When I was in Cambridge last week I popped into the UL and began looking up 1 Corinthians 2:16 to explore the concept of the "mind of Christ". I viewed a couple of commentaries and checked out a couple of potential starting points.
It seems to me that the "mind of Christ" could be read in two potentially interelated ways:
- It could refer to the Holy Spirit as the self-revelatory presence of God in the Christian community. In other words, the Church knows what Christ thinks when it is open to the guidance and wisdom of the Spirit - the 'work of the Spirit defined in Christological terms' (Schrage).
- It could refer to 'a constellation of thoughts and beliefs which provides the criteria for judgement and actions' (Jewett, 1971). In other words, a 'web' of ideas and experiences which give the community a way of assessing the Christ-likeness of their own thoughts and actions.
These two angles are not mutually exclusive and it may help to hold them together. If the greek word translated 'mind' means 'not an instrument of thought' but a 'mode of thought' this implies a way of doing things which requires reflection, awareness, community and spirituality.
From the perspective of my work as a whole this is helpful and does fit in with my feeling that networks and collaborative processes are important in the way fresh expressions need to think.
On my return to MK I also had two papers from Zoe. One was a paper that she and Chris Rowlands had written, entitled 'Action is the life of All': New Testament Theology and Practical Theology. Once again this was a very helpful paper which raises the concept, put forward by Robert Morgan, of theology as a web in which beliefs and traditions are woven together to give meaning to a text. They also mention some work by Roger Walton, looking at seven different strategies adopted by students in the use of the Bible, which include 'resonance and analogy' and 'mutual critique'.
Building on the work of Gerrard Winstanley, William Stringfellow and liberation theologians they conclude that 'action is the life of all' and that exegesis should emerge from an interaction between action and apprehension.
They quote an intriguing example from the Centre for Faith in the Work Place in San Antonio, Texas in which a community attempted to assess a real world situation with the 'mind of Christ'. It was interesting to see an example in which this concept was used in the context of prayer, communal reflection and textual interaction.
As always after such experiences I am left wondering whether I'm left with anything left to say since I suspect they have probably said what I needed to say already (and better), but the challenge of the ProfDoc is to continue this conversation in the real context of fresh expressions and our work with emerging collaborative communities....
Need to look back again at:
The New International Greek Testament Commentary, Carlisle: Paternoster. 2000.
Jewett, 1971. Paul's Anthropological Terms.
