“I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able…”
I fed you with milk and not with solid food;
Paul could only feed the Corinthian church with basic elements of the Christian life; they could not tolerate solid food from the Word. It isn’t easy to feed a steak to a new-born baby. Babies cannot tolerate a substantial diet from the Word. This is a problem of assimilation of truth. Baby Christians need coddling and nursing. They are an alimentary canal with a mouth at one end with no responsibility at the other end!
for until now you were not able to receive it,
The Corinthian church could not assimilate a solid spiritual diet years after their conversion. They were not weaned off the breasts of their initial spiritual diet at the point of their conversion. Carnality blunted their spiritual growth. This is a severe rebuke about their present spiritual shape.
and even now you are still not able
After Paul’s admonishment, they are still stuck on stop in their spirituality.
PRINCIPLE:
We can determine our spiritual condition by our diet.
APPLICATION:
We live in a day of evangelical pygmies of arrested spiritual development. If a baby feeds on milk, that’s normal. If an adult feeds exclusively on milk, that’s abnormal. When Christians should be on solid foods, they revert to the basic milk diet. How many evangelicals today have a grasp on even the most crucial doctrinal issues, much less the principles for applying Scripture to experience?
David Wells’s book No Place for Truth demonstrates the vacuum of truth in the evangelical camp. A foundation gave him a grant to study denominations, seminaries, and parachurch groups, and he concluded that there is no place for truth among evangelicals. Evangelicals cut their jugular vein when they minimize or reject the truth of Scripture.
Hebrews 5:12-14, 12For 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. 13For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14But solid food belongs to those who are of full age (mature), that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
