A Personality Portrait

Sixteen Biblical Leaders Who Identify Your Traits

Earl A. Jones

• Editore: Wipf and Stock
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781532664120
• Argomento: Théologie et religion
• Categoria: Biographie biblique

Which biblical leader most closely reflects your personality traits? Almost everyone has taken online- or social-media-based personality profile tests and quizzes. Have you ever considered if (or if so, how) your specific personality type compares to a specific character in the Bible?A Personality Portrait is a book about you. This book will help you to better understand yourself as well as your specific personality type. You can do this by taking a free online personality profile test and then comparing your personality type to the detailed profiles created for many characters in the Bible. You will also be able to compare the personality traits of your friends, family members, and colleagues. Encourage them to take the test so they can join you on this journey of discovery!You will be able to find commonalities between your specific personality type and those of well-known characters from the Bible, such as Daniel, Joseph, Elisha, Elijah, Jacob, and King David, as well as Peter, Paul, and John. There are more than sixteen complete personality profiles from which you can choose. Among the many benefits that you will receive from reading this book, not only will you develop a much clearer understanding of yourself and your personality type, but you will also gain an ability to develop more fulfilling interpersonal and professional relationships with others, recognizing personality traits that exist in them by comparing them to these well-known biblical characters.

1

Introduction: Why Bible MBTI?

Group Photos

Take a look at a group photo that you are a part of. Is it a nice photo? What makes it nice? Is it a bad picture? What makes it bad? Is this subjective assessment of the photograph wholly contingent upon how you look in the photo? If so, you are not alone; do not feel badly about yourself. You should not begin to believe that you have more narcissistic and vain tendencies than you used to think you possessed.

Everyone does this with group pictures. It is how counselors and psychologists make a living. Counselors, advisors, psychologists, as well as people who just enjoy listening to and helping other people with their problems use introspection to help the person see where they have been and where they are going in a particular area of their life.

What is MBTI?

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality-type identifier which helps people to describe the normal differences that exist within and between psychologically healthy people.1 There are many different tests that psychologists have developed to help them to help us. They use these tests to describe the simple differences in people’s God-given inherent personalities.

You do not have to believe in the biblical creation story in order to enjoy this book. However, if you believe that all people are wonderfully complex in their construction, as the biblical book of Psalms states2, you also believe that we are made in the very likeness and image of God in order to reflect his nature or personality as well as his characteristics and inherent integrity.3 Thus, you have a unique personality type that is as distinctly your own as your fingerprints.

I want to show you that there were some people who have similar personalities though none are exactly the same. You will find yourself and similar personality traits in many different people. You will see that you are similar to some people who are called introverts, and to some who are called extroverts. Neither of those words, in reference to a personality type, means the same thing that they mean when they are used in general conversation.

Why Biblical Leaders MBTI?

Why am I discussing such a complex topic as personality type by analyzing people who I never met, i.e. biblical leaders? It sounds like I am about to play “Wheel of Fortune” with personality types. Personality types express themselves in many ways that are observable to the trained eye. It is not my aim to write a technical manual on the finer psychological points of the MBTI, because I do not like to read and I definitely would not enjoy reading a book like that.

However, I have always enjoyed reading about my personality. During down times I would do internet searches about ENTJs. Some of these personality profiles yielded by my internet search were based on characters from my favorite television shows. Some were based on people who appeared in movies that I had watched. The author of the profile would analyze the character and place them in the MBTI where they believed that person would fit. In short, they had fun and they could not be “wrong or incorrect” in their analysis because they had never met the fictional character.

My goal in writing this book is for you to not only find yourself in the group photo but to like the photo. Then I would like to have you look at some of the other people in the photo and consider the idea that the picture may be nice or not so nice because of the others who are also represented in the picture as distinctly unique individuals. We like to look at ourselves. By looking at ourselves through personality types, we can also learn to enjoy looking at and possibly gain a better understanding of ourselves and others because we see similar and different personality traits between ourselves and others.

I will use sixteen real biblical leaders to illustrate this point. But I cannot be incorrect in my analysis of these people because I have never met them nor have I asked them to take the official MBTI personality test. I am just looking at four simple personality preferences and combining them to create a picture of that person as they exist in the group photo.

Counseling Classes

When I was in my doctoral program, I was enrolled in a counseling class geared toward learning crisis intervention techniques. I was an “Educational Leadership and Higher Educational Administration” degree candidate, but I had worked as an academic advisor or higher educational student counselor for many years, particularly dealing with academically at-risk college students.

During those meetings we discussed many of the issues that arose in their personal lives that negatively impacted their academic performance. We also discussed ways and methods that would help them to eliminate the distractions and to focus more attention on studying. Thus when it came time for me to take a couple of electives, I sought out a greater depth of knowledge in the area of counseling.

My master’s program introduced me to many different counseling theories as a “Student Affairs in Higher Education” degree candidate. We studied college student development theory, or as I jokingly called it: “school counseling for the 13th grade.” Later I came to teach Christian counseling classes for a university that offered degree programs and facilitated college courses through local churches. The students’ favorite class in the Christian counseling major was called “An Introduction to Behavioral Analysis.” They loved to look at themselves in that group photo!

The course offered two textbooks as reference material in order to guide the learning process: one focused on the DISC model4 and the other on Personality Plus.5 The students loved this material. They wanted to run right out and try the material out at home on their relatives and friends, just as a mother in an episode of one of my favorite TV programs did.

I don’t suggest that you run out and try to get people to look for you or for themselves in the group photograph, try to help them analyze themselves, or even worse, try to analyze the personalities of all of your family members. I would suggest that you buy this book for them and have them take the MBTI test referenced at the end of the book.

My students in that behavioral analysis class liked the topic of personality typology so much that the teacher from the biblical studies class, which was operating in the classroom next door, used to come over and sit in on our class, perhaps looking for herself in the group photo. I even did a workshop based on the Personality Plus material for the administrative staff at her community college. That group loved it too! People just love to look for themselves in the group photo.

While teaching that class, much to the chagrin of my students, I added a third personality typology text to the other two assigned textbooks: the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI). They enjoyed the MBTI too, though not as much as the first two personality theories. The book was a bit too technical and advanced for their particular level of expertise, although they still enjoyed the group photo.

I personally favor MBTI because it highlights as well as combines four different preferences that people lean toward as they express their personality and interact with others. It distinguishes between four distinct and discernable personality preference zones. It does not just combine all four preferences, relative to specifically discrete parts of the personality analysis, into one of four zones. You lose the explicit characteristics relative to the person in the group photo if you combine them in such a generalized fashion.

The outcome of the MBTI is that it differentiates sixteen distinct personality types based on the person’s individual preferences. MBTI places a finer point on the separable personality types. Speaking metaphorically, it uses a higher digital photograph pixel count when developing the group photograph.

We are All Individuals

Some people hate being around a large group of people, much less speaking in front of them. Other people love this and seem to gather more steam the longer they are in front of the crowd: they are right at home in front of a huge room full of people. Some people find a room full of people to be a totally draining experience for them: they feel as if all of the eyeballs in the room are attached to their skin. However, if these people can get alone with just one person, they are energized by the ideas that are interpersonally exchanged during that conversation. These images describes the differences between introverts and extroverts.

MBTI also helps people to find themselves in the group photo based on their preferred method of processing information. This personality type indicator also helps people to discover their preferred method for decision making. Finally, MBTI helps people discover how they distinctly and uniquely organize and make sense of their world. Based on these four preferences, MBTI helps people to see how unique they are and where they fit within a combination of four preferences. There are a total of sixteen distinct personality types according to MBTI.

Leadership Attributes

In writing this book, I was able to identify many of the leadership attributes that were present, if not always obviously so, in the biblical leaders who are used to exemplify the personality type. Leaders come in all shapes, sizes, and come with vastly different personality traits. Popular opinion may lean toward the idea that extroverts make better leaders than introverts because they are outspoken and more comfortable speaking in front of crowds; this book demonstrates that assertion to be incorrect.

Inspired leaders can be extroverts or introverts. They may organize information using a “Sensing” preference which focuses more on the real, rational, and tan...

Indice dei contenuti

• Title Page
• Disclaimer
• Chapter 1: Introduction: Why Bible MBTI?
• Chapter 2: Biblical Preferences
• Chapter 3: ESTJ: Noah, An Organized Man for the Job
• Chapter 4: ISTJ: Daniel, The Faithful Judge
• Chapter 5: ENTJ: Joseph, The Dreamer, The Prime Minister
• Chapter 6: INTJ: Elisha, The Prophetic Advisor to Kings
• Chapter 7: ESFJ: Queen Esther
• Chapter 8: ISFJ: Mary of Bethany
• Chapter 9: ESTP: Jacob, Israel, The Changed One
• Chapter 10: ISTP: Elijah the Prophet
• Chapter 11: ENFJ: Habakkuk the Prophet
• Chapter 12: INFJ: John, The Beloved Apostle
• Chapter 13: ENTP: Peter, The Lionhearted Apostle
• Chapter 14: INTP: Paul the Apostle
• Chapter 15: ESFP: Job, God’s Faithful and Enduring Servant
• Chapter 16: ISFP: Ruth the Moabite
• Chapter 17: ENFP: King David
• Chapter 18: INFP: Abigail, A Lady, A Queen
• Chapter 19: Concluding Thoughts on Bible MBTIs
• Chapter 20: Appendix
• Bibliography