Latest / Reformed Thinking / Milk, Flesh, and the Jealous Heart: Paul's Rebuke of Corinthian Immaturity (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)

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Milk, Flesh, and the Jealous Heart: Paul's Rebuke of Corinthian Immaturity (1 Corinthians 3:1-3) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. So usually when we talk about a
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medical diagnosis, there is this expectation of absolute
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precision. Yeah, it is very much like
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engineering. Right.
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Like you break your arm. The X-ray shows that jagged
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white line and the doctor just points at the eliminated film,
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he says. There it is.
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That is the fracture. It is totally binary.
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Broken or not broken, it is clean and honestly it is
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comforting. We like things to be visible.
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We really do. We want to categorize things
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neatly into obvious physical boxes, but then you step into
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the diagnostic landscape of the human soul and suddenly that
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X-ray machine shatters. Oh, absolutely.
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The spiritual diagnostic landscape is terrifyingly
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deceptive. It really is.
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Today we are looking at a church that looked perfectly healthy on
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the outside. In fact, if you looked at them,
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you would see massive intellect, flawless public rhetoric, and,
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you know, obvious spiritual gifts.
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Right, they had all the outward markers of success.
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But when the apostle Paul ran the spiritual X-ray, he saw a
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nursery of bickering infants. So I want to ask you, the
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listener, a very specific diagnostic question.
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It is a sobering question to consider.
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What if a church possesses all that outward brilliance, all
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that soaring theology, but remains entirely crippled by
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childish squabbling? OK, let's unpack.
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This the setup here is the absolute paradox of the
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Corinthian believers in First Corinthians chapter 3 verses one
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through 3. Yeah, they firmly thought they
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were the spiritual elite. They believed they were soaring
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in the highest heavens of esoteric knowledge.
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They really thought they were floating far above the rest of
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the Christian world, but the Apostle Paul completely shatters
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their self delusion. Spot on.
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He does not hold back at all. That paradox is central to
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everything we are analyzing today.
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Spiritual maturity is not measured by a vast theological
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vocabulary. No, not at all.
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And it is not measured by the ability to win a debate on
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abstract concepts either. Precisely, maturity is measured
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by how much the old fallen nature still dictates your
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reactions, your loyalties, your quarrels and your ambitions.
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The Corinthians had all the outward religious speech, right.
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They had all the markers of intellectual capability.
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But their loves remained utterly disordered.
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They were gathering in the name of Christ, yet operating
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entirely on the fleshly instincts of fallen Adam.
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It is a sobering reality that a congregation can be crowded with
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religious activity, boasting the finest theological language, and
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yet remain entirely weakened by childish pride.
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They were confusing giftedness with maturity and, well, that is
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a lethal error in any era of the Church.
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To really grasp why the Corinthians were acting like
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worldly infants, we first have to understand the vicious, hyper
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competitive world they lived in. We cannot just read the text in
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a vacuum. We need to step into the
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historical and geographical backdrop.
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Welcome to the ancient world, Sin City.
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I mean, Corinth was not some quiet, sheltered rural village
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where everyone knew their neighbors.
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No, they were not living quiet, agrarian lives at all.
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Geographically, it sat on the rocky isthmus of Corinth.
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This was a very narrow strip of land connecting the Peloponnese
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peninsula to the mainland of Greece.
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And because of this specific location, it boasted twin
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bustling ports, Lachaem to the north on the Gulf of Corinth and
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Centigrade to the east on the Saronic Gulf.
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The geography dictated the culture and the economy
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entirely. In the ancient world, navigating
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the sea around the southern tip of the Peloponnese was
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incredibly dangerous. Yes, specifically Cape Malaya.
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The storms there were legendary, the currents were unpredictable,
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and the loss of cargo and human life was staggering.
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Sailors actually had a proverb about it.
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They used to say, let him who sails around Malaya forget his
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home. That really paints a picture of
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how terrified they were of that route.
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So to avoid that nightmare, the Corinthians utilized a
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historical marvel called the Diolkos.
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The Diolkos. This is fascinating engineering.
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It was a paved trackway of limestone straight across the
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isthmus. Cargo ships from the Ionian Sea
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or the Agency would dock, their massive cargo would be unloaded,
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and the ships themselves were literally dragged across the
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land. Wait, they were dragging entire
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cargo ships across a limestone track?
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Yes, on wooden rollers or wheeled vehicles.
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Slave labor, of course. They would drag them all the way
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across to be deposited in the water on the other side.
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That is an insane amount of manual labor.
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Who was funding that? And like, how did it shape the
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people living there? It was funded by the massive
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tolls the city charged for the service.
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Because of the Diolcos, Corinth became an absolute epicenter for
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transient sailors and merchants. An immense, rapid wealth
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accumulation, I imagine. Oh, absolutely.
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We are talking about a place where greed was the primary
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economic engine. So a merchant could arrive
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destitute, manage a few successful transfers across the
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trackway, set up a local trade business and build a massive
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fortune overnight. Precisely.
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There was no old aristocratic money here.
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It was all aggressive, newly acquired wealth.
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But with that transient wealth and constant influx of foreign
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sailors came a level of vice that shocked even the ancient
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Pagan world. Right, because towering above
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all of this bustling commerce was the Acrocorinth.
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The Acrocorinth was a massive limestone monolith rising nearly
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2000 feet into the sky. It cast a literal and spiritual
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shadow over the entire city. And at the very summit of this
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monolith sat the temple of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of
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love. The historical sources are clear
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about what happened up there. This temple housed at least 1000
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temple prostitutes who plied their demonically inspired
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trade. At nightfall, they would descend
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from the Acrocorinth into the city streets.
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The debauchery was so severe, so culturally ingrained.
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Yeah, a specific Greek verb was actually coined and known across
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the entire ancient Mediterranean world.
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Corinthiasis, Tai. Right Corinthiasis Tai, which
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translates to act the Corinthian.
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To call someone a Corinthian was to accuse them of the grossest
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sexual immorality and absolute moral.
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Rot. That is the toxic atmosphere the
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Corinthian believers breathed every single day.
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But it was not just the physical immorality that infected the
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culture. It was the intellectual
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arrogance. The historical records detail
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the intense Greek infatuation with the sophists.
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These were traveling orders, professional debaters and
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philosophers. They would come into a city like
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Corinth and put on massive public displays of rhetorical
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skill. They would rent out theaters or
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stand in the agora and debate highly abstract philosophical
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concepts. And they use the most eloquent
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persuasive speech imaginable. The citizens would build their
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own social status by aligning with specific eloquent leaders.
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They would boast I follow this philosopher, or I'm a disciple
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of that orator. They were treating these men
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like modern celebrities. Let me offer an analogy to make
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this concrete. Imagine a modern church
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importing the cutthroat, hyper competitive tactics of Wall
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Street directly into the sanctuary.
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Wow. Yeah, you have people judging
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each other's spiritual worth based on their stock portfolios
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and aggressive networking. Or imagine a congregation
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adopting the obsessive celebrity worship of Hollywood, treating
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their pastors like movie stars to be adored, photographed and
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fought over. Rather than shepherds to be
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respected, how hard is it to leave that cultural conditioning
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at the church door? You cannot just walk into a
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sanctuary and immediately erase decades of societal
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brainwashing. The Corinthians were failing
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that test miserably. They were bringing the Diolkos
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in this office right into the Communion line.
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If we connect this to the bigger picture, we have to look back at
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Acts chapter 18. Right.
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The Apostle Paul planted this church during his second
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missionary journey. He walked into this epicenter of
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idolatry, greed, and sexual perversion, and he preached the
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simple, unvarnished gospel of Jesus Christ.
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He did not use soaring rhetorical tricks.
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He preached Christ crucified. The church that emerged from
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that Pagan darkness was a breathtaking monument to
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sovereign grace. God, by His sovereign decree,
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pulled converts out of this precise depravity.
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They were washed, justified and sanctified.
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Yet those ingrained Pagan habits, the relentless desire
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for status, US, the competitive debating and the vicious
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division were actively leaking back into the assembly.
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World was creeping back into the church.
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So knowing that intense cultural baggage, we now look at how Paul
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specifically only less as the symptoms showing up in the pews.
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This brings us to the Apostolic diagnosis in First Corinthians 3
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verse one. Paul's writing to correct them,
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and he does not waste any time, but the way he starts the rebuke
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is fascinating. He uses what grammarians call
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the vocative of affection. He starts with brothers or in
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the Greek adelfoy. Wait, if he is about to verbally
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destroy their pride, why start with brothers?
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Doesn't that send mixed signals? Why not just come in with a
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hammer? Because Paul is operating with
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pastoral brilliance, he is not just venting frustration.
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He's shepherding souls. By calling them adelfoy, he is
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actively affirming their objective standing in Christ.
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He is recognizing the mechanics of their salvation.
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They have been justified by faith alone.
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They are part of the household of God and they possess the
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indwelling Holy Spirit. He does this to soften the
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massive, crushing blow he is about to deliver.
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He establishes the familial bond before bringing the rod of
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discipline. The psychological and
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theological mechanism here is crucial.
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You can only effectively discipline a believer by first
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reminding them of who they are in Christ.
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Their legal standing before God in the courtroom of heaven is
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completely secure, but their current daily conduct on earth
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is wretched. To understand the sheer weight
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of the blow he delivers, we have to look at the Greek distinction
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he builds up in the literary context.
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Chapters 1 and 2. Paul differentiates between the
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natural man and the state of the Corinthians.
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If you look at chapter 2, verse 14, Paul introduces the
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Sychecosanthropos, the natural man.
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Yes, the Sychecosanthropos describes the completely
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unregenerate soul. The natural man is entirely
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devoid of the spirit. He is totally depraved, dead in
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his trespasses and sins, and completely incapable of
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understanding the things of the Spirit of God because they are
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spiritually discerned. The natural man looks at the
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cross, looks at substitutionary atonement and views it as utter,
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absolute foolishness. Now the Corinthians assumed they
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were the exact opposite of the natural man.
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They assumed they were the Numatias, the spiritual men
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soaring in divine wisdom. They thought they possessed
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secret insights that elevated them above the common rabble.
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But Paul pulls the rug out from under them in chapter 3 verse
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one. He says.
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But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people.
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Instead, he uses 2 very specific Greek words regarding the flesh,
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and what is interesting is what he does not say.
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He completely avoids the word daimoniotes, which means
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demonic. He does not accuse them of being
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entirely unregenerate or possessed by the devil.
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Instead he uses the terms sarkinos and sarkicos.
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If you look at the actual Greek structure of Sarkinos, it
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literally means you are made of meat.
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He is talking about their physical human substance.
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The precision of those terms is critical for understanding the
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mechanics of his argument. Sarkinos points to their human
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earthly substance. But the best manuscript evidence
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for the subsequent description utilizes Sarkicos.
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Which means characterized by the flesh or carnal in behavior and
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orientation. Paul is stating A brutal fact.
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While they are objectively justified believers who possess
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the Holy Spirit, their current daily operations are entirely
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dictated by the fallen humanness they inherited from Adam.
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Their reflexes, their arguments, they're boasting.
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It is all driven by the flesh. They are acting precisely like
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the saiticos, anthropos, the natural unregenerate man, even
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though they have been rescued from that state.
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And then Paul drops the ultimate insult.
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He calls them Nepios. Infants.
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Babies. Now, to a modern year, calling
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someone an infant might just sound like you're calling them
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naive or inexperienced. But in the Greco Roman world,
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the use of nucleos was a sharp, biting, highly calculated
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insult, wasn't it? It was an intellectual death
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sentence in that culture. Secular philosophers of that
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era, men like Epictetus and Plutarch, utilize the specific
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word Nepios to describe grown adults who completely lacked
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mental maturity. Adults who lacked rationality
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and philosophical training. Philosophers viewed emotion and
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uncontrolled passions as the ultimate sign of a weak,
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irrational mind. To call an adult in Nepios was
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to say they were a slave to their base instincts, unable to
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reason, unable to grasp high concepts.
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It was a term of extreme derision.
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Paul hijacks this known cultural insult from the secular world
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and applies it directly to their spiritual state.
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He is exposing their total lack of spiritual rationality.
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The irony is just staggering. You have to picture the
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scenario. The Corinthians thought they
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were the most elevated, philosophically advanced minds
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in the entire Mediterranean. They thought they were the
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undisputed kings of intellect, proudly comparing themselves to
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the great sophist orators. And the Apostle Paul looks at
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them and essentially calls them a bunch of irrational babies
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playing in the dirt. Entirely incapable of grasping
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the high realities of the Kingdom, they thought they were
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ready for the their master class, and Paul sends them back
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to the nursery. And because they are acting like
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infants, their diet must be drastically restricted.
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You cannot feed a thick heavy bone in steak to a toddler.
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They will literally choke on it. Their digestive system is not
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built for it. This leads directly into the
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dietary restrictions of the carnal heart found in First
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Corinthians 3 verse 2. Where Paul says I fed you with
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milk, not solid food. OK, but when I hear the word
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milk, my modern brain immediately thinks of watering
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down the truth. Like a watered down gospel?
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Is Paul insulting the milk here? Is he saying the basic gospel is
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just baity stuff we should leave behind?
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What makes up this milk and what makes up the meat?
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The Greek word for milk is gala. No, Paul is not insulting the
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milk at all. Milk or gala refers to the basic
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core truths of the Christian faith.
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It is not false doctrine, and it is not an inferior gospel.
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It is the absolute life giving necessity of the beginning of
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the Christian life. Milk includes the doctrines of
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substitutionary atonement, the reality that Christ died in the
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place of sinners. It includes the virgin birth of
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Christ, the absolute necessity of the new birth, and the
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reality of justification by faith alone.
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These are the bedrock truths that every single believer must
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consume to enter the Kingdom. You never graduate from the
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gospel. But milk is predigested.
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It is easy to swallow. It does not require years of
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rigorous theological training to apprehend that you are a Sinner
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and Christ is a Savior. But then you have the meat, the
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solid food. The Greek word is broma.
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This represents the weighty, massive doctrines that require
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rigorous, intense theological digestion.
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We are talking about the sovereign, eternal decrees of
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God, His unconditional election and absolute Providence over
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every atom in the universe. We are talking about the
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intricacies of the divine covenants spanning across
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thousands of years of redemptive history.
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We're talking about the hypostatic union of Christ, and
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let's pause there because the hypostatic union is a perfect
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example of meat. We.
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Were talking about the reality that Jesus is one person with
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two distinct natures. Fully God and fully man,
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unmixed, unchanged, undivided and inseparable.
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That takes immense concentration to grasp without falling into
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heresy. And crucially, solid food
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involves the painful, rigorous daily mortification of sin.
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Those massive doctrines require a mature spiritual digestive
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system. Why is the hypostatic union hard
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to digest? Because human logic naturally
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wants to blend the two natures into a third thing, or divide
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Christ into two pursers. It takes a mature mind
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illuminated by the Spirit to hold the biblical tension, but
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Paul highlights a terrifying reality in the text.
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He points to a literal structural inability within the
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Corinthian church to eat this meat.
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The Greek phrase uses a temporal marker all UDI and Indones,
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which translates to and even now you are not yet ready or you are
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still not able. The verb dynasty indicates a
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severe lack of ability or strength.
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Here's where it gets really interesting.
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Paul's not saying they just have not had the time to read enough
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scrolls. He is not saying they lack
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access to the local theological library.
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He is saying their fleshly behavior has actively destroyed
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their capacity to learn. I have to ask you, the listener,
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is the widespread biblical illiteracy we see today simply a
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symptom of a reading problem or a lack of good study Bibles?
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Or is it actually a symptom of unconfessed sin and carnality
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sitting comfortably in the Pew? It is definitively the latter.
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Sin aggressively dulls the spiritual appetite.
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Pride, arrogance, and fleshly behavior create a literal
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structural inability within the believer to comprehend or digest
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weighty theological meat. The mechanics of this are
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terrifying. When the heart is dominated by
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rivalry and jealousy, it cannot rightly process the sovereign
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decrees of God. Why?
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Because the sovereign decrees crush human pride, and a proud
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heart will reject anything that threatens its autonomy.
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Pride turns high doctrine into mere ammunition for debates.
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Party spirit turns glorious teaching into tribal property.
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A believer can collect an immense theological vocabulary.
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They can memorize the creeds, but if their soul is carnal,
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they will choke on the solid food.
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The knowledge will puff them up rather than humble them.
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Paul does not just throw out this accusation of infancy and
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structural inability without proof.
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He is not just giving his pastoral opinion based on a
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vague feeling. He provides the undeniable
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empirical evidence of their infantile state in First
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Corinthians 3, verse 3. He points directly at the
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symptoms showing up in their daily.
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Interactions. The evidence Paul provides is
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not mystical. He does not ask them about their
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ecstatic experiences, their private prayer languages, or
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their internal feelings. He points directly to their
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horizontal relationships. He breaks down to specific works
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of the flesh that were actively destroying the Corinthians
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assembly. Which he also lists in Galatians
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5 verses 19 through 21 as evidence of walking in the
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flesh. The first symptom is jealousy.
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We're in the Greek Zelos. Jealousy is the internal rotting
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resentment that arises when another believer is honored,
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gifted, or followed. It is a restless, fleshly
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attitude of the heart. Let's look at how this operates.
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When a carnal believer sees someone else being used
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powerfully by God or praise for their faithful service, the
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natural fleshly reaction is suspicion.
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Suspicion, irritation, and a deep seated desire to possess
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that same honor or superiority. They do not rejoice in the
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truth. They resent the blessing given
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to their brother. It rots the soul from the inside
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out, creating a silent bitterness that infects every
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conversation. And that internal rotting
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inevitably leads to the second symptom, strife.
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The Greek word is iris. Strife is the external
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manifestation of that internal jealousy.
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It is the visible conflict, the loud contention.
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And the aggressive schism that actively tears the bride of
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Christ apart. Jealousy is the root.
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Strife is the horrific fruit. These are not minor personality
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flaws. They're not excusable quirks of
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passionate people. They are wicked works of the
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flesh that turn the sanctuary of God into a petty marketplace of
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human status. Mimicking the cutthroat culture
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of the Diolkos we discussed earlier, we see this played out
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perfectly in the banners of division the Corinthians were
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waving. The sources detail how they were
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treating ministers of the Gospel as absolute status symbols.
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One group would proudly declare I follow Paul.
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He planted the church. He has Apostolic authority.
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We are the original elite. Group another faction would
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yell. No, I follow Apollo's.
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Have you heard him speak? His Alexandrian rhetoric is
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flawless. He is far more eloquent than
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Paul. They were taking men who were
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simple instruments of grace and turning them into idols to
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validate their own superiority. But wait, isn't it good to find
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a teacher you trust? Where is the line between?
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I appreciate this theologians teaching and I am committing the
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sin of Corinth. That is the crucial distinction,
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Gratitude says. I thank God for the clarity this
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teacher brings to the Word and I will test everything they say
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against Scripture. Idolatry says my affiliation
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with this teacher makes me superior to you.
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I will defend this teacher's errors.
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I will attack anyone who questions them.
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And I will build my entire spiritual identity around their
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specific brand. Paul analyzes this exact
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behavior with a devastating phrase, Kata anthropon
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peripatite. You are walking according to
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man. To walk according to man means
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you are operating entirely on fallen secular instincts.
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You are driven by competition, fragile ego, and tribal rivalry
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rather than the spirit wrought humility that should
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characterize a believer. For a blood bot child of God who
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has been given the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to
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be told they're walking according to mere unregenerate
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humanity is the absolute highest insult it.
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Means they look exactly like the Pagan world around them and we
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cannot pretend this is just an ancient problem trapped in the
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1st century. Think about the landscape today.
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Modern believers aggressively fracture over the most minor
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preferences. They divide over which podcaster
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they listen to, which charismatic speaker they follow
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on social media, or what specific nuance of secondary
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theology they prefer. We brand ourselves with the
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names of modern theologians. Calvin, Luther, Wesley,
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MacArthur, Piper. And we use those names as clubs
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to beat down other believers. We form massive Internet
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factions that engage in brutal strife.
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Proving the Corinthian disease is ancient, but it is absolutely
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not dead. The moment a teacher or a
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minister becomes a tribal identity, the deadly danger of
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Corinth has resurrected itself. We have to be relentless in
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diagnosing this in our own hearts.
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The human flesh craves a king. It can see a leader it can boast
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in. So if Paul is dealing with
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people acting like infants, how did the later church get this so
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wrong? Because when you look at church
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history, people actually took this passage and built entire
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false doctrines out of it. We have to build some
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theological fencing. We have to defend this text
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against prominent dangerous misinterpretations.
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The first major error we most systematically dismantle is the
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carnal Christian theory. This is a massive issue in
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Armenian theology and the camps that promote easy believism.
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The theory suggests that a person can make a one time
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decision, walk an aisle, accept Jesus as their savior to get
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fire insurance against hell, but completely reject him as Lord of
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their life. The mechanics of this false
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doctrine argue that a person can supposedly live their entire
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earthly existence, producing absolutely zero fruit of
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sanctification. Perpetually operating an
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unrepentant sin and yet maintain total assurance of salvation as
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a quote UN quote carnal Christian.
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That concept is terrifying because it completely severs
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justification from sanctification.
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It acts like God justifies people and then just leaves them
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in the mud. It is a theological disaster.
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It implies there is a prominent acceptable subclass of Believer
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who never grows. But Paul is not endorsing a
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permanent state here. If there is no fruit, there is
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no root. Paul is diagnosing a temporary,
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highly sinful state that requires immediate repentance.
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The author of Hebrews in chapter 12 makes mechanics of this
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abundantly clear. The Lord severely disciplines
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those He loves. A true believer who falls into
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carnal behavior will not be left there.
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They will face the heavy, loving rod of divine discipline to
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drive them back to holiness. God will not allow His children
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to play in the dirt forever. Another error we have to refute
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is the Roman Catholic 2 tier system.
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How did they misuse this concept of spiritual maturity?
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Rome historically built a structural divide between a
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supposedly spiritually elite clergy and a perpetually
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infantile laity. They took the concept of milk
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and meat and institutionalized it.
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The system elevated priests, monks and bishops to a superior
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spiritual class who handled the meat while deliberately leaving
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the common believer in a state of spiritual infancy.
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Dependent entirely on the Magisterium for truth, they
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argued, the common man could not be trusted with the Scripture.
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Paul's rebuke to Corinth destroys that divide.
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Every single believer is called to mature, to move from milk to
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meat. And to exercise the discernment
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of a full grown spiritual adult. There is no permanent underclass
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in the Kingdom of God. And then we have the modern
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iteration of this disaster, the pragmatic or seeker sensitive
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models of church growth. This is where churches look at
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the culture and decide to adjust the menu.
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This might be the most insidious error in our modern context.
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These church growth strategies deliberately watered down the
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gospel into a synthetic artificial milk.
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To keep unregenerate crowds perfectly comfortable in the
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pews. They explicitly avoid preaching
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massive, terrifying doctrines because they know meat is
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offensive to the natural man. You will never hear a seeker
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sensitive pastor preach on the absolute total depravity of the
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human heart. Nor will you hear a robust
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defense of penal substitutionary atonement.
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Let's define that, because that is a crucial piece of meat.
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Penal substitutionary atonement is the reality that Christ bore
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the literal crushing wrath of the Father in the place of the
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elect. He took the penalty we deserved.
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Why do modern pragmatic churches hide that?
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Because it is offensive, it tells the natural man that he is
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a wicked Sinner deserving of divine.
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Wrath, and that is only hope, is the bloody sacrifice of a
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substitute. The pragmatic model looks at a
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congregation of carnal infants and natural men and says let's
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amuse them. Let's flatter their egos, let's
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simplify sin into mere mistakes, and let's keep the atmosphere
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entertaining. It is exactly like a physician
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who examines a patient with a lethal, raging fever but
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absolutely refuses to diagnose the illness or prescribe the
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painful cure. Because they are desperately
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hoping the patient will leave a five star review on their
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clinic's website. The doctor wants to be liked
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more than he wants the patient to live.
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It is pastoral malpractice of the highest order.
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Apostolic ministry looks at that same congregation and says feed
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them the unvarnished word of God, aggressively expose their
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fleshly rebellion, and demand they repent and look to Christ.
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You cannot grow a healthy church on a diet of synthetic sugar.
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The diagnosis Paul gives the Corinthians is unyielding and
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bleat. If the letter ended there, we
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would be crushed in utter despair.
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But the passage is not meant to leave the believer destroyed.
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The cure is provided and it is found entirely outside of human
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effort. We have to look at the
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Christological remedy. How does Christ fix this mess?
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The entire argument Paul makes is anchored in the Word of the
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Cross, which he established in chapter 1.
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The cross of Jesus Christ completely annihilates human
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boasting. The cross is God's final
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absolute judgement on the wisdom of this age.
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When you look in Calvary, the sheer horror and glory of the
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crucifixion, human pride is entirely silenced.
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No individual can stand before the bloody cross of the Son of
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God and claim intellectual or spiritual superiority.
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You cannot gaze at the crucifixion, at the Maker of the
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universe hanging naked and bleeding, and then turn around
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and brag about your favorite philosopher's rhetorical skills.
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It is grotesque. Precisely, we have to contrast
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the grasping, envious nature of Adam the flesh with Christ, who
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is the last Adam and the ultimate spiritual man.
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Think about the mechanics of the fall.
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Adam grasped for equality with God, acting on pride, and
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plunged humanity into total depravity.
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Christ perfectly handled Himself, taking the form of a
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servant, obeying the Father to the point of a horrific death.
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Believers mature not by admiring world the greatness, not by
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winning debates, but by being conformed to the image of the
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last Adam. To really understand how Christ
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remedies this carnal state, we need to look at His threefold
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office. This is classic category
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thinking. Christ operates as prophet,
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priest and king. This is crucial for the immature
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believer to understand. As prophet, Christ alone speaks
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the authoritative, piercing word that cuts through the thick
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layers of our fleshly pride. He diagnoses the disease
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perfectly when human teachers flyer us as priest.
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His shed blood covers the horrific sin of schism, jealousy
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and strife. But it does not stop at the
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cross. It is His ongoing active
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intercession at the right hand of the Father that secures our
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actual ability to digest the meat of the Word.
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He prays for our illumination as king.
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He demands our total undivided allegiance above any human,
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celebrity, podcaster or eloquent order.
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He alone sits on the throne of the Church.
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This raises an important question.
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How specific typically does a struggling believer actually
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transition from a diet of milk to a diet of meat?
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If they realize they are stuck in the nursery, how do they move
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from fleshly infancy to spiritual maturity?
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It is definitely not by white knuckling moralism.
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You do not just wake up and say I'm going to try harder to
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understand the hypostatic union today.
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No, it is not moralism. You do not grow by gritting your
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teeth and promising to stop fighting on the Internet.
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You transition from milk to meat by resting heavily and entirely
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upon the active, ongoing mediation of Christ.
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It is the Holy Spirit, purchased by the blood of Christ, who
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illuminates the dark mind and softens the hard heart.
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You throw yourself on the mercy of the priest who sympathizes
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with your weakness, and you ask him to grant you the spiritual
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capacity to chew the solid food of his sovereign decrees.
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You submit yourself to the ordinary means of grace.
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So bringing all of this together, we have covered
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immense theological and historical ground today.
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The core argument here is inescapable.
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The church, whether an ancient Corinth navigating the Diolcos
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or in the modern world navigating social media, must
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violently repent of worldly rivalry.
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We have to abandon the toxic, fleshly cult of personality that
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turn human teachers into tribal banners.
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We are commanded to pursue rigorous, mature sanctification,
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and we do that through the ordinary means of grace.
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Sitting under the faithful, unvarnished preaching of the
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Word, participating rightly in the sacraments and pleading for
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the spirits illuminating work to understand the meat.
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The challenge for you listening right now is highly personal.
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You must rigorously examine your own heart.
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Look into the dark corners of your soul for hidden Zelos, that
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rotting jealousy that secretly resents the success, the
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influence, or the gifting of another believer.
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Look at your outward relationships for Eris, the
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strike that fractures the unity of the local body.
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Do you love arguments more than you love your brothers?
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You must actively demand solid, heavy theological meat from your
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pulpits. Completely rejecting the shallow
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motivational speeches that plague the modern landscape.
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Refuse to be entertained, Demand to be fed.
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We began by talking about the diagnostic landscape of the
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soul, how the X-ray machine of the Spirit reveals what is truly
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hidden inside us. I want to leave you with the
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final searching thought to Mull over long after this deep dive
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ends. Consider your own theological
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knowledge. You might know the intricacies
31:03
of covenant theology. You might be able to articulate
31:05
the depths of total depravity. Florida State.
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But is your grasp of high doctrine currently being used as
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intellectual ammunition to win arguments, humiliate opponents,
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and build your own little tribal Kingdom?
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Or is the sheer crushing weight of that glorious truth driving
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you straight to your knees in total humility, causing you to
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joyfully wash the feet of the very people you fiercely
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disagree with? Until next time, keep your mind
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sharp and your heart tethered to the word.