Growing Up Spiritually

If you have kids, you know they can’t just pick up a fork and a knife and eat a piece of meat when they are babies.

They don’t have any teeth yet, and their stomachs can’t handle meat. Obviously, their bodies aren’t ready.

You start with the basics: milk at first, then some semi-solid food, such as mashed potatoes, several months later.

Eventually, they take their first bite of solid food. They don’t have to rush, and you don’t rush them either.

Growth is a process, and if you do the right things, you mature. Now imagine a capable teenager still fighting with milk in a jar.

You know something isn’t right. He has grown in age, but he hasn’t matured in his mind, tastes, diet, or choices.

He doesn’t have his senses exercised to discern between baby food and adult food.

That was where some Jewish believers were living spiritually: "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat." (Hebrews 5:12).

They began with the sincere milk of the Word of God, which is able to make them grow thereby (1 Peter 2:2).

However, they never matured in their spiritual understanding and became those who need milk, not the strong meat of the Word (Hebrews 5:12).

They could not stomach or digest the strong meat of the Word. The believers needed to grow up. They needed to mature.

Like adults surviving on baby food, believers who don’t grow up in the faith have problems, and Paul listed seven of those problems perpetual spiritual babes have:

1. Dull of hearing: There are many things to be said, but they are hard to explain because babes can’t receive them (Hebrews 5:11). This is similar to what Jesus said to His disciples: “I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).

   
   

2. Unable to confidently teach the first principles to others (Hebrews 5:12a)

   
   

3. In constant need of someone to teach them again the elementary principles of God’s Word (Hebrews 5:12b).

   
   

4. Dependent on milk: needing routine attention because milk can’t sustain them for long, leading to over-dependence on others (Hebrews 5:12c).

   
   

5. Unable to handle strong meat: they cannot digest deeper or weightier truths (Hebrews 5:13–14).

   
   

6. Unskillful in the word of righteousness: lacking discernment and maturity in applying Scripture (Hebrews 5:13).

   
   

7. Perpetual babes: always learning but never able to come to full knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7).

   
   

But there is Hope!

Growth is possible. We can all move to a higher level of maturity. God doesn’t dig the pit so deep that you can’t rise again.

You can eat strong meat again. if you’re struggling with your spiritual growth, there is hope.

Jesus gathered twelve men around Him for more than three years, and they struggled to grasp the purpose of His death.

Even on the night of His crucifixion, His inner circle: Peter, James, and John struggled with sleep while He agonized in prayer alone (Luke 22:39–46).

A little later, they deserted Him (Mark 14:50). Even after He rose from the dead, they were still caught up in the old ways: “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

On more than one occasion, Jesus chastised them for being of “little faith” (Matthew 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8), and at other times they even “had no faith” (Mark 4:40).

Yet in spite of their immaturity, Jesus was patient with them, providing the support they needed to grow into pillars of the New Testament church.

In time, they worked hard to spread the gospel throughout the world.

They left the elementary doctrines of Christ, similar to letting go of a feeding bottle, and went on to maturity (Hebrews 6:1). They took in the strong meat of the Word, which made them:

• Grown up

• Come to full age

• By reason of use, had their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:14)