Simplicity of Heart

   While listening to a scripture reading this past Sunday at church, I was struck by an unexpected word. The passage was from Acts 2, the story of the Day of Pentecost where Peter and the apostles preached to people from all over the Asia Minor and northern Africa. Thousands were touched in their hearts and obeyed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to my knowledge the first real widespread of the church that Christ set out to start.

   I’ve read and heard this story tens of times. The word that struck me as strange was in the last part of the chapter that describes the day to day activities of these new Christians. It speaks of them living in essentially communal society, meeting each other’s needs, and enjoying fellowship with those of a kindred spirit and like values and goals.

   Acts 2:46-47: “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church[a] daily those who were being saved.” (NKJV)

   The words that caught me were “simplicity of heart” and particularly just “simplicity.” That’s not the word that I was expecting to be there. I was expecting to hear “singleness” and that is how the KJV translates it. That describes the strength of their unity. Other versions such as the NIV and NASB have “sincerity of heart.”

   At first I didn’t like the NKJV version. “Simplicity of heart”…it sounded weak. “Singleness” and “Sincerity” are much stronger words, right? But the more I thought about it, the more “simplicity of heart” spoke to me. The idea of a simple heart to me is a heart that takes joy in pure and innocent facets of life. It is not a heart that longs for worldly things. 1 John 2:16 states, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Obviously this is not what God wants for our lives as he asks us in Romans to “not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

   Some of us need a renewing of the mind/heart. Some probably call it “old fashioned” – a time when more people took pride in loving God and their neighbor, in doing the right thing, in standing up for morality over the corruption of the world. Those are the type of simple things that our hearts should crave and take joy in. And certainly I think an important element to our ability to accomplish such an attitude is to surround ourselves with the Lord’s people as those 1st century Christians were doing in Acts 2. Hey, let's face it, if you go out into the world alone, it's very easy to lose sight of the important (but simple) values that our hearts should be craving. Worldliness presents itself as quite a luring temptress, and it's something I battle every day.

   So that has been my prayer to God this week – for the Lord to bless me with wisdom of mind, but simplicity of heart.