‘Tis a Gift to Be Simple

If you read about the early church in the Book of Acts, you will see a drastic difference between today’s Christianity and the church described in the Book of Acts. Extraordinary events today were ordinary for first century Christians: healing, dead being raised to life, hundreds coming to Christ every day, miracle after miracle after miracle. So I dug into the Book of Acts to answer this question, “What did the early Church do that Christians today are not doing?” This post is a part of a series of posts that aim to answer this question.

Let this video play while you are reading this post:

In 1864, Elder Joseph wrote this song, “Simple Gifts” while living in a Shaker Community:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,

‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

The concept of living simply is clearly rooted in the early church in the book of Acts. Check these references from Acts. The early church lived a simple life in order to help others. There are two areas where I think we are too complicated.

Firstly, our finances are too complicated. We have far more things than we have any use for. Do we really need extra vehicles? How many T.V.’s do we actually need? Now I’m not trying to shake a finger and claim that we should live in poverty. If you are financially blessed, be blessed, but remember that you are blessed to be a blessing.

Secondly, our minds are too complicated. We need to shut up and listen more. I wrote about that a couple years ago.

Spend a couple minutes meditating on the words of “Simple Gifts” and/or the scriptures listed behind the reference link above (feel free to check the contexts). Ask God how he may want you to live more simply in order to help the Church.