Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 240 · August 28
Crying for Milk
“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:”
A three-week-old at four in the morning. There is no negotiating with that noise and nothing in the room settles until the one thing arrives. It cannot be substituted, either.
Peter picked that appetite on purpose. As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby. Sincere translates a word meaning unadulterated, nothing cut into it, and he used its root one sentence earlier: laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings. Guile is that word. He tells you to put the additive out of yourself, then hands you the one thing that has never had any in it.
Milk gets used as an insult elsewhere and it is worth putting the two side by side. Hebrews is exasperated: for every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. Paul says the same to Corinth, I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it. Both are complaining about age. Peter is describing hunger, which is the one thing a newborn has in full measure and does not have to be taught.
Appetite is what is being commanded, and the clause underneath makes that plainer: if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, which is David's line handed forward, O taste and see that the LORD is good. You need no reminding of what you want at eleven at night. Is the word anywhere on that list, and when did you last open it because you were hungry rather than because it was your turn?
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 240 is A Table in the Presence of Enemies (Psalm 23:5).