An ENTP’s Experience with Spirituality & Religion

I am an ENTP and a Christian. I was initially raised Catholic but drifted away from the religion to go off and explore my own theories on life around age 17.

At age 21, I attended a non-denominational Christian church with my mother and was pleasantly surprised by the message—it was so different from what I was accustomed to. The sermon delighted my Ti* and my Si* because the pastor shared something historical from the bible but related it to life today. I then was able to deduct it down to its core principle and walk away with something to apply to my own life: an experiment. Unbeknownst to anyone else, I decided to try this experiment for a little while—study the Bible, apply its principles to my life, see what happens. Well, as most people can understand, this was very odd behavior for a 21 year old senior in college who was the usual party planner for her friends. But I was on a quest for a deeper understanding of life, myself, my worldview. I NEEDED to understand why I was on Earth.

As I read more of the Bible, I started to recognize God at work in the world around me. You can’t recognize someone if you don’t know what he looks like, so it made sense that I hadn’t really noticed him much before. But once I got to know his character by reading the interactions between him and his people in the Bible, I could see him at work in my own life. The lessons I applied to my life from the Bible improved my relationships, finances, and satisfaction.

I also started researching historical facts and artifacts, comparing what I found to the stories in the Bible for validity. I am a math/science tutor who always needs to logically understand something before I buy into it. I learned that there is a lot of scientific and historical evidence to back up much of the Jewish history in the Old Testament. In light of all this, I drew the conclusion that the Bible was God’s guidebook to help humans live fulfilling and meaningful lives.

During my quest, I studied the Bible, history, and other religions in order to make sense of the big picture (indulging in my Si* & Ti* to fulfill my Ne’s* desire for big picture understanding). So, for me, I utilized many parts of my personality type in order to form a relationship (Fe*) with my creator. Personality type hugely plays a role in the way one approaches religion/spirituality. I am fascinated by the unknown, and I look forward everyday to discovering what my loving God has planned for me.

*Ti refers to Introverted Thinking

*Si refers to Introverted Sensing

*Ne refers to Extraverted Intuition

*Fe refers to Extraverted Feeling