1 Peter 2:1-3, Psalm 34:8
MEN'S BREAKFAST
5th August, 2008
I’ve had a great breakfast. Tasted great. Thanks to Bob and the boys again!
My little girl Maggie generally has a bit of brekky at about two in the morning.
Maggie’s one, and she still has a few bottles of formula. She knows that the milk isn’t just nice, she knows without thinking that it’s good for her. She knows that it’ll pack her out and make that empty feeling go away. And I can tell you something that Tim Beilharz is going to find out fairly soon, and Phil Glendenning might be learning right now… if you don’t get the milk to her in a reasonable time, she’s going to insist… and they can do that loudly. There’s nothing polite about it – they long for it, and that word – long – has a fair bit of force behind it. Especially at two in the morning.
LIKE NEWBORN BABIES DO, LONG FOR THE SPIRITUAL, THE PURE (lit. the guile-free) MILK, SO THAT BY IT YOU MAY GROW INTO SALVATION – IF [INDEED] YOU HAVE TASTED THAT THE LORD IS GOOD.
Sometimes a verse needs very little explanation – this one has a mental picture that’s so vivid… at least to anyone who’s had to deal with a hungry baby at two in the morning. Peter was telling some of the churches in Asia Minor – call it Turkey and you’ll get a rough idea – how to live. To them it was news; to us, it’s not exactly news, but it’s still pretty challenging stuff. Put away things that we used to feed off. Put away things that the world outside sees as food…
PUT AWAY… ALL MALICE AND ALL GUILE AND HYPOCRICIES AND ENVIES AND ALL SLANDER.
Malice – I was reading a biography of the Whitlam government, and I’ll never forget a description of an old politician by the name of Vince Clair Gair – a good hater. That was an attribute that political parties would encourage and nurture, and I’m pretty sure it’s still something that’s fostered – we just call it a killer attitude.
Guile – the art of using truths to tell a lie, and presenting lies as the truth. An essential in any office if you don’t want to bleed to death.
Hypocricies – Envies – resenting the success of others…
Slander – lit. evil speakings, or as Paul Barnett translates it, “bad-mouthing”.
Food for the world. If you want a guide - not to get ahead in the world, but to merely hold your own – here’s one right there. And here are foods that, when they get into our spiritual life, when they get into our church life, when they get into our family life, will pretty well kill us.
Peter looks at this list of food, and says “scrap it”. Put away – get rid of it. Detox. And instead, look at a newborn baby. . Like newborn babies do, LONG for the spiritual, the pure - literally, the guile-free – milk, so by it you may grow into salvation. There’s a couple of times where milk gets mentioned, usually by Paul, and it tends to mean gentle teaching to people who’ve just come to a knowledge of Christ. Peter wants to give us a different mental picture. Do what babies do, he says. Desire this pure food, this milk. Desire it, want for it badly, loooong for it. In maternity wards, they really encourage breast-feeding, because that’s the best possible food for babies… So that by it you may grow into salvation…
But what do newborn babies really need? They don’t scream for hamburgers or water or coffee… they absolutely need the milk, because the milk gives them everything they need. I wonder why we don’t hunger and ask for our milk too often… I wonder if we’ve forgotten what it tastes like. We live in a world that has a flavour for any possible appetite… but no nutrition. It’s like we’ve forgotten what purity tastes like.
I spent six weeks in the Solomon Islands after I left Year 12. And you know what I missed the most? Mars Bars. Here was a place where an organic shop would be useless – this food was some of the freshest on the planet. And I wanted what? It took me a while to lose my cravings for Mars Bars, though. Until one thunderously hot day fixing roofing, and someone went to get a bucket of rainwater. It was monsoon-time, and the water was as fresh as water gets – straight out of a pollution-free sky. And that water was the best thing I’ve ever, ever tasted. It didn’t just replace lost fluid. It didn’t just quench a hard-earned thirst… it satisfied, and satisfied deeply. It was beautiful. And it tasted… can’t describe that.
Long for this milk – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Peter lifts a line out of Psalm 34; taste and see that the Lord is good. It’s an odd phrase; taste and see that the Lord is good We’ve tasted. We’ve seen how good He is. And when we stop eating the world’s junk food, we will long for the spiritual milk – and to get others to drink deeply, too.
I love what Wesley wrote about this verse, and I’ll share it with you in closing;
The milk of the word - That word of God which nourishes the soul as milk does the body, and which is sincere, pure from all guile, so that none are deceived who cleave to it. That you may grow thereby - In faith, love, holiness, unto the full stature of Christ.
I’ve had a great breakfast. Tasted great. Thanks to Bob and the boys again!
My little girl Maggie generally has a bit of brekky at about two in the morning.
Maggie’s one, and she still has a few bottles of formula. She knows that the milk isn’t just nice, she knows without thinking that it’s good for her. She knows that it’ll pack her out and make that empty feeling go away. And I can tell you something that Tim Beilharz is going to find out fairly soon, and Phil Glendenning might be learning right now… if you don’t get the milk to her in a reasonable time, she’s going to insist… and they can do that loudly. There’s nothing polite about it – they long for it, and that word – long – has a fair bit of force behind it. Especially at two in the morning.
LIKE NEWBORN BABIES DO, LONG FOR THE SPIRITUAL, THE PURE (lit. the guile-free) MILK, SO THAT BY IT YOU MAY GROW INTO SALVATION – IF [INDEED] YOU HAVE TASTED THAT THE LORD IS GOOD.
Sometimes a verse needs very little explanation – this one has a mental picture that’s so vivid… at least to anyone who’s had to deal with a hungry baby at two in the morning. Peter was telling some of the churches in Asia Minor – call it Turkey and you’ll get a rough idea – how to live. To them it was news; to us, it’s not exactly news, but it’s still pretty challenging stuff. Put away things that we used to feed off. Put away things that the world outside sees as food…
PUT AWAY… ALL MALICE AND ALL GUILE AND HYPOCRICIES AND ENVIES AND ALL SLANDER.
Malice – I was reading a biography of the Whitlam government, and I’ll never forget a description of an old politician by the name of Vince Clair Gair – a good hater. That was an attribute that political parties would encourage and nurture, and I’m pretty sure it’s still something that’s fostered – we just call it a killer attitude.
Guile – the art of using truths to tell a lie, and presenting lies as the truth. An essential in any office if you don’t want to bleed to death.
Hypocricies – Envies – resenting the success of others…
Slander – lit. evil speakings, or as Paul Barnett translates it, “bad-mouthing”.
Food for the world. If you want a guide - not to get ahead in the world, but to merely hold your own – here’s one right there. And here are foods that, when they get into our spiritual life, when they get into our church life, when they get into our family life, will pretty well kill us.
Peter looks at this list of food, and says “scrap it”. Put away – get rid of it. Detox. And instead, look at a newborn baby. . Like newborn babies do, LONG for the spiritual, the pure - literally, the guile-free – milk, so by it you may grow into salvation. There’s a couple of times where milk gets mentioned, usually by Paul, and it tends to mean gentle teaching to people who’ve just come to a knowledge of Christ. Peter wants to give us a different mental picture. Do what babies do, he says. Desire this pure food, this milk. Desire it, want for it badly, loooong for it. In maternity wards, they really encourage breast-feeding, because that’s the best possible food for babies… So that by it you may grow into salvation…
But what do newborn babies really need? They don’t scream for hamburgers or water or coffee… they absolutely need the milk, because the milk gives them everything they need. I wonder why we don’t hunger and ask for our milk too often… I wonder if we’ve forgotten what it tastes like. We live in a world that has a flavour for any possible appetite… but no nutrition. It’s like we’ve forgotten what purity tastes like.
I spent six weeks in the Solomon Islands after I left Year 12. And you know what I missed the most? Mars Bars. Here was a place where an organic shop would be useless – this food was some of the freshest on the planet. And I wanted what? It took me a while to lose my cravings for Mars Bars, though. Until one thunderously hot day fixing roofing, and someone went to get a bucket of rainwater. It was monsoon-time, and the water was as fresh as water gets – straight out of a pollution-free sky. And that water was the best thing I’ve ever, ever tasted. It didn’t just replace lost fluid. It didn’t just quench a hard-earned thirst… it satisfied, and satisfied deeply. It was beautiful. And it tasted… can’t describe that.
Long for this milk – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Peter lifts a line out of Psalm 34; taste and see that the Lord is good. It’s an odd phrase; taste and see that the Lord is good We’ve tasted. We’ve seen how good He is. And when we stop eating the world’s junk food, we will long for the spiritual milk – and to get others to drink deeply, too.
I love what Wesley wrote about this verse, and I’ll share it with you in closing;
The milk of the word - That word of God which nourishes the soul as milk does the body, and which is sincere, pure from all guile, so that none are deceived who cleave to it. That you may grow thereby - In faith, love, holiness, unto the full stature of Christ.
Photo of my daughter. Taken by my mum. Great, isn't it?
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