to have the mind set a certain way: to be leaning in one direction, so that what a person thinks, wants, and cares about all point the same way
This verb does not name a thought that crosses the mind. It names where the mind is set, the direction that a person's thinking, wanting, and caring all take together. Peter is not rebuked in Matthew 16:23 for reasoning badly but for having his whole outlook fixed on what people want rather than on what God is doing. Paul builds a great deal on that, and he has a matching noun for the settled outlook itself (φρόνημα), which in Romans 8 turns out to be either death or life and peace.
Because the word is about direction, the English wording has to change with whatever the mind is pointed at:
- when a whole way of life is in view, it means being ruled by it, whether a life lived for the body or a life fixed on the things above
- when a group is in view, it means sharing one outlook, the plea Paul makes to a strained church and to two women who had fallen out
- when a person is in view, it means keeping their good steadily in mind and acting on it, as the Philippians did when they sent help to Paul in prison
- when a question is in view, it means holding a view or taking a position on it
One thread runs through all of these. Since the whole self leans the way this word points, thinking too highly of yourself is not a private slip but a bent of the person, which is why Paul warns against it in the same breath as he calls for sober good sense (σωφρονέω). And when he tells the Philippians to have the outlook that is theirs in Christ, he is not asking them to copy a gesture but to be remade in how they value and choose.
Only once does the word sit plainly in the head, where Paul says he used to think as a child before he grew up. Even there it is the whole cast of a child's mind rather than one idea inside it.
Nuances
What Philippians 2:5 asks for, since the second clause has no verb and one must be supplied: the inward attitude of Christ offered as a pattern to imitate, or the conduct fitting for those who are in Christ.
- minoritySupply the imperative again and read the phrase as "among yourselves": Paul tells the church to adopt toward one another the attitude proper to those who are in Christ, so the passage that follows proclaims what God has done rather than offering an example to copy.; Ernst Käsemann, "A Critical Analysis of Philippians 2:5-11," Journal for Theology and the Church 5 (1968); Ernst Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zu Phil. 2,5-11 (Winter, 1928); Ralph P. Martin, Carmen Christi: Philippians ii.5-11 in Recent Interpretation (Cambridge University Press, 1967)
- majorityThe choice is a false one: because the verb names the orientation of the whole person, Paul calls believers to be conformed to the self-humbling mindset of Christ, which is at once the ground of their salvation and the pattern of their life together.; Morna D. Hooker, "Philippians 2:6-11," in Jesus und Paulus: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975); Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians, NICNT (Eerdmans, 1995); P. T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 1991); Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Eerdmans, 2001)
Disputed
Whether this verb, in Paul, names an intellectual act of thinking or the orientation of the whole person, will and affection included.
- majorityThe either/or is false: the verb integrates thought, evaluation, will, and affection, denoting the direction not merely of thought but of a person's whole existence toward a goal.; Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1980); Robert Jewett, Paul's Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings (Brill, 1971); Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians, NICNT (Eerdmans, 1995); Moisés Silva, NIDNTTE, s.v. φρονέω
- minorityPaul's moral psychology, read alongside Stoic thought, is more intellectual than usually allowed: the Spirit grants a renewed capacity to reason, and that reasoning then governs action.; Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (T&T Clark, 2000)