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- Simple Men, Fools, and Scoffers
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(1) A newsletter published every Thursday that contains ruminations, reflections, and readings to encourage Christians in the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty; and
(2) A podcast that follows the pattern of C.S. Lewis by providing accessible theology disguised as Christian philosophy.
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3R THURSDAY: Simple Men, Fools, and Scoffers
We’ve all done it. We’ve belted this song at the top of our lungs at some point in time.
Go on. Admit it.
No one? Okay. I’ll just read these words and you’ll start humming along soon:
Boy, don't you worry, you'll find yourself
Follow your heart and nothing else
And you can do this, oh, baby, if you try
All that I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied
And be a simple kind of man
Oh, be something you love and understand
Baby, be a simple kind of man
Oh, won't you do this for me son, if you can?
Baby, be a simple, be a simple man
Oh, be something you love and understand
Baby, be a simple kind of man
By no means do I want to knock the classical rock, but Bad Company (or Lynyrd Skynyrd) corrupts good morals—right, dad? (1 Corinthians 15:33)
But it’s a pretty easy philosophy, right? Dare I say a simple philosophy?
“follow your heart and nothing else”
“be something you love and understand”
We just want to be simple men.
But “simple” in that we want to be
humble
kind
hardworking
straightforward; and
honest.
This is the idyllic, blue-collar man—Joe “six-pack” or Joe, the Plumber. [Does anyone remember these references?]
The kind of man who has all but disappeared from our modern media and have been replaced with gay men, effeminate men, babbling buffoons, or boys who happen to have facial hair.
We may want to be a certain kind of “simple,” but do we want to be simple in thought?
Or taken advantage of? Labeled as moronic, idiotic, or just plain dumb?
Do we want to remain ignorant of our duties as husbands, fathers, and sons?
For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them.
No, of course not. We don’t want to be that kind of “simple.”
[Or to use the kids’ slang, we don’t want to be “simps.”
Sidebar: when you check out that hyperlink to Wikipedia, let me know how old you felt having to look up a Gen Z slang word.]
We want to be wise men.
Robust in our theology.
Deep in our philosophy.
Courageous in our gifting.
Strong for our families.
So what happens when we find ourselves casually talking and repeating the same phraseology that we’ve heard all our lives about this or that topic; When we find ourselves accepting certain dogma without truly understanding any deeper truth; When we find ourselves in these conversations, allowing the loudest voice (whether by number or volume) to force a subtle head nod of approval or acceptance? Or worse yet, when these loud voices compel us to click, click, click through the post and comments as we further conflate reality for microscopic pixels?
We would say that we have a “simple” understanding of that topic.
We would say that we are being simple men. Proverbs says that:
The simple believes everything,
but the prudent gives thought to his steps.
Pastor Josh Fields teaches that on the path to folly, we start out as Simple Men.
We believe everything (Proverbs 14:15). We inherit folly (Proverbs 14:18). And we are killed by turning away from wisdom (Proverbs 1:32).
Then devolve into Fools (Proverbs 12:16; 29:11; 17:10; 18:2; 17:24)
And finally into Scoffers (Proverbs 21:24; 29:8; 24:9; 22:10)
[Full credit: Josh Fields, FBC Iowa Park. Stay tuned for his sermon series and book on Proverbs]
In the Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, there is a senior demon, Screwtape, who is teaching his nephew, Wormwood, how to keep Christians away from God. Their main strategy is to incrementally separate us from God, but sometimes encouraging the Simple’s Man folly is sufficient for their purposes. Screwtape writes:
My dear Wormwood,
I note what you say about guiding your patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s [that is, God’s] clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time, the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as a result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons, we have largely altered that.
Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily “true” or “false,” but as “academic" or practical,” “outworn” or “contemporary,” “conventional” or “ruthless.” Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church.
Don’t waste your time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.
…
But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is “the results of modern investigation.” Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
Suffice it to say, folly separates us from the Truth. Lewis, through the guise of demonic advice, alerts Christians to be wary of the subtle shifts in our thinking (often from “the weekly press and other such weapons”) and the various ways our perceptions can be manipulated away from Wisdom.
So as catchy as it might be to be a “simple kind of man,” I pray that we would be so much more for our wives, children, churches, and communities.
I pray that we would be the kind of men who seek Truth and glorify God in all that we do.
Thank you for reading. If this encouraged you, please forward this email to someone else who needs encouragement as well.
See you next Thursday,
CFW
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