The Three Conditions

2. The Worldly Person: Milk or Meat?

“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” - the things God has prepared for those who love him”. These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,

‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’

But we have the mind of Christ.

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? (1Cor 2:9-3:3)

When a child is born they are fed on their mother’s milk. Their stomachs are not developed enough to take solid food and they need slow nurturing in their early days. However, within a year, as the baby grows, the milk is not enough for their development and they will transition onto solid food and not rely on mother’s milk. The solid food they then eat helps develop and strengthen that baby for the rapid growth they then have. They start to walk and muscles start to develop. Sometimes the baby wants the ease and comfort of milk but if this is all they get they will not grow as well as they should. The parent needs to wean them off the milk and then start to teach them how to feed themselves. This is the next analogy Paul is using for the church in Corinth.

Last week I mentioned the apostle Paul, in this passage, is explaining that there are broadly three states/classes of a person: the natural person, the carnal/worldly person, and the spiritual person. Last week we looked at the ‘natural person’. This is the state of a person without the influence of the Spirit of God and therefore unable to discern the things of God even in creation. As a created being, they are full of untapped potential that only God can release or animate through new birth (Matt3:1-21). We now move onto the second person described.

The walk of faith in Jesus is a process of constant development. The apostle Paul puts it like this: we […] are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory (2Cor3:18). This is a process of gradual change. Theologians call this sanctification (the process of making something holy). Clergyman and former slave trader John Newton (1725-1807) put it like this: I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

The degree we allow the Spirit to have His way in our lives is the degree to which, and speed at which we will be transformed. In Romans 7:25ff the apostle Paul speaks of the frustration he feels when he wrestles with his own broken choices and behaviour.

However, here Paul gently chastises the church in Corinth for their immaturity in their faith. He says: I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. Therefore we see that being worldly is an inhibiting factor to the believer growing into maturity. He is addressing Christians here not people who do not know or fear God.

Some Christians are said to be "worldly" because they can receive only the milk of the Word, in contrast to ‘solid food’, or meat. This is evidenced in lives much like the parable of the sower: the seed who receives the word with joy but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and they fall away (Mat 13:22). The gospel demands the whole person there is no room for a foot in our old world and a foot in our new ‘Jesus world’.

The worldly person has allowed themselves to be influenced by the thinking and ways of the world displayed through to have envy, strife and divisions. These people are ‘acting as mere humans’, while the true child of God is expected to "walk in the Spirit" (Gal. 5:16), to "walk in love" (Eph. 5:2), and to "keep the unity of the Spirit" (Eph. 4:3). God is more concerned with unity than we often seem to be.

Though saved, the worldly Christians are walking "as people who are still worldly." They are "worldly" because the flesh is dominating them (See Rom. 7:14). While a "worldly" Christian is not "of the world," still they have the world in them. " Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. (Rom 8:5-7)

The worldly person is more consumed with the politics and divisions of the church than the message of the transformative power of the cross. They spend little time in prayer and in reading the Word of God and more time in speculation and gossip and bringing in the standards of the world into the operation of the church. This is a state of immaturity.

Worldly maturity is gained by age and experience and learning how the world works. Spiritual/godly maturity has less to do with age and more to do with spending time with the LORD, submitting to his transformative hand and knowing how His Kingdom works. I have known some young people who are far more spiritually mature than those far older than themselves.

We start the journey of spiritual maturity through reading the Bible, spending time in prayer, asking the LORD for a discerning spirit. Ask to become an influence for good as Jesus encourages us to pray: lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one (Matt6:13). Allow Jesus to start to wean you off the milk of being reliant on others to feed your faith and start to learn to feed yourself.

Some may feel they must therefore have nothing to do with the world. There have been and still are, some communes and closed religious communities and sects that have removed themselves from the world for fear that they may be polluted by the world. They want nothing to do with the world therefore we will deny anything of the world to pursue ‘the perfect’ in the spiritual realms. This is a strange adaptation of Platonic Greek philosophical thought around ‘perfection and imperfection’ and the associated asceticism/denial that comes from this. Unfortunately, they become some heavenly-minded they are of no earthly good.

In some way, this view of the world find vague similarities with a Judeo/Christian understanding of reality but also is very different from Greek thought when we see God taking part in this broken world in order to restore it to perfection. As Jesus touches the world instead of being polluted by the world’s imperfections (disease, sin etc) he actually purifies that which he touches. Jesus entering our broken world is a model for us not to remove ourselves from the world. Jesus said ‘go into the world and make disciples (of the kingdom) of all nations’ (Matt28).

Then there are some who feel that the world does not affect our eternal destiny as even while the spiritual is perfect the physical is irrelevant. Therefore we can indulge that which we would like. This too is influenced by Greek thought through Aristotle and developed by Epicurus. In short, pleasure is good and any expressions or experiences of pleasure must be pursued to connect more fully with everything while avoiding any form of pain. However, when Jesus came into the Roman world he was faced with extreme hedonism and says to those who would be disciples: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Matt16:24).

There may also be a desire to remain ‘worldly’ some are seen and relevant or acceptable to the standards of those around us. This will be a life-long battle and challenge: then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve [..the gods of the culture..] But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).

Jesus calls us to be agents of the Kingdom to the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:15-19). So Jesus is saying we look at and interact with the world through the perspective of the Kingdom. However too often we see Christians wanting to be agents of the world to the Church! That is being ‘worldly’. Wanting to adopt the standards of the world into a structure and spiritual body that cannot hold those standards and have any integrity.

Jesus bridges the gap by embracing the world and not being influenced and shaped by the world but changing the world around him. This is why Paul exhorts us in Romans 12: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Remember It’s all about him, sustained through him, and transformed by him. May you be strengthened to go into the world and change the world around you through Christ in you. Ask to become an influence for good as Jesus encourages us to pray: lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one (Matt6:13).

As we go this week and onwards let us see that: You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them [things and forces of the world], because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John4:4)

Many Bubble Blessings

Fraser