Originally Posted by aron
I'd like to title my response: The Simplicity of the Gospel.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 King James Version (KJV)
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
The simplicity of the gospel is that if you believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth, that God has raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved.
The simplicity of the gospel is that God loved you so much that He sent His Only Begotten Son, that you might believe into This One and not perish but have everlasting life.
The simplicity of the gospel is that we the disobedient 'goats' saw the sinless Lamb of God, and repented, and became new again. Now we follow our Shepherd, just as He followed the Father.
Etc. The last point I kind of made up, but I think it ties to the first two. And this is my theme - everything we do and say either ties into the simple gospel message which we first heard and believed, or what we do becomes an entanglement, a snare, a distraction and a point of stumbling.
Not just what we say and teach but especially what we do (though the two are inextricably linked - bad teaching inevitably leads to the promotion of bad behavior, and good teaching exposes it).
In simplicity there is great power. The power that healed, that forgave, that loved beyond sin and took sinners back to the Father. The power that raised Jesus from the dead. Everything either looks at that simple message of love and power and simplicity and grows from it, or creates cobwebs and fictions.
The prophets looked ahead to the Coming One, the gospels testified of this, the Acts and Epistles showed the prophets pointing to Him. But if you get ensnared by webs of teachings, you will find yourself dismissing this. No, says the teaching ("God's Economy"); the prophet was not in spirit testifying of the Light to come but was in his own natural mind, positing natural concepts. Where does the NT receive scripture thus?
There are a multitude of warning signs when you deviate from the simplicity of the gospel. Creation itself will cry out - Beware!
It's not complicated, folks. That is the point. It is simple, it is pure, it is holy.
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