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I have been meaning to write on unity in the Church for some time, but the subject has seemed too large for me to tackle. I am not a theologian. I took all the classes to be a religion major in college, but I didn’t hand in my thesis paper (on inerrancy), so I settled on being an English Literature major only.

Over the last 15 years, approximately, I been serious in reading Scripture and thinking (and writing) through the many difficult issues that face modern Christians. I have always been about “mere Christianity” since my earliest days as a Christ follower over 40 years ago, and I am convinced more than ever of the importance of being unified around basic or essential Christian principles.

My church is going through 1 Corinthians for the next several months or more, and the first chapter of the letter focuses on unity. I began writing about the need to be intentional – to agree – to end divisions and be unified in mind and purpose in Fighting for Unity in the Body of Christ.

I learned that the Greek word translated “mind” (or mindset”), nous, means more than just our thinking. It encompasses our attitude and disposition also. As we follow Jesus as he followed the Father, we should have same attitude/mindset that Jesus had.

Jesus is our pattern, and he calls us all to live as he lived, conforming to the same pattern he described when he said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

Paul reminds us that Jesus left aside his privilege and humbled himself to become one of us. (Philippians 2) Paul adds that our knowledge and ability to fathom all mysteries are nothing if we don’t have love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-2) Therefore, our mindset – our attitude and disposition (love) toward one another – is vitally important in what it means to be unified in mind and purpose.

Unity does not just mean intellectual assent on matters of doctrine. Paul says that we only “know in part”. (1 Corinthians 13:12) We need to bear that mind, therefore, as we try to be obedient to the commandment to end divisions and be unified in mind and purpose.

This all begs the question, though: what mind and what purpose is Paul talking about? What is it that we must be intentional to agree about?

In the first article, I found some clues in the Greek meanings of the words translated “mind and purpose”, but they only scratch the surface. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich Lexicon, and the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament all agree that νοῦς (nous) (translated mind) refers not only to the intellect, understanding, or reasoning faculty; it it also encompasses the mindset or disposition of a person.

Doctrine is implied in the concept of being of one mind, but doctrine is not all that this word implies. In fact, the summary of the Law Jesus provided for us (love God and love neighbor) seems to emphasize attitude and action over intellectual, theological constructs.

That doesn’t mean that Jesus was not doing theology when he summarized the Law. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we do theology far less perfectly than Jesus did!

We tend to complicate theology, but Jesus simplified it. In simplifying it, though, Jesus was not discounting or minimizing the rationality and intellectual rigor of it. Rather, Jesus was prioritizing the intellectual aspect of knowledge below below love. As Paul says: even if we can fathom all mysteries and have all knowledge, we have nothing without love. Love, therefore, is the priority over knowledge and understanding.

As we have already seen, the mindset we adopt must also incorporate our disposition and attitude toward God and each other. Any doctrine divorced from these things is empty. It is like a clanging gong without a symphony.

I think it is safe to say that doctrine, by itself, is devoid of life. Knowledge and understanding are nothing without love. It seems to me that love, even without knowledge or understanding, is better than knowledge and understanding without love.

Some might say though, that love cannot be divorced from truth. Jesus said that he is the way, truth and the life, so truth is obviously important.

But, not all truth is of the same value. It is true that today is sunny and warm in the Chicago area, but that truth is not nearly as important as the truth that Jesus is God incarnate who died on the cross for our sin and rose from the dead to redeem us from sin and death.

Having the same mind and purpose implies that we agree to the certain key value and truth propositions. It cannot mean that all of us view all value and truth propositions the same way. As finite beings who know only in part, that would be impossible! So what does Paul mean?

I want to focus now on purpose, which is what needs to drive our doctrine. Purpose is what we aim for. It is the light on our horizon. Our purpose drives everything else and leads us forward in the direction we should go.

The Greek word translated “purpose”, γνώμη (gnōmē), can mean judgment, opinion, purpose, or intention (the conclusions we reach). This purpose that Paul urges us to have is a unifying goal. So what is that purpose?

To take our clue from Jesus, we need to go back to the summary of the Law and Prophets – love God and love neighbor. John, who was one of the three followers closest to Jesus, said, “God is love.”

Jesus, who was the exact representation of God in the flesh, is our standard. When looking for an overarching theme of who Jesus was and the example he set for us to follow, we would do well to start with how he summarized his ministry. He did this when he read from the Isaiah scroll in his hometown synagogue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Luke 4:18-19

When he told us to follow him as he follows the Father, he expected us to take note: he came to proclaim good news, freedom for prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, and he did this in order to set the oppressed free. He came to proclaim the Lord’s favor.

In becoming man, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17) This is the good news. We should be people of the good news. We are God’s ambassadors, says Paul, and the good news is our message – as it was the message of Jesus.

The message that Paul said was “of first importance” is this:

“that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared….”

1 Corinthians 15:3-5

According to Paul, this is the main message. Everything else radiates out from this message. I dare say that our denominational differences, our preferences in worship and church government and even in theology on matters such as the age of the earth, predestination, women teaching in church, and a myriad of things are all secondary to the centrality of the Gospel – that Jesus came to save the world, preached the Good News, died, and rose again.

We spend much of our time on things that are peripheral to this message, and many people miss Jesus in the confusion resulting we create. When Paul heard of the divisions in the Corinthian church, he came to them preaching love (1 Corinthians 13) and the centrality of the Gospel – Jesus and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 15)

I realize that it isn’t that simple. Paul addressed heresies in his day, such as people discounting the deity of Christ and denying that he rose from the dead in bodily form, and claiming that Jesus already returned to reign in the First Century. The truth of the Gospel is important, but I believe we spend so much time on setting boundaries to the truth that we take peoples’ eyes off Jesus.