#DailyDevotion God Doesn’t Want Us To Be Simple Christians
Heb. 5 11We have much to say about this, but it’s difficult to explain because you have become too dull to understand. 12At a time when you should be teachers you need someone to teach you the ABC’sb of God’s Word again. It has come to this that you need milk again instead of solid food. 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being a baby, doesn’t have enough experience to talk of what is right. 14But solid food is for mature people, whose senses are trained by practice to tell good from evil.6 Let us leave behind the ABC’s of Christ and be moved along to be mature, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God, 2teaching about baptisms, laying on of hands, raising the dead, and everlasting judgment. 3We will do this if God lets us.
What is “this”? There is some debate on that. I would lean toward the immediate antecedent (the last thing mentioned before this) being Jesus is the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. In fact, he will in a little bit start to explain that some more, so I think that makes sense. Yes, he accosts them saying they have become too dull to understand but he doesn’t want to leave them there as we can see in verse three of the next chapter, the last verse in our devotion today.
He then contends with them they ought to be teachers by now but they apparently need someone to teach them the basics of the faith. As a pastor I know exactly what someone told him to get him to respond this way—”I just want to be a simple Christian. Why do I need to know all this stuff?” He also has probably been a pastor to know enough that this same person is off listening to some other preacher who is filling their heads with wrongheaded stuff that he is probably now having to correct. Brothers and sisters, before you go off and start listening or reading other pastors/preachers stuff, ask your pastor first if they think the person is ok. They’ll understand your desire to learn more. They also don’t mind so they can at least warn you what sort of bad stuff that person may have in their writings so you don’t get infected with it. He wants nothing more than for you to grow in knowledge and faith.
He leans into them saying they are only fit for milk and not solid food. This is not in opposition to 1 Pet. 2:2. Everywhere in the Scripture we are called to mature in our faith by adding knowledge to it. Now in verses 13 and 14 the author brings up a certain type of knowledge that is experiential knowledge. This is the school of the Holy Spirit he is talking about. We learn from our experience when we put into practice what we have been taught. This isn’t some voodoo, gnostic sort of experiential knowledge that comes from the ether. It is the knowledge we gain when we hear, “Don’t be anxious about anything but by prayer, supplication, petitions and thanksgiving make your requests known to God,” we start doing that and we experience the peace of God beyond all understanding.
When he calls us to leave behind the elementary things of the faith to move towards maturity he is not saying we don’t reinforce those things. What he means is we should not get stuck there and be satisfied with just knowing those things. We shouldn’t have to keep laying on that foundation. It would be along the lines of learning the Small Catechism. Then learn the proof text of the catechism. Then move on to the explanation of the Catechism. Then, perhaps, read the Augsburg Confession or Pieper’s Dogmatics. The LORD doesn’t want us to be simple Christians but mature ones.
Heavenly Father, grant us Your grace that we may move beyond the basics of the faith to be mature in all spiritual knowledge You have given us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.