My Greek tutor once told me, “Two Greeks, ten opinions.” I think in that sense Greeks are just like everybody else, maybe just more so.
We’ve all got opinions, on most every subject if one digs deep enough. Often we’ve got more than one idea on any given subject. A big reason for this is the fact that we start from different assumptions, or that we process things through different paradigms.
“Paradigm” is an interesting word. It’s Greek (of course) and means “according to the pattern.” Once we get patterns established in our minds, our thoughts tend to follow those patterns, the conclusions we reach follow fairly predictable courses.
Take marriage for example. Most of us think of a marriage as a legal arrangement that two people join in to establish a home, or a family. That is wonderful. But if that idea, that “paradigm” becomes the basis for the marriage, that it is fundamentally a legal arrangement, it will be severely limited in depth and richness.
How much better to see the relationship that God has created, this marvelous and intimate thing where two people “become one flesh”, as being fundamentally a reflection of His goodness toward us, of God’s essential desire for communion with us;
there is opportunity for much greater depth of experience in the relationship.
Marriage has a legal element to be sure. Some of the things that go with it are legal in their essence. Inheritance of assets, contractual obligations (the mortgage), require legal definitions and arrangements. But those things, as important as they are, aren’t the marriage.
God wants us to have meaningful marriages. The Bible lays out a marvelous paradigm for us to follow.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife;
and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2.24
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