Too Much Milk, Not Enough Meat

In the Northern Hemisphere, as the school year begins, local churches also reset to begin a new season of ministry. It’s customary where I live for this to incorporate a series of sermons on the first principles of our theology and practices; with titles such as “Who We Are,” and “Why We Do What We Do,” and “The Bible is our Foundation,” and “Getting Back to the Basics.”

We also recognize that in the present “post seeker-sensitive movement” times, there is a realization that the person sitting across the aisle, or a few rows ahead of us might be attending church for the very first time in their life, and we need to define our terminology. There is also a long-standing idea that it doesn’t hurt the regular parishioners to review the fundamentals.

However, the past few days I’ve heard comments like,

• “We’re doing another navel-gazing sermon series. It’s the same thing every year.”
• “It seems like just days ago that he was saying the same things. It’s recycled notes with nothing updated.”
• “I just wish he’d toss us something deeper somewhere in the middle of the sermon, for some of us to chew on.”

These represent three different people and three different churches.

The commonly used contrast between “basics” teaching and “deeper” teaching is the one the writer of Hebrews uses in chapter 5, distinguishing between milk and meat.

¹² Although you should have been teachers by now, you need someone to teach you an introduction to the basics about God’s message. You have come to the place where you need milk instead of solid food. ¹³ Everyone who lives on milk is not used to the word of righteousness, because they are babies. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil. (CEB)

(I did find it fascinating that the third comment above referenced craving something “to chew on.”)

While there is one verse in 1 Peter 2 which casts milk in a positive light — “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (2:2 NLT) — the picture of a milk diet is generally one of spiritual infancy. The scriptural model is growth or progress toward spiritual maturity.

Paul strikes this contrast twice in 1 Corinthians:

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still 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. (3:1-3a NIV)

Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. (14:20a NIV)

…The general direction of many churches has been to provide easily-communicated sermon content in the primary weekend gathering of the congregation, and then offer various other options for those who wish to go deeper. These might include,

• a mid-week gathering for prayer and Bible study
• home-based small groups studying a particular curriculum
• adult elective classes earlier on Sunday mornings
• enrolling the church in an online portal to free streaming of top teachers
• book recommendations
• podcast recommendations

To various degrees these provide the deeper teaching needed, but do so outside the context of the gathered body. I believe there is much to gained by coming under the hearing and teaching of God’s word corporately. (“Remember that time when the pastor explained how that passage was understood by the early church?”)

One of the best sermon summaries is in Luke 24:27, though sadly, the audience at that particular message was rather limited: “Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.“ (CSB) Arrgh! If only Cleopas & Company had taken more notes!

I believe this is what our spirits long for. To long to know more about God, is to long to press in and know God himself more. “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.” This is what we crave. (Psalm 42:1 NLT).

…I realize that this may stepping on some toes, and that the annual “basics review” may be a sacred cow in your church. But what if? What if the church continued to probe the deeper things of scripture, and offered those who are beginning their spiritual journey the opportunity to understand the basics through;

• a mid-week gathering for studying and asking questions
• home-based small groups doing the Alpha Course materials
• an alternative classroom situation running at another time or parallel to the church’s main meeting
• encouraging newcomers to work their way through selected Bible Project videos
• basic doctrinal book recommendations
• a good podcast tailored for new believers; new Christians

Just an idea. What do you think?