Mensa Otabil - Put Childishness Away
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First Corinthians chapter 13, verse 11: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Learning is in stages; growth is in stages. When you go to school, you go to one stage, and you have to learn the lessons of that stage, master it, and then you go to the next class. If you don’t master the previous lesson, you don’t go to the next one. If you don’t master your ABCs, you don’t master spelling and pronunciation. So, what you learn at a level is important, but you must use that to go to the next level. You don’t learn something and stay there for the rest of your life. So, Paul is talking about the fact that he used to be a child, and now he’s a man. When you’re a child, you behave like a child; when you grow up, you stop behaving like a child.
There are three stages of growth that the Apostle Paul talks about here, which we can apply to our lives. First, he says, «When I was a child, I thought as a child.» The first stage is thinking as a child. Thinking as a child will make you behave as a child. It is cute for children to think and to speak like children. All of us have instances when we just roll in laughter because a child spoke a word in innocence, in an unfiltered way, and they spoke, and we all laughed. But you know, as a child grows, we expect that they will learn to filter their speech a little better and be more in control of their thinking.
What made us laugh at what they said when they were children? If they behave the same way in the boardroom, in marriage, or in a mature relationship, it could destroy the relationship. So, it’s okay to think as a child when you are a child, and Paul is saying it’s all right. But he talks about the second stage; he says, «When I became a man.» Now, although he’s using the masculine gender, it’s for females as well. We can also say, «When I became a woman.» When we grow up, usually our bodies grow ahead of our minds or our maturity or understanding. As your body grows, as you move from crawling and being a child, your mind must also correspondingly grow; your understanding must also reflect that.
It is not an asset to you to grow in your body as an adult while your mind still remains at the baby stage. When I became a man, as I grew up, as I added up the years, as I celebrated my birthdays and blew out the birthday candles, I was growing, and that means something must happen also in your mind. So, what Paul says happens when he grew up is, «I put away childish things .» That is the third stage: think as a child, become a man, and put away childish things. This means that the moment I see myself growing, I have to be conscious. He didn’t say the childish things left me; he said, «I put them away.» This means it has to be an effort; it has to be an action. It has to be intentional to monitor your behavior, to ask yourself, «Is this childish or adult? Am I behaving maturely or like a child?»
Sometimes, even in marriages, you find that parents with children are behaving like children, and because of that, they have problems they cannot solve. So, we must put away childish things, and the things that work for us when we were children will not work for us when we are adults. When I grew up, I put away childish things. May the Lord help us to mature as we seek the best that He has for us. Let 's pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, help me to put out every thought and action that holds me bound to my childish past. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.