Arthur Custance, author of the 'Doorway Papers', added his two cents worth
on 'personality types'. He employed geometric shapes in order to describe
who we are at birth and, for the rest of our lives. He suggested the
immutability of the 'shape' (circle, rectangle etc.) with the possibility of
change within the shape. That's closer to what I'm getting at here.
In marriage counseling, compatibility testing for couples, pre-marital, postulates the notion that there are well defined borders to a personality. "Change" is only a positioning within those borders. If this were not true, compatibility testing would not be helpful - its basis (compatibility testing) has biblical support in the admonition "be not unequally yoked ......." What is expressed in that piece of Holy Writ is a principle tied to a specific allication "be not unequally yoked with an unbeliever." This is all an IMO moment, but if the Lord were simply giving a command statement, He would have simply said "be not yoked to an unbeliever." This single word assumes a standard or measure that adds the feeling of practicality to the advice. There is a reason for the Lord's advice -- "unequal" smacks of disagreement, division, a prophet tone of bad things to come.
John
