What Drives Your Paradigm?

Friday, January 29, 2010

What Drives Your Paradigm?

1:04 PM | Posted by Scott | Edit Post

In a recent effort to gather a useful list of online marriage resources, I’ve been perusing a number of marriage websites and blogs. (Watch the sidebar for a coming link list.) In the process I came across this post on the marriage section of families.com. It talks about the different influences on our views of marriage. That prompted me to consider how important it is to understand just what it is that drives our own marriage paradigm.

Take a minute and answer the question for yourself. What do you think most influences your views on marriage?

Movies and Television
Pop icons (in music, sports, movies)
Print Media (news, magazines)
Parents’ marriage
Other family members
Other Christian couples
Other secular marriages
The Bible and biblical teaching

Sadly, many of these sources, the media in particular, present an altogether negative, cynical and distinctly unbiblical view of marriage. But we as believers don’t have to buy into the prevailing cultural norms. As with so much of what Jesus teaches us about the Kingdom of God, the pursuit of a biblical marriage will find you swimming against the strong tide of lies and misconceptions streaming at you from society at large.

Indeed, what I propose as the ideal paradigm for Christian marriage, the bridal paradigm, can actually be hard to find in practice. You won’t see it portrayed in movies, books or television, in the mostly-shattered marriages of pop stars, or even in many of the marriages around you, secular and Christian alike.

Because it can be hard to get your head around something you’ve rarely or never actually seen or experienced, I encourage you to consider what it is that informs your own views and expectations of your marriage. Then ask yourself this important question: How much of what I believe about marriage actually lines up with what God says in his Word?