How much milk do you drink? And what kind? Skim? Whole? 1 or 2 percent?
Milk is good stuff. And what I have found over the years is that people have lots of opinions about milk. My family is a skim milk family. I have heard some people call skim milk, “chalk water.” Some of you are 1 percenters and 2 percenters, and it seems to me that you tend to be a bit more quiet about your preferences. The whole milk people, though? You are passionate. For you, whole milk is the only milk. To me, though, whole milk tastes like liquid sugar. I really like its sweetness at first, but I can barely get through a full bowl of cereal with whole milk because it is so sweet. It can make my stomach sick.
But that is not the only option when it comes to milk, right? There is also flavored milk, like chocolate and strawberry, and non-dairy versions like almond milk.
Then there is raw milk. I had raw milk for the first time about five years ago at our Amish friends’ house. First of all, it didn’t look like milk. I’m used to pure white milk. This raw milk had a touch of tan coloration to it. Second of all, it didn’t smell or taste like milk. Remember, I’m used to skim milk. I love skim milk. To me skim has the perfect sweetness level. Raw milk? Whew, it tasted like liquid earth. Like there had to be some actual dirt in there.
Raw milk is pure unadulterated milk. Not even whole milk can say that. How many of you like raw milk?
I’m saying this because when you’re used to skim milk, whole milk might make you sick. If you’re used to skim milk or whole milk, you might not like the taste of raw milk. We might be so used to impure or diluted spiritual milk that we won’t like the real thing.
In our next section of 1st Peter, 2:1-3, Peter says we should be drinking raw milk. Check it out for yourselves. We’re going to be looking at these three verses all week.
Peter starts with “therefore,” thus connecting the material that came before with this new material. So what came before? Well, the final verses of chapter 1 which we studied last week. And in those verses we saw Peter the Christians in his day that they were to love one another deeply from the heart, because they were reborn into a new family by trusting and obeying the imperishable word of God that was preached to them.
Remember that? We are reborn into a new family, and we are to love one another deeply, from the heart.
Now Peter continues. Because of that rebirth into a new family, because we are to love one another deeply, he says we must rid ourselves of five family killers. Before we get to describing those five family killers, it is important to reemphasize that Peter is saying clearly that the Christians need to stop these behaviors.
The image Peter uses is one of taking off old clothes. Get those old dirty clothes off because that’s not you anymore!
Maybe Peter heard that the Christians were behaving this way. It wouldn’t surprise me. These behaviors he’s about to bring up can be present in nearly any church family. There is no perfect church! And so Peter is clear. These church family killers have to stop. A follower of Jesus who has been reborn will strive to stop these things. Then they will drink raw milk!
Check back in tomorrow as we look at the five family killers. Then later in the week, we’ll see Peter make his case for drinking raw milk.
Engaging Scripture 
this is the dumbest article i ever read. there is no part of the bible that states you should be drinking raw milk. it says don’t eat shellfish or pork but yall eat that stuff anyways
Did you read the article? It introduces a series of following articles that discuss the passage in the Bible in 1st Peter that talks about drinking raw milk metaphorically. In biblical times the only milk available was raw milk, as the processes such as pasteurization were not invented for many centuries in the future. Yet, you are right, Peter is not condoning drinking any milk. He is using milk-drinking as a metaphor for how to grow in the spiritual life.