Babies

         Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:2-3) 

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. (Romans 8:26)

 

Professor-Emeritus Glenn Sunshine shared a post recently in which Kago Keotshwaetse said,

When a baby suckles at its mother's breast, a vacuum is created within which the infant's saliva is sucked back into the mother's nipple, where receptors in her mammary gland read its signals. This "baby spit backwash," contains information about the baby's immune status, causing the mother's breast milk to adjust its immunological composition.

If the mammary gland receptors detect the presence of pathogens, they compel the mother's body to produce antibodies to fight it, and those antibodies travel through breast milk back into the baby's body, where they target the infection.

          Given the fact that Prof. Sunshine shared it, I’m willing to accept that it might be true, and it’s not the first time I’ve heard amazing things about mother’s milk, most often with respect to the baby. I can’t tell you what Peter believed about mother’s milk other than that it provided sustenance that allowed babies to grow. But his reference to it, though based partly on his knowledge, was inspired by God, and it’s not surprising that more should be found in the metaphor than Peter knew.

          What is spiritual milk? This is the first question. Some (perhaps many) would say that it’s the Word of God, but if the Word is the milk, then the Spirit is the breast. I’m not sure we can separate one from the other. And prayer in this metaphor would be the saliva. It is as we take in the Word that we also communicate our needs (consciously or otherwise, according to Romans 8:26) to the Spirit and the Spirit responds, adapting the food provided to our needs.

          This is the reason we need to be reading more Scripture than we do – or at least than I do. We may tire of the flavor, and at some point, we will grow to a point where we are able to handle tougher food, but by that point, having had good spiritual food to that point, we must continue to look to the Spirit for wisdom about our dietary choices, and learn to refer that which nourishes over that which merely tastes good. And we should not be impatient to eat those other foods, because while we may think we’re big girls and boys now, the truth is that we are still babies.