1 Corinthians 2:6-3:4 Spiritual Maturity (*Note Below)
2 Clarifications
Please accept my sincere apology. In my opinion, the last 5-10 minutes of this sermon (where I dealt with 1 Corinthians 3:1-4) was unclear and unhelpful. My goal in teaching is to always be the opposite. There were two main problems: (1) I said Paul’s language in 3:2 was a reflection of the Corinthian’s accusations against him rather than his own straight-forward words. This is a plausible interpretation asserted by various commentators, but I was/am not confident in it. As a result, I did not understand this paragraph well enough to teach it properly. (2) My explanation of “infants in Christ” and “milk and solid food” (especially in light of the merely plausible interpretation) was confusing. I’ve provided a somewhat clearer explanation below. (PDF)
Humble and grateful for grace,
Tim
1 Corinthians 3:1–4
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
ISSUE #1: “Infants in Christ” (v1)
It is true that some Christians are less mature (like “infants”) and some Christians are more mature (like adults). We can see these two levels of Christian maturity in other portions of Scripture. However, in this text, Paul is not using “infant” in a positive way. Paul is using the word “infant” as a scathing rebuke of the fractured Corinthians in Corinth. In essence, he is saying “You are acting like INFANTS!” It’s important to note Paul affirms that they ARE Christians (CH1 he affirms God’s work and grace in them; CH2 he calls them “Spiritual People;” CH3:1 he calls them “brothers” and he says they are “infants IN CHRIST”). Although he affirms their status as Christians, he REBUKES them by saying their infantile actions of jealous, strife and division prove they need to be addressed as v1 “people of the flesh,” they are v3 “behaving in a human way,” and they are v4 “being merely human.” Those terms are a scathing rebuke referring to the “natural person” who operates according to the “wisdom of this age” that he just described in 2:6-16.
CALVIN: “Babes in Christ. This term is sometimes taken in a good sense, as it is by Peter, who exhorts us to be like new-born babes, (1 Peter 2:2,). Here, however, it is taken in a bad sense.”
ISSUE #2: “Milk and Solid Food” (v2)
We should not derive from this text that there are 2 different kinds of spiritual food (or spiritual wisdom). Paul did not teach the “baby Christians” the Gospel and then teach the “mature Christians” something else, some deeper wisdom. In CH2, he just said “I decided to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified! There is ONLY ONE kind of Spiritual Food that Paul is speaking about here > Christ and Him Crucified (i.e. The Gospel). The Gospel is BOTH milk and meat. The point Paul is making is that the Corinthians wrongly wanted something more or different than the cross of Christ. The problem was not with Paul’s teaching, it was with their hearing. The Corinthians were looking for a deeper “wisdom” that leads to deeper maturity. There is no such doctrine.
ANTHONY THISELTON and Morna Hooker explain that “the contrast is not between two quite different diets” in the sense of elementary and advanced Christian doctrine (as in Heb. 5:11–14) but between “the true food of the Gospel … (whether milk or meat) and the synthetic substitutes which the Corinthians have preferred.”
GORDON FEE: “For Paul the gospel of the crucified one is BOTH “milk” and “solid food.” As MILK it is the good news of salvation; as SOLID FOOD it is understanding that the entire Christian life is predicated on the same reality. Thus the Corinthians do not need a change in diet but a change in perspective. ...The problem, he insists, is not on his side, but on theirs. “I could not” (explain the cross as God’s wisdom in mystery) “because you could not” (so understand it, given your “advancement” in the wrong direction). The problem, it turns out, is not with the message at all, but with those who had put themselves in a position so as not to be able to hear and understand what was being said to them.”
CALVIN: “I have fed you with milk. Here it is asked, whether Paul transformed Christ to suit the diversity of his hearers. I answer, that this refers to the manner and form of his instructions, rather than to the substance of the doctrine. For Christ is at once milk to babes, and strong meat to those that are of full age, (Heb. 5:13, 14,) the same truth of the gospel is administered to both, but so as to suit their capacity.”