Just Milk?

   Many Christians will go through their entire spiritual lives feeding only on the milk of the word. They will spend years and even decades learning over and over again the simplest messages of what God has given us, never getting to the meat of the scriptures.

   "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Hebrews 5:12-14) God certainly wants His children to grow up in the understanding of His will. This maturing will lead to teaching or sharing the Word of God with others. Some stay immature and never grow to a level of maturity. 

   The problem may lie with the church and its teachers. "Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths (2nd Tim. 4:2-4). Paul tells preachers their job is to preach the word at all times and in all situations, because some would prefer to chase myths and pleasing doctrines, not truth. If a teacher fails to preach the word, then certainly his audience will be fed something besides meat. So, the church and its teachers should also be careful to preach deeper truths. Some only want to hear the shallow stuff, the first principles. "Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement" (Heb. 6:1-2). The author of Hebrews doesn't leave us to guess about milk and meat. Milk is laying again the foundation of repentance, of washings (or baptism), of miracles and the second coming. Many believers want to hear sermons only on these issues and not much else. But still they are for the immature. That is, these are issues non Christians and new Christians need to learn. A person who has been in the kingdom for years should know these things. So, a teacher should push himself to go deeper and ask his audience to dig into the meatier issues of the Gospel.

   However, ultimately any growth you experience will be up to us. Paul spells this out, "But even though we, or and angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed" (Gal.1:8-9). The apostle says false teachers will be cursed for their false doctrine. But he warns the Galatians to be good listeners. The churches of Galatia should have recognized truth and therefore should have recognized false teaching. In other words, God expects listeners to be responsible for what they hear and how they hear. "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does" (James 1:23-25). A preacher or teacher should hold up the word, the milk parts and the meat parts. But the listener must decide to look into the word and apply it or not. Maturity in any individual believer will depend on getting good, solid, meaty teaching. But the listener is responsible for digesting and applying that teaching.