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 borne 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. Well, just get used to it. 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, so we'll call him our friend, I think our friend who wrote this realizes this, and that's why he's asking the very question that he's asking.

How do you keep from using a category of introversion or whichever as a justification, say, of being withdrawn or selfish or unkind? So let me suggest that we come at the issue of our personalities from another angle, namely, from the angle of spiritual gifts. So the suggestion I'm going to make is that we think of introvert and extrovert not as limiting personality types but as strategic spiritual giftings.

This really will provide some practical guidance for our friend's question in just a moment. But first, let me set up the biblical foundation for this suggestion, this proposal. Consider, for example, Romans 12, 6-8. "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them," and then listen to these three, "if service in our serving, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness." And I only mentioned three in that longer list because serving and contributing and mercy, they sound so natural.

I mean, like, anybody can do that, right? Serve, contribute, mercy. They don't look supernatural. They look ordinary. And yet, Paul puts them in the category of "gifts that differ according to the grace given to us." So they are supernatural. So I take this to mean that what looks like a natural bent toward serving, or a natural bent towards contributing with generosity, or a natural bent towards being merciful—that those bents, those personality types, you might say, become spiritual gifts when they are suffused with grace and made edifying to others to point people to the glory of Christ.

So I think this is the way Peter talks about spiritual gifts in 1 Peter 4, 10-11, as well. Just to underline this, he says, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Let him who serves serve in the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." That's 1 Peter 4, 10-11.

So, I think it would be fair to say that in Peter's mind, a spiritual gift is any bent or ability that you turn into a stewardship of God's varied grace, so that God is glorified and people are built up. So a spiritual gift in Peter's mind is any trait of your personality which you, in the power that God supplies, becomes graciously helpful to others and draws attention to the glory of Christ.

So here's the implication for thinking about introversion and extroversion. Shift your thinking away from naturalistic, fatalistic, limiting categories, and direct your thinking into categories of introversion and extroversion as this kind of spiritual gift, which means that our entire focus will be on, "How do I make my peculiar personality serve, by God's power, the extension of grace into other people's lives for the glory of Christ?" And I think this will have two really good effects if we do that kind of thinking shifting.

First, when I'm in a situation outside my comfort zone, okay, I will not surrender to the selfish, fatalistic thinking of, "Well, I just am the way I am," but will seek God's power to make my peculiar bent and gifting a means of grace to others. That's the first implication it will have.

And second, when I remain in my comfort zone, I do not simply slip into a kind of fatalistic self-centeredness. The attitude, "Well, this is just the way I am. I'm not going to go to that party. I'm not going to go to that reception. I'm not going to stand over there and talk to anybody.

I'm going to sit over here in a chair. I'm just going to chill." And a lot of people feel justified because they're one way or the other. "I'm just going to do it because I feel like it." Instead, I should focus all my thinking toward this, "How can my peculiar bent and gifting in this comfort zone that I'm staying in become an instrument of grace for others and for the glory of Christ?" Now, let me just give a couple of examples, because people may not be clicking with me what I mean there, because I'm saying you can walk out of your comfort zone and deal with this as a spiritual gift, and you can stay in your comfort zone and turn that into a miracle of grace.

So here's the illustration. Suppose a person—I got real people in mind here when I say this, but I won't name anybody—suppose a person is so introverted that he decides he could never function as an upfront minister or manage a lot of social gatherings the way a pastor might, and so he's never ever going to do that.

What does he do? He asks, "Okay, if I'm not going to do that, if I'm going to remain in my limitations and my comfort zone, how can I maximize my gift of introversion, my spiritual gift of introversion for the glory of Christ in my comfort zone?" And what does he do?

I know him. I know his name. He became a Bible translator in a remote tribe for 30 years. I've watched this happen. So in other words, in choosing to remain in his comfort zone, he denied himself, as Jesus said, and he made sacrifices in that kind of comfort zone, leaving another kind of comfort zone, and risks his life for the glory of Christ in the translation of the Bible.

That's the kind of thing I mean. Or here's one more example, like John Piper, okay? If I would probably put myself in the category of an introvert, I really love to be alone, I love to read, it's a chore in a sense for me to hobnob in gatherings and just go around and make small talk.

If I choose not to move toward a more sociable lifestyle, here's what happens. And I have chosen. I have chosen not to move toward a very sociable lifestyle. What do I do? I feel a tremendous impulse inside of me to make my solitude as productive as I possibly can in writing for the good of others and for the glory of Christ.

So bottom line, shift your categories of thinking from naturalistic, fatalistic, limiting personality typing to the category of spiritual gifts, which means that your introversion and extroversion are given to you not to justify selfishness or hobnobbing or whatever, but to shape the stewarding of grace for the good of others and for the glory of Christ.

That's a good word, Pastor John. Thank you. And thanks for listening to the podcast over at our online home. You can explore all of our episodes in our archive of about 1300 episodes a day. There you can see a list of our most popular episodes, read full transcripts, and even submit a question to us that you might be wrestling with yourself.

Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, our next question is from a woman whose friend is coming out as a lesbian. It's not a new question faced by Christians and certainly not one unfamiliar to our own inbox. So how should this Christian woman respond to her friend in the most loving way possible?

That's Wednesday's question. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. 1. What is your relationship with your friend? How do you get along? What is your relationship