I couldn't talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren't ready for anything stronger. (1 Corinthians 3:1,2 NLT)
The believers at Corinth had
evidently made some inquiries of the Apostle Paul concerning
certain particular matters which they thought were the cause of
trouble and bad spiritual conditions. The Apostle postponed his
dealing with these until he had dealt with what he himself was
convinced was the cause of the trouble. This was not the
particular "problems" about which they were concerned,
but that which lay behind them and much more. They were occupied
with the externals of the faith both as to personal, domestic and
church affairs. The Apostle goes to the heart of things and makes
it perfectly clear that their trouble was arrested spiritual
development. Thus he mentions some of the symptoms which prove
this.
The first one was partisanship. They had men in their eye.
Human selection, favour, and preference issuing from temperamental
reactions caused them to "hive off," form circles,
parties around the mannerism, 'line of things,' or make-up of
this man and that. Some would prefer the mystical and poetical to
the practical. Others were the opposite. Some would take up with the
subjective line of things and decline the objective and vice
versa. And so on and on. Then there would be the men themselves
with what was liked and what was disliked. Concerning all this,
the Apostle says "I could not speak as unto spiritual but as
unto babes, I fed you with milk" (3:1,2). The fundamental
fault with all this was that with them the Lord Jesus had not
become preeminent; it was not Him always in view, to whom they
gathered, whom they were seeking. It was not a matter of what of
the Lord Jesus had this one and that one to impart. It was the
vessel not the treasure; the channel not the stream. In effect
the Apostle says that it is a mark of real spiritual growth and
maturity when the Lord's people are not influenced by the
instrument as such, but have their hearts directed toward
Himself, and are asking all the time, "What has this one and
that one of the Lord?" So in this matter as in all others
the remedy presented is a putting of the Lord Jesus in His place,
which is the supreme place, and the place which excludes all
human obtrusions, for or against.