MILK… STRONG MEAT

In these verses the writer to the Hebrews rebukes the lack of spiritual progress that characterizes some of his readers. He says, by way of introduction to this section, that he has many things to say and hard to be spoken or difficult to explain, because they were spiritually hard of hearing, v. 11.

This dulling of their hearing was as a direct result of their lack of progress in spiritual things. It has always been a princi­ple that if there is no practical response on the part of the believer to revelation from the word of God, then there will be little spiritual progress.

He continues by saying that by this time they ought to have become teachers of the word but instead ‘are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat’, v. 12. The ‘first princi­ples’, v. 12, or ‘oracles’, needed to be taught again, for they had not moved on from the starting point. The ‘oracles’, or ‘utter­ances’ of God, are mentioned by the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 3 verse 2. He writes of the privileges of the Jews: ‘that unto them were committed the oracles of God’. This includes prophecies concerning Christ in the Old Testament.

So, instead of feeding them with ‘strong meat’, he has to treat them as babes in Christ and feed them ‘milk’. They were still in spiritual infancy. There was little or no progress and the result was a tragic lack of growth. Paul addresses the Corinthi­ans similarly, ‘And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ’. And again, ‘I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able’, 1 Cor. 3. 1, 2. They should have been able to take ‘strong meat’, spiritually solid food, something which every mature Christian should be capable of digesting. Their deportment was like that of babes, v. 13. A babe is marked by constant crying, unsteady steps, unwillingness to share, with an emphasis on play rather than work.

The strong meat of the word of God should have an effect on us, enabling us to distinguish between good and evil, of which babes would be incapable.