Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Unity in everything
2 So if our shared life in the Messiah brings you any comfort; if love still has the power to make you cheerful; if we really do have a partnership in the spirit; if your hearts are at all moved with affection and sympathy— 2 then make my joy complete! Bring your thinking into line with one another.
Here’s how to do it. Hold on to the same love; bring your innermost lives into harmony; fix your minds on the same object. 3 Never act out of selfish ambition or vanity; instead, regard everybody else as your superior. 4 Look after each other’s best interests, not your own.
The mind of the Messiah
5 This is how you should think among yourselves—with the mind that you have because you belong to the Messiah, Jesus:
6 Who, though in God’s form, did not
regard his equality with God
as something he ought to exploit.
7 Instead, he emptied himself,
and received the form of a slave,
being born in the likeness of humans.
And then, having human appearance,
8 he humbled himself, and became
obedient even to death,
yes, even the death of the cross.
9 And so God has greatly exalted him,
and to him in his favor has given
the name which is over all names:
10 That now at the name of Jesus
every knee within heaven shall bow—
on earth, too, and under the earth;
11 And every tongue shall confess
that Jesus, Messiah, is Lord,
to the glory of God, the father.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.