Growing Up

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!

Hebrews 5:12

Those elementary truths are the limited understanding of the Word attained by new or immature believers. He calls this milk. He goes on to say, But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. These are doctrines with which a new believer, still immature and understandably so, would be concerned.

He lists them: not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works… This is an elementary doctrine, the first truth which gives us admittance into the kingdom. Repentance from trying to save ourselves by our own works is the beginning of Christian faith. He also mentions faith in God, instruction about cleansing (baptism, the Lord's Supper, etc.), the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. All these things are initial stages, relating to the realm of children growing and learning the truth. It is a terrible thing for those who have been Christians for years to be still involved heavily, on an emotional level, with these elementary doctrines. They are like cases of arrested development, like children with a tragic glandular disorder that prevents them from growing.

God wants us to leave these things and go on to maturity; that is, to the word of righteousness which is the solid food that ought to occupy the thoughts of the spiritually mature. The point is, a mature Christian ought to be increasingly concerned with manifesting the character of Christ through obedience to the Word of God.

What about you? How much have you grown? Growth does not always occur at a constant speed; it is discernible in stages. Did you ever watch a child growing? Parents know that growth follows a physical pattern in definite stages. A friend told me about his fourteen-year-old boy and the way he was shooting up into manhood. The father said that for fourteen years he had been able to wear a certain size shoe without rivalry, but his son had suddenly developed the same size foot, and now he found his son was constantly borrowing his shoes! Whether in the spiritual realm or the physical realm, that is how growth takes place: by stages. May we move away from these childish attributes of instability and overconfidence and grow in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God.

Father, thank you for growth past the the elementary principles of Scriptural truth. Keep me growing into maturity.