Milk or Meat?

           As followers of Jesus Christ, we must make daily, intentional decisions to grow in the Word of God. Paul was encouraging the Corinthians to seek not the gifts of the spirit with wrong motives, but rather seek to serve others in the love of Christ, when he wrote, “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.” I Corinthians 14:20 (ESV)

            In I Corinthians 3:1-3 (NIV) Paul stated, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly.” Paul was instructing the men to chose the more difficult, rewarding road of following Christ. 

            In Hebrews 5:12 (NIV), the author is not specially identified, although thought to be Paul as well, noted, “You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.” In this section, the author chastened these longtime believers as ones who should have “known better” and been more diligent in their walk with the Lord.

            If we “drink milk” and never chew on “solid food,” we will remain “babies” in our thinking and will be unable to mature into the men and women God would call us to be.