1 Peter 2:1-3

1Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,

2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,

3if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

My family has a newborn baby at home presently, and  this has reminded me of 1 Peter 2:2.  Many have missed the meaning here, so for clarity’s sake, a review is in order.  There’s both a simile and a metaphor here.  Recall from English class, a simile is a comparison using the word “like” or “as”, whereas a metaphor is a comparison without the “like” or “as”.  The simile compares us to a newborn child.  We are to act like a newborn.  The metaphor compares the word (of God) to milk.  We are encouraged to act like newborns—but only in one respect.  This verse doesn’t mean we should act childish, nor does it mean that we’re all babes in Christ, nor is it only addressed to baby Christians.  It’s simply comparing a newborn’s hunger to our hunger for the Word of God, or what it should be.

Babies start a growth spurt at around 3 weeks, and this spurt doesn’t end until about 7 weeks.  This is the biggest growth period in a person’s life.  Since a baby’s stomach is small, and since mom can only produce milk at a fixed rate, the baby has to feed all the time.  And at that age, the kid isn’t developed to where he or she can eat solid foods, or even cow’s milk.  Every three hours, day and night, as I can attest to.  The baby is hungry all the time, gets fidgety around feeding time.  My daughter will cry even a ½ hour or an hour before meal times—even if she ate just a couple hours before that.  The hunger is constant.  What Peter is telling us is that we should have spiritual hunger for the Word in the same measure as a baby’s hunger.  The “pure” milk referred to in this verse means that there’s a lone source of milk for us, just as with the baby.  Remember that formula wasn’t invented until the 20^th century, so at that time this was written, newborns had just one source of nourishment—the “pure milk”.  We likewise have one source of nourishment for our spiritual hunger.  Moving dramas, insightful wisdom—none of these things, if apart from the Word, can give us the nourishment we need to grow spiritually.  Failure to maintain this sort of hunger in our spiritual lives will stunt our growth, spiritually speaking.

Healthy Hints:  Rest.