The Gospel for The Enneagram 8
The Challenger
The 8: The Challenger
The Gut or Strength Center of the Enneagram includes the 8’s, 9’s, and 1’s. These are the people who most value and feel a need for God’s power.
The 8’s, often called the Challengers, value and feel the need to be an opposing force. The world all seems to be going one way and the 8’s want to challenge it, to find loopholes, to yank back the curtain and reveal what’s really going on: hence the name: the Challengers. In fact, they’re probably going to challenge everything I’m about to write about them. “No, we’re not. Not everything.”
8’s are the tough guys, the bad boys, the survivors, and they feel like they HAVE to be because this world is dangerous. And softies and wimps don’t make it. You either eat or be eaten, and nobody’s gonna eat an 8. They are masters of their fate and captains of their souls.
Thus, their primary sin is a lust to control. Think of this as shamelessness—not respecting the dignity, privacy, or free will of other people. It’s an inflamed desire to bring into their sphere of influence by forcing things that don’t belong to them.
In churches 8’s are generally feared and/or not welcome. People, especially those in leadership, feel 8’s are aggressive, abusive, overbearing, without compassion, and domineering. But those who are beaten down or in trouble might feel protected by 8’s who often relate with the underdogs. They are one of the rarer Enneagram numbers and rarer still are women 8’s. Women 8’s are often not called very nice names.
Examples of Famous 8’s: Donald Trump, Winston Churchill, Fidel Castro, Martin Luther King Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Barbara Walters, Saddam Hussein, Clint Eastwood, Lady Catherine Dieburg from Pride and Prejudice, Captain Marvel. And some people think Sampson in the Bible was an 8.
Remember the 8’s reflection of God’s power is good. It’s not bad to challenge other people or ideas. It is God-like to face our enemies and have courage. But what did God say to the King of Assyria who God used to judge Israel? “Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?” (Isaiah 10:15)
The 8’s are deceived into thinking that they, by their own might, have brought about justice and been their own strong power. But they are merely the axe in God’s hands. It is God who has challenged & conquered our greatest oppressor: sin’s slavery.
The gospel for the Enneagram 8 is that Jesus saved them from having to be a rebel. And Jesus did it NOT through brute strength or forcing people to change, but through surrender to God’s power. Redeemed 8’s trust that God is still at the helm even when they are weak or aren’t forcing things to be a certain way. In fact, God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. Nothing is going to get to us without first going through Almighty God.
That is the gospel for the Enneagram 8.