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Parables and the Enneagram
Parables and the Enneagram makes a unique contribution to enneagram literature. It illumines the enneagram with parables to make it an evermore brilliant diagnostic tool for lighting up the inner geography of our wounded souls.
164 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 29, 2019
"The Enneagram is about our flaws. Each of us has one serious flaw that shapes our personality. This flaw is called our Enneagram style, or type, in most Enneagram literature, and I would add this law is also our Enneagram strategy.
Our flaw is, first of all, a distorted vision of the world - and a correspondingly skewed view of God, for these wrong viewpoints or attitudes are usually the same. Thus our flaw is a strategy for dealing with God in this world that we see through a murky and distorted lens.
Our flaw is our Enneagram type. It has strengths and weaknesses, but the strengths are really by-products of the weaknesses. Like the powerful muscles a person in a wheelchair sometimes develops: powerful, but compensatory rather than integral.
If we do any one thing too much, we tend to become unbalanced, but even in our imbalance, we develop certain skills, aptitudes, and strategies. A criminal may know more laws than many lawyers. It is usually a distortion, but it is also a talent. Someone addicted to comic books as a child may make a fortune trading them later in life because she knows the field intimately.
This is how the Enneagram energy works. When someone has a passion for anything, she learns how to satisfy it." (p. 2-3)
"Our Enneagram vision of the world, regardless of which of the nine that is, is in direct conflict with the vision of Jesus." (p. 6)
"I don't know, but I offer this as an educated guess: the first rule of Economics is, as any student of Econ 101 should know, "supply and demand." If someone knows only one principle of Economics, that's what she knows. And supply and demand, in turn presupposes a scarcity of goods.
Economics and our Enneagram styles have this in common: They presuppose a world in which there isn't enough of whatever it is that I want. My Enneagram style is a style in which I have to work terribly hard to get what I am utterly devoted to. Sixes try too hard to find security, and Threes will do what it takes to be successful. Each number does something similar.
Against this emotional mind-set - and imaginative construct of scarcity - Jesus opposes his vision of the kingdom of God, where there is plenty: enough of everything to go around. Mark's parable of the breaking of the bread has as its main theological point that in the Kingdom there is enough to go around. The lilies of the field, the pearl of great price, many other parables similarly insist that life with God is a life of abundance." (p. 6-7)
"Matthew's gospel records that when Jesus was preaching the Good News he spoke in Parables as effective as Jesus wasn't getting everyone's attention and bringing about, converging or hostility it seems that Parables were in a specially fine literary form to choose Jesus tells us why he spoke in Parables this is why to them I speak in Parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand Jesus speaks in Parables because of the inability of his listeners to hear or see. what can he have meant by that why I talk it all the people who won't hear why address people who can't understand
Because they and we are in chances we are not fully awake fully present." (p. 8)
"Technically, these are trances. They are states of mind in which we focus on one thing - or a few related things - and exclude everything else...
Sexual abuse victims report that they can't feel during sexual intercourse. They're in a trance. They feel but don't feel." (p. 9)
"To vastly oversimplify his point: as a result of repeated or traumatic events in our past, we stop looking or hearing or feeling. Then we behave in a way appropriate to our truncated and distorted worldview. We keep acting out this earlier state.
A mild cultural example might illustrate this: we've all heard of lottery winners who keep shopping at thrift stores. Why? Because they can't let go of an earlier worldview in which they were poor. When someone is six years old and her father tells her she is stupid, no matter how smart she may become, she may still see yourself as stupid. She doesn't see the world as it is; she sees the way she was told to see it back when she was only six.
Thus, healthy, enlightened, and holy people do what works. Unhealthy, neurotic, and sinful people do what used to work." (p. 10)
"Parables are a literary form that can bypass our usual defenses and convince us of truths we have been unable to see or hear because of our trances.
Stories can do the same thing, as can a lot of "right-brain" language forms like slogans, proverbs, aphorisms, and metaphors.
Parables are the opposite of stories, however. Parables tell us we are wrong about the way we see the world. They are negative in a logical sense. They tell us that what we always thought was true is not, but they don't tell us what is true. That is an extremely important distinction. Many parables tell us what is not true, but then we have to figure out for ourselves what really is true. In other words, parables tell us that we are wearing distorting lenses, but when we take them off and see things clearly for ourselves, the parable does not then tell us what we are going to see instead.
That's why Jesus used parables: to enable us to see for ourselves. When we can see for ourselves, then we are free. So the relationship between Jesus' coming to set us free and his telling parables is clearer. It is clearer, too, why after telling parables, Jesus promises us to send the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. The parables teach us to not believe what is false and thus they prepare the way for the Paraclete to teach us what is true.
Parables are profoundly respectful. When Jesus tells us a parable that destroys our entranced view of the world and does not replace it with anything, he clearly has confidence that we can see for ourselves. He doesn't replace the old law with the new one, and he doesn't replace one trance with another. He replaces a trance with reality and tells us to look." (p. 11-12)
Our flaw is, first of all, a distorted vision of the world - and a correspondingly skewed view of God, for these wrong viewpoints or attitudes are usually the same. Thus our flaw is a strategy for dealing with God in this world that we see through a murky and distorted lens.
Our flaw is our Enneagram type. It has strengths and weaknesses, but the strengths are really by-products of the weaknesses. Like the powerful muscles a person in a wheelchair sometimes develops: powerful, but compensatory rather than integral.
If we do any one thing too much, we tend to become unbalanced, but even in our imbalance, we develop certain skills, aptitudes, and strategies. A criminal may know more laws than many lawyers. It is usually a distortion, but it is also a talent. Someone addicted to comic books as a child may make a fortune trading them later in life because she knows the field intimately.
This is how the Enneagram energy works. When someone has a passion for anything, she learns how to satisfy it." (p. 2-3)
"Our Enneagram vision of the world, regardless of which of the nine that is, is in direct conflict with the vision of Jesus." (p. 6)
"I don't know, but I offer this as an educated guess: the first rule of Economics is, as any student of Econ 101 should know, "supply and demand." If someone knows only one principle of Economics, that's what she knows. And supply and demand, in turn presupposes a scarcity of goods.
Economics and our Enneagram styles have this in common: They presuppose a world in which there isn't enough of whatever it is that I want. My Enneagram style is a style in which I have to work terribly hard to get what I am utterly devoted to. Sixes try too hard to find security, and Threes will do what it takes to be successful. Each number does something similar.
Against this emotional mind-set - and imaginative construct of scarcity - Jesus opposes his vision of the kingdom of God, where there is plenty: enough of everything to go around. Mark's parable of the breaking of the bread has as its main theological point that in the Kingdom there is enough to go around. The lilies of the field, the pearl of great price, many other parables similarly insist that life with God is a life of abundance." (p. 6-7)
"Matthew's gospel records that when Jesus was preaching the Good News he spoke in Parables as effective as Jesus wasn't getting everyone's attention and bringing about, converging or hostility it seems that Parables were in a specially fine literary form to choose Jesus tells us why he spoke in Parables this is why to them I speak in Parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand Jesus speaks in Parables because of the inability of his listeners to hear or see. what can he have meant by that why I talk it all the people who won't hear why address people who can't understand
Because they and we are in chances we are not fully awake fully present." (p. 8)
"Technically, these are trances. They are states of mind in which we focus on one thing - or a few related things - and exclude everything else...
Sexual abuse victims report that they can't feel during sexual intercourse. They're in a trance. They feel but don't feel." (p. 9)
"To vastly oversimplify his point: as a result of repeated or traumatic events in our past, we stop looking or hearing or feeling. Then we behave in a way appropriate to our truncated and distorted worldview. We keep acting out this earlier state.
A mild cultural example might illustrate this: we've all heard of lottery winners who keep shopping at thrift stores. Why? Because they can't let go of an earlier worldview in which they were poor. When someone is six years old and her father tells her she is stupid, no matter how smart she may become, she may still see yourself as stupid. She doesn't see the world as it is; she sees the way she was told to see it back when she was only six.
Thus, healthy, enlightened, and holy people do what works. Unhealthy, neurotic, and sinful people do what used to work." (p. 10)
"Parables are a literary form that can bypass our usual defenses and convince us of truths we have been unable to see or hear because of our trances.
Stories can do the same thing, as can a lot of "right-brain" language forms like slogans, proverbs, aphorisms, and metaphors.
Parables are the opposite of stories, however. Parables tell us we are wrong about the way we see the world. They are negative in a logical sense. They tell us that what we always thought was true is not, but they don't tell us what is true. That is an extremely important distinction. Many parables tell us what is not true, but then we have to figure out for ourselves what really is true. In other words, parables tell us that we are wearing distorting lenses, but when we take them off and see things clearly for ourselves, the parable does not then tell us what we are going to see instead.
That's why Jesus used parables: to enable us to see for ourselves. When we can see for ourselves, then we are free. So the relationship between Jesus' coming to set us free and his telling parables is clearer. It is clearer, too, why after telling parables, Jesus promises us to send the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. The parables teach us to not believe what is false and thus they prepare the way for the Paraclete to teach us what is true.
Parables are profoundly respectful. When Jesus tells us a parable that destroys our entranced view of the world and does not replace it with anything, he clearly has confidence that we can see for ourselves. He doesn't replace the old law with the new one, and he doesn't replace one trance with another. He replaces a trance with reality and tells us to look." (p. 11-12)
February 10, 2025
As a former self-proclaimed enneagram enthusiast, this book was such a refreshing and revealing glimpse into each of the 9 enneagram types. I initially read this with the intention to develop my witness to different personality types; what I was not expecting was to grow in sympathy for the core struggles and narratives that each type carries.
As an eight, I found my chapter to not be as helpful as I had hoped, but regardless I gleaned so much from the profound wisdom of this book. I pondered many of Jesus’ parables more intentionally than ever before and am excited to widen their use in exhorting others to live more greatly in the light of the gospel.
As an eight, I found my chapter to not be as helpful as I had hoped, but regardless I gleaned so much from the profound wisdom of this book. I pondered many of Jesus’ parables more intentionally than ever before and am excited to widen their use in exhorting others to live more greatly in the light of the gospel.
May 10, 2019
I found this little gem to be a really eye-opening read as a believer. I had never truly thought about how my personality type as an Enneagram 1 influenced my reading of Scripture, but this book did a great job of illustrating some of that. The focus on specific passages from the Bible and on certain people was really helpful. (Like, I don’t know why I never connected that Pharisees illustrate 1-ness SO CLEARLY.) I really just read the intro and the chapter on my type, but I think other types would find it interesting as well!
June 20, 2008
Very interesting. Looks at the nine Enneagram styles, and their 'trances' - the fixations and flaws through which each looks at the world. Proposes that Jesus' parables and many of his actions were aimed at tilting people's worldviews, to help them grow through their fixations and out of their trances.
Recommended to anyone with a bit of Enneagram knowledge.
Recommended to anyone with a bit of Enneagram knowledge.
March 31, 2008
Still sorting this out but it definitely assists my theory of Christ representing all nine types--I feel it happened in a bodily way, in this work it is through his (JCs) use of metaphor.
The book is helping me understand the parables better.
The book is helping me understand the parables better.
September 26, 2013
I really like this book, I found it fascinating. Read it and see what you think, that's my review. I guess it's a psychology/ self-growth book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews