Question of the Week: What is the difference between the milk and the meat of the Word?
The milk and meat of the Word are terms usually understood to mean the substance of what you’re taking in concerning the Word of God. When you read the Bible, the plain and simple truths are considered the milk, while the deep and complicated matters of theology that are usually only brought up in seminary are referred to as the meat. While many solid Bible teachers have presented this to be the case, it is not how the text itself describes and defines these terms. The one and only difference between the milk and the meat of the Word is what you apply to your life practically and personally. In order to support that claim, we first need to carefully read and examine the context of the passages they appear in.
Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
1 Peter 2:1-3 (NKJV)
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Hebrews 5:12-14 (NKJV)
These two passages both use milk and solid food (meat in some translations) to illustrate how we interact with and benefit from our time in the Word of God. Growing in our knowledge and understanding of who God is and the reasons we have to trust and model ourselves after Him are certainly what we take away from what is written in the Word. However, the passage that makes a distinction between milk and solid food doesn’t emphasize spiritual IQ, but spiritual I DO.
But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Hebrews 5:14 (NKJV)
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