Milk before meat

Dear friend

Have you ever tasted baby food? It is so bland. I think I would want to stick to milk. Yet most babies can hardly wait to get on to solids. Little do they know the vast array of tastes and flavours, sweet and savoury, that awaits them. Of course the reason for this "baby steps" approach to discovering foodstuffs has to do with their still developing capacity to digest, metabolise and extract nourishment from an increasingly diverse range of food.

The same principles apply to our capacity to learn. There is no value in teaching algebra to a young child who has barely learned to count. If the more complex concepts are encountered too early it may only serve to confuse and put off prospective mathematicians. The same applies to gospel knowledge. This concept is taught using a similar analogy in Doctrine and Covenants 19:21, 22.

21 And I command you that you preach naught but repentance, and show not these things unto the world until it is wisdom in me.
22 For they cannot bear meat now, but milk they must receive; wherefore, they must not know these things, lest they perish.

I see the essential (milky) elements of the gospel - being those that are necessary for salvation - as simple, plain and easy enough for an accountable child to grasp. Repentance is a good example of a fundamental facet of our faith. Seraphim wings are not essential.

Many people have made it their business to attack true Christian beliefs. They delve into doctrines that require more than just a good vocabulary to comprehend. They lack the spiritual language to cognise supernaturally, so of course it looks like foolishness. Similarly, those investigating the Church with a view to entering in the strait gate must understand the first principles first. Learning the mysteries of Godliness should come only after a solid foundation in basic teachings is established.

Personally I love learning new doctrine and related information. It colours and consolidates my confidence in primary truths. But we must always link new knowledge back to the basics. Our cornerstone should be Christ, not the meaning of ancient Hebrew poetry forms.

Let's both learn and explain in the first instance, and thereafter, what really matters. I hope we will still enjoy the gospel milk so that we can be better able to digest, metabolise and extract nourishment from other gospel learning. I pray that we put first things first, be loyal to the basics and only then seek to deepen our understanding.

Samuel.