To find the answer let's look to the source.  That is God's Word, the Bible.

     In 2 Corinthians 11: 3 we read the surprising answer, "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

     That is about as simple and straightforward an answer as one can obtain.  However some might say that the word translated as "simplicity" in that verse means something else.  Well,,, let's investigate that claim.

     We can get a good idea as to what the Greek word "haplotes", translated in the King James Version as "simplicity", is referring to.  We need only to look back a few verses in the very same letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians.  We find Paul using the very same word, haplotes, in verse twelve of the first chapter.  Here is the verse, "For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world"

     We can see that Paul was talking about simplicity as opposed to complicated human wisdom.

     Paul was warning the Corinthians about being deceived by complicated subtlety.  He was talking about complicated twists and turns of reasoning that can make anything,,,, including killing  appear to be condoned by God.

     God's truth is simple and easy to understand.  One need not be a Biblical scholar.  That is why Christ told us that He has ordained each of us to preach the simple truth of Christ to others, as long as we are true believers who demonstrate our belief through the fruits of our lives.

     We find this proof in John 15:16, words spoken by Jesus Christ Himself, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain:"

     Hold fast to the truth you have learned, and rejoice in the SIMPLICITY of Jesus Christ who died for us and rose from the dead.  He died for us to pay for our sins.  He rose from the dead to show us that we too can live forever if we will believe.


Charles Bryant Edwards