¹¹ He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. ¹² His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ ¹³ until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. ¹⁴ As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others. ¹⁵ Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, ¹⁶ who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part.

¹² Although you should have been teachers by now, you need someone to teach you an introduction to the basics about God’s message. You have come to the place where you need milk instead of solid food. ¹³ Everyone who lives on milk is not used to the word of righteousness, because they are babies. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil.

Your identity as believers

2 Therefore, get rid of all ill will and all deceit, pretense, envy, and slander. ² Instead, like a newborn baby, desire the pure milk of the word. Nourished by it, you will grow into salvation, ³ since you have tasted that the Lord is good.

⁴ Now you are coming to him as to a living stone. Even though this stone was rejected by humans, from God’s perspective it is chosen, valuable. ⁵ You yourselves are being built like living stones into a spiritual temple. You are being made into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Wisdom applied to divisions in the church

3 Brothers and sisters, I couldn’t talk to you like spiritual people but like unspiritual people, like babies in Christ. ² I gave you milk to drink instead of solid food, because you weren’t up to it yet. ³ Now you are still not up to it because you are still unspiritual. When jealousy and fighting exist between you, aren’t you unspiritual and living by human standards?