The Depth of Theological Simplicity

    Recently, as I have been reading through various articles and blogs I have come to realize that we really do lack a simplicity in the way we express the deepest biblical truths. Please don’t get me wrong. I believe that we should always move from the milk of the word to the meat of the word. Anyone who wants only milk is a babe and has not come to full maturity in Christ. There is an inexhaustible mine of riches in the Gospel that we must labor for, but we must learn to present these riches in a way that it easy to understand. 

    I have often thought about the simplicity of our Lord in His teaching. While no one would argue that Jesus only gave the milk of the word, many would take issue with preachers who, today, speak in such simple language as He. For instance, Jesus, while teaching about how much God cares for His people said, “Consider the lilies.” When teaching about the Kingdom of God He said, “Look at the mustard seed.” And while calling men to come to Him, He said, “Whoever is thirsty let him come to Me and drink.”  Even when men tried to catch Him in His words He taught them with theological depth about the rightful dominion of God over man, who is made in the image of God. He said to the scribes, “bring Me a coin. Whose image and inscription is on it. Therefore give to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s.”

   There was an all-encompassing simplicity to Jesus’ words. This should characterize our preaching and writing as well. Of course there is the biblical truth that many will not understand even when our words are simple. This is evidenced by our Lord’s parables. When asked why He spoke in parables our Lord said, “So that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear…He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts…so that they may not turn and be healed.” It is ultimately not the simplicity of our words that make the divine revelation understandable. As Jesus told Peter, “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but My Father who is in heaven. We do not want to come to a place where we think people will understand because of simplicity of speech, nevertheless, we should not try to be as wordy and unintelligible as we can be for those to whom it is given to believe. 

    For all aspiring preachers, J. C. Ryles’ chapter “Simplicity in Preaching”(chapter 3 in his book The Upper Room) would be a good place to begin the quest for this kind of preaching.