Charles Spurgeon Commentary 1 Corinthians 3

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

Their spiritual part had not grown strong; their old carnal nature still had the preponderance, as Paul was obliged to address what was the greater part of them.

I have fed you with milk,

That is a blessing.

And not with meat:

That is not a blessing. It is a great privilege to be fed even with the simple doctrines of grace, with the milk of the gospel; but it is a higher blessing to have such a spiritual constitution as to be able to eat the strong meat of the Word.

For until now you were not able to bear it, nor are you able even now. For you are still carnal: for since there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not carnal, and walk as men?

As ordinary, unregenerate men.

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1).

The church at Corinth consisted of people with extensive education and great abilities. It was one of those churches that had given up the one-man system, where everyone spoke as they pleased—a very knowledgeable church, and a church of Christians, too. But for all that.

Christian babies. And though they thought themselves so great, yet the apostle says that he never spoke to them as to spiritual people: he kept to the simple elements, as he considered their carnal nature still too prominent in them for them to be able to drink down spiritual things.

I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

How grateful we ought to be that there is milk, and that this milk does feed the soul—that the simplest truths of Christianity contain in them all that the soul needs, just as milk is a diet on which the body could be sustained without anything else. Yet how we ought to desire to grow so that we may not always be on a milk diet, but so that we may be able to digest the strong meat—the high doctrine of the deep things of God. These are for men, not for babes. Let the babes be thankful for the milk, but let us aspire to be strong men so that we may feed on meat.