The Milk Was Never Mild

In recent articles we’ve been comparing techniques popularized by “How to Win Friends & Influence People” with the plain, straightforward preaching seen in the New Testament.

Folks may well agree with everything that has been said thus far in the series. Many can see through the emotional objections to hard preaching. They have little to no patience for vague sermons. They do not defend cowardice. But they may still hedge and insist that men simply must be given time.

The argument usually sounds something like:

“You cannot give people everything at once.”

“You have to let them grow into harder truths.”

Perhaps they cite John 16:12, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” or maybe they point to Paul who said, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready…” (1 Cor. 3:2).

“So go slowly. Feed men milk until they can handle meat, lest they be offended.”

Amen. People need patience. Yes, growth is progressive. Yes, there is milk and meat. Jesus didn’t tell the disciples everything at once. All true.

But the conclusion doesn’t follow.

The milk of the Word is still the Word — with all its humbling, sharp, heart exposing powers. Milk is foundational. Often it was the most basic teachings about Christ that cut the deepest — and offended and angered people the most. The same is true today.

Nevertheless, it's what a man must receive first if he is to grow at all.

Take John 16 for instance. I fear it does not help the objector as much as he thinks. He assumes that what men cannot bear must be meat, and that milk must therefore be mild.

But Acts 2 proves the opposite. When the Spirit came, the first sermon did not begin with advanced doctrine, but it confronted guilt, demanded repentance, and baptism. Peter began with these things and it cut men to the heart (Acts 2:37).

The same is true with 1 Corinthians 3:2. The church needed milk, not because they were unusually delicate, but because they were shamefully immature. He says, in effect, “I should have been able to give you more, but your fleshly condition kept you childish.” And what had Paul already preached among them? “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

In that same letter, while dealing with people who needed milk, Paul rebuked division, jealousy, sexual immorality, lawsuits among brethren, abuses of liberty, disorderly worship, misuse of spiritual gifts, and denial of the resurrection.

So “milk” does not mean “avoid correction.” It means “begin with what is foundational and necessary.” I fear some have the notion that "milk of the Word" is what remains after we’ve diluted it enough to be palatable to the masses. Then to make matters worse, there's the illusion that the milk of Word is less offensive than the meat of the Word.

The trouble was not that apostles gave men meat before they were ready. 
 The trouble was prideful men who would not stomach milk.

Tell a denominational man there is one body, one faith, one baptism, one way to the Father, one authority over the church, and one Gospel by which men must be saved. Watch what happens. You have not introduced some strange doctrine from the obscure annals of the Restoration Movement. You have set the milk on the table. Plain and simple.

Most will push it away.

By all means feed milk before meat. But do not confuse milk with sugar water, and don't think for a moment that elementary principles will save you from backlash. The apostles began with the first principles of the Gospel, and those first principles were often the very truths men hated most: sin, Christ crucified, resurrection, repentance, baptism, judgment, and the exclusive authority of Jesus Christ.

If men reject those, they are not choking on the meat of Word. 
 They're refusing the milk by which they must live.

Read Hebrews 5:12–6:2 carefully and notice what the Spirit places among the first principles:

Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s Word. You need milk, not solid food! For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do, if God permits.

“Faith toward God.”

This milk is scarcely tolerated unless men can sweeten it into meaningless vagaries dressed up with “Bible talk.”

“Just believe in God.”
 “Have faith.”
 “Trust the Lord.”
 “One faith is as good as another.” 
“We can’t all believe alike, but we are all trying to reach the same place.”

That kind of “faith” will offend almost no one, because it demands nothing from no one. Such "faith" is not the milk of the Word because biblical faith is not a personal feeling. Nor is it singling out what makes the fewest demands and call it “my faith.”

"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). That means faith has content. It believes what God has said.

The moment the Bible says “one faith” (Eph. 4:5), pluralism loses its hiding place. It’s immediately ruled out. We may not agree on which faith we must have, but can we at least agree that there is only one?

The moment Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn. 14:6), all roads do not lead to God. As soon as Peter says "there is salvation in no other Name" (Acts 4:12), sincerity is not enough. When James says faith without works is dead (Jas. 2:17, 24), “faith only” is exposed as a lie.

Elementary teaching. But many men hate it.

Tell a man his faith must come from the Word, not his experiences. 
Tell him his “testimony” means little when placed alongside of the apostles’.

Suddenly, “them’s fightin’ words.”

If you are trying to win friends and influence people, best to keep it vague. Let every man define faith for himself. Preserve his pride and preconceived notions at all costs. Let “faith toward God” mean whatever keeps the room comfortable.

But be warned the apostles did not preach faith that way. They preached "Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God" (2 Jn. 9). If men reject it, the problem is not that the preacher has gone too deep. The problem is that they do not want the first principles of God.

“Repentance from dead works”

Hebrews does not leave “dead works” vague. The blood of Christ cleanses the conscience “from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. 9:14).

Yet how did men often react when that milk was set before them?

In Stephen’s case, they picked up stones and killed him (Acts 7).

In Felix’s case, he simply shooed Paul away (Acts 24).

In Gamaliel and Agrippa’s case, one said “let’s see how this pans out,” and the other was “almost persuaded…”

You would think the preacher was offering them poison.

Repentance is one of the first things we must learn, but it is also one of the first things pride refuses to swallow. Why? Is repentance asking a man to admit an abstract doctrine?

No. It tells him to change. It puts his life under judgment. It says his works are dead, his path is wrong, and his excuses are empty. Men can tolerate repentance in the general sense, so long as it is safely aimed at people in other towns, other churches, other sins, other situations.

But press it home, and grown men retreat.

Tell your friend his religion must be repented of. Tell a church its traditions must be repented of. Tell a brother his bitterness, worldliness, or neglect must be repented of.

Suddenly the milk is too strong.

Then come the typical protests.

“Who are you to judge?”


“That is just your interpretation.”


“You are being too harsh.”


“You do not know my heart.”


“You should have said it differently.”

That is not tenderness of conscience or careful discernment. That is pride rummaging for excuses to avoid one simple command: repent.

Repentance has never been a face-saving command.

John demanded fruit worthy of repentance (Matt. 3:8). 
 Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish” (Lk. 13:3). 
 Paul said godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation (2 Cor. 7:10).

If you are trying to win friends and influence, repentance is a terrible place to begin. 
It wounds pride quickly, and leaves little room or time for a man to curate his image. But the apostles began there anyway.

“Instruction about baptisms”

Set this on the table, and it's likely folks (even religious ones) will lose their appetite real quick .

The apostles did not treat baptism as an advanced question for mature disciples. They preached it at the beginning. Peter told pierced sinners, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 2:38).

The Samaritans were baptized when they believed Philip’s preaching concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12).


The eunuch saw water and asked, “What hinders me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36). Cornelius and his household were commanded to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 10:47–48). 
Ananias, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His Name” (Acts 22:16).

But baptism for remission of sins is sour milk to men who have been taught that it has nothing to do with salvation, that it is merely an "outward sign of an inward grace" already received, or that one baptism is as good as another so long as everybody means well.

Tell them baptism is commanded. Tell them it is in the name of Christ. Tell them it is for the forgiveness of sins. Tell them men must be baptized into Christ and into His death to have hope and walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:3–4; Gal. 3:27). How the first principles sound intolerably severe!

If you are trying to win friends and influence people, baptism is dangerous milk. It is too definite. Too concrete to reduce to a feeling.

But the apostles preached it anyway.

“Laying on of hands”

When the Samaritans believed and were baptized, they did not receive miraculous gifts until Peter and John came down and laid hands on them (Acts 8:14–17).

Simon saw “that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given” (Acts 8:18). That is not hard to read. It is hard to keep once men have built entire religious systems on phony claims the text never makes.

So when someone says, “Don’t tell me I can't speak in tongues and heal the sick by the power of the Holy Spirit,” the issue is not how sincerely he believes it, but what Scripture teaches.

Where is the apostle who laid hands on you? Where is the authority to turn first-century signs into twenty-first-century theater?

This milk seems curdled to men who have confused excitement with authority and their own emotions with the power of God.

“Resurrection of the dead”

In many rooms this one goes down easily enough — until you begin letting Scripture define it.

There will be a resurrection. Not merely survival of the soul “going to a better place.” A resurrection. “All that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth” (Jn. 5:28–29). Paul preached “a resurrection both of the just and unjust” (Acts 24:15). He told Corinth that if there is no resurrection, then Christ has not been raised, preaching is vain, faith is vain, and men are still in their sins (1 Cor. 15:13–17).

You see, the resurrection means obedience matters because judgement is coming. Christ’s resurrection is God’s public pledge that every grave will answer to Him. Athens did not laugh because Paul gave them meat too soon. “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked” (Acts 17:32).

They mocked milk.

And men still do, whenever resurrection is preached as more than funeral comfort — whenever it is preached as the certainty that every sinner will stand before the risen Christ.

“Eternal judgment”

But handle this one carefully, because men have always preferred a God who never threatens, but always affirms — a Christ who comforts but never judges.

Preach judgment generally, and many will tolerate it. But preach it as Scripture does, and it offends every man who wants love without warning and mercy without wrath.

God “has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness” by the risen Christ (Acts 17:31).
 “It is appointed once for men to die, and after this comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).


“We must all stand before the judgement seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10). 


The wicked “shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord” (2 Thess. 1:9). 


Jesus Himself spoke of eternal punishment and eternal life in the same breath (Matt. 25:46).

Again, feed men milk before meat.

But the first principles of Christ are not harmless facts, but the the collective Truth a sinner must face first: repentance from dead works, faith toward God, baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

If Paul’s purpose in feeding milk was to give men only what they already wanted, he chose the wrong milk.

The apostles began with the Truth men often hated most.

The problem was not that they served meat before men could chew it.

The problem was what it has always been — man's pride.

This is why, fundamentally, Dale Carnegie's doctrines are fundamentally incompatible with Gospel preaching and teaching.

He says criticism is dangerous because it wounds a man’s “precious pride,” hurts his “sense of importance,” and arouses resentment. He reminds us that men are “motivated by pride and vanity,” thus he instructs us to “make the other person feel important” and “let the other person save face.” That's the system: avoid the wound, preserve the face, flatter the importance, and manage the pride.

Because the Gospel does not merely inform men; it humbles them. By design. So any method/approach/technique that protects pride, flatters vanity, or maneuvers men into outward compliance without genuine surrender is working against the Gospel’s aim, not helping it.

James says plainly: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Jas. 4:6).

The Gospel simply does not save men by protecting the pride that keeps them lost. It brings a sinner low enough to repent, trust, and obey Christ. Carnegie’s method, by his own explanation, works by flattering man’s pride thus contrary to the very humility the Gospel requires.

When a man hears the Gospel preached plainly — without smoke, camouflage, or salesmanship — he can see what is being asked of him. If he is honest, like those at Pentecost, he receives the Word with his eyes open. He knows he is surrendering to Christ.

A man converted by Truth is more likely to stand on Truth. 
 A man brought in by softened edges may spend years trying to keep the edges soft.

Even if he does not obey at first hearing, your plain preaching still gives him something honest to consider.

The Bereans did not need the Truth disguised in order to examine it. They searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so (Acts 17:11).

Clear preaching gives a man a fair comparison between the Gospel and the beliefs he has inherited. It does not leave him with the delusion that there is “not much difference” between Truth and error.

But if a man reacts violently, plain preaching has still done something useful.

It has revealed him.

He may oppose, justify himself, condemn what he heard, and search the Scriptures only to prove the preacher wrong. Good. Let him open the Book. If he is honest before God, the Word has room to work. If he is dishonest, then better an exposed enemy of Truth than a pride-protected “friend” smuggled into the church by flattery.

That sounds severe only to those who forget what Christ is building.

The church does not need men maneuvered into outward obedience while their hearts remain untouched and their false teachings remain unchallenged. That kind of “convert” is a danger to himself and to the body.

Christ did not send His servants to blunt the edge of the Gospel so that hard distinctions are postponed indefinitely. At that rate, soon a whole congregation is underfed, weak in faith, poorly equipped for good works, and unprepared to answer error when it walks through the door smiling.

Jesus said, “I came not to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). Not because the Gospel is violent, but because Truth divides men by their response to Him. It humbles the honest. It exposes the proud. It makes disciples. It also makes enemies. It brings peace with God, but not peace with every idol, tradition, and self-protecting lie men love.

That is why the Gospel cannot be preached by methods designed to spare pride.

The sword does not need a salesman.

It needs a faithful hand.