SImplicity and Complexity

I recently overheard four people talk about two messages they had heard from two different speakers. The speakers were John Piper and Andy Stanley. The conversation was largely about how deep and complex and awe-inspiring the Piper talk was and how simple and practical the Stanley message was. Then a comment was made along the lines of, "well you know the audience that Stanley speaks to regularly is just not mature enough or ready to grasp the spiritual depths and so that is how he speaks. Now I will have to confess that I listen to Stanley much more than I do Piper. But I have digested my share of both. I will say that after listening to my last series of NorthPoint talks from Stanley I was so challenged in my spirit that I listened again to take notes and make some major adjustments in my life. Simply spoken yes, but deeply challenging to me and my undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion with a minor in Greek and two masters degrees from Dallas Theological and Southeastern Theological Seminary.

The overall thought that prevailed in my mind wasn't about either of these amazing men but about God and about how He chose to communicate with us as humans. You see for whatever reason, cultural Christianity has always hungered for the complex. The spiritually complex sounds very mature and can only be grasped by those who have "been around a while." The complexity is used as a whipping stick to keep new, unrefined cultural Christians "in their place." I'm just not sure when Christianity began to value complexity so much unless we think we gain some sort of power from it.

It seems to me that right after celebrating Christmas, we would maybe grasp this a little more, but God became man so that he could communicate to humans in a way that we could all understand. The form in which He came screams out simplicity. God went to great lengths to communicate simply through a human being... Immanuel... God with us. So maybe simplicity is the ultimate sign of true spirituality. Some of the most amazing Christ followers I know are people who communicate the love and power of Jesus Christ so simply through their love. They don't know all of the theological terms for it, but man do they know how to love, and pray and share Jesus simply.