Today’s post about INTJ Christians is the fifth in a series talking with Christians of different personality types. I started this series because when I began discussing faith with different personality types, I noticed they don’t all feel equally valued and understood in Christian churches. If Christianity is a faith meant for all people (and I believe it is), then why aren’t we doing a better job of connecting with all personality types?
Our walks with God don’t all look the same. We’re influenced by our backgrounds, variations in beliefs, and individual personalities. And even though the goal is for us all to become “like God,” that doesn’t mean we become indistinguishable from each other. God created great variety in people and I believe He did that for a reason. So let’s spend today’s post hearing from and talking about the unique perspectives of INTJ Christians.
Identifying With Bible Characters
The first question I asked for this project was which Bible characters and/or stories you identify with most. INTJs tended to chose Bible Character who they felt shared their perspective on the world. Because an INTJ’s dominant function of Introverted Intuition (Ni) gives them a perspective on things that’s unique to them, I wasn’t surprised that the six INTJs who shared their stories with me each chose a different character except for two who mentioned Paul. Read more →
I think, in theory at least, we can agree that being able to accept correction is a valuable skill. We might even be able to say we appreciate feedback and constructive criticism, or modestly say that we’re big enough to acknowledge our faults and change when needed.
But even though we can learn to appreciate criticism and correction that helps us improve, hearing such things isn’t always easy. In fact, I’m not sure it ever gets “easy,” though it can become easier. Most of us have a tendency to get defensive and feel some degree of resentment when people offer a critique or dare correct us. This is especially true if we haven’t asked for feedback but they offer it anyway. Such criticism might also pull us toward depression or make us feel like giving up.
As Christians, though, we’re suppose to be open to correction. Primarily, we have a duty to listen to correction from God, which comes through His word and His spirit. Godly correction can also come through people who are guided by the Lord. This sort of correction is often harder for us to hear because we might feel like other people haven’t any right to judge us.
Correction From The Lord
Before we get back to the topic of people correcting us, let’s talk about correction from God. If anyone has a right to tell us how to live our lives, it’s the one who created us, the universe, and the Laws that govern both. When we commit to following Him, we also commit to living our lives the way He tells us to and changing when/if He points out that we’re doing something wrong. Read more →
I know this blog isn’t really about literature and reading, but I just finished two Shakespeare plays that I can’t resist writing about. I hope some of you will find this an interesting digression from our usual topics of Christianity, Myers-Briggs, and personal growth. And if not, don’t worry — I’ll get back to my more usual type of posts this weekend.
Four and a half years ago, I committed to reading 50 Classics in 5 years. You’d think someone who read 74 books just last year wouldn’t have any trouble doing that, but I let other books distract me too much and I have some catching-up to do before August 18 arrives. Today’s article is about two of the four Shakespeare plays on my classics club list (click here to read my thoughts on the other two).
These last two plays are The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice and Measure for Measure. On the surface they’re very different stories, but I was surprised to find they touch on the same core themes. Lust, murder, and deception lie at the center of both plays, and these topics are handled in a way that puts me in mind of things happening today in our modern society.
What fictional characters do you relate to as an ENTJ?
Just as we can describe real people using the Myers-Briggs® typology system, we can also use the system to type well-written fictional characters. Some of fiction’s most iconic and intriguing characters are ENTJs, and today we’re going to talk about seven of them that I think real-life ENTJs will find relatable.
Another great thing about looking at character personality types is that it helps us to better understand people who have different types than we do. Fictional ENTJs can serve as examples for what real-life ENTJs might be like, and also show how much variation can exist between individuals with the same type.
Dana Scully
Lenore Thomson types Dana Scully from X-Files as an ENTJ in her book Personality Types: An Owner’s Manual. She talks about the “inspired” decision to pair INTJ Fox Mulder “not with an ESP action hero (which is the usual gambit in a science fiction series), but with an ENTJ pathologist.” Thomson further says, “Scullys’ by-the-book Judgement is consistently subverted by Mulder’s appeal to her secondary function” of Introverted Intuition (p. 233).
Many real-life ENTJs can relate to Dana Scullys’ desire for logical, objective truths. That’s what ENTJs, as dominant Extroverted Thinkers, prefer to rely on. But their Introverted Intuition is too good at seeing things from other perspectives to completely ignore an intriguing idea even when the evidence for it doesn’t line-up with established theories. This makes Scully a perfect choice to work on the X-Files because she questions everything while also thinking outside the box enough to dig for the truth rather than dismissing Mulder’s theories out-right. Read more →
Salvation is a free gift that we cannot earn, but which we can lose or refuse because God always gives people a choice. Adam and Eve had access to a close relationship with God, but they also had the option to choose sin and death instead. Ancient Israel was asked to choose between “life and prosperity, and death and evil,” and implored to pick life (Deut. 30:15, 19). The Lord is not willing that any should perish (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9), but He also won’t force you into His kingdom. You need to choose, and then act on your choice.
We also can’t say “I choose life” and then keep living as if we chose death. We will be judged by what we do with the gifts given to us by God, and for those in His church today this judgement has already started (1 Pet. 4:17). God is watching us now to see what we do with all the gifts He gives us.
As we think about our relationship with God and examine ourselves as Christians, we all need to ask if we’re doing what God would want us to do with the gifts He’s entrusted us with. That includes examining how we respond to salvation, how we heed and use His Spirit inside us, and whether or not we’re truly following the example of Jesus Christ.
The Parable of The Talents
Shortly before His death, Jesus told a parable that illustrates how important it is for us to do something with the gifts we’ve been given. He compares His absence from earth between His first and second coming to “a man, going to another country, who called his own servants, and entrusted his goods to them” (Matt. 25:14, WEB).
This man divided his goods between his servants, entrusting each with a certain number of talents (a “talent” is measure of weight, typically used for silver, that is equal to 30 kg or 66 lb). This pictures the time that we’re in now as servants awaiting our master’s return. Like the servants in the parable, we’ve each been given gifts “according to his own ability” and must now decide what to do with them (Matt. 25:15). Read more →
Discussions about Sherlock Holmes’ Myers-Briggs® type can get pretty heated in the online community. He’s either an INTJ or INTP and whichever side you come down on (if you care about this sort of thing) is worth passionately defending. I’ve weighed-in on this myself in a blog post arguing that Sherlock as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the Sherlock BBC series, Robert Downy Jr. in the Sherlock Holmes movies, and even the Basil of Bakerstreet version from Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective are all INTPs.
I do think that’s the best-fit type for all three of those versions, but they aren’t the only portrayals of Sherlock Holmes. We ought not forget, for example, the original character in the stories penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve been reading and re-reading several of those for my Classics Club book list and Sherlock doesn’t seem very much like an INTP in those stories. In fact, the only thing I can say with absolute certainty is that he’s a Thinking personality type.
That brings us to the second part of this post’s title: the trouble with typing fictional characters. Though I love looking at fictional characters’ personality types, there are limits to how accurately you can type them. It gets especially tricky in the case of someone like Sherlock Holmes or Batman because so many writers and actors have been involved in portraying this character over quite a long period of time. There’s bound to be some inconsistencies in how each creative sees the character they’re working with. Plus, I doubt very many of them think about the character’s Myers-Briggs® type and how they can keep it consistent in every portrayal.
Going back to Sherlock Holmes as our example, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sometimes writes him in a way that looks like ISTJ, sometimes more like one of the NTJ types, and sometimes with traits of a TP type. He also calls Dr. Watson by two different first names (John is used three times, James once), so I think it’s safe to say Doyle wasn’t all that concerned with consistency. In any case, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were written about 30 years before Jung published Psychological Types, so we know he wasn’t relying on those theories when writing the character.
So Why Type Fiction?
Since it’s difficult to type fictional characters with a high degree of accuracy, why do it? For one thing, it’s fun. It’s one of the ways to turn an interest in Myers-Briggs® into an entertaining pastime as well as a useful hobby.
Typing fictional characters can also sharpen our skills typing real people. It gives us a chance to study how characters react and puzzle out which psychological functions they’re using based on what they say and how they act. In addition, well-written characters provide familiar examples of the different types to use in every-day conversation. If someone asks me what an ENTP or ISFJ, for example, looks like in real-life then Tony Stark and Samwise Gamgee are there to help clarify things.
Do you enjoy trying to figure out fictional characters’ personality types? Tell us about your favorite characters and what you think their types are in the comments!
Like An Anchor 