Are you well "fed"?

I came across an article this morning that I found very interesting, and I think you might, too. It’s titled, “The Christian and Baby Food: A desire to be ‘fed spiritually’ may be killing us”, and it’s by Trevor Lee. It’s pretty long, so I’ll summarize it for you. There will be a link at the end if you want to read the entire article (which I strongly recommend).

Essentially, Lee points out a common misconception in our churches today, the belief that we must be fed in order to grow. I have heard many times of people leaving their church to find another because they weren’t “being fed.”

Two problems with this notion of having to be fed in order to grow were discussed:

1) It plays right into our desire to be consumers. Consumerism has entered the church. We want others to pour through Scriptures and report back to us, so we don’t have to do the work ourselves. All we have to do is show up and consume what we’re given. “In short, we want something entertaining to consume – sounds like the same thing we want at a movie theater.”

2) It’s not how Jesus taught. Jesus used parables and stories that were difficult to understand. He made people think and draw their own conclusions. Even His disciples didn’t always understand the parables, and had to ask Him privately what they meant on several occasions.

Lee also gives us some conclusions to get us back on track:

1) We should set together some time with other believers to study and discuss Scripture with one another. Lee says this time will help feed each other. To me, it realizes the truth of “iron sharpening iron” from Psalm 27:17.

2) As we live our life of faith, and we do the will of God, we will be fed directly by Christ through the Holy Spirit.

In short, the responsibility to grow in our Christian faith is all ours. We shouldn’t be relying on others to teach us everything, we should be willing to do the work. It seems to me, as we pray, and read Scripture, and spend time in our devotions each day, we will be responsible for our own “feeding.”

You can read the entire article here: The Christian and Baby Food