Starting Out With the Bible (The Milk, The Mana, and The Meat)

For Sunday School basics today, we discussed 2nd Timothy 3:16-17. These verses say that "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong, and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work." So we talked about reading the bible. We talked about the different type of Bibles people have, different interpretations, different versions, different believes in the old and new testaments.

(Mine is a "New Living Translation" bible that my Aunt and Uncle got for me as an early birthday present. It connects to an app called "Filament" that if you scan the page number, it comes up with music, informational videos, animations, and documents to read that are all about that page.)

Then the Pastor said he would suggest that if someone is going to start reading the bible, he wouldn't recommend starting at Genesis, in the beginning. Maybe start with something a little easier, such as John 1, then Saint John. then the New Testament. Then once you've spent some time in the NT (don't spend too much time in the book of Revelations because that's more of a meatier chapter), then he'd suggest reading 1 Peter. Doing it this way, you slowly work your way up from the milk of the Bible to the meat of it. You start to understand it a little easier.

What did he mean by the milk and the meat? Well the "milk" of the bible is for newborn Christians. It's the stuff that helps us start to understand Christianity and how God wants us to live. It's best to start with the milk of the bible because some of the things you learn from the bible become your sword, shield, and holy armor. You wouldn't want to give a sword to a baby to play with, would you? Just as you wouldn't want to give a spiritual sword to a warrior of God to start out with, without them knowing how to wield it properly.

Then there's the "mana", which is the potatoes of the bible. It feeds you. It's good for you. It "fattens you up", you might say, with the storytelling about different people of the Bible (Noah, Moses, David, Mary, Abraham, Joseph, etc) and the important things they did.

That brings us to the "meat" of the Bible. It's the stuff that is hard to chew. It's the tough parts, like the book of Revelations. Sometimes it helps to take a second read, or to take a moment to understand what each of the verses are trying to say.

Then to understand this a little better, we read Hebrews 5:11-14, which says: "A call to Spiritual Growth: There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don't seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 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."

Basically this is saying - if you've been in church for a long while, you should already be well into the meat. You should have that meat digested, and you should be now cooking up a spiritual meal for others. You should know the Bible, and the way God wants you to live, so well now that you're helping guide others on the path. But because not everyone is the same and everybody takes their spiritual journey at their own pace, you can be in church for a good long while and still just be a baby Christian if you haven't taken the time to learn the Bible. Not just read it, but learn it and understand it.