01.05. Spiritual Maturity Required To Know Gods Wisdom

Spiritual Maturity Required To Know God’s Wisdom

Now the members of God’s household have to meet a practical requirement to be able to take this food. They need to be spiritually mature to digest the solid food that God has prepared for His children. In the case of the Corinthian Christians the apostle Paul was unable to exercise His stewardship properly. He could not give them the portion that was to be theirs - the solid food of the knowledge of God’s mysteries. From a spiritual point of view they were still babies, and had to be fed with milk (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). The Corinthians were blind to the riches that were piled up in the house of God, the treasures of knowledge and wisdom that until then had remained hidden in God’s heart, but that He now wished to share with the members of His household, through the service of His stewards. They could not yet digest this food for their souls, as they were so impressed by the wisdom of this world - all the riches of human wisdom and philosophy. They were lending their ears to this world rather than having them tuned to the things of God. Since their attention was focused too much on the world and on themselves, they were not yet mature enough to hear what God had prepared for them. So Paul was a steward or caretaker of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge of God’s house, but he could not display all these riches to the Corinthians; since they could not bear that yet. Still being babies in Christ, they had to be fed with milk and not with solid food. They had not yet grown up to mature young men, who have overcome the world and for whom the wisdom of this world has lost its charm; let alone to mature fathers in the family of God’s children, to whom Christ and the wisdom that is found in Him are everything (cf. 1 John 2).

Paul spoke wisdom among those who were mature (1 Corinthians 2:6), that is, among those who were spiritually mature; who had grown up in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The same word can be found in 1 Corinthians 14:20 ("in understanding be mature"), Ephesians 4:13 ("to a perfect man"), Php 3:15 ("as many as are mature"), Colossians 1:28 ("that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus"), Colossians 4:12 ("perfect and complete in all the will of God"), and Hebrews 5:14 ("solid food belongs to those who are of full age"). So because of the spiritual food that they take, the members of God’s household will grow spiritually. The goal of this is that Christ will be formed in them, that they will grow up to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that Christ will be everything to them, and that His image will be clearly seen in them. The solid food of the riches of Christ and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Him belong to this spiritual maturity. Such is the right food for mature people. For in Christ all God’s wisdom is displayed, and Christ is the Centre of all God’s mysteries.