Minding the One Thing

G. C. Willis

‘Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 2:2–5).

‘Fill full my joy!’ Was the apostle’s joy, then, not full? There is probably no book in the Bible so filled with joy as Philippians. The apostle seems to be flowing over with joy; what is it, then, that keeps his joy from being full? We get the answer in a series of four conditions of soul. First: ‘When ye mind the same thing.’ Then, and not till then, will the apostle’s joy be full. Notice how many times we find this word ‘mind’. I think ten times in this epistle. How often our mind runs in the wrong direction. How often misunderstandings come in. How often we do not mind the same thing. While we are looking on our own things (2:4), or seeking our own things (2:21), we will never be minding the same thing. In verse 27 of chapter 1 we see how earnestly the apostle exhorted these dear saints to stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. He saw the need for this earnest appeal: and now he goes a little further, beseeching them to fill full his joy when they mind the same thing. The other three conditions for filling full his joy are very similar, and indicate that all in Philippi were not of one mind: but when we come to chapter 4, the apostle speaks out plainly, but, oh, how gently: ‘I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord’ (v. 2). Two dear sisters, sisters who toiled with him in the gospel, were not of one mind: and it kept the apostle’s joy from being full. And, let us ask, What about the Lord’s joy in His saints? Did it hinder His tender heart from having the full joy He longed for from His own? Oh, beloved, what about us today? I fear we must often fill His heart with grief, rather than joy. How few companies of saints do we find where they mind the same thing! Rather, how often do we find that all seek their own: all look on their own things; all mind different things. Oh, the shame and the sorrow of it, when we know it grieves the Spirit of God, and must fill our Lord’s heart with sorrow.

We all know something of the exceeding difficulty of healing coldness and divisions that arise between the saints. ‘A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle’ (Prov. 18:19). Note the wondrous skill of the apostle, taught by the Spirit of God: before ever he mentions the need for them to mind the same thing, he turns their eyes to Christ: ‘If there be therefore any consolation (or encouragement) in Christ, if any comfort of love’. He reminds them of that mighty bond, the ‘fellowship of the Spirit’, and once again he looks off to Christ: ‘if any bowels (or, tender-heartedness) and mercies (or, compassions)’ (Phil. 2:1). It is only in Christ we will find healing for these sad rents that come between God’s people: let us, beloved, be found ‘looking (off) unto Jesus’ (Heb. 12:2).

The next is: ‘having the same love’. Love thinketh no evil. Love suffereth long and is kind. Love is not provoked (leave out the ‘easily’). Love never faileth. And what about those who have sinned and got away? As soon, and as quickly, as may be ‘confirm your love toward him’ (2 Cor. 2:8).

And what comes next? ‘Joined in soul’, or, ‘knit together in soul’. We know so little about such a condition in practice, that one is ashamed to try and speak of it. We know more about being ‘joined in soul’ through having the same hate: as we have seen the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Herodians (all bitter enemies) having the same hate against Christ, and so joined in soul. I think it is Mr Darby who said, ‘Devotedness to Jesus is the strongest bond between human hearts.’ Oh, Lord Jesus, give Thy poor saints more of this devotedness to Thee! Devotedness formed by love to Jesus: devotedness caused by the love of Jesus: this devotedness that brings the ‘same love’ and so may we be joined in soul each to the other.

And now we come to the last of this series: ‘of one mind’ or ‘minding the one thing’ (as Mr Kelly rightly, and beautifully, translates it). A little later in this epistle we will find the apostle telling us, ‘one thing I do’! The bane of the Christian’s life is that most of us are trying to do too many things; and, alas, a lot of them are our own things. What is the secret of being able to take up the apostle’s words: to be able to say: ‘one thing I do’? I doubt not we find it just here: we must be ‘minding the one thing’! And if we are all ‘minding the one thing’, we will all be of ‘one mind’.

Lo, how pleasant and how well,
    When in unity saints dwell:
Like the hands and feet together,
    Serve and love and help each other.

Like the precious ointment poured
    On to Aaron’s head and beard:
Flowing to his garment’s skirt,
    Making all the house smell sweet.

As the dew of Hermon’s mount,
    Of refreshment is the fount:
So when brethren dwell in love
    Blessings flow from Thee above.

All Thy words are true and sure,
    They bring peace and pleasure pure:
Peace, how good and pleasant now,
    E’en like heaven here below.
       (From Chinese)

The next verses follow straight on from those we last pondered, which ended: ‘Fill full my joy when ye mind the same thing, having the same love, joined in soul, minding the one thing.’ Now we will see that the Spirit of God brings before us those things which hinder this unity: and we will begin to see God’s cure for those hindrances.

There is no verb at the beginning of verse 3, and to make good English we must supply one, as, for example, ‘[Let] nothing be done through strife or vainglory’, or, ‘Doing (or, Do) nothing according to party spirit’. ‘According to’ is the literal translation, and indicates the principle on which the thing is done, or the state of mind which produces the act. There are six different words in the Greek New Testament all translated ‘strife’ in the English New Testament. The particular one used here is the same as that translated ‘contention’ in 1:16 (AV). It has the meaning of ‘rivalry, party-spirit, factiousness, ambition, self-seeking’. It is listed as one of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:20.

The two great hindrances to ‘minding the one thing’ are the exaltation of party and the exaltation of self, both of which are condemned here. The first is condemned in ‘party-spirit’, the second in ‘vainglory’. The Scripture says: ‘By pride there only cometh contention’ (Prov. 13:10), and this is just what we see here: pride of party, (yet I think it includes personal rivalry or ambition), or pride of person. And, beloved, let us not forget how very prone we all are to these things, and how very easily they creep into our lives, and into our meetings. Pride is so terribly natural to us all!

‘But in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better (or, more excellent) than themselves.’ The word ‘but’ is a strong word, drawing our earnest attention to the very great contrast between lowly-mindedness and party-spirit or vainglory. The word ‘other’ or ‘one another’ is really in the plural, but I do not know how this can be said in English, to make it clearer than it is. We have already noticed how much we get about our mind, or minding; and in the word ‘lowly-mindedness’ we find this again. In Ephesians 4:2 we find exactly the same word as one of the bonds which bind the saints together. There it is linked with ‘meekness’. Years ago I was walking with a brother, when suddenly he asked: ‘Christopher, what is the difference between lowliness (or, lowly-mindedness) and meekness?’ I had to reply, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘I will tell you. Lowly-mindedness will never give offence. Meekness will never take offence.’ Oh, that we each had more of these two qualities! How much strife and contention would be avoided!

In our chapter we get only ‘lowly-mindedness’, without meekness, for I think the Spirit of God is bringing before us the positive side of our walk rather than the negative side, which provides for getting along with difficult brethren or sisters. The Spirit does not look at the Philippian saints as ‘difficult’. He sees them in all their zeal and warm-heartedness and love for the gospel and their Lord, as well as to their Lord’s prisoner, the apostle himself. So it would be out of place to add meekness. And if we each obeyed this blessed teaching in these verses in Philippians 2, there would never be any strife amongst us; and in having lowly-mindedness, meekness would not be called for when having to do with the saints.

But notice what is connected with ‘lowly-mindedness’. ‘In lowly-mindedness esteeming one another more excellent than themselves.’ If we have truly learned ourselves in the presence of our Saviour, then we will be the more ready to obey this injunction. Nor are such thoughts limited to the plural. ‘I am holier than thou’ (Isa. 65:5) is in the singular. Our tongues may not utter such words, but our thoughts may tell us, ‘I am more spiritual than that person.’ ‘I spend more time over the Word and in prayer than Brother Blank.’ And so it goes: for we each know the plague of our own hearts. I think it was Spurgeon who said: ‘There is pride of face, pride of place, and pride of race, but the worst pride of all, is pride of grace.’ But not only are we not to esteem ourselves as better than others: but we are to esteem others as better than ourselves: and we will, if close enough to Christ; and if we see ourselves, the person we know best, in the light of His holiness and love.

And now we come to two other exhortations that also hit most of us very hard: ‘Not each having the eye on the interests of themselves, but each on the interests of others also.’ In our ordinary English Bible we read: ‘Look not every man on his own things’, etc. The word translated ‘look’ does have this meaning, but it is not the ordinary word for ‘look’; it comes from a word meaning a mark on which to fix the eye. In the third chapter of our epistle we get the word itself translated ‘mark’ (v. 14). We find the same word as in verse 4 also in 2 Corinthians 4:18, which Mr Kelly excellently translates: ‘While we have the eye, not on the things that are seen, etc.’ So we have used the same translation here; and I hope it brings home to us more forcibly the urgency of this exhortation.

In the Greek New Testament there is no word for ‘interests’ in either place: only the article ‘the’, in the plural; and we have to fill in what the Spirit means us to understand: and that may have a very wide application. The Authorised Version uses ‘things’. Mr Darby uses ‘qualities’ or, in a note, ‘advantages’. I suppose the word ‘interests’ means the things that interest us. We sometimes see: ‘A mind at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathise’. What a lovely sight it is, and how refreshing to find one who is so free from looking at his own interests, that he can regard and care for the interests of others. How it warms the heart and draws us close together. But, sad to say, most of us are too busy with our own affairs to have very much regard for the interests of others. ‘Each’ in both places is plural. May the Lord Himself teach us these blessed truths we have just been pondering. ‘The more we cleave to Christ, and are taught of the Spirit, the more shall we be of one mind in the Lord, not agreeing after the fashion of men, but taught by the one Book, we shall grow into oneness of mind and judgment in all things. This is the way to bring about true unity, ‘and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you’ (3:15)’.

Verses 5 to 11 are one of those amazing portions of the Scripture. It sets before us the amazing pathway of our Saviour from heaven’s highest glory down to Calvary’s depth of woe. The passage is so sublime that it seems to defy the human spirit to comprehend what is found in it.  ‘Let this mind be in you’ or, Have this for your mind — your principle of thought and feeling — ‘which (was, and is,) also in Christ Jesus’ — the principle of thought and feeling which was in Him. There is no verb in the latter part of the verse, but we must use one in English. We generally use the word ‘was’, but there is nothing in the Greek to limit the meaning to either past or present: and even though exalted to the highest glory, He is ‘this same Jesus’ (Acts 1:11), so we have inserted, ‘was, and is’. ‘Have this mind in you which (was and is) also in Christ Jesus.’ And what was ‘this mind’? Was it not an utter and absolute self-forgetfulness? Oh, my brethren, here is the cure for all our quarrels and divisions, our misunderstandings and difficulties with one another: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’.

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From: Truth & Testimony, 2020