The Mind of Christ in the Age of Outrage
Why the Church Must Recover the Mind of Christ Instead of the Noise of Partisanship
The Internet doesn’t need another post about Charlie Kirk.
Before you stop reading, whether you agree or don’t for whatever reason, hear me clearly. We don’t need another post because we don’t need more division.
My aim is not to agree or disagree with him, nor to deify or vilify him. Most polarizing individuals, prominent or obscure, have both admirable and questionable things in their repertoire. So, for me to point out anything in either column for Kirk is to add more to the echo chambers’ noise.
But we must not let emotion drive the conversation. We must not concede to the worldly pattern that has dominated supporters and detractors. We must not use this as a litmus test for whether someone is a Christian or not. Too many voices have capitulated to the quasi-religious political outcry that individuals like Mark Driscoll and Sean Feucht (to name a few) have put forth, culminating in an inappropriate command to find a new church that (arguably) pushes a partisan agenda if they didn’t mention Kirk on a Sunday morning.
I am reminded of this statement from Zachary Wagner: “Any implication that being a Christian requires a certain political allegiance should be firmly and finally rejected by God’s people.”1
If that is true—and it is—what then is the appropriate response? What is the biblical attitude?
Paul answers in Philippians 2:1-5 by exhorting his readers to Christ-like behavior, something that is just as much for us as it was the for church in Philippi. The petty, ticky-tack in-fighting we see now was happening just as much back then, as evidenced by Paul’s comments in 4:2 to Euodia and Syntyche.
Let’s break it down line-by-line to grasp the enormity of Paul’s appeal.
The Shared Blessing of the Gospel
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,
This is how Paul begins his call to the Philippians. Before he commands them to do anything, he reminds them of what they already possess. They share encouragement in Christ. They share the comfort of divine love. They share the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. They share affection and sympathy as members of God’s family. Merkle easily summarizes the point of Paul’s rhetorical phrasing here: “Why would anyone communicate this way? One builds a case to lead to an inevitable conclusion.”2
In other words, the church’s foundation is not its political alignment, social location, or cultural background. It is the shared blessing of the gospel. Paul grounds his appeal for unity not in new information but in the reality they already know: if Christ has encouraged you, if God’s love has comforted you, if the Spirit has knit you together, then live out what you already have.
This sets the stage for the rest of Philippians 2. The call to unity, humility, and selflessness flows out of the reality of gospel blessing. The church is not asked to manufacture something new but to embody what Christ has already given.
Unity in Christ
… complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
The first mark of the mind of Christ is unity. Paul’s exhortation in Philippians 2 builds directly on his appeal in 1:27, where he urges believers to live lives “worthy of the gospel of Christ” by “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” Christian unity does not mean uniformity of opinion but allegiance to Christ above all.
Scott Sauls makes this point vividly:
“Matthew’s emphasis on a tax collector and a zealot living in community together suggests a hierarchy of loyalties, especially for Christians. Our loyalty to Jesus and his kingdom must always exceed our loyalty to an earthly agenda, whether political or otherwise. We should feel ‘at home’ with people who share our faith but not our politics even more than we do with people who share our politics but not our faith. If this isn’t our experience, then we may be rendering to Caesar what belongs to God.”3
Matthew the tax collector worked for Rome. Simon the Zealot despised Rome. They had every reason to hate one another. Yet they followed the same Messiah and sat at the same table. Their unity did not erase differences but redefined them under the greater allegiance of Christ’s kingdom. That same unity must mark the church today.
Humility as the Posture of Christ
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
The second mark of the mind of Christ is humility. Paul grounds this in Christ’s example: though equal with God, he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:6-7). Humility is not weakness or self-erasure, but the voluntary lowering of oneself for the sake of others. Richard R. Melick expands this thought by writing, “Christ’s humility is the standard for evaluating the worth of others and actions toward them… Humility begins with a realistic appraisal of oneself and others as being in the image of God.”4
In the present debates about politics and public figures, humility means refusing caricature. It means resisting the temptation to score points or weaponize differences. It means listening rather than demanding, serving rather than posturing. To “count others more significant” is to adopt the posture of Christ, who did not cling to his rights but laid them down in love.
Selflessness for the Sake of the Gospel
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
The third mark of the mind of Christ is selflessness. Christ “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). His self-emptying was not theoretical but costly. He gave up not only his heavenly glory but his very life, so that sinners might live.
Selflessness is the antidote to the self-serving spirit that drives outrage culture, answering “the problem of self-centeredness and false glory.”5 It compels us to let go of partisan idols and personal agendas when they threaten to eclipse the gospel. As Sauls warns, if our political allegiance overshadows our gospel allegiance, we risk giving to Caesar what belongs to God.
Gordon Fee further clarifies what this third mark means: “Here is how one considers the others within the believing community to ‘surpass oneself,’ by ‘looking [out] not for oneself, but especially for the needs of others.’ Here is how he elsewhere describes those whose behavior is genuinely Christian; they ‘do not seek their own good, but that of others.’ This is the way, Paul says in Gal 6:2, that we ‘fill to the full the law of Christ,’ by ‘bearing each other’s burdens.’”6 To live with the mind of Christ is to hold nothing back—not even our strongest convictions—when they threaten the unity of the body and the witness of the gospel.
A Cross-Shaped Witness
The internet may clamor for more division, but the church must embody the cross-shaped unity, humility, and selflessness of Christ. The world does not need another partisan proclamation; it needs a people who, as Paul says, “have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). The call is not to create something new but to live into what already belongs to us by grace.
Paul ends the Christ-hymn by declaring that “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11). The logic is unshakable: Christ went down before he was lifted up. The way of glory is the way of the cross. The way of exaltation is the way of humility. And the way of Christian witness is the way of laying down our rights for the sake of others.
What does this mean for us in a polarized moment? It means we must be known less for our outrage and more for our otherworldly unity. It means our posture should not be to win arguments but to win brothers and sisters. It means that when culture demands our allegiance to its tribes, we answer with a deeper loyalty: Christ and his kingdom.
When Matthew and Simon sat at the same table, it was not because they agreed on tax policy or Roman occupation. It was because they had both taken on the mind of Christ. They surrendered old identities to live under a new Lord. When the world sees that kind of community today—Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, rich and poor, black and white, gathered at the same table—it sees something that cannot be manufactured by human effort. It sees resurrection power.
If the church will embrace the mind of Christ—unity over division, humility over pride, selflessness over self-promotion—then our witness will rise above the noise. In a time when everyone is shouting, the quiet strength of a people who serve one another, love one another, and place Christ at the center will speak louder than any partisan echo chamber ever could.
So no, the internet does not need another post about Charlie Kirk. But it desperately needs a church that already has, and now must embody, the mind of Christ.
Zachary Wagner, “Jesus Is Not a Republican and Christianity Is Not Nationalism,” Center for Pastor Theologians, January 11, 2021, https://www.pastortheologians.com/articles/2021/1/11/jesus-is-not-a-republican-and-christianity-is-not-nationalism/.
Benjamin L. Merkle et al., Ephesians–Philemon, ed. Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, vol. XI, ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 148.
Scott Sauls, “The Non-Partisan Politics of Jesus,” The Gospel Coalition, March 16, 2016, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-non-partisan-politics-of-jesus/.
Richard R. Melick, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, vol. 32, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1991), 95.
Ibid.
Gordon D. Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 190.