What do Bibles and cows have in common?
They provide us with food that sustains our lives. The cow provides us with milk and meat. Likewise, the Bible gives us milk and meat. The milk is the foundational principles, and the meat is the deeper things that take spiritual discernment and hard work to understand. Since we are all to be growing, we need nourishment that can be provided by the Bible and the cow.
The milk: Milk is the primary nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. The milk of a cow is relatively easier to get than the meat. You just milk the cow and you just have to drink it. It’s the foundational stuff that we have to build on.
In the Bible, there are principles that are basic and foundational. These basics are clear, and it’s easier to see how to apply them to our lives. Therefore, as a starting place, we should “desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2).
The meat: Now, however, the meat is not quite that easy. First, we have to butcher the cow. Then we have to separate the meat from the fat and other internal organs that we don’t want. Then we have to cook the meat. Then we have to chew it up before we can finally digest it.
We need to dig deep into God’s Word to get to the spiritual meat. We have to put scriptures together properly to get the full meaning. We have to meditate on it to see where it applies to our lives. We have to chew it up and break it down. We have to study God’s Word. This means we have to understand it before we fully digest it and apply it to our lives. That’s the essence of wisdom. Wisdom is properly applying the understanding of the knowledge we have.
We need a balanced spiritual diet: In our spiritual development we need both milk and meat. Otherwise we will not grow to the fullest of our potential. Milk gives us strong bones. But meat helps us develop our muscle structure. Without developing our muscles, we wouldn’t be able to move those strong bones.
We have to have the right spiritual nutrition. We have to be growing. We have to be getting better at righteousness. We must be growing in the right direction. We cannot be stagnant. Staying idle means we are getting worse, not developing godly character. Stagnation results in underdevelopment. We get weaker in our spiritual battles.
We come together to eat spiritual food on Sundays. But we have to eat every day. We have to study the Bible every day for it to be profitable to us.
The Bible is our cow. It gives us the milk and the meat. But we have to open it up.
Remember Jesus Christ’s promise: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6)
(JONATHAN ARMSTONG)