I have fed you with milk, and not with solid food: for until now you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able.
Read Chapter 3
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Although they had been born again in Christ, they were not yet fit to receive spiritual things. Although they had received the faith which is the seed of the Spirit, they had produced no fruit worthy of God, but like babies, they were eager for the sensations of imperfection. But Paul, who was a man of God and a spiritual physician, gave to each of them according to his strength, so that no one should suffer scandal where spiritual matters were concerned because of imperfection or inexperience. Paul is also arguing strongly against those who were complaining that they had not heard anything spiritual for a long time, when in fact they were not worthy to hear it. The false apostles conveyed their message indiscriminately to anyone who would listen, but it is generally agreed that our Lord and Master spoke one way in public and another way to his disciples in private, and that even among the latter a distinction was made, for he displayed his glory on the mountain to only three disciples...
Not unfittingly, dearly beloved, do elders seem to bear a likeness to cows. Just as a cow has two udders to nurse her calf, so also elders ought to feed the Christian people with two udders: both the Old and the New Testaments.
And we have still to explain what is said by the apostle: "I have fed you with milk (as children in Christ), not with meat; for ye were not able, neither yet are ye now able.".
And since the Word is the gushing fountain of life, and has been called a river of olive oil, Paul, using appropriate figurative language, and calling Him milk, adds: "I have given you to drink; ".
Wherefore the Holy Spirit in the apostle, using the voice of the Lord, says mystically, "I have given you milk to drink."
What was the subject-matter which led the apostle to write such (words)? The inexperience of a new and just rising Church, which he was rearing, to wit, "with milk "not yet with the "solid food"
