OVERWEANED

“And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her...and brought him unto the house of the LORD in Shiloh: and the child was young.”

(1 Sam. 1:24)

The word “overweaned”struck me as I was recently reading Oswald Chambers devotional, “My Utmost for His Highest.” Immediately my mind went to the story of Hannah weaning Samuel. Years ago I heard a female Bible teacher friend, Beka Horton, say in jest,  “Samuel was the longest weaned child in the Bible.” (He was most likely around five years old).

I think the above statement could be made of many of God’s children, without joke. Isaiah puts it better than I could, “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.” (Isa. 28:9) As one pastor put it, “I have to dumb down most of what I teach my people.”

Paul shamed the Hebrew Christians who were still on milk and not the meat of the Word, (Heb. 5:12-14). The apostle did the same with the childish Corinthian saints, (1 Cor. 3:1-2). Pablum (a brand of soft, bland cereal for infants) is fine for babes in Christ, but mature Christians want and need a good steak. You can tell a lot about a person by his or her appetite.