100 Litters of Milk a Day!

That’s how much milk a baby humpback whale drinks daily, according to the boat captain who took me whale watching. These humpback whales migrate between Alaska and Hawaii shores. They eat in Alaska for six months and swim 2,000 miles to Hawaii to mate or give birth to their babies. Their babies’ only food is their mother’s milk. After nearly five months, the humpback whales swim back to Alaska with their babies!

Like whale babies, human babies live on milk for the first several months, their only source of nutrients. Without that milk – mother’s or manufactured – they will not grow.

The same was true of one’s spiritual life. Peter wrote,

“Like newborn babies, greatly desire word-oriented and unadulterated [a-dolos] milk so you may grow toward salvation.” (1 Pet 2:2)

For the baby Christians to grow healthy and toward maturity, i.e., their salvation, they needed two nutrients: word-oriented and unadulterated milk. Coming from “word” (logos), logikos meant word-oriented or living according to the word. In the case of his Hebrew audience, the term referred to the law of Moses or the Scriptures. They needed God’s word, the first nutrient.

In 2008, a Chinese company, Sanlu Group, adulterated the baby formula with melamine, which caused extreme damage to infants’ kidneys. 300,000 children were affected, 54,000 were hospitalized, and 6 babies died. Soon, that product was taken off the shelves. When children live solely on milk, they need pure and unadulterated milk.

Since Peter talked about word-oriented milk, adulterated milk would be teachings mixed with worldly philosophies. For example, God’s word taught them not to worship other gods. If they were to add a mini-god to their worship, their milk would be adulterated. Unadulterated milk would be the pure study of God’s word.

Not only were they to seek word-oriented and unadulterated milk, but they were also to carefully set aside things that would spoil their milk, like the melamine that harmed the children.

“Set aside all evil, all adulterations [dolos], hypocrisy, envy, and all undermining words.” (1 Pet 2:1)

These five foreign objects within their milk would adulterate their pure milk and harm them. Evils, adulterations, hypocrisy, envy, and all undermining words (lit. kata “under” lalos “speech”) were harmful to baby Christians. Only when they set them aside and drank the word-centered and pure milk would they grow to the maturity of their salvation.

A newborn human baby needs nearly 2–3 ounces of milk every 2–3 hours, which is roughly 3 cups or .70 liter of milk a day! Imagine we read two verses from the Bible every 2–3 hours! We’ll read approximately 16–24 verses daily, 480–720 verses monthly, and 5,760–8,640 verses yearly! That’s baby stuff. Adults, of course, need more milk and solid food.

If we want to be healthy in our spiritual life and grow strong in salvation, we need God’s word – unadulterated milk. In addition, we also should set aside things that corrupt our milk intake: evils, adulterations, hypocrisy, envy, and undermining words, in thoughts and actions.