FOOD FOR THOUGHT
MILK
DR. JIM DIXON
JULY 17, 2011
HEBREWS 5:11, 6:3; I PETER 1:22, 2:3
When you think of milk, some of you might think of famous athletes or famous Hollywood types with milk mustaches. Some of you think of heavy cream, or half and half, or whole milk, or two-percent milk, or one-percent milk, or non-fat milk. You think of cow’s milk, goat’s milk, soy milk, almond milk. In different parts of the world there are people who drink camel’s milk, reindeer milk, sheep milk, and yak milk. Maybe when you think of milk you think of butter; or maybe you think of cheese, or ice cream, or sour cream, or yogurt.
Sometimes, in the Bible, milk is used in simply that physical sense; but other times, in the Bible, milk has a metaphorical application. We are going to look at two of these today. First of all, we look at milk as orthodoxy. In the Bible, there are times when milk refers to orthodoxy. This is a compound Greek word coming from “orthos,” which means “right” or “correct,” and “doxa,” which in this context means “thinking” or “doctrine.” Sometimes milk refers to correct thinking or correct doctrine; it refers to those basic doctrinal beliefs that Christians should be taught when they are first saved.
We see this in the Hebrews passage. The author says, “About this I have much to say which is hard to explain since you have become dull of teaching. For though by this time, you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of God’s Word. You need milk, not solid food. Now everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for they are but a child. Solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the milk; let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and move on to maturity—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and faith towards God, with instruction about ablutions, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the eternal judgment.”
In this passage, the author of Hebrews is talking to his Jewish Christian audience. He is rebuking them because they need milk again. They need to hear the first principles of God’s Word. They need to hear the elementary doctrines of Christ. So, here, milk refers to orthodoxy, the elementary doctrines of Christ, correct doctrine and correct thinking.
In this passage, the author of Hebrews goes through a few of these elementary doctrines. The first two have to do with soteriology—they have to do with salvation. The first two are repentance through dead works and faith towards God. Repentance through dead works and faith towards God have to do with salvation and how we are saved. We are not saved by our works; our works are dead. All of your works and my works are dead because we are sinners in need of a Savior. “We have all gone astray like sheep. There is none righteous; no, not one.” We can’t save ourselves, not by our own works. So, we repent of our dead works. When we come to Christ, we repent of our sin, and we repent of trying to save ourselves by our own works. We place our faith in Him.
Repentance of dead works and faith towards God is the means of salvation. We are not saved by our works; we are saved by His works. We are saved by the works of Christ. We are not saved by our holiness; we are saved by His holiness. We are not saved by our obedience; we are saved by His obedience and by His atoning sacrifice on the cross. We place our trust in Him as Savior and Lord . . . and we are saved. This is milk. These are elementary doctrines of Christ, and they are to be taught to people who first place their trust in Him and enter the Christian church and community. We are to teach them these matters of milk, these elementary doctrines.
Then the author of Hebrews mentions matters of instructions about ablutions. He considers this an elementary doctrine of Christ; He considers this milk. What are ablutions? The reference is to baptism. The Greek word for baptism is the word “baptismos” or “baptisma” if it is in the plural. In the Old Testament, in the Jewish world, there were ceremonial washings; but in the New Testament, in the Christian world, there was baptism. The author of Hebrews is speaking to Jewish Christians, so he takes a word from the Old Testament and applies it to the New Testament. Instead of “baptisma,” he uses “baptismos.” He considers knowledge of baptism milk.
Everyone who comes to Christ should understand the meaning of baptism. It is a public confession of an inward reality. We are baptized to profess our faith in Christ publicly. Baptism indicates being washed from our sin; but also, baptism represents death and resurrection. It takes us to the death and resurrection of Christ. We go under the water, which is death, and we rise out of the water, which is life. When we go under the water, we die to ourselves; when we come out of the water, we live to Him. This is the meaning of baptism, and it is milk. It is an elementary doctrine of Christ.
Then he moves on to mention the instructions of the laying on of hands. He considers this an elementary doctrine of Christ. The laying on of hands has to do with prayer and, specifically, ministries of prayer. In the Hebrew world, hands were laid on people for blessing. That was also true in the Christian world—hands were laid on for blessing, but also for healing.
Last Sunday, we invited you to come down front to be prayed for. We invited you to come if you had any illness, any sickness, any disease; if you have cancer, if you have heart trouble . . . whatever you have. We invited you to come down front that we might anoint you with oil, lay hands on you, and pray over you as the Bible says. This is milk; this is an elementary doctrine, a foundational teaching in the Christian faith—ministries of prayer, the laying on of hands. In the Christian world, the laying on of hands was also used for the impartation of the Holy Spirit, the beseeching of gifts of the Spirit, and the ordaining of people to offices within the Church of Jesus Christ. The ministry of prayer is considered milk.
Then he mentions two other doctrines which have to do with eschatology or the last things—they have to do with the consummation and the close of the age. How is it all going to end? That is milk, and everybody should know; they should be taught these things as soon as they accept Christ. He mentions these two doctrines: the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment.
Jesus said, “Do not marvel at this; the day will come when all who are in the tomb will hear My voice and come forth, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting death.” This is the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. We know that when Christ comes again, He will raise from the dead all people for the final judgment. We who are Christians will be clothed in new bodies and will enter into our new life in heaven.
The final judgment really consists of three judgments, biblically—the “Bema Seat,” which is the judgment of Christians; the judgment of the living, which is the judgment of the nations mentioned in Matthew 25; and the judgment of the dead, which is the “Great White Throne” judgment at the end of the book of Revelation. Amillennialists believe that the judgment of the Great White Throne happens at the return of Christ. Premillennialists believe that the judgment of the Great White Throne takes place at the end of the millennium, a thousand years after the return of Christ. These matters may be elementary, but they are not simple; and they are a little bit controversial. Still, in the early church, when anyone came to Christ, they were taught basic truths . . . elementary doctrines, orthodoxy. There has been a failure to do this in the church of Christ today.
In the Christian church today, there are many people who come to Christ, and they never drink their milk. There are people in the Christian church today who come to Christ, and they never learn orthodoxy. They never learn the basic doctrines of Holy Scripture. They never learn the basic teachings of the Christian faith. They are not able to articulate them. They are not able to defend them. This is the failure of the Church of Jesus Christ. This happened even in the first century. That is why the author of Hebrews is writing to this crowd, saying, “By this time you ought to be teachers, but you need someone to teach you again—orthodoxy, the first principles of God’s word, the elementary doctrines of Christ.”
This has always been a problem. Chuck Colson, just a month ago, released a book . . . or wrote an article on the need in the Christian Church for “catechesis.” Of course, through many centuries, Christian churches offered catechism to new converts. Those who accepted Jesus Christ, those who went through confirmation were given catechism. I grew up in Glendale Presbyterian Church in Glendale, California. When I went through confirmation, I had to memorize the shorter catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith because they wanted us to understand orthodoxy. They wanted us to understand the elementary doctrines of the Christian faith and to be able to articulate them. We discussed them in order that we might be able to defend them. The churches no longer do this. That means that many people come to Christ and do not drink their milk. It is kind of a sad situation.
The early church, from the very beginning, began to draft statements that were called “creeds.” This was true of the Apostles Creed. This was true of the Nicene Creed. These were all efforts to impart milk—efforts to list and itemize the elementary doctrines of Christ, the basic foundational teachings of the Christian faith, so that everyone who begins with Christ would know these things are true. Later in the church of Christ, they drafted “confessions” like the Westminster Confession and the Heidelberg Confession. These confessions were, again, for the purpose of milk—that people might have a foundational understanding of orthodoxy.
We, at this church, have established the Institute of Evangelism and Apologetics with Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg. We have done this partly because the Christian faith is under attack by an unbelieving world . . . and we want to be able to defend it. We have also done this to help you drink milk—to help you learn what we believe and why we believe it. We have also done this so you can learn how to defend the doctrines of Christ.
So, sometimes, in the Bible, milk refers to orthodoxy, Christian theology, and Christian doctrine. Now, there is a second use of milk in the Bible. And this is not orthodoxy but orthopraxy. Orthopraxy comes from “orthos,” which means “right” or “correct,” and “praxis,” which means “behavior” or “action.” Orthodoxy has to do with Christian theology. Orthopraxy has to do with Christian morality, with right behavior and right action.
The passage where milk means orthopraxy is clearly the 1 Peter passage, where Peter says, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding Word of God. All flesh is like grass, all of its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls; but the word of the Lord abides forever. That word is the good news that was preached to you. Therefore, put away all malice and all guile and all insincerity and all envy and all slander; and like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk—that by it you may grow up unto salvation. For you have tasted of the Lord who is kind.”
When you look at this passage contextually, milk clearly refers to all things moral, including the height of Christian morality, which is love. “Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth, for the love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart. Put away all malice, all guile, all insincerity, all envy, all slander . . . Long for the kindness of the Lord.” It all has to do with the character of Christ. It has to do with the milk of kindness. It has to do with orthopraxis and orthopraxy; it has to do with Christian morality.
When you look at the statement “pure spiritual milk” . . . the word “pure” in the Greek doesn’t simply connote the quality of the milk, but also the ethical nature of this milk. This is the milk that leads to holiness. It is spiritual. The Greek word is “logikos,” which comes from “logos” and from which we get “logic.” But “logikos” literally means “reasonable.” This is the milk having to do with reasonable behavior, rational action in the sight of God. This word was used in contrast to the animals whose behavior is irrational. Human behavior is to be rational in the sight of God. This is the milk that is pure and rational in the sight of God. It has to do with our behavior and with our action. When we become followers of Christ, we need milk. We need orthodoxy—we need the milk of truth—but we also need orthopraxy, which is the milk of morality, the milk of right conduct. We need to grow in both of these, to drink both of these.
I grew up with a certain measure of fundamentalism; my wife Barb grew up with a whole lot of fundamentalism. In fundamentalism, there is an emphasis on orthodoxy to be sure. There is an emphasis on correct doctrine in fundamentalism. In that sense, I am a fundamentalist—because I believe in correct doctrine. I believe in the elementary doctrines of Christ. I believe in the fundamentals of the faith. So, in that sense, I am a fundamentalist.
Today, this word is stigmatized. Today, as this word is generally used, I would not call myself a fundamentalist. Fundamentalism today, stereotypically, really refers to issues of orthopraxy. It has to do with identifying correct conduct . . . and orthopraxy or correct conduct is defined in a negative way. It has to do with all of the things you don’t do because you are a fundamentalist Christian. So, you don’t do this long list of things; and furthermore, those who do do these things (Is it okay to say “do do” in the pulpit?) . . . those who actually do these things, you condemn, you judge. So, you believe in orthopraxis; you believe in right behavior; you identify right behavior in terms of what you should not do; and you judge those who do these things—that is kind of fundamentalism.
I grew up in that, and my wife Barb grew up in that. Right behavior was never defined in terms of the wonderful things you should do; it was almost always defined in terms of the horrible things you should not do. There was this long list . . . and it began with dancing.
As I grew up, we were not to dance. Dancing was wrong. Barb was told that more babies were conceived after dances than at any other time. Our suspicion was that, “Boy, Jesus must really not like dancing.” I went to Montrose Elementary School in Southern California. I took a note to school because every Friday at school they had square dancing. I had to take a note to school, signed by my mom, that said, “Jimmy can’t dance.” (Which, of course, in every way was true.) In my mind, dancing was just wrong. My parents viewed it with at least suspicion.
But then my brother Greg (who has a great singing voice and used to sing in the Westmont Quartet at Westmont College, and then went on to the Lawrence Welk Show and sang on television) . . . My brother Greg sang for Lawrence Welk for a couple of years, and he sang in a quartet called the Blenders. Greg, while he was on the Lawrence Welk Show, fell in love with the woman who is now his wife—her name is Barbara. (I married a Barbara and Greg married a Barbara.) Greg fell in love with Barbara Boylan, who was a dancer on the Lawrence Welk Show. What a shock to my parents! So, Greg is on the Lawrence Welk show and falls in love with Barbara Boylan, who danced for seven years on the Lawrence Welk Show with Bobby Burgess. (Bobby was one of the original Mouseketeers.) Obviously, these are very horrible people.
As Greg and Barb fell in love, and Barb grew in her love for Christ, and they grew in their love for each other, my mom and dad began to see what a wonderful person Barb was. They could see how she had this purity and this kindness and this compassion; and they could see a quality person. They had to rethink their whole view of dancing. It was like a revelation to them that someone could be a wonderful person and be a dancer. This was an amazing concept. It stood in contrast to the fundamentalism in which I was raised. (Of course, we all learn that what life is really about is doing the hokey pokey and turning yourself around.)
In this long list, you also could not smoke. Of course, smoking is not mentioned in the Bible (because Sir Walter Raleigh hadn’t come along yet), but the Bible does tell us that our bodies are temples of God. We should treat them rightly. We need to live as good stewards. There was this list of things we could never do. Of course, on there was drinking (we are going to deal with that next week as we continue “Food for Thought” and look at wine and all the metaphors relating to wine in the Bible).
You couldn’t go to movies. On this list of things that you could not do . . . if you had orthopraxy, if your conduct was right, if your behavior was right, then you could not go to movies. I could not go to movies growing up. I was sixteen years old before I went to my first movie. My parents, when I was sixteen, said, “You can make your own decision now that you are sixteen. You can go to movies or not go to movies. You can do what is right or you can do what is wrong.” So, I went to my first movie. (In fact, just two weeks ago, we were out in California at Disneyland. We noticed that the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House is no longer the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. It is now the Tarzan Tree or the Tarzan House. I guess Swiss Family Robinson has kind of gone by the wayside. But that was the first movie I went to.) At sixteen years old, I made my choice to go to a movie. I went and saw Swiss Family Robinson. It was kind of fun and it was wholesome, but I felt guilty because I was a fundamentalist going to a movie. I felt guilty. Barb’s first movie was Goldfinger, and her parents never knew she went to see it because Barb said she was going to see something else. The problem was that for the next few days she kept humming the tune to Goldfinger, and her parents and sister found out. She was in a whole lot of trouble going to a movie like that.
You couldn’t use cards because that was on the list. In terms of orthopraxy, that was one of the things you don’t do. You don’t play cards, and particularly, don’t play with any cards that were used in poker. (We could play Rook. I don’t know how many of you played Rook . . . we actually had some fun with that.) We could not play with poker cards even if you were playing Canasta or something like that. This was just wrong behavior.
You could not use bad words. Of course, biblically, there is some merit in not using bad words. I never heard my father swear. I never heard my father use a so-called swear word throughout the course of his life. He used a lot of substitute words. He used the word “shoot” a lot, which I think is a substitute for the s-word. He used the word “heck” a lot, which I think is a substitute for the h-word. He used “darn,” which I think is a substitute for the d-word. You know what I mean. Every once in a while, he would get really mad, and he would say, “Oh Eekabolt!” I have no clue what that meant, but I assume if you translated that it wouldn’t be good. This is fundamentalism, and we grew up in that.
There were sexual restrictions, as there should be. We were taught that sex was something that was set aside and reserved for marriage. That is biblical. Fundamentalism definitely got a few things right because the Bible does teach that sex is a gift given to us by God, meant to be opened only in the context of marriage. On the physical level, it is an expression of the union of marriage—a beautiful gift from God, but one that is often abused.
In fundamentalism, orthopraxy, right behavior, had to do with the things you didn’t do. But biblically, milk and the milk of Christ’s character has more to do with what we are to do. It has to do with love, and that milk is summed up in love.
Next year, 2012, in April, we are taking a group of you to Israel and to the Reformation territory. (So far, one hundred and thirty of you are signed up; and we can take 200. So, we still have room. A couple of years ago we took 200, and we had an incredible time. I really believe this is going to be an experience of a lifetime.) We are going to go to Sepphoris. We have taken seven different groups to Israel over the course of the years, but only on one occasion have we gone to Sepphoris. There are new archeological digs that are taking place in Sepphoris that are so exciting. Sepphoris is a city that is just three miles from Nazareth, just across the valley from Nazareth where Jesus grew up. Sepphoris was the center of the rabbinical schools in the north. If you think of the whole of Israel, the whole region of Galilee, its rabbinical schools were centered, we now know, in the city of Sepphoris.
In the time of Jesus, massive building projects were taking place in Sepphoris . . . they were recruiting every able carpenter and every able stone mason they could find. It is highly likely that Joseph and Jesus did a lot of work in the town of Sepphoris. Although Jesus is oftentimes viewed as an itinerant minister, there are many scholars who believe He had some experience in and with the rabbinical schools. It is a fact of Holy Scripture that even His enemies called Him “Rabbi.” All five titles given to rabbis are given to Jesus, even by his enemies. So, there is a possibility that He went through the rabbinical schools at Sepphoris.
In the time of Jesus, every rabbi had authority. The Hebrew word for authority is “s’mikhah.” Every rabbi recruited their disciples—the Greek word “mathetes,” the Hebrew word “talmidim”—and they bound their disciples to their yoke, which was their interpretation of Torah. There were many rabbis who bound their disciples to their interpretation of Torah, saying, “Torah is all about truth and knowledge. And if you are my disciple, this is your yoke. You believe the Torah is all about truth, and it is all about knowledge.” There is some truth to that. Other rabbis would say, “If you are going to be my disciple, you have got to view the Torah as all about righteousness and holiness, and the standards of God with regards to righteousness and holiness. If you are going to be my disciple, this is how you have to view Torah.” Other rabbis would say, “If you are going to be my disciple, you have got to view Torah as all about blessing and cursing. We have the Torah from God in order that we might learn how to be blessed and how not to be cursed. If you are going to be my disciple, you have to view the Torah this way.”
Then Jesus came along, and as far as we know, He was the very first to say, “Torah is all about love. That is My yoke. If you are going to be My disciple, you have got to understand that it is all about love.” So, He quoted the “shema,” saying, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and might.” That’s in Deuteronomy 6, which we sang earlier with Lincoln Brewster. Then Jesus quoted Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He said, “This is what Torah . . . this is what Scripture is all about. It is all about love.” When he said, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another,” it was new in the sense of His yoke. It was new in the sense that it was the first time a rabbi had made this the yoke of his teaching and the summation of the Torah.
Love is what we are called to learn. If we drink this milk, if we drink the milk of orthopraxy, we put away all malice, guile, insincerity, envy, and slander; we purify our souls by our obedience, we love one another earnestly from the heart, and we receive and taste the kindness of the Lord. It is all about learning these attributes of love. If you look at the teachings of Jesus and you go through the parables of Christ—from the Good Samaritan to the Prodigal Son—it is about compassion, and it is about love, and it is about mercy, and it is about grace. So, as we look at milk, we think of orthodoxy, we think of truth; but we also think of orthopraxy, and we think of love. We think of Christian theology, and we think of Christian morality.
I want to conclude with a thought. I really want to conclude with one more word. The one more word is “orthopathos.” This word means “correct passion.” As Christians, when you think of milk, you shouldn’t just think of orthodoxy (the elementary doctrines of Christ) . . . you shouldn’t just think of orthopraxy (which is right conduct or right behavior summed up in love) . . . you should also think of orthopathos (which is right passion).
Look at the passage in 1 Peter chapters 1 and 2, particularly 1 Peter 2:2. What Peter says is, “Long for the pure spiritual milk.” Long for it. The word here is “epipotheo.” The word “potheo” means “to long for,” and it is really not found in the Bible; but “epipotheo” is found in the Bible. The prefix “epi” is a prefix of intensification. So, this word doesn’t mean simply “to long for,” but “to greatly long for,” “desperately long for.” “Epipotheo”—desperately long for the pure spiritual milk. Be passionate about pure spiritual milk, like newborn babes long for the pure spiritual milk.
If you are sitting there this morning, and you are bored, something is wrong. Something is wrong in your soul, something is wrong in your heart, something is wrong in your mind if you don’t have any longing—if you don’t have any passion for truth and love, for Christian theology and Christian morality. And yet, you call yourself a Christian . . . you are in need of passion.
There is hope. God still offers to breathe on us. The breath of God gives passion. The breath of God gives life. In Genesis, God breathed on man, imparting life, imparting “nephesh,” imparting soul, imparting the “imago dei.” The breath of God gave life. When you come to the end of the Gospel of John, and the resurrected Christ appears to the disciples in the upper room, what does He do? He breathes on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Again, the breath of God imparting new life and new passion. When Paul writes to Timothy, and he is trying to describe the Scriptures, he says, “All Scripture is inspired of God.” You know the verse. “All Scripture is inspired of God. It is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness that the man or woman of God might be complete and equipped for every good work.” The word in the Greek for “inspired” is “theopneustos.” This word literally means “God-breathed.” The breath of God is on this book.
I tell you, if you are lacking passion, if you are lacking desperate longing for milk . . . if you are not like a newborn babe, and you don’t long for the milk of the Word, and you don’t long for the milk of truth and of love . . . let God breathe on you. Everyday carve out some time to pray, and let God breathe on you. Carve out some time every day to open the book which has His breath on it, and let Him breathe on you. See if He doesn’t begin to change you—that you might drink milk once more. This is critical. Milk is not just something we give to new converts who first express their faith in Christ. There is a sense in which we all need milk all the days of our life—the milk of orthodoxy, the milk of orthopraxy, and the milk of orthopathos . . . that passion. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.