Grow Up

"About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 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, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. ” (Hebrews 5:11–14, ESV)

 
As preachers we may fail our hearers through not clearly presenting scripture but the primary reason that people have "dull hearing" is because of their own opinions, ideas, and understanding about Biblical truth without a foundation in the Scriptures.  Our understanding of God's Word should come from the careful study of the text not our own uninformed and uninspired ideas and notions.

The Greek word for "dull" in this passage is "nothros" and it simply means lazy.  "Dull hearing" today could be called selective hearing.  Even the most dedicated and mature of Christians are prone to the trap of only hearing what we want to hear.  God has spoken to me many times about things I may have enjoyed doing but were in the way of my relationship with Him.


I have pretended to not hear or not understand and as a result my spiritual life suffers.  Failure to obey our conscience in response to Biblical teaching is what dulls our hearing.  Our sensitivity to His voice will become weaker and weaker until we have become deaf to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  We may still come to church, sing songs, and even give but we cannot receive from Him because we cannot hear his voice.


Our churches are filled with men and women who still need milk not solid food.  They may have been in church for 10 years but they have never matured.  It's unnatural, if we were talking about their physical growth we would label them freaks.  Growth is the sign that something is alive.  Death is the end of growth.


Why do men and women still need milk?  Because they have have spit out what was fed to them at some point in their walk.  They exercised selective hearing and dulled their conscience and as a result growth has stopped.  Because the growth has stopped their relationship with Christ is dying.  Another reason is that an increasing number of believers are depending solely on the church for spiritual nourishment.  Maturity is going to be stunted if you only eat once a week.


The author of Hebrews writes in Chapter 6, verse one "Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity"  We can only move past  elementary teaching and move towards maturity through obedience to what we learn in our elementary years.  As we are obedient to God's Word and His will for our lives He will mature us and we will grow and bear fruit in his world.


"Constant Practice" means we mature by spending personal time with God on a daily basis through reading His Word and prayer and being obedient to what He reveals to us during those times.  We also mature by worshiping and fellowshiping with other believers.  Make up your mind today to grow up and be all that God wants you to be.