Reflections on 1 Corinthians 3:2
“I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.” (1 Corinthians 3:2, NIV)
Paul fed the Corinthians milk. Phillips says they were “unable to digest meat,” and Knox gives the reason: “nature still lives in you.” The Remedy, by Dr. Tim Jennings of Come and Reason Ministries, calls the milk “the ABC’s of God’s treatment plan.” Then it adds something that stops me: many of them had preferred the elementary teachings. They didn’t just fail to grow. They chose to stay where they were.
Why would anyone choose to stay on milk?
I believe the answer is fear. Living on milk is living on the opinions of others. Milk is digested food from another body. Someone else does your thinking for you, and that feels safe. Your mentor is responsible for having the answers you need. But if you mature past that place, or he moves on, who will tell you how to live and what to do?
People come and go in our lives. Each person you meet has a pearl to give you, something they alone possess. Learn to allow the teachers into your life, accept the gifts they bring, and then allow them to move on so the next teacher will appear. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. In Corinth they were refusing to let their teachers move on, trying to hang onto them out of fear of having to grow up. A few verses later, they are quarreling over whether they follow Paul or Apollos.
There is a saying I have repeated for years. It has been so long I don’t know if I made it up or borrowed it from someone lost in the mists of time, but it is me:
People want to give their brain to the teacher, their body to the doctor, and their soul to the minister, then sit back and wonder why their life is garbage.
They refuse to take responsibility for anything. This is no way to live. There is freedom in knowing what you know, and in finding the answers as you need them. My father had his PhD in biochemistry. He once told me that intelligence is not about having all the answers, but knowing where to find them. No one can possibly know it all. The intelligent understand that they don’t, and they know where to find the ones who do.
It takes faith in the Lord, and in yourself, to rely on what you have found by trial and error to be truth, and on the Lord’s guidance. Living one step at a time, seeing what works and what won’t, is the maturity that allows you to trust yourself. This is true independence. It comes with wisdom and maturity: knowing who has the answers for any question, and when there is a question that needs to be asked, while trusting that the Lord is guiding our steps.
Growing up does not have to be an awful, scary experience. It is an awesome one. It can be a natural progression up the steep mountain that is our life. Every so often, turn and take a look back down at the view. It is magnificent. This is the view that comes with maturity: the chance to see where you were and what you have become.
The path keeps climbing. Sometimes you are cutting it right out of the untried dirt, so you must tread carefully. But each step brings a bit of wisdom. The step sticks, and taking it teaches you more about the ground you are moving over. The more steps you take, the more wisdom you gain.
But wisdom and maturity will never come if you don’t move your foot forward and take that first step.
Learn to be the milk supply for others, and start becoming you.
So what answer have you been waiting for someone else to chew for you?
