Desire the pure milk of the Word
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2010 · 7 March 2010
“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
I hear many prophetic words and advice for us as a church in this text that I’m excited to begin this second chapter. Let's go straight to the second verse and then back up and look at the whole passage.
A great threat to salvation and to our growth toward salvation (v. 2) is what I would call spiritual stagnation, which is the belief or feeling that you are stuck with the way you are. May be some of you are thinking: this is all I will ever experience of God; the level of spiritual intensity that I now have is all I can ever have.
Maybe you are wondering, “Others may have strong desires to seek after God and may have deep experiences of personal pleasure in God, but I will never have those because well, just because I am not like that. That's not me."
This spiritual stagnation is a feeling that genetic influences and family influences and the influences of my past experiences and present circumstances are just too strong to allow me to ever change and become more zealous for God.
Spiritual stagnation is tragic in the church. It leaves people stuck. It takes away hopes and dreams of change and growth. It squashes the excitement of living, which is growth.
It's like saying to a gawky little teenage girl who feels like her body is all out of proportion: well that's the way you are, and you will always be that way, when in fact she is meant to grow and change a lot. It would be tragic to convince her of a kind of physical stagnation—that her growth is stopped right there at 13.
Think what would happen if that same thing happens with our spiritual growth. Only spiritual stagnation is much worse. Because more important things are at stake, and because we never do get to a point where we've arrived at the final stature like we do in our physical bodies.
So thousands of people live year after year without much passion for God or zeal for His name or joy in His presence or hope in His promises or constancy in His fellowship and feel—well, that's just the way I am. And they just settle in—like an adolescent who stops growing and lives with pimples till he's 80.
In this text God commands us not to stay spiritual babies. Peter says in verse 2: "as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby." This is a command from God to desire to grow.
What this means is that if you feel stuck because you don't have the kind of spiritual desires to grow as you should, this text says, you do not need to be stuck! It says, "Get the desires you don't have." If you don't desire the milk of the Word, starting desiring it!
Now, isn't that amazing! A command to desire! A command to feel longings we do not feel. A command to feel desires we do not have. Is anything more contrary to spiritual stagnation than that?
Stagnation says: I can't just create desires. If they're not there, they're not there. If I don't feel things the way the psalmists seem to feel things when they say, "As a deer pants for the flowing streams so my soul pants for you, O God" (Psalm 42:1)—if I don't feel that way toward God, then that's that. I just don't. I'm not like the psalmists.
But God says in verse 2, "Desire the pure milk of the word!" What can I do to obey a command like that? How do I just produce a desire? My whole problem is that I don't have the strength of desire I want. And You just tell me to desire. You may as well tell a lame man to walk.
Hmmm? Can you imagine such a thing—commanding a lame man to walk? Who could do such a thing? Or how about commanding a lame man to fly? Do you think God might command that?
But listen to what God’s Word says in Titus 2:14, “(Jesus) who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
Can I too do good works by being more fervent like in Romans 12:12, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer”, or more delighted in God like in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart?”
Can I ever live more spiritually like what it says in Romans 8:5, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit?”
Can I ever be satisfied just to be with Christ like what it says in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
Can I too live more boldly like what it says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
Can I too live more hopeful like it says in 1 Peter 1:13, “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ?”
I was listening to a talk by Corrie Ten Boom and heard her recite a little poem by John Bunyan. It's one of the best statements I have ever heard about the difference between the law and the gospel. You'll see how it relates.
“Run, John, run, the law commands. But gives us neither feet nor hands (O.T.), far better news the gospel brings: It bids us fly and gives us wings.” In other words in the old covenant God gave commandments, but by and large did not give the divine enablement that overcomes the deadness and depravity and rebellion of the heart.
But in the new covenant, which God set up at the cross of Christ, God gives even harder commands, but He also gives us the power we need to fulfill them. Verse Romans 8:4 says, “so the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Christ gives us power through faith. Look at 1 Thessalonians 1:3, “remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father.”
And look at 2 Thessalonians 1:11, “Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power.”
We are duty-bound to run, even though our feet are frozen in the ice of sin. We can't run in ourselves, and so the commands of the law condemn. And the gospel is the same in giving us commands. Flying is harder than running. But once we have it, we can fly.
The stagnant person says, "I can't fly. I can't even run. My feet are frozen in my genetic makeup and my dysfunctional family of origin. And besides that I don't have any wings. I cannot fly. That's the way I am." But against that stagnation, the gospel says, "Fly! You don't have desires for the milk of the word? Well, have them."
What this says is that just as essential as having the desires for the Word that we are supposed to have is having the trust in God that He gives what He commands. If God says to desire, when we don't desire, then we trust Him that He must know something we don't know.
He must have that power we don't have. There must be a way. That's the opposite of spiritual stagnation. God commands it. So there must be a way. I will not settle for less than what God commands, even if it is a command to fly.
One of the ultimate growth statements was made by St. Augustine. And it is deeply biblical. In his ‘Confessions’ (X, 40) he said, “O love that always burns and is never quenched! O Charity, my God, light me on fire! You command us to grow. Grant us whatever You command us and command what You will.”
That is the way you are supposed to pray and believe when you read 1 Peter 2:2, "Desire the pure milk of the word." Desire it! Do you not have the desire? Get the desire! Start desiring it. Do not say, "I'm just this way." Do not settle for spiritual stagnation. This is not God's will for you.
Notice that verse 1 begins with the word "therefore." So what he is about to say is based on what just was said before. What was that? What just went before was the tremendous statement (v. 23) that we are born again through the Word of God.
The point was that this Word is imperishable (v. 23) and that it is living and active (v. 23) and that it is not like grass and flowers that die but that it endures forever. So if you have been born again through this Word, then you too will last forever. You are secure forever in the family of God.
Therefore since you have new life by God's working and since you have confidence about the future therefore (2:1), "laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil speaking, 2 like newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word."
It may be that your bible version does not say "milk of the word" in verse 2. It may just have, "desire the spiritual milk." Is "the spiritual milk" merely the Word of God? Or is it something more specific in the Word?
I believe it is something more specific. Verses 2–3 say, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if (that is since) indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
Do you see the connection between the intense desire for the "spiritual milk" in verse 2 and the “tasting that the Lord is gracious” in verse 3? Put them together: "Desire the spiritual milk, since you've tasted that the Lord is gracious."
Where did the readers taste that the Lord is gracious? The answer is: in the gospel, the Word of God (v. 25). They were born again by that kindness through the Word of God. So spiritual milk is the grace of the Lord experienced through the Word of God.
Or you could say, the spiritual milk is the Word of God revealing or transmitting the grace of the Lord. You were born again by that Word—namely, by the powerful grace of God in that Word, and now go on desiring that Word and for the day-by-day experience—tasting—of the grace of the Lord.
The Word of God is powerful enough to create new Christians (through new birth), so then the Word of God is also powerful enough to create desire in weak Christian souls. Don't be a spiritually stagnant person. The power at work within you, just to bring you to life spiritually, is like the power that raises the dead.
Listen to Ephesians 1:19–20, “And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”
So God can create desire just like He created you. Trust it. To paraphrase Bunyan's poem: Run, John, run, the law commands but gives us neither feet nor hands. On the other hand the gospel states far better news: It demands desire but then also creates desire.
But the Word can also destroy. 1 Peter 2:1-2 describes what we need to destroy to gain this desire. "Therefore, laying aside [get rid of, destroy] all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil speaking, 2 like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word." God creates desire for the milk of God's grace if we destroy the desire for other things.
Malice: a desire to hurt someone with words or deeds. Deceit: a desire to gain advantage or preserve position by deceiving others. Hypocrisy: a desire not to be known for what you really are. Envy: a desire for privilege or benefit that belongs to another with resentment that you don't have it.
Slander: malicious, false, and defamatory statements about a person coupled with the desire for revenge and self-enhancement. This is often driven by the deeper desire to deflect attention from our own failings. The worse light we can put another in by slander, the less our own darkness shows.
Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander, all these we must put away and destroy. All these are contrary to being loving and they prevent us from being obedient to the truth of the gospel.
Peter's point is: don't think that they can flourish in the same heart. Desire to taste and enjoy God's grace cannot flourish together with deceit and hypocrisy. So fight against spiritual stagnation from both sides: fight to destroy the desires of deceit and hypocrisy; and fight to taste the kindness of the Lord in his Word.
The result will be (v. 2b) "you will grow in respect to salvation." Literally: "you will grow into salvation." Salvation is reached by growth. To be sure, God Himself gives the growth.
1 Peter 1:5 says, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Corinthians 3:6 says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” So growth is necessary!
Do not fall into the spiritual stagnation that says, "I can't grow; I can't change; and I don't need to." Throw that idea away and seek God with all your heart for help in desiring his Word, and let us grow up together to salvation.