Hebrews 5:10-14 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.. (11) About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. (12) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, (13) for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. (14) But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.Hebebrews 6:1-3 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (2) and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (3) And this we will do if God permits.
When we come to put our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ we are all infants or babies in the faith. We need good spiritual milk to drink from God’s Word the Bible. However God doesn’t want us to remain babies in the faith but to grow to maturity. However, most people in the church keep being feed spiritual milk by their leaders and they never grow to maturity as Paul tells us to do in Ephesians 4:11-14 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, (12) to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, (13) until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (14) so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Instead they keep going over the elementary teachings of repentance from the dead works and faith in God, of washing, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment (Heb. 6:1,2). Church leaders must be able to teach and help new believers grow in their faith. I have a 1 year old son. He loves to be around us. He is learning to walk better each day, stack blocks, and he copies us in our playtime together. Whenever he does something new he looks up to us in pride. He loves spending time with us as we encourage him to learn and to have fun doing so. He doesn’t care about fancy toys and gadgets, he is happy with a empty water bottle with pennies or popcorn in it as long as he is close to mommy and daddy. All he wants to do is be by his daddy and mommy, and get approval of a job well done, as he grows and learns new things. The smile on his face is all the thanks we need as we delight in him and grow proud of his accomplishments.
The same is true in our spiritual lives. We must come to Christ as a child Mark 10:15, and we must then continue to grow in Him. We do this with the help of spiritually mature Christians who have grown in their faith after spending time in the Word. Then as we grow we must move past the milk and get to solid food, such as Melchizedek. However, we must be careful as we grow not to lose our first love like the great church of Ephesus (where Paul preached along with the apostle John) did in Revelation 2:1-7.
Every Wednesday I teach teenagers/young adults the Word of God inductively. They are excited and can grasp the meaning of the Bible and what it means, being a slave of Christ in a world that does not want us here. However, they also think they know it all already and grow confident in their knowledge and energy. They can easily get off the wrong path and their enthusiasm leads them down destructive theological paths. I also teach several adult small groups and they know their Bible inside-out. The problem with these older saints is that they lose that spark, that dependency on God, they stop looking to God with awe and instead sit back and look at their accomplishments.
It is time we grow our theology like the older saints, have the energy to never quit like the teenagers, but all the time wanting to be close to our Father and turning to Him for all our joy and treasure as my little boy. Lets never lose our first love as we grow deeper in our theology by studying the Bible one precept at a time.
