Simple Faith?
I guess we have all heard people say, I have a simple faith. Often when a discussion turns a bit theological, someone turns to another an asks for an opinion, they reply “I don’t really have an opinion on that. I have a simple faith.”
Sometimes it sounds like they are talking themselves down, other times it sounds like a virtue. Is a simple faith a good or a bad thing? I think both, depending how you look at it.
Positive
It’s good to know there isn’t a test on our knowledge to be saved. Membership questions are remarkably straightforward. Faith, is actually a simple thing, it is reaching out and taking hold of Jesus. And so a new-born (again) Christian is no less a Christian for the simplicity of their faith.
Surely a “simple faith” is better than a complicated one. When one sets up a social media account it asks for relationship status and gives drop down options, one of which is “it’s complicated”. So, in our relationship with God simple has to be better! Of course, sadly, we have come across people who love to delve deep into theological books, stay up all night debating finer points and love to accuse everyone of being a heretic because the extra Calvinsticum was explained wrong… and yet clearly are not living in obedience to Christ. Our Lord himself warned us about such people.
So, on that basis, yes please to simple faith. And yet…
Negative
Often we emphasis the reality of our faith as a relationship. Rightly. So, let’s apply how simple faith works in any other relationship. Say, you come up to me and ask for my wife’s birthday so that you can put it in the diary, to send a card (appealing to our female readers). But, to your dismay, I don’t know. Nor do I know her allergies nor the colour of her eyes… in my defence, “I have a simple faith in my wife”. Some of that ignorance would be excused on a first date, but not nearly 28 years of marriage.
A relationship doesn’t have a pass mark, but it does deepen. Someone who love you want to know more about. You want to know their likes and dislikes. And you have a life time with which to do it. My wife and I still have moments of “really? I had no idea of that about you!” So it is with God himself. We have a lifetime to know the object of our love more deeply.
I am often surprised at those weird and tricky bits of the Bible, that Christians aren’t more curious to start probing. Often these are the places, where we find great rewards in either practical Christian living or loving God for his greater wonder.
Hebrews 5:12-14 (ESV) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
