Introverts and extroverts, it seems like a useful designation for personality types, even

if they're not biblical categories, they lead to an interesting conversation for Christians

and to this question in particular today from a middle-aged man, Pastor John.

Thank you for this podcast.

How can I tell if I'm being introverted in social settings or simply being selfish?

Is this something you have ever struggled with?

Are there strategies for an introvert to grow in social selflessness and kindness and

love without feeling a false guilt for not being an extrovert?

Pastor John, what would you say to him?

My experience is that categorizing ourselves and others as introvert or extrovert has

not born very good fruit.

In general, it seems to me to frame our way of thinking about ourselves and our behaviors

in a way that is more naturalistic and fatalistic and limiting than perhaps is healthy for a Christian.

I think it tends to have the effect of minimizing our sense of what is good and bad, helpful

and harmful, loving and unkind, edifying and destructive, and replacing those, I think,

more biblical categories with a kind of fatalistic personality typing that very easily says,

well, that's just the way I am.

The way I just acted, you didn't like me for it, we'll just get used to a deal with it

because that's who I am.

Say that to a wife or a husband or a friend.

I think our friend who wrote this, who didn't give us his name, who would come our friend.

I think our friend who wrote this realizes this and that's why he's asking the very question

...