Why Gifts Are Different from Personality

I do love personality tests. But spiritual gifts are not about your personality.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with understanding how God designed you through different assessments.

I’ve taken and studied personality tests such as DISC, Myers-Briggs, Strength Finders, and the Enneagram. And each time, I am surprised at the new level of insight I have into my own behavior and thoughts.

While not everything in a given profile describes me exactly, most of the time, these personality frameworks give me a greater sense of who I am. One of the most powerful take aways is they give me a language to talk about how I think or behave. And they give me a perspective on how that impacts others.

However, unlike a personality, a spiritual gift is less about the individual, and more about how they fit in God’s plan.

They are less about strengths and capabilities, and more about a relationship with each other and with Christ.

So before we describe what the gifts are, we have to set up the context to understand them.

Personalities center on you, the individual. There isn’t anything necessarily bad about this. In fact, it can be a critical part to growing.

But spiritual gifts center on the health of the body (which includes both the corporate church and individual members such as you!)