The Meat of the Gospel
I have been part of several conversations that questioned and debated what is meant by references to "milk" and "meat" as used in and around 1 Corinthians 3:2 and Hebrews 5:12. Are there parts of the gospel that are harder to digest, and if so, which are they? Then, if there are harder and easier parts, do we ever fully graduate to where we can be sustained on a diet of meat and become spiritual "carnivores"?
I know I can't point with confidence to many specific scriptures that fall into one category or the other. This is likely due to an ignorance of scripture, but it makes me wonder if the milk and the meat are the same scriptures just understood at different levels.
My thoughts go there because I've been reading through my Bible for maybe the third time, the same Bible I've had for fourteen years, and I'm struck by the types of verses the younger version of myself though prudent to highlight. What I was thinking at that time thankfully eludes me, but what I can figure out strikes me as shallow. In my opinion, this younger self lacked the breadth of knowledge about the gospel to even begin to make informed conclusions about what specific scriptures meant. When I read scripture as a young Christian, I was only capable of absorbing the easy parts—the milk—of the verse.
When we are young in Christ, we need our elders to provide the context for sound scriptural interpretation. Secular knowledge will pit the truths of the gospel against each other, and until our overall knowledge of the gospel is established, this will be our tendency by default.
Adult birds regurgitate food for their young, and, before the advent of food processors, the mothers of human infants pre chewed food for their young as well. In effect, this is what our elders our doing as they break down the Word of God for us. We are perhaps too young and not well enough keeled to accurately absorb the gospel and apply it with maturity. In our youth, we especially need the wisdom of others to put things into proper perspective.
As we grow in Christ and learn His Word, we grow into perfection; an adjective used by Paul to denote maturity or completeness. With a daily Bible habit, we will continue to discover more aspects and truths of God. As our knowledge and understanding are applied with the help of the Holy Spirit, our foundation will become deeper. We will be able to go to the Word and be fed by something that better fills us, becoming less dependent on others and more directly accountable to God.
Okay then, having gotten that out of the way, there is a passage of scripture that strikes me very much as being meat. The words of Christ in John 6 elicited these responses:
Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? (v. 60) and;
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (v. 66)
Read this passage (John 6), as it is a singular event and runs counter to the smarmy picture some use to portray Christ. Jesus uses strong words to thin the ranks, though I doubt anyone present knew what was really meant by them. The Lord knew some were unbelievers, and knew what the outcome of His words would be. Too many were following Him only in body, to see supernatural events and eat the free food.
The Word of God thins the ranks by design, just like the tests Gideon presented to his men before defeating the Midianites. There is no room in God's plan for life of the flesh. If we aren't willing to repent daily and continually battle our selfish desires; but instead choose to pursue our desires for sin and pleasure, our entire being will be cut off from God. Christian life is fleshly death, and if we aren't faithful separate ourselves from the desires of the flesh, God will separate Himself from us.