Photo by: Sanford Kearns
I’m convinced, as so many of you are, that reflecting daily, and throughout the day, on the Word of God is as important to the health of our souls as the 1st, 19th, and 119th Psalms indicate.
Jesus’ Apostle Peter joins Paul and others in saying something similar in his first New Testament letter. In the second chapter, he urges his readers, advanced in physical years as they may have been, to “lower their expectations of their own strength, and to remember the way newborns need their mother’s milk. Even though they now have the Spirit of God living in them, he challenges them to remember how spiritually vulnerable and needy they are when he writes, “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” (1Peter 2:2-3).
Here, however, it’s important to note that Peter didn’t regard “being biblical” as the goal. The rest of Peter’s second chapter his readers to remember what Jesus endured for our sake, so that they might find, in him, and in the “milk of the word”, the strength to endure the insults and rejections of life, for his sake.
Together with the rest of the authors of the Bible, Peter doesn’t make the mistake of making the Bible into an idol.
The authors of Scripture don’t say that God only speaks through the written page (see Psalm 19; Prov 1:20-21; Romans 1:18-21). They don’t say the Bible is all we need to face the problems of life (Luke 12:30-31; Philip 4:19). Neither do they encourage us to wear their knowledge of the Bible as a proud badge of membership in the house of God (1Cor 8:1-3; 2Peter 1:5-7).
To “be biblical” is an unworthy rallying cry.
The “milk and meat of the word” are to be a means not an end. They are to be where we find Spirit enabled thoughts to renew our minds. They are the source of the stories of God’s grace and truth that challenge us to be honest, loving, courageous people who draw attention not to ourselves, but to the One who is the source of our love, and peace, and hope.
Our God-given goal is not to be biblical, as if by quoting or praising the Bible we can become so. Our goal is, by the renewal of our minds, to reflect the firm resolve, and boldness of Christ who could lovingly walk among wolves while being harmless as a dove.
Jesus enemies, however, prided themselves in being “keepers and lovers of the law”.
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