Chapter 9: Simplicity

Someone in a crowd calls out to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” It sounds fair, but Jesus will not play referee. He turns to the whole crowd with a warning: “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

That verse, Luke 12:15, is one of the places Comer draws on in his chapter on simplicity, along with Jesus's teaching in Matthew 6 about serving God or money. His claim is blunt. Materialism is the dominant meaning system of our world, and advertising works as a kind of propaganda. It tells a story about what makes a good life, over and over, until it feels like common sense.

Now listen to the story Jesus tells next. A rich man's land produces plentifully, and he has a good problem. Then comes his question: “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” Look at how he talks. He talks only to himself. He plans bigger barns, then tells his soul to “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” Nobody else appears in his plan. No neighbor, no hungry person, no God. Then God breaks in: “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

The man's mistake is not that he had barns. It is that his whole life was a conversation between himself and his stuff. Jesus ends with the phrase that sums it up: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Here is where hurry sneaks in. Comer points out that every purchase costs time as well as money, so more stuff means more hurry. Think about the rich man's barns. Someone has to tear down the old ones, build the new ones, fill them and guard them. Your version might be a second car, a bigger house, a closet of clothes or a subscription you forgot you had. You work hours to pay for it, spend hours choosing it, and spend more hours cleaning, fixing or storing it. The true cost shows up on a calendar, not just a receipt.

So ask two questions of any purchase. First, what will this cost me in hours of life? Second, what story is selling it to me? Ads rarely sell a product. They sell a feeling: you will be safe, admired, finished, at rest. That is the same promise the rich man made to his soul, and God called it foolish.

If money is tight for you, nothing here is meant to shame you. Tight finances bring their own pressure, and some hurry comes from needing every hour of income. A pastor, your church's benevolence ministry or a financial counselor can help with the practical side.

Picture a Tuesday night at a kitchen table. On the left is a bank statement. On the right is a calendar. Nobody has to say a word, because the two pages already tell the story of what this person serves. Rent, groceries, streaming, delivery fees, a gym card unused since March. Then work, errands, kids, a few evenings of scrolling, and not a single blank square.

Jesus speaks into that scene in Matthew 6. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Then comes the line that reads like a diagnosis: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Notice the direction. We usually think the heart leads and money follows: I spend on what I love. Jesus says it also runs the other way. Move the treasure and the heart comes along. That is good news. You may not be able to make yourself care about generosity or simplicity by willpower, but you can move a little money, or an hour, and watch your affection start to follow.

Now the surprising part. Right after the treasure saying, Jesus talks about eyes: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” That seems to change the subject, but it does not. In the Jewish world around Jesus, a healthy eye was a way of describing a generous person, and a bad eye a stingy one. Matthew 20:15 uses the same bad-eye language when a landowner asks about begrudging his own generosity, though the ESV smooths it into the word begrudge. So the eye is the hinge between treasure and sight. A tight, grasping hand narrows how you see everything. An open hand lets light in.

Then Jesus lands it: “You cannot serve God and money.” The word he uses for money here is a master's name, not just a tool. The question is who gives the orders at that kitchen table.

Comer's chapter on simplicity describes it as intentionally promoting what you value and removing what distracts, with minimalism meaning less, not nothing. Here are three ways to try that in your own voice. Choose one or two, not all.

First, give something away on a schedule. Set a standing gift, or pass along an item you have not used in a year, to someone who needs it. Second, give your money a plan. A simple budget decides ahead of time what your treasure will do, so ads and impulses lose some of their vote. Third, practice enjoying without owning. Borrow from a library, share tools with a neighbor, walk a park, or browse a store and leave empty-handed. Each one loosens the fist.

If finances are painfully tight, a budget may feel like a spreadsheet of fear. Please do not do it alone. A pastor, your church's benevolence fund or a nonprofit financial counselor can help, and generosity can also mean a meal, a ride or an hour of attention. Jesus is not asking you to give what you do not have.