Summary
The Christian Call to Grow
Scripture is unmistakably contrarian to the Peter Pan ideal of a perpetual child who refuses to grow up. The Christian life, by God's design, is meant to mature. Paul writes that "speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" Ephesians 4:15. Peter exhorts believers to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" 2 Peter 3:18. The author of Hebrews urges, "Let us go on toward maturity" Hebrews 6:1—the word for maturity meaning full development, completeness, the movement from where you are toward the person God is creating you to be.
The Newborn's Cry for Pure Spiritual Milk
The foundational call beneath every exhortation to study, search, and memorize Scripture is set out by Peter: "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation" 1 Peter 2:2. The image is striking. A newborn's cry for the mother's milk is insistent, demanding, urgent—it gets things in motion. The Greek word for "long" denotes deep, intense, passionate desire. That is the disposition the Christian is to have toward the Word of God. And it must be the pure milk—not a watered-down version, not the Word edited to taste, but the Word as God gives it, which the Psalms describe as pure and clean (Psalm 19:7-9; Psalm 119:140).
The Spiritual Peter Pan Syndrome
There is also a spiritual edition of refusing to grow up. Hebrews rebukes Christians who, by this time, ought to be teachers but still need to be taught the basic elements again, who still live on milk rather than solid food Hebrews 5:12-14. Why does this stunted growth happen? Three temptations stand out in the "Grow" lesson. First, people refuse to be challenged—and the Word, which divides joint from marrow, will challenge them. Second, people prefer their own opinions, creating a private reality where the self becomes the source of truth, immune to the facts of Scripture. Third, and most quietly deadly, growth dies by default: when a Christian pulls away from the preaching and teaching of God's Word, faith starves. One can become the walking dead spiritually, even continuing the outward habits of worship while everything inside has gone cold.
Tasting that the Lord Is Good
The motive for hungering after the Word is given in the very next verse: "if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good" 1 Peter 2:3. We taste His goodness in the common grace of His daily provision and care. Above all, we taste it at the cross and the empty tomb, where sin is paid for and death is overcome, where God opens to us life abundant and life eternal. Having tasted that the Lord is good, the believer is drawn to want more—more milk, then solid food, deeper understanding, fuller maturity.
A Living Bible
Luther testified that as a young man he read the Bible over and over, and that he annually read through the whole of it twice; if Scripture were a great tree, he had tapped at every branch to know what it offered. Spurgeon said of John Bunyan that the man was a living Bible—prick him anywhere and his blood would run "Bibline," the very essence of Scripture flowing out of him. That is the picture of Christian maturity: not personal opinion poured out when questions come, but the Word itself.
"I Will" Instead of "I Won't"
Peter Pan's anthem is "I won't grow up." God will have none of that with His people, because He loves us too much to leave us infants. Through the pure spiritual milk of His Word, He patiently turns every "I won't" into "I will" and "I am," carrying us from milk to solid food, from infancy to maturity, until we are conformed to Christ our Head. God is good—and tasting that goodness, we grow.
Video citations
- "Grow" 12-12-21 — Would you open your Bible's please with me this morning for our study? To first Peter the second chapter, if you're using a Pue edition, you're going to find that on page 206, first Peter the second…