2 Corinthians 13:11, commentary and pictures

Finally the appeal is to grow toward spiritual completeness and maturity, to be encouraged and comforted, to share one mind, and to live in peace, with the promise that the God of love and peace will be with those who do so. The same call belongs to church life, to completeness, good comfort, oneness of mind, and peaceful living under that same promise. The title God of love and peace reveals that love and peace are God's character.

In its chapter setting the call follows the appeal for believers to examine themselves to know whether they are in the faith and whether Christ is in them. Believers can do nothing against the truth, and their growth toward perfection is a cause for rejoicing. Being of one mind means being perfectly joined together without divisions and speaking the same thing, bearing the infirmities of the weak in self-denying love as Christ pleased not Himself, and showing sincere love without dissimulation. It means living and walking in the Spirit with love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, having crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. It pictures the many members as one body in Christ as Christ is one with the Father, living by pure, peaceable, gentle wisdom that sows righteousness in peace.

Unity under this appeal requires believers to stop treating their own judgments and conduct as beyond correction. It directs how members of Christ's body relate to one another in conduct, words, and actions. It gives God's guidance for preserving unity and harmony in the church and stands with the wider biblical appeal for Christ's followers to be united.