Feast or Famine #3. “Famine—Nutritional wasteland!”

I have always been averse to taking prescription medicines. On this, my husband-and-wife doctor team have been patient with me; to a point! When I have been hesitant to adjust to their better judgement, they have deftly tilted their computer screen towards me and given me a brief history lesson. You see, I can kid myself that I am going to do better (and I have), but the facts remain that my family history paints a solemn picture. So, unless I am willing to come back to them in a physical state that negates the use of medicines, I must stay on them, or join my dearly departed family members. Praise God for good doctors.

When the apostle Paul advised Timothy on his health issues, he told him to take a little wine for his stomach. But that was not the only nutritional advice he gave.

He told him that he would be “constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine” (1Tim.4:6), if he pointed truth out to the brethren.

If horror is your reaction to the obvious results of the nutritional wasteland we call food these days, I sit in suspense at your reaction to the obvious results of the nutritional wasteland we call spiritual food these days.

I am not speaking about the average class or sermon given in our churches. I listen to my brothers preach and teach on the internet, and they do a good job in meeting local needs. I am speaking about the daily spiritual diet of the average Christian. Suffice it to say, that it is impossible to eat a steady diet of spiritual junk-food and not be spiritually malnourished.

Timothy’s dissenters reacted to his plain teaching of the gospel by imposing freedom-crushing rules upon the brethren. They were hypocrites, teaching doctrines of demons and forbidding marriage.

You would think that Christians would automatically opt for the freedom of the gospel. But not so. Just as junk-food makes you want more and more, false teaching does the same.

The more you listen to a false teacher, to the neglect of your Bible, the more you will see him as a master chef serving the meat of God’s word. Falling away is inevitable.

The way to restore spiritual nutrition is to start with the pure milk of the Word. The meat will follow!

John Staiger