Simplicity - 2 Corinthians 11:3

11:3 - Continuing with the analogy of the Church being a woman, Paul admits that instead of becoming the pure bride of Christ, “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.” When we think about the gospel, we obviously don’t know everything and because of that, it is sometimes tempting to feel like the gospel is complicated. I’ve felt this way before, especially when it comes to the concept of the atonement, forgiveness, priesthood, etc. But really, if we stop and think about it, the principles and ordinances of the gospel are incredibly simple. First, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe what he says, second repentance, we change our lives to be obedient to his commandments as best we can. Third, baptism by immersion, being dunked under the water by one who has proper authority, fourth laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, we sit in a chair while someone with authority gives us the ability to have the Holy Ghost with us. It’s really not hard, and honestly, the more I learn about God and the gospel, the easier it is to understand things. For instance, the sons of perdition. We struggle to understand the concept that there will be people who have done something so bad that they can’t repent of it even if they want to. This was how I understood this concept initially. But perhaps we struggle with it because it is untrue. Sons of perdition are not allowed to receive glory because they don’t want to repent. Anyone who wants to repent of anything has that privilege afforded to them. There is nothing that we can do that is so bad that we can’t repent of it, do denying the Holy Ghost isn’t the worst sin possible, but refusing to repent is. So maybe we struggle with things we don’t understand because we are thinking about them in the wrong way. The more I learn about the atonement, the more it makes sense to me. I don’t know everything but what I do is simple and makes total sense. Anyway, the point is that the gospel is not complicated. Even people who don’t believe in God actively believe in His non-existence. We all believe in something, whether it is that God is real or that He is not, and we base our thoughts and behaviors on our perception of God’s reality. I know that whenever I get too caught up in thinking about topics that I don’t understand, I have to just sit back and think “you’ll understand it eventually, but understanding it doesn’t impact your ability to be obedient.” Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not very good at keeping a lot of the commandments, and I have to regularly remind myself that obedience first, then the lesson. Fasting for instance, I don’t understand how not eating will bless the life of someone else. I don’t want my blessings contingent on anyone else’s efforts, so why would I try to make someone else’s blessings contingent on mine. I obviously know that that’s not how it works, but because I don’t know I don’t feel like making an effort. This is one of the lessons for myself that the concept isn’t hard, but you don’t need understanding in order to be obedient. Maybe I’m one of the ones who is letting the simplicity of the way become a stumbling block for me. Am I robbing myself of blessings because I won’t obey a simple commandment? That’s something I have to think about. About the simplicity, the article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com quotes Neal A. Maxwell as teaching, “we like complexity because it gives us an excuse for failure, that is, as you increase the complexity of a belief system, you provide more and more refuges for those who don’t want to comply; you thereby increase the number of excuses that people can make for failure to comply, and you create a sophisticated intellectual structure which causes people to talk about the gospel instead of doing it. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is not complex. It strips us of any basic excuse for noncompliance, and yet many of us are forever trying to make it more complex.” This pretty much sums up anything about the concept of complexity in the gospel. I think that there’s another aspect to it as well, and that is the feeling of specialness or superiority. When it comes to gospel understanding, there are people who want to know things so that they can feel more righteous or more powerful than others. If there’s a concept that I make super complicated to the point that no one understands what I’m talking about except me, then surely I’m more spiritual than others because only “I” understand this concept. Ironically, this is the stance taken by those who truly don’t understand the meaning, purpose, or power of the gospel.