There is so much dissension among the brethren that sometimes one wonders whether he is in the communion of the saints or the confusion of tongues.
Devotion of the Day
Subtilty and Simplicity
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.
II Corinthians 11:3.
Strictly speaking, what is in mind here is the simplicity of our faith in Christ rather than the simplicity of the Gospel, but we need not stop there. What stands out most is the contrast between subtilty and simplicity. Satan deals in subtilties. Our Lord deals in simplicities. There is sublimity aplenty but the sublimity is revealed to the simple, kept from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. We have let our minds be corrupted by Satan’s subtilties away from the Saviour’s simplicities. Beware of any teaching, any movement that is sneaking and insidious. The truth is frank and honest and aboveboard. Satan’s subtilties bear the mark of the serpent—“the snake in the grass.” Our Lord stood in the public place and invited men to Him. The Early Church came out in the open. Paul said, “This thing was not done in a corner.”
It is part of Satan’s program to make our faith and practice complicated and involved. Now and then we need a rediscovery of the simplicity that is both in and toward Christ, in Him and in our faith in Him.