Simplify, Simplify!

When I sat in a seminary classroom I was a much, much younger man.  I was also a man who thought he knew a good bit more than he actually knew.  At a time in my life when it seemed good to make things complicated, there were always voices which hollered out the word from Walden Pond, "Simplify, simplify."  A preaching professor often said to preach to folks in the pews as if you were preaching to sixth graders.  He was not saying that pew sitters were not very educated, but that preachers tended to make things more complicated than they needed to be.

 

When it comes to an understanding of how it is that God is One, yet Three, there are many complicated and confusing ideas out there to read and consider.  One simple illustration has served me well over the years as I have struggled to understand this mystery and communicate it in a simple understandable way to others.  Simply stated, I am one man.  But, with my wife I express myself as husband, with my daughters I express myself as father, and with my mother I express myself as son.  I am and have always been and will always be only one and, yet, am known through many different expressions of myself.

 

This simple oversimplification of a profound theological truth may seem far short in terms of meeting all the right criteria for a correct theological response, but it where I must, nonetheless, go.  In the final analysis there is more mystery in the doctrine of the Trinity than my intellect, common sense, theological training, and a life time of living can grasp.  What I do not doubt is the holy truth behind the Biblical understand of One God who makes Himself known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Understanding it all and putting it in a neat theological package is not a necessity for me.  Maybe it works that way for others as well.