A Time for Milk

~I Peter 2.1-3

So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.

We've seen two other New Testament references to milk as being for infants. (See below.) Both admonish people to grow up and get on to food for the more mature. This reference to milk, however, encourages its consumption: Chug it! Enjoy it! Thrive from it! Maybe Peter's audience is newer believers, or maybe he's just encouraging them back to the basics since at this point persecution against Christians is strong and many are suffering for their faith.

Or maybe Peter just liked milk better than Paul or the writer of Hebrews. :-]

*I Corinthians 3.2 I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. (Feb 29,2012, entry)

*Hebrews 5.12-13 You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. (May 31, 2012, entry)

Food Rules, not

~Hebrews 13.9-10

Your strength comes from God’s grace, not from rules about food, which don’t help those who follow them. We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle have no right to eat.

In my search for principles of good eating from the Bible, the book which the creator of my body has out, here's another verse that says not to worry about rules for eating. sigh. But there is a difference: I'm looking for good health policies, not strict rules based on whether or not the food was first sacrificed to an idol. :-]

The Cost of Indulgence

Hebrews 12.16

Make sure that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who traded his birthright as the firstborn son for a single meal.

Powerful example of what a food fixation can do. Makes me think of looking at, say, a DQ Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard Cake and thinking, "I don't care what this costs me in terms of sugar or fat or acidity or health. I've gotta have some!" There's a price. Of course the difference is that for the loss of health we have to make this decision continually; whereas Esau lost his birthright on one incident.

Esau's story, by the way, is found at the end of Genesis 25.

OT food rules were intended to "tide worshipers over" until the time of Christ.

~Hebrews 9.10

For [the ceremonies] deal only with clean and unclean meats and drinks and different washings, [mere] external rules and regulations for the body imposed to tide the worshipers over until the time of setting things straight [of reformation, of the complete new order when Christ, the Messiah, shall establish the reality of what these things foreshadow—a better covenant].

I chose the Amplified Bible for this verse. It clarifies that while the Old Covenant had many rules about what to eat and what was "unclean," these just point ahead to the coming time of Christ when believers are free from such binding constraints (such as abstaining from pork). Even so, I'm still looking for guidelines based on what the creator intended us to nourish ourselves with.

Taste the Goodness

~Hebrews 6.4-7

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.

Spiritually, the meaning of this verse can be debated, but foodwise the analogy is clear: we are meant enjoy good taste. God's word is something we are to enjoy the taste of. (In fact, we'll see it compared to honey in the OT. Psalm 119.103 "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!")