Why We Don’t Desire the Word – 1 Peter 2
‘Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.’ — 1 Peter 2:1–3
The Word of God is vital for spiritual growth. Yet, we often don’t desire it. We don’t long for it like a newborn babe desires milk. It doesn’t seem sweet to our taste. Instead, the Word is something that we almost feel we have to force or choke down. Why is that?
1 Peter 2:1 helps us to understand this. The reason we don’t desire the Word may be that we have laid aside the things mentioned in this verse – malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speakings. If our hearts and minds are so full of these things, then we will not desire the Word. We are feeding on the wrong things and so we don’t desire the right thing.
So, let us consider the definitions of these things (Websters 1818 Dictionary) and evaluate if any are in our hearts:
- All malice = extreme enmity of heart, or malevolence; a disposition to injure others without cause, from mere personal gratification or from a spirit of revenge; unprovoked malignity or spite.
- All guile = craft; cunning; artifice; duplicity; deceit; usually in a bad sense.
- Hypocrisies = a feigning to be what one is not; or dissimulation, a concealment of one’s real character or motives; simulation, or the assuming of a false appearance of virtue or religion; a deceitful show of a good character, in morals or religion; a counterfeiting of religion.
- Envies = pain, uneasiness, mortification or discontent excited by the sight of another’s superiority or success, accompanied with some degree of hatred or malignity, and often or usually with a desire or an effort to depreciate the person, and with pleasure in seeing him depressed.
- All evil speakings = slander; defamation; calumny; censoriousness.
These are very convicting words because often we do not have the right attitudes in our hearts. Often we are full of injurious, duplicitous, hypocritical, envious, and slanderous thoughts, actions, and words. May God show us where we have this and may we lay them aside so that we may once again have the hunger we ought to have for the Word of God!