Mending, in the New Testament, is the work of the Greek verb katartizo, which means ongoing maintenance and restoration rather than founding or beginning, as the Hebrew yacad does. Together the two verbs form a merism of beginning and finishing that encompasses God's working with creation and humanity. The first use is in Matthew 4:21, where James and John are mending their nets. Nets wear and tear under the strain of water and fish, so they must be constantly repaired. The fishermen were not making the nets but restoring them, joining loose ends together and making them fit for use. In the same way, a person who maintains a car is not building it but making it fit for a trip. This joining sense appears in I Corinthians 1:10, where believers are to be completely joined together in the same thinking and purpose. If strands of God's net become disjoined, He, like a good fisherman, can mend it. In II Corinthians 13:11 God's people are to keep things in good repair, maintaining good attitudes. Galatians 6:1 calls the spiritual to restore gently those caught in transgression. In I Thessalonians 3:10 the ministry supplies what is lacking in a congregation's faith, restoring it to spiritual health. The root artios, meaning complete or specially fitted for a purpose, explains why older versions translate the verb as "perfect." II Timothy 3:17 teaches that Scripture makes God's people competent and equipped for every good work. Mending thus reflects God's provision, as in the name YHWH-Jireh.

Mending is constructive, reparative, and restorative, the opposite of rending, which is ruinous and destructive. A torn garment loses its integrity and its ability to cover and protect, while mending restores it. Scripture uses the same imagery for kingdoms. God rends a kingdom away from a king, as with Solomon's idolatry and Saul's disobedience, and a royal robe symbolizes the kingdom as a whole. Yet God also repairs, as when He promises to set up David's fallen tent again and mend its broken places (Amos 9:11). Humanly, death and calamity are hopeless, and only God can mend the situation, restore life, and repair the broken relationship. For this reason, tearing clothes expresses despair and mourning, and priests, who embody hope as intercessors, were forbidden to tear their garments. The high priest's garments were never to be torn, and Christ's seamless tunic was left whole. Caiaphas tore his robes, and the Temple veil was torn as God set aside that priesthood in favor of Christ, the qualified High Priest who never lost hope. Tearing clothes can also signal humility and repentance, as with Josiah and Ahab, but outward tearing is not enough. Joel calls for tearing the heart, not just the clothes, and returning to the gracious and merciful Lord. True repentance leads to mending, for even in the Day of the Lord there is hope that God will relent and leave a blessing. Believers are to put on the new self, setting their hope wholly on God's grace.

In I Corinthians 1:10 Paul pleads that the Corinthians be "perfectly joined together," a Greek word for mending or knitting together what has been rent or broken, like cloth repaired with needle and thread or a broken bone set so it knits and becomes usable again. The word "perfectly" means the repair must be complete, so that things are restored as they were and outsiders would never know a tear existed. Mending begins with speaking the same thing, a shared doctrine drawn from what Christ, Paul, and Apollos taught. When all hold the same faith, they start from the same place and can settle offenses by Scripture. If a party veers into false teaching, reunifying becomes almost impossible, because repentance is needed for the false beliefs as well as for the attitude. Mending also requires unity of opinion, understanding, judgment, purpose, and action. Paul does not say to smooth things over and pretend nothing happened, since that leaves the underlying problem unsolved. He demands deep, painful change: swallowing pride, admitting wrong, and repenting thoroughly. Because human nature is individualistic, this is hard work. Ephesians 4 and Philippians 2 show what it takes: lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, and esteeming others above self, following Christ's example of humility. Mending rests on the assurance that God is faithful and will finish what He started. Even so, those who refuse to change will eventually be separated from those who pursue unity, for God allows factions so the approved may be recognized.