'The letters' of 2 Timothy 3:15, or 'the milk' of 1 Peter 2:2 refer to

'the first principles of the oracles of God', the 'elements' or 'rudiments'

(Gal. 4:3; Col. 2:8) as the words 'first principles' are elsewhere rendered.

Before the great doctrine of the faith can be understood, the actual historic

facts concerning Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Joseph and others must be known.

The historic account of the birth, life, death and resurrection of the

Saviour must be learned and understood, and such adjuncts as geography and

Eastern customs must not be despised.  The teacher who has the care of

children and young people could well take as his 'signature tune' the chorus

'Make the Book live to me'.  Here therefore is the encouragement that this

passage offers to all who labour among the young.

Empowerment.  This resides in the word itself.  The Scriptures are

'able to make wise unto salvation'.  The word translated 'able' is dunamai,

the word that gives us 'dynamic' and 'dynamo'. These elementary lessons for

the child have the same power as the gospel has, for the apostle declared

that the gospel is 'the power of God unto salvation to everyone that

believeth' (Rom. 1:16).  This empowerment enables the child to become 'wise

unto salvation'.  As the child learns of the ways of God with man, he will

come to see his own need and be led to seek salvation by faith in the One

Whose life and death have been the theme of many a lesson and many a story.

We revert to the figure already used, of the infant being nourished on

milk, and we shall see that this is expressed by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:15

without the figure of growth or nourishment, for he says such children are

'made wise'.  It is written of the Saviour Himself that He 'increased

in wisdom and stature' (Luke 2:52) and there are, as Colossians 2:3 teaches

us, 'treasures' of wisdom even as the Proverbs tell us that wisdom is better

than 'rubies'.  There is therefore Enrichment in Paul's words of 2 Timothy

3:15.  There are riches of grace, of goodness, and of glory, in the salvation

which is by faith in Christ Jesus, yea, there are 'unsearchable riches' in

Christ, and 'exceeding riches' of grace, and riches of 'full assurance' that

await the one who becomes thus 'wise unto salvation'.

Feeding with milk is sometimes a tiresome business.  The rearing of an

infant makes demands upon time and temper, but all these demands are more

than met by all -pervading love.  The teacher of children will need to go

slowly 'precept upon precept, line upon line'.  He will remember that

children love to hear the same story over and over again.  They demand the

same names shall be used, the same incidents repeated; they will not tolerate

the omission of some incident from a particular story.  So in the teaching of

the Scriptures the motto 'Hasten slowly' should be kept in mind.  Many things

that may appear to be outside the legitimate sphere of teaching may have to

be included.  Bodily comfort, sympathetic interest in home or school;

admiration for some new book or article of clothing, and patience, patience,

patience all the time.  Let all such labourers think of the goal, salvation;

rejoice in the power at their disposal, 'able to make wise', and encouraged

by the apostle's words to Timothy, may they find much blessing as they seek

to teach even 'babes' to walk in the way of life everlasting.

We have seen that the Word of God is able to make even a child wise

unto salvation, and learned that the word translated 'child' is brephos, 'a

newborn babe'.  We could have gone one step further into the beginnings of