Hebrews 5:11-14 “. . .of whom we have much to say, and 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 first 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 unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. NKJV

Last week we noticed that the church of the first century had problems that we have today, and one of the greatest was the problem of spiritual immaturity. While it is sad when any church has problems, we can take comfort in the fact that problems are a part of the Lord’s church, not from the divine side, but from the human. Hence, if we want to eliminate the problems, each individual Christian has to work on their spiritual growth. The Hebrew writer, in the above passage, gives some marks of spiritual immaturity that we can use to measure our own spiritual lives and see if we are “spiritually immature.”

One of the marks of spiritual immaturity that the Hebrew writer mentions is “dullness of hearing. (5:11).” Could it be that the Hebrews, at one time, were like the Bereans in that they studied the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11)? We can only hope that that was the case. However, they had become dull of hearing.

Was the material the Hebrew writer conveying to them so hard it couldn’t be understood? If one continues to study Hebrews and his discussion of the priesthood of Christ, we know that it wasn’t so hard that it couldn’t be understood. They had just grown tired of studying and thinking about these things. They refused, for whatever reason, to continue to grow.

Now how about us? Is the Bible dull? Bible classes? Do we get tired of sitting and listening to sermons? How about our prayer life? Do we sing with the spirit and understanding, or do we grow tired of singing, and not even bother to open our mouths? If any of these questions describes you, it may be that you have a symptom of a greater disease called spiritual immaturity.

Second, in Hebrews 5:12 the writer gives another symptom of this dread disease that plagues the church. It is the inability to teach others the gospel. The Hebrews had time to learn and grow. They all had time to understand more and be able to teach others. But they didn’t.

We know and understand that some are not able to teach effectively. In Ephesians 4:11-16 Paul stresses the fact that God put different “offices” or people in the church, and not everyone could be an apostle, pastor, or teacher. We know that teachers will bear the greater judgment for their teaching (James 3:1ff), and the warnings against false teachers are numerous throughout the New Testament. But some had the ability, and did not grow to that point.

Further, we also know that while not everyone could be a teacher, we do know that when they were persecuted in the book of Acts, they that “were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.” (Acts 8:4). While not all can teach in a formal sense, at the same time, we ALL can share the good news of Christ, and we ALL can live lives worthy of the gospel so others can know that we are Christians. But this demands that we grow from our own study and knowledge of the Word of God.

Next week we will look at two more symptoms of spiritual immaturity. We hope that by looking at these, we will challenge everyone to “examine themselves, whether they be in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5) and be challenged to grow into men and women God can use for his glory and honor.