Are you simple?
Some people identify themselves as “simple”. I have a friend who often quotes Winnie the Pooh to describe herself: “I’m a bear of very little brain”. It’s true that some Christians have a gift of making the Bible complicated. I’m sure I’ve preached sermons which have soared over the heads of the listeners. It’s easy to get our audience wrong. And, in my experience, complexity is usually a sign that you don’t understand a subject very well, rather than that you do.
What’s more, Jesus delights to bypass the educated; he reveals himself to “little children” (Matt 11:25). God specialises in humbling the wisdom of the wise (1 Cor 1:19). There is a good, healthy kind of simplicity, that looks away from self and casts us completely on Christ. David famously said: “I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me” (Psalm 131:1). A key part of God’s grace is that it’s not awarded to intellectual high-achievers. Many godly grannies have understood the Bible much better than clever theologians in university departments.
But, in the book of Proverbs, “simple” is not an adjective but a noun. The “simple” are a particular group of people, mentioned 14 times. The term doesn’t describe their intellectual capacity; these aren’t people who got “F’s” in their exams. Rather, to be “simple” is a moral term; it’s a spiritual condition, and it’s not healthy. Some translate it “gullible”. It means being easily misled. Bruce Waltke puts it like this:
“Though intellectually flawed, the [simple]… are the mildest sort of fools, for they are malleable, are capable of being shaped and improved by the education process (1:4; 8:5; 12:25; 21:11), and still have hope of joining the company of the wise (cf.1:22; 9:4). Both Wisdom and Folly compete for their allegiance (ch.9). But until they opt no longer to remain uncommitted to wisdom, they are wayward” (Book of Proverbs, chapter 1-15, NICOT, p.111)
So, the “simple” in Proverbs describes the naïve youth, like Simple Simon of the nursery rhyme. They haven’t learned yet, and haven’t been formed by the Book of Proverbs. They’re still ignorant about a lot of things. There’s an instability about them. The “simple” grow up belonging to the covenant people of God. But they need instruction and formation. And this kind of “simple” is not a safe place to stay. It’s not a position anyone wants to hang around in. It needs abandoning. Wisdom cries out: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?” (Prov 1:22). She calls “the simple” in to her house: “whoever is simple, let him turn in here… Leave your simple ways” (Prov 9:4, 6).
I think this category of “the simple” is very clarifying, and it helps identify a group of people present in lots of UK churches. We often label them as “the fringe”. We struggle to know what to do with this group. They’re not idolaters. They name the name of Christ, but they’re not “all there yet”. It’s not that they’re obviously unregenerate, living impenitent lives. But they are the spiritually “simple”, remain unformed, and need to leave their simple, unformed ways behind.
And an important pastoral question is: should the “simple” be admitted to the Lord’s Table? Historically, the reformed churches have said “no”. They understood Paul’s requirement to partake in a “worthy manner” (1 Cor 11:27), to examine oneself (v.28), and to “discern the body” (v.29), as requiring a more developed, “reflexive” act of faith than the “simple” displayed. After all, “the simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps” (Prov 14:15). So, reformed churches argued that what the simple need is catechising. The “ignorant” should not be admitted to the Lord’s Table. For example, the Larger Catechism says: “Such as are found to be ignorant… notwithstanding their profession of the faith, and desire to come to the Lord’s supper, may and ought to kept from that sacrament” (Q.173). The practice of catechesis was exactly the kind of moral instruction and formation that the Book of Proverbs offers.
Now, like any practice, catechesis can develop in unhealthy directions. It could end up fostering a “worksy” understanding of the gospel, in which you’ve got to be old enough, mature enough, “good enough” to belong to Christ. This is the exact opposite of what the gospel is saying. But if we ignore this category of “the simple”, and don’t learn to call the group to leave this stage behind, we will also face the danger of failing to encourage vibrant faith. According to the Book of Proverbs, the “simple” don’t just need affirming as they are, but instruction in the gospel, to lay hold of Christ, who has laid hold of them in the covenant of grace. I wonder if we took the “simple” more seriously as a group, and recognised the importance of their transition out of simplicity, it might help us in preparing our children to partake of the Lord’s Table. Perhaps what gets labelled “youth work” in most churches is better understood as preparing young people to come to the Lord’s Table, “making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).
