Walk Among The Stalwarts

July 30

“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,” Hebrews 5:12-14.

The philosophy in the American public education system seems to be, ‘I’m OK, you’re OK.’ Nobody fails; nobody is held back a grade because of neglect to master the required battery of material at a certain grade level. Some school systems go so far as to give certificates of achievement to students who improve their grades from the ‘F’ level to the ‘D’ level!

This in a nation that demands excellence from its athletes—we don’t give ‘runner-up’ awards to the losing team in the Super Bowl and March Madness eliminates all but the best college basketball team. Only in academics do we allow there to be a sense of achievement for mediocrity. Only in matters of scholastic achievement and in matters of faith do we compromise our expectation from the excellent to the ordinary.

The Apostle Paul is addressing the latter here in his letter to the Hebrews. He is challenging them to be mindful of the necessity for their growing beyond the stage of infancy into the stage of mature believer in Christ. Paul determines the stature of a man’s faith not by his chronological age or by his status in the community or by his financial acumen but by his ability to partake of the Word of Life.

What consistency of the truth of God can a believer tolerate? Can he consume and digest “strong meat, which belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil,” according to Hebrews 5:14? Or is he continually among the “newborn babes” of the Church of the Living Christ who cannot bear strong meat but partakes only of “the “milk of the Word,” I Peter 2:2?

We love our babies. We delight in holding them and cuddling them and singing lullabies to them, but we don’t want them to remain infants. Watching them “grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man,” Luke 2:52, is one of the great joys of parenthood.

How then can we not know that God desires those who profess faith in the finished work of salvation that Jesus completed on the cross to grow beyond infancy and dependence upon the nurturing of the mature Christians around them into the fullness of total sufficiency in Christ?

Let us become partakers of solid truth that we may enjoy the strong meat of the word! Let us be among the faithful men of complete commitment to the Savior who share His salvation with the lost and dying who are everywhere around us.

Let us emerge from our infant beds to walk in faith and power among the stalwarts of the faith, partaking with them of the full table Christ sets before us.