and trusting the grace of God. Death and
resurrection are the only words that can describe the
radical difference. And, indeed, the new life in Christ
comes only by His death and by our identification with
that death. He died in the place of who we were and
gave us new life to replace that old life.
Henceforth we are not to live by that old life. It is
to be counted dead (Romans 6). We are not to try to
analyze it or improve it. Instead, we are to live by the
new life in Christ Jesus. Thus Paul’s description of
himself is not exclusively for him or specially for
mature believers. These words are for every Christian:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself
for me (Galatians 2:20).
Paul did not say, “the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God” plus the
four temperaments or plus any other psychological
system for understanding and changing people. In
fact, he called the Galatians foolish for adding
anything to faith in the finished work of Christ:
O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you,
that ye should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth,
crucified among you? This only would I learn of
you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the
law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish?
having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made
perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1-3).
And this is exactly what so many Christians are
tempted to do. “Having begun in the Spirit” they are
trying to be “made perfect by the flesh” through
psychological means.
Identification with Jesus.Rather than teaching us to focus on personality
and temperament, God is transforming us into the
image of Christ through the Holy Spirit. He describes
what we are to become through His Word, He demonstrates
the way we are to live through Christ and
saintly examples, but He does more than that. He
Christ in You: 199
the Hope of Glory
works through the inside, because he has infused His
life and character into us through His Holy Spirit.
He gives us His external, written, living Word and
His internal, living Word through the Spirit.
The believer’s identification in Christ sets him free
to love and obey the Lord according to the very life of
Christ and the very truth of Christ. Jesus promises:
If ye continue in my word, then are ye my
disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free (John 8:31-
32).
Paul explains our freedom in Christ in his letter to
the Romans:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law
could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh: That the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit (Romans 8:1-4).
If the law of God, which is holy, cannot make us
“free from sin,” how can any other religious, philosophical,
or psychological system do so? If the perfect
law of God was “weak through the flesh,” why do
Christians look for another system of “laws”? That is
what personality typologies are. They are man-made
laws of who is what and why and how. God has
provided the only way to overcome the flesh and that
was by sending His Son to die in our place—to
“condemn sin in the flesh.” Psychological systems
leave us in our sins, but the Son sets us free!
Because of our freedom in Christ, Paul urges:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1).
However, we are not set free to be me and to do my
own thing. Instead we are free to live our new life in
Jesus—not to reach our highest potential, but to
become like Jesus to love and to serve.
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty;
only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another (Galatians 5:13).
God’s plan for us to “not fulfill the lust of the flesh”
is for us to walk in the Spirit—that is, by His
indwelling and enabling presence (Galatians 5:16).
Walking in the Spirit is allowing Christ to live His
life in and through us. All other methods of overcoming
“weaknesses” only rearrange, strengthen and feed
the flesh.

Psychology and the Church, part 3

Today is again from the Book: Four Temperaments by Martin and Deidre Bobgan

Why All the
Deception?

Why are people—even Christians—running after
personality inventories, temperament tests, and spiritual
gifts inventories? Here are a few possible reasons.
1. The Barnum Effect.
Research reveals that individuals are very prone
to accept the most general character descriptions as
being specifically applicable to themselves. The term
given to this phenomenon is the Barnum Effect,
named after P. T. Barnum, who believed that a good
circus had “a little something for everybody.” Even
though the descriptions or descriptive terms in the
inventories, typologies, and tests apply equally well
to other people, individuals are gullible enough to
believe they are unique to themselves. Of course, this
is exactly what happens with the horoscope, palm
reading, and crystal ball gazing. This is known in
research literature as the illusion of uniqueness and
occurs at least for positive traits.1
In his article “Acceptance of Personality Test
Results,” Philippe Thiriart asks, “Is the accuracy of
the results of a personality test an important factor
in its acceptance by a psychologist’s client?” After
conducting an experiment and evaluating the results,
Thiriart says:
These findings indicate that people are more
willing to accept socially desirable statements
about themselves than those that are scientifically
accurate. The findings also suggest
why many people easily accept statements
about their personality that come from astrologers
and palm readers.2
2. Promotion by Popular Christians.The personality inventories, temperament
typologies, and tests of spiritual gifts are often
promoted by well-known Christians. H. Norman
Wright promotes the TJTA; Larry Burkett, Ken Voges,
and Ron Braund promote the PPS; Tim LaHaye and
Florence Littauer promote the four temperaments
along with their own temperament tests; and many
in the church endorse the MBTI. The promoters’ popularity
tends to cancel discernment by the user. After
all, if H. Norman Wright promotes the TJTA it must
be great. Also, these promoters so often do it with such
infectious enthusiasm. Unfortunately infectious
enthusiasm by a popular Christian for such products
is enough to overcome any reluctance.
3. Customer Enthusiasm.
The National Research Council warns against
personal experience and testimonials and says these
“are not regarded as an acceptable alternative to
rigorous scientific evidence.” The Council goes on to
say:
Even when they have high face validity, such
personal beliefs are not trustworthy as
evidence. They often fail to consider the full
range of factors that may be responsible for an
observed effect. Personal versions of reality,
which are essentially private, are especially
antithetical to science, which is a fundamentally
public enterprise.3
Personal experiences and testimonials, as important
as they are to individuals expressing them, do
not constitute scientific proof. LaHaye, Littauer, Voges
and Braund all have personal experiences and testimonials
to support their promotion of what they do;
however, they lack scientific proof.
In his book The Inflated Self, Dr. David Myers says
this about personality tests:
People’s believing horoscope data about themselves
in the same way as personality test data,
and their being most receptive to personality
test feedback on tests that have the lowest
actual validity, raises some disconcerting
implications for psychiatry and clinical
psychology. Regardless of whether a particular
diagnosis has any validity, the recipient is
likely to stand in awe of it, especially after
expending effort and money to receive it.4
There is a tendency to support a system in which
one has invested time and money, even if the money
is only the cost of a book. Unfortunately, the test user
who becomes committed is the main source of others
being enticed. The enthusiastic user becomes the
enthusiastic promoter, often merely parroting the
enthusiasm of the original promoter. It may be that
the real Barnum Effect is Barnum’s comment,
“There’s a sucker born every minute.”
4. The Illusion of Efficacy.
How do these popular Christians get to be such
believers in the first place? Myers tells how the illusion
of efficacy happens in psychotherapy:
In experimental studies, therapists have
tended to take credit for good outcomes, but
not for poor outcomes. Hence, the clinician may
surmise, “I helped Mr. X get better. But, despite
my help, Mrs. Y got worse.”5
Because it is natural to take credit for success and to
avoid blame for failure, an “illusion of efficacy” occurs.
Another facet of the illusion of efficacy is described
by Myers. He says:
Since people tend to seek help when things
have hit bottom, any activity that is then
undertaken may seem to be effective—both to
the client and the therapist.6
The illusion of efficacy is so strong in the area of
personality inventories that even when tests are
known to lack proper validity, people will still use
them because they still think they work. Once a
person takes a test for a counselor, for instance, the
counselor will look at the person through test results
and will also look for and remember any confirming
evidence.
After we spoke on testing at a conference and had
mentioned our concerns with the Personal Profile
System, an individual who had used the test for years
told us that it was immaterial to him whether the
test was valid or not. However, he said that he would
be concerned if there were any connection between
the PPS and the horoscope.
While we agree that his major concern should be
its relationship to the horoscope, his additional
concern should have been its validity. It sounded as if
it didn’t matter to him how invalid the test was as
long as it wasn’t related to the horoscope. Nevertheless,
truth is too important to Christianity to ignore
the validity of a testing instrument being used by
Christians on Christians.
Summing up, “taking credit for good outcomes” and
people improving supposedly after taking a test that
gives them a new revelation, we see the power of the
illusion of efficacy, which results in support for tests
that should be rejected.
5. Illusory Correlation.
Myers says:
Our confusion concerning correlation-causation
is often compounded by our susceptibility
to perceiving correlation where none exists.
When we expect to see significant relationships,
we easily misperceive random events as
significantly related.7
He also says that “experiments indicate that
people easily misperceive random events as confirming
their beliefs.”8 If we have a certain label on ourselves
and expect to behave in a certain way, our
expectations will interpret our actions to conform to
the label and therefore confirm it.
6. Self-Deception.The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
(Jeremiah 17:9). Research does support the selfdeception
of individuals. We know that it is very
common for people to distort reality and to have very
inaccurate perceptions of themselves, their world
(environment), and the future. Dr. Shelley Taylor’s
Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the
Healthy Mind documents research that demonstrates
how individuals are deceived about themselves, their
environments, and their futures. Much of this selfdeception
can so easily be carried over into personality
inventories, temperament tests, and spiritual gifts
inventories.
This is not a matter of faking; it is a matter of
communicating our own self-deceptions while filling
out the inventory or taking the test. For example, a
person may think of himself as a great leader and
aspire for leadership in a church. He takes a test for
spiritual gifts and would naturally communicate this
on the test. However, in reality he might be the worst
possible choice as a leader. But once having communicated
his self-deception on the test and finding a
confirmation there, he becomes an ardent test
promoter.
7. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.Dr. Robert Merton, in his book Social Theory and
Social Structure, conceptualized the self-fulfilling
prophecy.9 Merton says the self-fulfilling prophecy
occurs when “a false definition of [a] situation evokes
a new behavior which makes the original conception
come true.” In other words, we tend to act in ways
consistent with our expectations, even if they are not
accurate.
Len Sandler, in an article on the self-fulfilling
prophecy, says:
It boils down to this: Consciously or not, we tip
people off as to what our expectations are. We
exhibit thousands of cues, some as subtle as
the tilting of heads, the raising of eyebrows or
the dilation of nostrils, but most are much more
obvious. And people pick up on those cues. The
concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy can be
summarized in five key principles:1. We form certain expectations of people or
events.
2. We communicate those expectations with
various cues.
3. People tend to respond to these cues by
adjusting their behavior to match them.
4. The result is that the original expectation
becomes true.
5. This creates a circle of self-fulfilling prophecies.
10
Parents can easily fall into the trap of eliciting
certain behavior from their children by expecting
them to act in a certain way. For instance, a mother
may have been told that her little boy is a perfect
Choleric according to a test. She may consequently
expect aggressive behavior. Every child displays some
aggressive behavior, but since his mother has tagged
him as Choleric, she is overly sensitized to any
aggressive behavior. She may think she is handling
the situation well by accepting aggressiveness,
because she expects his angry outbursts. But, she may
well be encouraging them through both her expectation
and her subtle acceptance of that behavior now
that she “understands” his temperament. If she
doesn’t already have a little Choleric, she will create
one.
8. Illusory Thinking.Fallacious thinking is something we are all
involved in, and it’s generally easier to catch someone
else at it than ourselves. Knowing our attitude
about personality testing, a man spoke with us about
some consulting he had done for the local police
department in that city. He said he had tested 100
successful policemen to see what commonality existed.
He then set up a personality profile based upon the
results. New police force applicants whose profiles
were similar to those of the successful policemen were
admitted to police training; those with dissimilar
profiles were rejected.

He asked what we thought of
what he did and we explained to him the following
problems:

1. The test provides a snapshot of what the policemen
were like at the point of success rather
than what these same men’s profiles may have
looked like when they originally applied for police
training.
2. No double blind study had been set up to let in
a group of men who did not fit the profile. They
should admit such a group and then check their

future success and compare it with those who did
fit the profile and were accepted.
3. The commonality or profile of successful policemen
may be a commonality of weaknesses
rather than strengths. Their strengths may be so
individual and different from one another that no
profile could capture them.
4. Self-fulfilling prophecy could be involved here.
9. Numerolatry.
Many people are involved in a sort of numerolatry
(number worship). If a test utilizes numbers and
numerical profiles, it is assumed that it must therefore
be scientific and valid. The use of numbers, mathematics,
statistics, correlations, and measures of significance
do not mean that the end result (a test score)
is valid. Few people realize that even when a test has
been shown to be statistically significant, that the
statistical significance is often so small that it is really
insignificant.
While the lack of validity should silence the zealous
Christian promoters of personality inventories
and temperament tests, it hasn’t even dampened their
enthusiasm. Promotion and use of such inventories
and tests is a testimony to the naivete and negligence
of many Christians.

Notes

Chapter 11: Why All the Deception?
1. David G. Myers. The Inflated Self. New York: The
Seabury Press, 1980, p. 102.
2. Philippe Thiriart. “Acceptance of Personality Test
Results,” Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 15, No. 2, Winter
1991, p. 161.
3. National Research Council. Enhancing Human
Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques. Daniel
Druckman and John A. Swets, eds. Washington, DC:
National Academy Press, 1988, p. 17.
4. Myers, op. cit., p. 101.
5. Ibid., p. 136.
6. Ibid.

Psychology and the Church, part 2

The following is from Chapter 10: Popular Personality Tests from the Book The Four Temperament by Martin & Deidre Bobgan

It may be a little heavy but remember that this research on these psychology testing tools and the language will be according to the research. Notice the history and the origins of these personality test. Did they have the Bible as there foundation to make "psychology" decisions?

Personal Profile System (PPS) and
Biblical Personal Profiles (BPP).
Like the MBTI, the Personal Profile System is a
personality inventory based on Carl Jung’s theory of
psychological types. However, in addition to Jung’s
theory, the PPS is based upon a book by William
Marston, Emotions of Normal People. The PPS
provides the following four scales:
D — dominance
i — influencing of others
S — steadiness
C — compliance (to their standards)13
To better understand the PPS, we obtained copies
of it and of the Biblical Personal Profiles (BPP). The
24 groups of words used on both tests are identical.
Therefore our comments about the PPS apply equally
to the BPP. After reading the two tests and all the
other materials we received from Performax Systems
International, Inc., we looked at the academic sources
for evaluations and reviews. We found very few references
in the academic literature for the PPS and none
for the BPP.

In the Performax Product Catalog is a listing for
The Kaplan Report: A Study of the Validity of the
Personal Profile System. We obtained a copy of that
report. It says:
Since 1972 the PPS has been widely employed.
The market for this product is said to be growing
daily. Hence, in 1982, PSII [Performax Systems
International, Inc.] contracted with
Kaplan Associates of Chevy Chase, Maryland
for the conduct of a study to establish how the
PPS compares as an assessment instrument
with highly researched and valid psychological
measuring instruments.14
Please notice that Performax, the company that
owns and markets the PPS, contracted with a firm,
Kaplan Associates, to conduct this study. We have read
the report and have concerns and questions about it.
It definitely does not establish the necessary validity
for the PPS.
One of the most important volumes on tests is the
Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY). There is no
mention of the PPS in the MMY until The Tenth
Mental Measurements Yearbook. In that volume, the
PPS is evaluated. This recent evaluation occurred
years after The Kaplan Report. We quote from that
review:
A serious concern with this instrument is its
lack of reported research. While the authors
state the instrument shows good reliability and
validity, they provide the user with virtually
no data to support these claims.15
The reviewer goes on to refer to and then challenge
studies that are provided in the PPS manual. In
conclusion, the reviewer says that “the clear lack
of data to support this instrument should
preclude its use.”16 (Emphasis added.) We did a
literature search on the PPS and found other reviews
that substantiated the MMY recommendation.
Because the PPS and the BPP are related to
Jungian theory, the same remarks made in the MBTI
section would apply. These are not tests that Christians
should be involved in or promote. The PPS and
the BPP are also quite frank about the relationship
of the DiSC and the four temperaments. As we quoted
earlier, its test material says:
The Greek words “Choleric,” “Sanguine,”
“Phlegmatic,” and “Melancholic” are synonymous
terms to the DISC and used by some
Christian writers to identify the differences in
behavior. Most known is Dr. Tim LaHaye.17
As mentioned earlier, the PPS and the BPP have
the same 24 groups of words to which the test taker
responds. In contrast to the test’s brevity (one page),
the number of pages devoted to the number of
patterns that can result from the test is amazing.18
In the BPP there are over 30 individuals listed from
the Bible (from Abraham to the apostle Paul) with
their accompanying patterns.19 To think that responding
to merely 24 groups of words in three minutes
(the time it took us to complete the test) could yield
that many patterns and be applied to that many
individuals in Scripture does stretch the limits of
credulity!
The PPS and the BPP are featured in Ken Voges
and Ron Braund’s book, Understanding How Others
Misunderstand You: A Unique and Proven Plan for
Strengthening Personal Relationships, which we
discussed earlier. In view of the foregoing information,
it is obvious that the title’s implied promises are
not scientifically defensible and that the admitted
relationship to the four temperaments should, for biblical
reasons, prohibit Christians from participating.
The director of Christian Financial Concepts is
Larry Burkett. In his materials catalog there is a listing
of the PPS which says:
This is the self-scoring version of the DISC
instrument that Larry Burkett began using
years ago to determine a person’s basic
personality profile. With it you can identify
your primary and secondary motivations and
begin to understand the strengths and weaknesses
of your personality. You can also learn
to appreciate how others have different motivations
and see how each profile has a most
desired and most efficient work environment.20
The implied promises in this and other such listings
are wholly incompatible with the facts.
Our recommendation for the PPS and the BPP is
the same as for the MBTI. For both biblical and
scientific reasons those two instruments should not
be used to evaluate individuals for Christian service
or for personal understanding


Spiritual Gifts Inventories.
Perhaps worse than the two areas of testing that
we have discussed (personality and temperament) is
the idea that a test or inventory would reveal a
Christian’s spiritual gifts. The “Spiritual Gifts Inventory”
and its accompanying guide “Understanding
Spiritual Gifts” comprise just one of numerous inventories
and tests used to discover one’s spiritual gifts.29
The idea behind the inventories is the same as
behind career tests—personality traits and types
match certain activities and preferences. Line up the
traits, preferences, and activities and you end up with
a possible career choice. Such tests reduce spiritual
gifts and service in the Body of Christ to career interest
inventories and a job in the marketplace.
Since those who create and promote such tests are
copying the business world, they at least ought to
follow the academic guidelines for validation. In none
of these inventories have we seen anything resembling
the minimum requirements needed for a
statistically valid instrument. People are looking to
an unproven, extrabiblical instrument to determine
God’s will and God’s call to service. However, the lack
of statistical validity is not the most serious problem
with using spiritual gifts inventories.
In essence such inventories deny Paul’s declaration
that he was “made a minister, according to the
gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual
working of his power” (Ephesians 3:7). Was he made
a minister “according to the gift of the grace of God
given unto me by the effectual working of his power”
or by his natural personality traits?
If people are following career-choice types of
inventories to learn how to fit into the Body of Christ,
they may be serving from the wrong power base (personality
“strengths”) and their own self-interests,
rather than from the “effectual working” of God’s
power and from obedience to His will and plan.
While God may indeed use a person’s natural
talents for His service, He is not limited to that. Nor
is He limited to using His children according to any
pagan temperament type. He is sovereign and may
sanctify natural talents into spiritual gifts. He may
also curb the use of natural talents to prevent pride
from swallowing the soul. He may also endue people
with power that goes far beyond their natural abilities
and inclinations. While people like to think that
God used Paul because of his natural talents, Paul
counted all that he was and had according to the flesh
“dung.” He knew the power of the resurrection of
Christ indwelling him for service.
How did the Church throughout the ages, from its
inception, ever function without these inventories?
Very well! Spiritual gifts were recognized and exercised
totally without the help of the modern-day testing
movement and the penchant to worship numbers.
The gifts are spiritual, not mathematical! They cannot
be identified by psychological instruments except
in the most superficial and erroneous way.
Although we mention one of the spiritual gifts
inventories by name, we are not singling that one out
as any worse than the rest. We are opposed to the use
of all such tests and inventories that purport to identify
spiritual gifts. While the Bible does not speak to
the issue of such tests, it does warn us about following
“philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after
Christ” (Colossians 2:8). Rather than using the ways
of the world to identify spiritual gifts and callings,
the New Testament believers resorted to prayer and
guidance by the Holy Spirit.
Pastors have told us that spiritual gift inventories
are useful to get their people to serve. They use
the devices to motivate people to serve. However, to
use an instrument that purports to identify spiritual
gifts when there is a high probability for error, since
there has been no validation of results, is dishonest.
Truth is too important an issue in the Body of
Christ. Furthermore, what happens when an inventory
gives someone the idea that he can (yea, should!)
serve in a particular way that would be detrimental
to the Body of Christ? What if the person hold a particular position based
upon his test performance? Getting a high score on
any gift is no reason for a person to be placed in a
particular ministry, since there is no proven validity
to the results.
Spiritual gifts inventories may lead people not only
to serve in the flesh, but also to depend upon their
natural “strengths” rather than on the Lord in the
process of serving Him. There is also the danger of
focusing on self and self’s gifts rather than on the
Lord who is the Giver of gifts. For both biblical and
academic reasons, we strongly recommend against the
use of all such spiritual gifts inventories.


Personality Tests in the Church.
The use of various personality tests is becoming
prolific among Christians. Those preparing for the
pastorate and missionary work are often required to
take such tests. As a result of such tests, many have
been rejected from such service. However, we find
nothing in the research literature that would warrant
such a conclusion.
In his article “The Trouble with Testing,” Martin
Lasden quotes George Dudley, a test researcher and
president of Behavioral Science Research Press of
Dallas:
Testing is a way to get at the truth sideways,
and if you believe that the only way to get at
the truth about another person is to administer
a test, then you’re not only fooling yourself,
but you’re also demonstrating a very negative
view of mankind. You’re saying that truth
cannot be determined by asking the subject,
or those who know the subject, but only by asking
a testing expert.30
Dudley believes there should be more humility about
testing.
Consider a man preparing for the mission field
with a well-known and highly respected missionary
organization. He was given one of the well-known
personality tests. On the basis of the results, he was
rejected from service. This is one of thousands of
examples of personality testing at its worst. While
one can only speculate, it does raise a question as to
what would have happened to the great missionaries
of the past if they had been subjected to taking
personality tests before going to the mission field. God
only knows! No one should ever be rejected from the
pastorate or from missionary work on the basis of a
personality test score or even on a battery of personality
tests.

NOTES
13. “The Personal Profile System.” Minneapolis:
Performax Systems International, Inc., 1985, p. 7.
14. Sylvan J. Kaplan and Barbara E. W. Kaplan. “The
Kaplan Report: A Study of the Validity of the Personal
Profile System.” Kaplan Associates, Chevy Chase, MD,
p. 3.
15. Ellen McGinnis, “Review of the Personal Profile
System.” Tenth Mental Measurements Yearbook. Jane
218 Four Temperamets, Astrology
& Personality Testing
Close Conoley and Jack J. Kramer, eds. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1989, p. 623.
16. Ibid., p. 624.
17. “Biblical Personal Profiles.” Minneapolis: Performax
System International, Inc., 1985, p. 20.
18. “The Personal Profile System,” op. cit., pp. 14-19.
19. “Biblical Personal Profiles,” op. cit., p. 20.
20. Christian Financial Concepts materials catalog,
Gainsville, GA.
21. “Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis Profile,”
Psychological Publications, Los Angeles, 1967.
22. Robert Taylor and Lucille Morrison. Taylor-Johnson
Temperament Analysis Manual, 1984 revision. Los
Angeles: Psychological Publications, Inc., p. 23.
23. Letter on file.
24. Paul McReynolds, “Review of the Taylor-Johnson
Temperament Analysis.” Tenth Mental Measurements
Yearbook. Jane Close Conoley and Jack J. Kramer, eds.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989, p. 813.
25. H. Norman Wright, Christian Marriage Enrichment,
Summer 1985 conference announcement.
26. Tim LaHaye. Why You Act the Way You Do. Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc., 1984, p. 126.
27. American Educational Research Association, American
Psychological Association, & National Council on
Measurement in Education. Standards for Educational
and Psychological Testing. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association, 1985.
28. LaHaye, op. cit., pp. 365-366.
29. Gary Georgeson and Randy Fowler. “Spiritual Gift
Inventory” and “Understanding Spiritual Gifts.” Inter-
Varsity Christian Fellowship, April 1988.
30. George Dudley, quoted by Martin Lasden in “The
Trouble with Testing,” Training, May 1985, p. 83.

Psychology and the Church, part 1

It was 28 years ago that started my classes to become a Registered Psychiatric Nurse. I was a christian at the time so I knew that what I was going to be taught was not founded on God's Word. But I had this idea that God gave bits of wisdom to secular people to help people that are hurting. It may not be the beast but if it works it must be form God.

So for two years I was taught all these Psychiatric tools to help hurting people. And I thought at that time that if it works that's okay. I still wanted to tell my testimony of how God had "saved" me from Drugs and sex and running from God. But I did not know at that time that the Gospel of Jesus is sufficient and able to heal the broken hearted and to set the captive free from sin and the wrath of God's Judgement. All I did for years is to have my Bible in one hand and humanist teaching in the other hand.

My thinking and my heart has changed so much from those days. Check out the post,"If my people, which are called by my name." And at the end is a statement from John Piper which is the fact that you never out grow the need for the Gospel in all things in life.

With this in mind I was completely dishearten when I was given a newsletter from the Associated Gospel churches of Canada. I was excited to read about testimonies of how the Gospel was reaching Canada. And that churches were being broken and humbled by the Great Mercy and Grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I understand that the issue was of goals and informing the churches of where they are headed in the years to come. But the following statements gave my reason to be very concerned with the direction and the tools that they are using.

NATIONAL INSIDEDGE
AGC Church Health and Leadersip

"What is a healthy church? We believe that healthy churches are marked by love, faith, and hope; they draw believers and seekers; they engage in the life of their community; they reproduce themselves; they normally grow; and, they are led by healthy leaders. There is a pattern to developing a healthy church, though that pattern is not iron-clad. Healthy leaders would be the first step.

Implement tools and training that will advance the health of our congregational leaders:
1. We are making available the DiSC, a secular analysis tool that
highlights temperaments, to our pastors across Canada.
a. We are conferring with our pastors in regional groups, explaining how the DiSC helps
self-awareness and comprehension of the approach of those who are different.
b. A fully-implemented DiSC will help pastors learn to "speak the dialect" of those who are
not like them and will enable a church's leadership group to team-build for
effective ministry.
2. In the past, we have recommended Natural Church Development (NCD) This remains
a helpful tool. If you are using it effectively don't stop! However...
3. We are also investigating the use of T-Net for our congregations.
a. T-Net provides a survey for church effectiveness, measuring the
self-reported spiritual growth of members and adherents.

There were other causes for concern but I would like to address the main problem that I see.

Is there really room for Psychology in the Church?

The following posts is to address this question.Please again understand my heart in this matter. Go back to my first post in December 2009. And I pray that you will have ears to hear and a heart that will take a second look at this direction.

Emergent Church Conference

Please take time and listen to this audio/video about the emergent Church and their leaders. Be informed so that your children, grandchildren, and church youth will not become endangered eternally.

The Gospel

Before we go any further we need to go back to the Gospel. Here is Bob DeWaay explaining so well what the Gospel is. The Church of Today is attempting to trust in something else to reach God. This is adding to the Gospel.