The Word: Pure Spiritual Milk
This past Sunday, Rev. Stephenson directed his message to the graduating high school seniors encouraging them to grow into salvation.
Read 1 Peter 2:2-10, the text used on Sunday. If you don’t have a Bible near, click the Scripture reference to read it online.
This text is rich in imagery for what it means to grow into salvation.
And I wonder… What is this pure spiritual milk we are to crave? …the sustenance needed to become living stones worthy of being part of the one spiritual house? …what draws us out of the darkness into His marvelous light? …grows us into salvation…?
This wonder sends me on a word study of the original language of pure spiritual milk. And I’m surprised at what I find.
Three times the word spiritual is used in this passage, but in Greek, they are not all the same word.
The usual Greek word translated as spirit is pneuma, and that is what I expected to find. Two of the words were based on the root pneuma, both found in the same verse, pneumatikos:
But the Greek translated spiritual in pure spiritual milk is different, this word is logikos. A difference seen in other Bible translations:
…like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word,
so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation…
1 Peter 2:2 NASB
according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world,
and not according to Christ.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!