3 FACTORS OF GROWTH

Wednesday 26 March

When I was a child, I TALKED like a child, I THOUGHT like a child, REASONED like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV)

There is so much revelation in this one verse so let’s unpack it together and see the depth of truth that we can unlock from the word of truth.

‘I talked like a child.’

The word for child here in Greek is nepios. It is in reference to an infant. As we all know, a baby doesn’t know how to talk or walk immediately. It has to learn these things as it grows and develops. Note that talking comes before walking. A nepios cannot talk right or walk right yet. Laleo in Greek is to utter words.

This is why it is also used to describe immature Christians. Someone who is untaught and unskilled. Don’t take it as criticism as none of us came into Christ fully mature. We must all embrace the process of spiritual development.

How do we achieve this growth? The next statement gives us an idea.

‘I thought like a child’.

Phroneo in Greek is about the state of someone’s mind. Thinking with a child like immaturity. In other words a limited understanding or comprehension of certain things.

‘I reasoned as a child’

Logizomai in Greek. We get our English word logic from logos and logizomai. Logos is God’s thinking pattern whereas logizomai has to do in this context with our ability to use spiritual reason and logic to come to a definite conclusion. Obviously our capacity to use reason increases as we grow and are built up through the Word and by the Spirit.

‘When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.’ Another way of saying it would be when I came into existence, or came to my place as a man. How? Chronological age has nothing to do with it. Only the Word of God has both the milk and the meat to grow you to maturity.

Man here means the coming of age from childhood into adulthood. The Bar Mitzva ceremony happens when a Jewish boy is 13 years old. After this celebration, he is declared thereafter to be a man. Girls have a Bat Mitsva at around the same age. No such thing as teenagers back in those days.

What does this all tell us? Our words thoughts and reasoning in and by the Word of God, must grow and develop until we reach maturity in Christ and put away childish things. We have the Holy Spirit to empower us to do it.

Apostle Paul again says it best in Ephesians 4:13; ‘till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;’

APPLICATION

Talk the Word, think in line with the Word and reason only using the Word to ensure that you come to maturity and fulfil the God given potentials that are in you in Christ.