Is Milk the Common Food of the Church?
- Larry Kutzler
- Apr 9
- 5 min read
Hebrews 5:13-14 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.
For the last few decades, I have observed that many Christians have a low-grade understanding of the Gospel message. If you were to ask ten Christians about the main reason Jesus came you might get 50% to say, “He came to die for our sins.” Now, if you were to ask them, “Why He did that,” you would get even a smaller percentage of them answering that it was to fulfill the promises God made to the Jewish people through God’s Covenants with them.
Matthew 5:17 I did not come to abolish the Law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.
If you were to ask most Christians about the history of their faith, they would probably talk about the Church Fathers of the Reformation, and not Father Abraham.
Genesis 12:3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.
All families of the earth will be blessed because the Jews would be the conduits for the Savior/Messiah to appear and establish a New Covenant with the Jews that would affect the whole earth.
Jeremiah 31:33-34 But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
This new Covenant was given to the Jews, not the Gentiles, and it established the reason Jesus came, as He said, “I have not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but I came to fulfill them.” That fulfillment was two-fold:
To fulfill the promise to the Jews of a New Covenant
To graft in all mankind to this New Covenant
Romans 11:17-18 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
So, when the emphasis of the Church never addresses these Biblical facts, you are being fed milk, which will hinder your ability to grow into a spiritually mature Christian.
Here are the two areas where “the Milk” is displacing the “Solid Food” of the Word of God.
One of the common mistakes leaders make in the Church is their speculation about the Scripture. Speculation is not fact; it is a personal belief or opinion that something will happen. I would consider this milk, because it will keep you alive but it won’t give you much health. Milk can soften the harsh reality of the truth (Solid Food), which often is messy and frightening. For example, when a leader teaches that some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased in operation in the Church; that is purely speculation. There is no Scriptural evidence to support this.
The other area where speculation has a high degree of occurrence is with eschatology. This centers on the idea that God will perform His return to earth according to their understanding. All speculation has to take into account that His return is a mystery, it happens quickly in the last days, and no one knows the day and hour. The idea of a mystery has to do with knowing something will happen, we are just not sure on the details. The detail is what makes it a mystery, and many have taken the details and made them fit their doctrinal belief on His second coming. Speculation is an assumption, not a fact, and it should be spelled out as such. The Bible does not teach us to speculate on the hour or the day, it teaches us to pray, be watchful and be ready. That means we are to know the season, know the signs, and be ready for what is next.
The other common mistake leaders make is their unwillingness to preach the whole Council of God.
Acts 20:27-28 For I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and the entire flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.
Solid Food is for the mature to digest and to bring the necessary protein to your body. If milk is all that is digested, you will eventually begin to lose body mass and strength. Babies cannot digest solid food, so milk was made for them. However, no one stays a child forever, and sooner or later the child grows into solid food. So, do our Churches just preach the milk of the Word and never solid food? Some believers have become so milk dependent that they are scared of the end times and would prefer not to hear it. Sorry, scary or not, it will take Solid Food of God’s Word to build a Church that will not compromise with the evil in our day. Life will not get easier until Jesus is sitting on His Throne in Jerusalem, and until then, we should be inhaling the smorgasbord of Solid Food from His word.
Is milk the common food of the Church? If it is, we are in big trouble. We live in a day when Solid Food must be digested to prepare us for what is to come.
Challenging the Culture with Truth … Larry Kutzler