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To listen to an audio version of this post, visit www.covenantchurch.ca/podcasts/covenant-weekly.

On Sunday morning, we considered a radical invitation to living in a way that is unlike any of the systems of our world. I’m so immersed in our world that I wrestle with what it looks like to practically live this out! If we can only know what we’ve seen and tasted, how can we even imagine something new, let alone embody it for others to taste and see. And yet, this is our call. To look to Jesus, to be changed from the inside out, and to embody a new reality. Today I want to highlight something that I think was implied in how I spoke on Sunday, but Paul makes it very explicit if we pay attention! That is in this Covenant Weekly for May 26, 2026.

Before launching into an ancient hymn about the humility and sacrifice of Christ, Paul says, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” (NIV) Those of us who grew up on the King James Version may wonder at this translation. We grew up hearing, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” This older translation sounds like Paul is telling you to have the attitude of Christ and me to have the attitude of Christ. It sounds personal and individualized. Reading it that way, however, misses out on the plural reality of the word “you” in the Greek.

Paul is telling them that the attitude of Christ should be in the plural you. Or perhaps, it would be better understood as “among you.” The NIV translators are trying to capture the essential reality of relationship that is implied in the Greek. This new way of being and living, embodying the way of Jesus, can only be done in relationship with each other.

I am an introvert. I really need time by myself to recharge and contemplate, to process and evaluate. But I cannot live the way of Jesus alone. Left to my own devices I feed selfishness, resentment, judgement, and pride. I am not encouraged in the way of Jesus outside of a community that is working to live this way together.

Do I long to have the mind of Christ? Yes. Is that Paul’s primary point? No.

It is that we should have the mind and heart of the one we say we follow together. We are the body of Christ. We are his life on display in the world. I can’t do it alone. And neither can you. This is why we are exhorted in Hebrews to not give up meeting together! We need each other and we need to do this together.

I’m glad to be in this stumbling, bumbling, figuring out how to live the way of Jesus thing together with each of you. May we, together, keep our eyes on Jesus as we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us together to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”