One Accord Meaning in the Bible: Of One Mind, 13 Times in the KJV

“One accord” means together and of one mind: people agreeing, or acting, as one. The King James Version uses the phrase 13 times, 11 of them in the Book of Acts, plus Joshua 9:2 and Philippians 2:2. It names agreement, not goodness. The same words describe the first Christians at prayer and the council that stoned Stephen.

That is the surprise in this little phrase. In one chapter of Acts the believers lift their voices “with one accord” to God, and three chapters later a council runs “with one accord” at a man to kill him. Being of one mind is not holy in itself. What matters is the mind we share. Here is every verse, and who was doing what:

How many times is “one accord” mentioned in the Bible?

In the King James Version, 13 times, once in each of the verses above. Twelve say “with one accord”, and Philippians 2:2 says “of one accord”. You will not find “in one accord” or “on one accord” anywhere in the KJV. Editions that print the Apocrypha, the books between the Testaments, add five more: Judith 13:17 and 15:9, Wisdom 10:20, and 1 Esdras 5:58 and 9:38. That makes 18 in all.

Other Bibles give other numbers, partly because the King James translators had other phrases for the same idea: “with one consent,” “with one mouth” (1 Kings 22:13) and “with one assent” (2 Chronicles 18:12). Newer Bibles sometimes turn these into “one accord,” and sometimes drop “one accord” where the KJV has it. Where the KJV says “they all with one consent began to make excuse” (Luke 14:18), the New King James says “with one accord.”

These come from searching the whole text of each Bible. If you search the KJV on Bible Gateway, you will get the same 13 verses.

What does “one accord” mean?

An accord is an agreement, and to do something “with one accord” is to do it all together, with one mind. Behind the phrase in Acts stands one Greek word, homothymadon. Strong’s dictionary defines it as “unanimously” and traces it to homou, “together”, and thymos, the word for passion; Thayer’s lexicon gives “with one mind, of one accord.” Thymos is a hot word. Elsewhere in the New Testament the King James translators render it as “wrath” fifteen times. A crowd that moves with one accord is moved by one passion, whatever that passion is.

Homothymadon appears twelve times in the Textus Receptus, the Greek text behind the King James Version: eleven in Acts and once in Romans, where Paul turns it into a prayer and the KJV puts it as “with one mind”: “That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6). The one “one accord” in the Old Testament paints a different picture. In Joshua 9:2 the Hebrew says the kings gathered peh echad, “one mouth.”

Is being of one accord always a good thing?

No, and Acts does not hide it. Four of the 13 verses describe people united against God’s servants. The council that tried Stephen was “cut to the heart” by his speech (Acts 7:54). They “cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord” (Acts 7:57). They stoned him, and he died praying for them: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60). One mind against him; one man praying for them all.

It happened to Paul too. In Corinth the synagogue’s chief ruler, Crispus, had “believed on the Lord with all his house” (Acts 18:8), but others in the synagogue opposed Paul, himself a Jew. They “made insurrection with one accord against Paul” and took him to the proconsul Gallio (Acts 18:12). In Ephesus the silversmiths stirred the city until “they rushed with one accord into the theatre” (Acts 19:29). And long before, in Joshua’s day, the kings of Canaan “gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord” (Joshua 9:2).

A fifth verse is simply politics. The people of Tyre and Sidon “came with one accord” to King Herod and “desired peace; because their country was nourished by the king’s country” (Acts 12:20). Agreement on its own proves nothing about who is right. What makes the church’s one accord worth praising is what it agreed to do: pray, worship and decide together.

How did the first church live “with one accord”?

The phrase follows the believers from the upper room to the Council of Jerusalem. After the Ascension, the apostles “all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren” (Acts 1:14). John Chrysostom, preaching on that verse, found “two things reported in their praise”: they were “continuing in prayer, and with one accord, as it were with one soul.”

After Pentecost the new believers went on “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house,” eating “with gladness and singleness of heart” (Acts 2:46). When the chief priests and elders let Peter and John go, the church “lifted up their voice to God with one accord” (Acts 4:24), and soon after, “they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch” (Acts 5:12). Between those two verses Luke says it another way: “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:32). Here the one passion was God.

The last time the church acts with one accord in Acts, it comes through a hard moment. Some believers had insisted that Gentile converts be circumcised and “keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:5), and after “no small dissension and disputation” (Acts 15:2) the apostles and elders met to decide. When they had agreed, they wrote to the churches: “It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul” (Acts 15:25). That should encourage any church in the middle of an argument. In Acts, one accord sometimes came after a quarrel, and the disagreement ended in a common mind. The wider question of what the Bible means by unity among Christians has its own answer in the biblical meaning of unity.

Why don’t many newer Bibles say “one accord” in Acts 2:1?

Because the Greek manuscripts differ. The King James Version reads, “when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” Its Greek text, the Textus Receptus, has homothymadon here, and so do the Byzantine Majority Text and the text printed by the Greek Orthodox Church in 1904. Critical editions such as Westcott and Hort (1881), the Nestle Greek New Testament (1904) and the SBL Greek New Testament (2010) read homou, “together,” instead.

Scholars have weighed the evidence differently. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges noted that “The best MSS. have they were all together in one place.” The Pulpit Commentary knew the newer reading but thought homothymadon, “a favorite word in the Acts,” “seems preferable.” Either way the disciples are together on the day the Spirit came, and the story of that day is told in what happened on the day of Pentecost.

What does Paul mean by “of one accord” in Philippians 2:2?

Paul writes, “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” Here the Greek word is not homothymadon but sympsychoi, from syn, “with,” and psychē, “soul.” It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Thayer’s lexicon renders it “of one mind,” and Blue Letter Bible’s outline explains it as “united in spirit.” In Acts, “one accord” reports what a group did. In Philippians it is something Paul asks a church to become, and the next verses tell them how: by doing nothing “through strife or vainglory” and by having the mind “which was also in Christ Jesus.” That is the answer to the puzzle of Stephen’s council. A crowd can share any passion. The church is asked to share one mind, and it is Christ’s.

How do other Bibles translate “one accord”?

Each Bible has its own words for homothymadon, and Acts 1:14 shows four of them:

• The Louis Segond Bible of 1910: “Tous d’un commun accord persévéraient dans la prière.” In Acts 2:1 it reads “ils étaient tous ensemble dans le même lieu.”
• The Reina-Valera of 1960: “Todos estos perseveraban unánimes en oración.” It keeps the word in Acts 2:1 as well: “estaban todos unánimes juntos.”
• The Almeida Revista e Atualizada of 1993: “Todos estes perseveravam unânimes em oração.” The Almeida Revista e Corrigida and the Almeida Corrigida Fiel have “unanimemente.”
• The Luther Bible of 2017: “Diese alle hielten einmütig fest am Gebet.” Luther’s own 1545 text also has einmütig in Acts 2:1; the 2017 revision reads “beieinander an einem Ort.”

Unánimes, unânimes, einmütig and d’un commun accord all render the Greek word the King James renders “with one accord.” Unánimes and unânimes stand close to the Latin Vulgate, which rendered homothymadon as unanimiter. In every language the hope is the one Paul prayed for, that we “may with one mind and one mouth glorify God” (Romans 15:6).

Related reading

• The biblical meaning of unity: how the Bible defines oneness in Christ
• 22 Bible verses about unity and working together
• Pentecost Sunday: what happened on the day of Pentecost
• Prayers for unity in the body of Christ
• Prayers for community and unity: for a group, a church or a town