(upbeat music) - Well, happy Friday and welcome back to the podcast. Pastor John is back in the studio with us, back to talk with us about Christian unity today. We love Christian unity. We aspire for more Christian unity, but Christian unity is not uniformity. Differences exist among believers. So Christian unity gets pretty complex, leading to a question like this one today on 1 Peter 3, verse eight.

Here is the email. Hello, Pastor John, my name is Charlotte and I live in Yorkshire, England. My question for you has puzzled me for years. In 1 Peter 3, eight, Peter urges the exiled Christians to have unity of mind. That's Peter's exact phrase, unity of mind. I once heard a preacher say that this unity of mind does not, however, mean uniformity.

Since then, I've struggled to understand the difference. We have basic creeds and confessions that we must all agree on as the very foundations of Christianity. Beliefs otherwise would be heretical. How then can we not have uniformity? What is this unity of mind? Peter didn't insert a clause that left this just to church leaders only to pursue.

So how does the individual Christian pursue this? - I've often shared this perplexity about how unified our convictions and our preferences and our opinions as Christians should be. But I've gotten help, especially in recent years, by distinguishing between passages that deal with unified convictions or views of God or Christ or salvation on the one hand, and passages that deal with a unified mindset, or what we might call, because we don't have a better English word for this Greek idea of attitude set or disposition.

And I feel warranted in making that distinction not only because there are some peculiar Greek words that Paul uses for mindset that are different, say, from theological convictions, but also because, for example, in Romans 14, he actually deals with differences of conviction that Christians have without pushing them toward unanimity of conviction, but rather pushing them toward unanimity in a certain mindset about how to handle the differences.

So let me try to illustrate what I mean about the difference between theological convictions on the one hand and unified mindset on the other hand. So here, for example, in Ephesians 4, 12, and 13, it says, "Christ gave pastors and teachers to the church "to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, "for the building up of the body of Christ, "until," well, this is where it's all supposed to be moving, "until we all attain to the unity of the faith "and of the knowledge of the Son of God." So that's what I'm referring to when I say that the Bible really does urge us toward seeking theological, biblical unity, a unified understanding of God and Christ and man and salvation and how to live the Christian life.

And I think the best strategy for moving toward that goal is to humbly and faithfully immerse ourselves in the Bible seeking to understand it with all the resources, historically, devotionally, academically, that we can. And then as we grow and speak and preach and teach and write and live that truth, as we see it, we pray, we pray earnestly that God would bring more and more people into a true understanding of His word.

But I don't think that's what Peter is talking about in 1 Peter 3, 8, which is what Charlotte is asking about. So here in 1 Peter 3, 8, and in most places in the New Testament where being of one mind is referred to, the idea is not mainly to urge us toward identical convictions, as good as that is, but toward a common unified mindset or attitude.

And here we bump into those peculiar Greek words that I mentioned earlier. There's this amazing Greek word that takes on lots of meanings when it combines with different prefixes. The word I'm talking about, for the few Greek readers who listen to us, the stem is phron, like phron-o or phron-es.

And the basic idea is mindset, or a meaning that we don't have in English. We could say attitude set, not just a way of thinking, but a combined way of thinking and feeling or a combination of conviction and disposition. So for example, here's some of those combinations where you put the prefix on the front and it changes the meaning.

Homophron-es, oneness of mindset. Topinophron-es, lowly mindset. Cataphron-es, contrary mindset. Aphron-es, foolish mindset. Cuperphron-es, self-exalting mindset. Paraphron-es, insane mindset. Cupsilophron-es, a haughty mindset. It's amazing, that word, with the service it does in the New Testament when it talks about how we think and feel. Now the point is simply to say that this stem, phron-es or phron-o, is used not mainly referring to ideas or viewpoints.

It's mainly referring to particular dispositions or mindsets or attitudes. So now here we are in 1 Peter 3.8, which reads like this. "Finally, all of you have unity of mind." Homophron-es, one mindset. Unified, similar mindset. And then he goes on. "Sympathy, brotherly love, tender heart." And then he ends, "Humble mind." Topinophron-es.

So homophron-es, unity of mindset at the beginning. Topinophron-es, humble mindset at the end. So Peter is giving a list of five things that Christians are to have. And the list begins with unified mindset and it ends with humble mindset. So my understanding is that the humble mindset defines what the unified mindset is supposed to be.

Be unified in the humble mindset that all Christians should have. And I feel especially confirmed in putting those two together, the word at the front, the word at the back of those lists, because we find an amazingly similar combination of words in Romans 12, 16. The ESV says, "Live in harmony with one another." Now, literally, it's be of the same mindset.

Ta'autafronuntes. Be of the same mindset toward each other. And then he explains, "Don't be haughty." That is, don't have a self-exalting mindset. Kypse lafronuntes. But associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Fronimo parha atois. In other words, here's another way of saying don't have a self-exalting mindset.

Have a humble mindset. Same cluster of thoughts that we had in 1 Peter 3.8. So the call to unity of mind is defined by Paul and by Peter as a humble mindset, not a self-exalting mindset. Then, probably the most important passage of all in the New Testament on the unity of mind or mindset is Philippians 2, 2 through 5.

And it's a remarkable sequence of thought. It goes like this. Paul says, "Complete my joy, complete my joy by being of the same mind." That is, having the same mindset. To autofronete. Having the same love, which defines the mindset as a loving one. Being in full accord. That is, I'm with you, heart and soul.

Sumsukhoi. Just like in Acts 4:32, where it says the church was of one heart and one soul. And then he says, "And of one mind." That is, one mindset. Henfronuntes. Now he lays out. So having called them to one mindset, one mindset, one love, he calls out the nature of the mindset in three steps.

And this just goes right to the heart of the Christian life and what it means to be unified in this way. Number one, verse three, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." I think that means count them worthy of your sacrificial service.

Second, verse four, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." Third, verse five, and it's the biggest, "Have this mind," tuta fronete, "Have this mindset among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus." And then he unfolds that glorious display of service and sacrifice and self-emptying and humility that Jesus did when he left his father's throne and became man.

So the unity Paul and Peter are calling for in these texts, including 1 Peter 3, 8. Namely, Peter, what he's calling for is focused not on having the same opinions, though there's a level at which that really matters, but rather what's being stressed in these texts is the same mindset, the same disposition of heart, the same attitude, namely a lowly, sacrificial, servant heart for others.

Maybe one last quick glance at Romans 14 to draw out the difference between the way Paul handles when you can't agree. So Romans 14, there are real differences of opinion, right? Real differences of conviction among the Christians. So verse two says, "One person believes he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables." They just can't get it.

They can't get it together in Romans. They don't agree. And verse five says, "One person esteems one day above another while another esteems all days alike." They're just stuck. It's a disagreement and it's not going away. And I'm sure Paul really would prefer that they all agree on these things.

That would make life a lot easier, but they don't. And his primary approach to that problem is not, at least not in Romans 14, not to get them all to agree. Well, what does he do? And I only mentioned one thing. He does several unusual things. And you need to read the whole chapter to see all the ways he approaches this, but here's goes right to the heart of the matter.

He penetrates to a common mindset that knits their souls together. He says this, this is verse two and six. "The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord." The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

In other words, he's showing them how to lay hold on a unified mindset of doing all to the honor of the Lord and not despising each other. That's what's gonna hold them together, that radical God-centeredness that puts the Lord first. However, you may disagree on the application. So my conclusion for Charlotte's question that she asked us is that while theological biblical unity of conviction is important and we should pursue it, as Paul and Peter did often in their writings, even the very existence of their writings is a pursuit of that kind of unity.

Nevertheless, just as often as they explicitly said things about that, Peter and Paul press us toward unity of mindset, unity of attitude set or disposition or attitude that is marked by humility and service and sacrifice and a Christ-exalting motive for all we do. That's the unity that he's talking about in 1 Peter 3:8.

- Yeah, God-centered mindset or attitude or dispositional unity marked by love. That's a humble way to shape this entire conversation on unity. Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you for joining us today. Ask a question of your own, search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast all at askpastorjohn.com.

And speaking of love and unity, love covers a multitude of sins. Peter makes that point also in 1 Peter, a little later, a chapter later in 1 Peter 4, verse eight. So what does that mean when love covers a multitude of sins? How does that work? Whose sins do we cover?

How do we cover them? We'll find out next time on the other side of the weekend. Great question coming up. I'm your host, Tommy Ranke, and we'll see you back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (Thanks for watching)