Today and maybe even yesterday’s church or it seems in the last few generations, professing Christians have become ignorant of God’s word. The congregation in general it seems, cannot stomach the exegetical and doctrinally sound teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Churches in general have taken on a business model, analysing how to grow the church and implementing the proposed programs and teachings in order to achieve the desired church growth. This naturally develops into what is being taught from the pulpits in our churches today; which is more about experiential living and less about the expositional teaching of the word of God.

Unfortunately, the consequence of such watered down and often unbiblical teachings within our churches, is that it produces work based programs that make you feel good in that you are seen as doing something for your community but the glaringly absent message of the gospel of Jesus Christ makes these works of no eternal value. Experiential feel good – yes, spiritual influence – no. Good works and programs are good things, but without the sharing of the gospel, we are just making life comfortable for people until they stand before God and are judged guilty for their sins, and then accordingly thrown into the Lake of Fire for all eternity.

If this is of concern to you, and it should be, then maybe we need to do a spiritual health-check on where we are in our walks with the Lord and implement some changes in our lives so that we are in sync with, and obedient to the Holy Scriptures.

Now, the focus of this article is not to heap all the blame on our Theological institutions and the leadership of our churches, even though much of it lies there; but more importantly, to point out your personal involvement in this narrative. These preachers of watered down and unbiblical teachings are there because your ears itch to hear such things and have no regard or will to hear what is biblically sound. Many may talk a good talk and on the odd occasion will enjoy the hearing of sound doctrine but has not the will to stay listening to sound doctrine or to find a church that soundly exegetes the word of God.

For some of you, it is because you are young in the faith and therefore can only feed on the milk of the Word. This is normal as taught by Peter in I Peter 2:2: As newborn babies, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby. Just like new born babies can only have milk so also newborn believers will only handle the milk of the word. But the purpose of the milk for both new born babies and believers is to make you grow until you can handle eating solid food, the meat of God’s word.

Paul in chapter three of his first letter to the Corinthians, explains that he had to feed the church at Corinth with milk and not with meat as they were not able to bear it and at the writing of this letter they still weren’t. This was because they were a young church and still very carnal in their understanding. So, Paul fed them with the milk of word.

However, if five, ten, twenty or thirty years down the track in your walk with the Lord, and you still can only handle the milk of the word; then there is something seriously wrong with your spirituality. Whether you have been discipled properly or not; the real issue lies with you. Do you want to grow and start eating solid food of the meat of God’s word, understanding the deeper things of Scripture or do you not? That is the question at hand.

If you do not, then you are the believer that the author of Hebrews talks about in chapter 5:8-14. The one that is hard of hearing; because even though by now you should be teachers of the word, you actually have to be taught again and again the basic principles of our Christian faith. You continue to need the milk of God’s word and not the meat. You are like a grown man drinking babies milk and still in diapers, unwilling to grow up spiritually and eat the solid food of God’s word.

However, if you do want to grow spiritually; then you will need to ask yourself some hard questions but the most relevant questions are, firstly; Am I growing in my local church? If not, why not? Is the Bible being taught exegetically; extracting from the text of Scripture, in its context, what God wants us to learn, or, is it being taught eisegetically, where the teacher imposes on the text his own understanding, taking the text out of its context and thereby making it a pretext, giving it a meaning that it can never have in its proper context. If it is the latter, then I would strongly encourage you to find a church that teaches God’s word exegetically.

Secondly; Am I in a good bible study group that is discipling me in the understanding and discernment of God’s word? If you’re in a bible study that looks at a verse and then has everyone give their understanding and opinion on what the verse means instead of studying the text in its context and drawing out of the text what God and the author of the verse intended for us to understand, then I encourage you to find a bible study that will help you grow from the milk to the meat of God’s word.

These are difficult questions to ask, and difficult to accept the honest answers, and even more difficult to implement the changes needed so you can grow out of the milk and into the meat of God’s word. If you are serious about making the changes needed to grow spiritually, then we here at Fresh Truth Ministries are more than willing to assist with recommendations of solid bible teaching churches and bible study groups.

Arohanui and God Bless.