Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Heb 6:1-3 NIV)
At first look, it seems the writer of Hebrews is making light of the fundamental teachings of our Faith. After all, if the things he has listed here are not of utmost importance in the acceptance of Salvation and the Christian walk, what things are? They are the core of our belief and our faith.
In truth, he is not at all diminishing the importance of these fundamental truths. The problem he is addressing is the church’s insistence on settling on the basics and never building on the foundation. In the previous verses, he chastises them for wanting to subsist on a steady diet of milk. He had been trying to teach them greater truths and had found it impossible to do so for their attention span, so to speak, and their focus of thought could not advance beyond the concrete basics to more abstract and advanced knowledge teachings. They seemed to understand, at least to a degree, the “how” but held not comprehension, nor even an interest in gaining an understanding of the “why” of their teachings.
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Heb 5:11-14 NIV)
These were not new Christians. Had they been, his level of tolerance for their elementary level of understanding would have been much higher. These were long term believers who should have been not only practicing the Faith, but promoting and teaching to others. In other words, they should have been “birthing” children into the Kingdom but instead were still premature infants themselves. Infants cannot reproduce children. It requires fully grown adults to birth offspring.
Perhaps a little imagination will permit us to set in on their group meetings and listen to the course of their conversations and discussions. I can imagine that rather than talk about the work of advancing the Kingdom of God and wining souls, they argued over the finer points of such topics as the proper way to baptize a new convert. Perhaps they were caught up in controversy over methods and ritual. They may have argued amongst themselves the proper definition of repentance and perhaps the physical steps needed to complete that process. They wanted the detail and not the essence of the truths. In this way, they were very much like elementary school children arguing over the fundamental constructs of the letters of the alphabet and not considering that the individual letters are meant to compose words which make up sentences and on to paragraphs and whole writings which express thoughts and ideas. They saw and saw imperfectly, the single letters of the alphabet and nothing more. That is truly a definition of immaturity which the writer compared to infants and the need for simple milk rather than the solid food of adulthood.
So what’s wrong with milk? On its own, nothing. That is, if taken in the proper context and at the right time in life. We know that the very first food a newborn baby desires and is capable of digesting is milk. We would not presume to offer a one day old child helpings from our adult plates. He or she could not ingest, nor digest the food which is a staple of our adult diets. The role of milk in the life of a human being and the spiritual life of a believer fills three requirements. It is the “starter” or fundamental food source during infancy. It becomes a supplemental food source during childhood. It finally becomes an ingredient in our food during adulthood.
Milk is the “starter” or fundamental food source during infancy. No one will argue the nutritional value of milk in the diet of a newborn. Without it, the baby will not survive. The baby’s body is not capable of handling solid food. The writer of Hebrews is very aware of this and knows that his readers are as well and that they should be able to relate to his analogy. It is a proper food for infants and on the spiritual level, it is the proper food for spiritual newborns.
It is the nature of infants to grow physically. That is, if they are healthy and with that growth comes a change in dietary needs. A body might still grow to an extent if kept on a solid milk diet, but it would be any unhealthy and perverted growth. In the natural world, there have been cases of mothers slow to wean their infants off of milk and onto more solid food. The growth of those infants results in a bloated, and distorted cell growth which is entirely unhealthy for the child. If kept to that diet, the health of the child will deteriorate and most likely result in the death of the child.
The same thing can happen in the Christian life. The parable of the farmer is probably a good example of this and what happens when the spiritual body lacks sufficient strength to endure solid food.
Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. (Matt 13:5-7 NIV)
That speaks of a spiritual body which has not developed the strength to grow to maturity for lack of adopting solid food rather than milk. The soil is shallow and can not sufficiently support roots of doctrine.
Milk becomes a supplemental food source during childhood. As a child develops and grows and has been introduced to solid food, milk takes more a secondary place in his or her diet. No, it does not go away. It simply becomes more a mix of the entire diet. Now, it’s a glass of milk with dinner and perhaps the major ingredient in such treats as ice cream, and sweet deserts. The body still needs the calcium and nutrients supplied by milk. It just does not need milk alone. Solid food has to take the forefront in the diet.
Milk on the spiritual level is still needed and desirable. Remember, these are the fundamentals. The building blocks of our faith. But now we are no longer simply playing with the blocks. We are in the process of building houses and the blocks being solid will provide the materials for the foundation and the walls. The message of repentance from dead works is not left behind. Now it becomes the message of how to live the overcoming life now that the dead works have been left behind. Likewise with the other fundamentals of the Faith. Now we quit the arguing over the minor details and go on to putting the truths to practical use in the growth of faith and endurance. It is time to build up the soil allowing the Word to take greater root and grow to a huge tree.
As the growing child can not neglect the importance of milk as an essential part of his or her diet, the growing believer cannot suddenly put away the knowledge and application of the basics of Christianity for risk of losing sight of the foundations of his or her belief and end up with faulty doctrine if not theology. The adage that milk in the diet “builds strong, healthy bones” applies to the physical as well as the spiritual.
Milk becomes an ingredient in our food in adulthood. Few are the adults who put away milk entirely. Even in adult diets, it serves an important function. Now however, more than being a standalone food item, it may become an integrated part of the solid food we ingest. Now it makes up parts of the whole. We add it to cooked foods such as mashed potatoes, and in gravy perhaps, as well as cakes, and desert drinks. Some who unlike myself who enjoy our coffee straight, add it to flavor their coffee and perhaps even tea. Milk is a major ingredient in cheese and what adult does not like ice cream? Still, some even as adults enjoy a straight glass of milk to drink.
We need in our physical bodies the calcium and other nutrients milk provides. Even as adults that need is present for optimum health and well being. In the spiritual sense, the basics of our faith make up the ingredients of our doctrine and theology. We know that the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment is a matter of urgency in the life of the believer as well as the non-believer and with that knowledge, we partake in evangelism through witnessing, preaching and teaching of the Word. We can impart to others the reasons for the need for Salvation, for example and we can use our knowledge of the Word to get our message across. Built within that message are the fundamental elements. No, we have not tossed them out as we have become mature adults in faith. We have simply incorporated them as the basic ingredients within the recipe.
I think the writer had in mind the parable Jesus spoke of the farmer sowing his seed as he addressed the dangers of falling away from the faith due to lack of solid ground and a diet of solid food.
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. (Heb 6:4-8 NIV)
Land which is shallow of soil will not retain water which will allow it to soak deep and support root growth of desired plants. It simply runs off leaving the ground underneath it parched and dry. The only thing which is going to grow on such land is the undesirable. Weeds. Worthless to the farmer and equally worthless to the Kingdom of God. Believers who insist on a steady diet of milk and the refusal to partake of solid meat of the Word are in a very real sense of little value to the Kingdom of God. They’re not going to be effective workers and they themselves risk falling away and losing out on the rewards of the best God would have for them, if not even the loss of their place within the Kingdom itself.
Dan W. Dooley
Dooley’s Treasure Chest
