I’m as guilty of brewing the stuff as anyone else I’ve ever read.

You know, the recipe where you mix a cup of this psalm and that gospel and water it down with a convenient diluting explanation and then add a dash of your favorite proof text for spice. (Or spite.)

And it’s stew.

It’s isn’t soup, which usually has just one dominant flavor: Think potato. Tomato. Celery. Onion. Not vegetable, which is just stew on a superhydrating diet.

The danger is, if you mix indiscriminately, you may get clam-apricot-jalapeno bisque. And even if you’re a pretty good chef, you’ll get a heady combination of luscious flavors flowing together and tasting pretty good together.

Stew, all the same.

Neither milk, nor meat.

Neither a mess of pottage, nor a pot of message.

Just something to stew about.

Please, God … help me to wean myself from the comfortable, the controversial, the combinational stewing of scripture; to hunger after the meat of righteousness and plain truth and Christlikeness. Even when it’s hard to swallow. Even when it’s hard to digest. I need a more mature appetite. Amen.