The Church Needs Solid Food - Are You Drinking Your Milk?

“Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere men?” (1 Corinthians 3: 1-4).

“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:1-3).

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:11-14).

A few minutes ago, these three paragraphs came to mind. I was thinking of the Church, of Christians. The church needs solid food. But the church does not seem to have the maturity for solid food. You may argue that the reason is that we are milk-fed all of the time. If that were true, then things like envy, rivalry, and partisanship would not be here.

I wish the church was getting milk. Each of these portions of Scripture tell us that it is milk that makes us grow. It is milk that makes us teachers. It is milk that gets rid of these baby-like qualities of selfishness. It is milk that prepares us for solid food. Solid food is for the godly; it is milk that makes us godly. There are Christians who are spiritual sponges, who just soak up biblical information but do nothing with it. Solid food is for those who have become mature by putting into practice the truths they learned from the milk of the Word.

Are you practicing what you learn from Scripture?

Written December 1996.

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