Paul begins his letter to the church at Corinth with a brief description on how the gospel is delivered - through the power of preaching (chapters 1-2 ... see last weeks blog). In this section, however, he begins to call them out for the infant believers they are (demonstrated through their immature behavior). He tells them that they are acting selfish and arrogantly: Fleshy he calls it (3:3). In these two chapters he calls out their poor behavior and describes in detail where they are acting like mere children in regard to faith. Despite being born by the power of the message they have decided to yield to their fleshly ambitions and desires. He wants to give them more teaching and he wants to stretch their belief with profound doctrine and rich arguments for the faith. However, they, he states, are simply believers still on the bottle of milk of the Word (3:1-2). They are "bottle believers," stuck on the elementary things of the Word. The writer of Hebrews gives the same condemnation to those he is writing to in his book (Hebrew 5:11-14). It is easy to become (or stay) a bottle believer. It simply takes no work and little effort. You hear it a lot when people say things like, "I really don't know much about those doctrines ... I just love the gospel." It is not a popular thing today to stretch the church believer. We have reduced the message to milk. With the books, teaching, technology and skill in today's church we should have deep and meaty believers. Instead we are comfortable being bottle believers - like the those in Corinth. I wonder what Paul would write to us?
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