Scripture reading: Hebrews 5:11–6:6

The ABCs

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. (Hebrews 5:12)

Imagine a high school where the students can’t handle even the basics— can’t read a book, write a composition, or do elementary math. Most of us would be either sad or mad (or both!) and feel impelled to agitate for dramatic changes in a system that permitted such a mockery of the educational endeavor. Now imagine a church like that. Though people have been attending for years, they don’t know and so don’t practice the most rudimentary principles of the spiritual life. Unable to define or defend the basic tenets of the faith, their lives are indistinguishable from people who never attend church at all.

The author of the book of Hebrews faced this exact situation when he wrote to believers in the first century. I’m not sure if the writer was mad or sad, but it is obvious he was shocked! The letter’s recipients had been Christians long enough to be mature and fruitful, yet they needed someone to again come and remind them of their spiritual ABCs.

The American church is full of spiritual babies who have never mastered the most elementary principles of the Christian life. Instead of spending time and energy lamenting the tragedy, we can work to do something about it like the author of Hebrews did. He got back to basics, re-educating the people of God as to repentance, faith, baptism, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the resurrection, and the reality of coming judgment (Hebrews 6:1–2).

Let me offer my own version of the Four R’s of Spiritual Education.

READ. Never in history have there been more Bibles, books, and magazines to encourage growth and maturity. There is no excuse for spiritual illiteracy, so read as if your very soul depended on it. It does! Read as if the future of the world were hanging in the balance. It is! Turn off your TV, video games, internet, and smart- phone, and read, read, read.

RELATE. No one survives in the Christian life who goes it alone. Without meaningful relationships our growth will be permanently stunted, and we will never learn the meaning of love, the most basic element of the Christian faith. Get connected with other believers and make sure that transparency, honesty, accountability, and prayer define those relationships. There is no better place to begin than in your own family.

REPRODUCE. God’s first commandment to humans was to “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). So don’t live for yourself, live for others. Give, serve, go. Stop asking What can I get? and start asking What can I give? Those who focus on their own needs rather than the needs of others give irrefutable evidence of their spiritual immaturity.

RISK. Don’t be a pew potato growing obese by listening to sermons that you never put into practice. Gathering on Sunday for worship should be the spiritual equivalent of a football huddle. We pause, catch our breath, encourage one another, get our signals, refocus on the game plan, and then rush back to our positions so we can put it all into action during the coming week. Are you in the game? Just a spectator? If you are taking no risks for God, you are a spiritual baby.

Do my words offend you? Sometimes we just need someone to speak candidly. So let me put it plain and simple: Grow up! Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good (I Peter 2:2).

God cannot forgive sin just by saying: “I forgive.” If he could, he would have done so. Do you imagine that God would ever have sent his only begotten Son to the cross if he could have forgiven the sin of men in any other way? —Martyn Lloyd-Jones

point to ponder • Do you need to grow up?

prayer focus • Pray yourself out of that rut and grab hold of those risks that will take you into a deeper life with Jesus.