The writer of Hebrews faced a problem with his audience. He writes, “Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing” (Hebrews 5:11). It was time for heady discussion but the recipients of Hebrews weren’t ready for it like they should have been. The author wished to give them “solid food” but he couldn’t: “you have come to need milk.” How had this happened? It was a matter of diet—“everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant” (vs. 13). The readers had not been challenged in their thinking. It was the same basic diet day after day, year after year. The result was they were abnormal in their growth. We would worry a great deal about an eight-year-old child who would only drink milk and hadn’t grown beyond two feet tall. We often accept such immaturity from Christians without a thought.
      We sometimes hear of the need for good “basic principles” sermons. Sermons are complimented because “a child could understand it.” There is a need for that type of sermon, to be sure. But we must consider our audience. How many times and how often must a group of Christians be convinced that baptism is indeed necessary for salvation (it’s by immersion, you know)? Perhaps there are times we need to explore the deeper implications of baptism rather than the basic principle that it is necessary.
      There is frequent complaining that Christians aren’t mature like they ought to be. Certainly the Hebrews writer thought so! But at the same time there is criticism expressed of sermons that deal with “mature themes”: “That preacher’s just talking over our heads!” Now certainly one of the points of preaching is to communicate material in an easy-to-understand way. But in the same way that calculus is always more difficult to understand than addition and subtraction, dwelling on the meat of the word of God will require more concentration, study and maturity than always sucking on a bottle of Biblical milk.
      Milk is designed for those “not accustomed to the word of righteousness” (Hebrews 5:13). But “solid food is for the mature.” It is through spiritual “practice” that we have our “senses trained to discern good and evil” (vs. 14). Paul ascribes the inability to handle “solid food” to the fact that the Corinthians were “still fleshly.” They were still “men of flesh . . . infants in Christ” (I Corinthians 3:1-3). The result of this immaturity was a divisiveness that was ripping that church apart. There were factions claiming allegiance to something other than a pure understanding of Christ. It was a result of their immaturity. Even their partaking of the Lord’s Supper was marred by strife (I Corinthians 11:18f). Paul urged the Corinthians “that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you . . . that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Corinthians 1:10). As he wrote to the Ephesians, “we are no longer to be children,” but we “to grow up in all aspects in Him who is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:14-15). It is the responsibility of teachers and evangelists to equip the saints “to a mature man” as “we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:11-13).
      Both Paul and the writer of Hebrews were doing their best to raise the bar of expectations for their readers (that includes us). Those of us who regularly preach and teach need to learn from their example. We need to not fear plumbing the depths of Biblical teaching. We need to challenge those we teach. And we need to be studying ourselves so that we are in a position to serve the solid food Christians are starving for. There is nothing wrong with a new Christian being an infant. There is something wrong with someone who long since should have developed into maturity to continue to dwell solely on first principles. And there’s also something wrong when those who we trust to feed us spiritual food only ever hand out bottles when we need a steak. Christians, we need to grow up.