Babes

Babes appear in two registers. Literal infants and sucklings stand at the mouth of the eighth psalm and at the side of Jesus when little children are brought to him. Figuratively, the same word names two opposite conditions: the guileless recipient of revelation, who receives what the wise miss; and the spiritually undeveloped Christian, who still needs milk where solid food is meant. The two registers run alongside each other rather than merging — to be a babe in the first sense is praised, to be a babe in the second is rebuked, and one of the umbrella's clearest lines (1 Cor 14:20) asks the reader to be both at once in different respects.

Out of the mouth of babes

The eighth psalm fixes the figure of the babe at the place where Yahweh establishes strength against his adversaries: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have established strength, Because of your adversaries, That you might still the enemy and the avenger" (Ps 8:2). The locus of divine strength is the infant mouth — the unlikeliest seat of strength chosen as the very place where the enemy and the avenger are stilled.

The guileless recipients of revelation

The same dignity recurs in the Synoptic thanksgiving. Jesus, in the same hour, "said, I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to juveniles: yes, Father; for so it was well-pleasing in your sight" (Lu 10:21). The revealed-to-juveniles register turns the wise / juvenile contrast on its head: the wise miss what the juvenile receives. Ps 8:2 and Lu 10:21 are grouped under the same heading — babes as a symbol of the guileless — and the two verses fit each other.

Receiving the kingdom as a little child

The childlikeness register turns from infant-mouth and infant-revelation to the disciple's posture toward the kingdom. Jesus "called them to him, saying, Allow the little children to come to me, and don't forbid them: for to such belongs the kingdom of God" (Lu 18:16), and immediately states the corollary: "Truly I say to you⁺, Whoever will not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he will in no way enter in it" (Lu 18:17). Mark records the same saying in nearly the same words: "Truly I say to you⁺, Whoever will not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he will in no way enter in it" (Mr 10:15). Receiving the kingdom as a little child is the entry condition — without it there is no entrance at all.

The corresponding interior posture is set out by David in the song of ascents: "Yahweh, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty; Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, Or in things too wonderful for me" (Ps 131:1). The figure he reaches for is a child quieted at the breast: "Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child with his mother, Like a weaned child is my soul inside me" (Ps 131:2). The same ascetic of greatness — not haughty, not lofty, not in things too wonderful — is exactly what receiving-as-a-little-child looks like from inside.

In malice babes, in mind men

The childlikeness commendation is not absolute. Paul holds it apart from mental childishness in a single contrastive line: "Brothers, don't be children in mind: yet in malice be⁺ babes, but in mind be men" (1 Cor 14:20). The babe-condition is to be retained where malice would otherwise grow, and discarded where adult thought is required. The verse will not let the umbrella collapse into a single recommendation.

Newborn babies and the spiritual milk

Peter takes the figure forward into the believer's appetite. "as newborn babies, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that you⁺ may grow by it to salvation" (1 Pet 2:2). Here the babe-condition is prescribed for all addressees — the longing of the newborn for milk is the model — and the milk itself is named "without guile," carrying the guileless register from Ps 8:2 and Lu 10:21 forward into the believer's diet.

Juveniles in Christ — milk and meat

The figurative-of-weak-Christians sense is the inverse case. The infant-condition that Peter prescribes for appetite is rebuked when it extends to the believer's developmental state. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "And I, brothers, could not speak to you⁺ as to spiritual, but as to carnal, as to juveniles in Christ. I fed you⁺ with milk, not with meat; for you⁺ were not yet able [to bear it]: no, not even now are you⁺ able" (1 Cor 3:1). The juvenile-in-Christ register is here a deficiency — the milk-feeding is forced by the addressees' inability, not chosen as a goal.

Hebrews develops the same diagnostic. "For when by reason of the time you⁺ ought to be teachers, you⁺ have need again that someone teach you⁺ the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and have become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food" (Heb 5:12). The definitional sentence follows: "For everyone who partakes of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a juvenile" (Heb 5:13). The contrast then closes: "But solid food is for full-grown men, [even] those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil" (Heb 5:14). Milk and solid food are graded developmentally — the milk-partaker is by definition the juvenile, and the timing complaint ("by reason of the time you⁺ ought to be teachers") makes prolonged milk-status a failure.

The same juvenile-as-pedagogical-object appears in Paul's account of the Jewish teacher: "a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of juveniles, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth" (Rom 2:20). The juvenile here is the standing addressee of instruction — the law functions as the form of knowledge by which juveniles are taught.

Putting away juvenile things

Where Christian growth is in view, the juvenile-condition is something to be left behind. Paul writes of his own progression: "When I was a juvenile, I spoke as a juvenile, I felt as a juvenile, I thought as a juvenile: now that I have become a man, I have put away juvenile things" (1 Cor 13:11). The threefold inventory (speaking, feeling, thinking) covers the whole interior, and the maturity verb is decisive: put away.

The same pressure runs through Ephesians: the gift of ministry is given "until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full-grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13), with the explicit purpose "that we may no longer be juveniles, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error" (Eph 4:14). The juvenile here is the doctrine-tossed and craftiness-vulnerable Christian — the maturity goal is precisely to no-longer-be that.

Galatians casts the same contrast in inheritance terms: "But I say that so long as the heir is a juvenile, he differs nothing from a slave though he is lord of all; / but is under guardians and stewards until the day appointed of the father. / So we also, when we were juveniles, were being made slaves under the rudiments of the world" (Gal 4:1-3). The juvenile-heir condition is functionally indistinguishable from slavery, and the redemptive progression is toward the appointed day when the heir comes of age.

The two registers held together

The umbrella's tension is set out clearly only by reading the registers together. To receive the kingdom as a little child (Mr 10:15; Lu 18:17) and to long for spiritual milk as a newborn baby (1 Pet 2:2) are commended postures — the babe-condition as guileless dependence is the entry condition and the appetite of the saved. To remain a juvenile-in-Christ (1 Cor 3:1), to need milk where one ought to teach (Heb 5:12), to be tossed by every wind of doctrine (Eph 4:14), to remain functionally a slave-heir (Gal 4:1-3) — these are the rebuked forms of the same word. The single line that holds the umbrella in balance is Paul's: "Brothers, don't be children in mind: yet in malice be⁺ babes, but in mind be men" (1 Cor 14:20).