From Popcorn to Protein: Moving from Milk to Meat in Our Spiritual Diet

The other day, my wife and I went to the movies. And—as is my custom—we got some popcorn. A big bucket of popcorn to share. 🙂 With butter, of course. 🙂

There’s just something about movie theater popcorn. It’s salty, buttery, and way too easy to eat by the handful. I love it. But here’s the thing: as much as I enjoy it, I only eat movie popcorn as an occasional treat. It’s not something I include in my regular diet—and for good reason.

Did you know that a large tub of movie popcorn can pack over 1,000 calories and 60 grams of fat? And that’s before you add the extra butter flavoring! It may taste good, but it’s not exactly a nutritional powerhouse. An occasional indulgence is fine, but if we were to eat popcorn like that every day, it wouldn’t be long before our health took a hit.

And the same is true when it comes to our spiritual nutrition.

The writer of Hebrews gives us this challenge in chapter 5:

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”
— Hebrews 5:12 (NKJV)

He’s writing to believers who had been following Christ long enough that they should have matured in their faith. But instead, they were still stuck on spiritual milk—basic truths, surface-level understanding, shallow engagement. They weren’t growing. And that concerned him.

Let’s be honest: we live in a popcorn culture today. Much worse than the first century AD. Our attention spans are shorter, our entertainment louder, and our cravings are driven more by comfort and convenience than conviction.

That mindset has crept into too many of our spiritual lives.

We substitute meaty time in the Word for easily digestible Christian entertainment, ten-second TikTok devotionals, or inspirational quotes floating around on Instagram. And don’t get me wrong—those things aren’t bad in themselves. Just like popcorn, they can be enjoyable, and even encouraging in the right context.

But they’re not enough.

You don’t build a healthy body on a diet of junk food, and you don’t build a mature faith on a diet of sugary sermons and spiritual snacks. We need to feed on God’s Word. We need to grow through deeper study, serious prayer, and consistent spiritual discipline.

So let me ask you: