"About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us go on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith toward God, instruction about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment" (NRSV).
If I have to listen to one more "come to Jesus" sermon, I think I will fall over and die.
Don’t misunderstand me. I believe that we, as Christians, are called to witness, to evangelize, to tell others about the saving grace of Jesus. I believe every nonbeliever needs to hear the message over and over until they accept it. I believe in tent meetings and crusades and street witnessing. I believe in sharing the gospel with anyone and everyone who isn’t saved.
What I don’t believe in is giving the message of salvation over and over to the Body of Christ. What I’m tired of is hearing the same, threadbare sermons about "coming to Jesus" week after week from a multitude of pulpits. What I’m tired of is pastors believing that their only job is to get people saved.
There is so much more to being a Christian. Surrendering to the Lord Jesus is only the first step.
We have, I think, become the victims of bad doctrine. Everyone has doctrine because doctrine is simply what we believe and how that works out in our lives. That’s why I believe so strongly in people actually studying and becoming wise about Christianity, what they believe, and what they are being taught. And I believe we have become victims of bad doctrine, not because the doctrine itself it necessarily so bad (or so wrong), but because it has propelled us as a nation in a direction that is spiritually unhealthy.
What is that doctrine? It is the doctrine of the sinner’s prayer (which, by the way, is not in the Bible). There is a belief that says that all a person has to do is "say the sinner’s prayer" and they are automatically and forever saved, regardless of what happens after that event. It’s kind of like getting people vaccinated. Once you’ve received the vaccination, you don’t have to worry about your health anymore because you’re "protected." The problem is, there is so much more to being a Christian. But we have, as a Church, "become dull in understanding." Even our pastors—the vast majority of them—are preaching pablum (baby food) from the pulpits. I believe they are doing it with every good intent, believing that this is what their congregations desire. And meanwhile, the Church is falling asleep every Sunday, only awake for the musical entertainment that masquerades as worship.
Are these harsh words? Absolutely! But we are dying as a Church and we are losing the next generations because we are failing to become mature and real in our faith! Think about it. We have lost Sunday School and Sunday evening services where instruction in basic Biblical values and knowledge were taught, trading instead for weekly coffee klatches and gossip sessions in members homes. We don’t carry our Bibles to church anymore because the snippet of scripture that has been chosen for the weekly sermon is posted on the big screen. We have replaced pews (which actually kept us awake) for big chairs with cup holders and we are amusing ourselves during the really boring sermons with Facebook and Twitter on our cell phones. Meanwhile, pastors, in a desperate attempt to keep the seats full and the offering baskets overflowing have convinced us that the Church’s only job is to "get people saved" and we are done.
We are dying! And the young people around us are honest enough to recognize that the emperor’s new clothes are simply red long johns. (Who wants to live like that?)
The writer to the Hebrews explained why the Church continued to be satisfied with baby food:
"Solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil."
"Who have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil." Do you know that many Christians, whether they will admit it or not, really don’t know what actions are sinful? They look at their "leaders" and see them drinking alcohol, gambling, having adulterous affairs, growing rich (usually on the backs of much poorer people in the congregation), getting speeding tickets, watching very inappropriate television shows and movies (even talking about them from the pulpit), and other various nefarious things. Based on these role models, many Christians don’t see what the problem is, so they choose to engage themselves in the same sins. They haven’t been trained by practice—or even by example—to distinguish good from evil.
We are losing the Church, and the Lord Himself, through His Word, lays the fault directly at the feet of every man and woman who is, in any capacity, a leader of a church.
"And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV).
The Lord Jesus Himself has created leadership within the Church for the sole purpose of teaching believers how to mature in the Lord so that they are fully prepared to do the work of ministry. Leaders were not created (or called) so that they could have the best parking spaces or choose the songs they like to be sung or play golf on Thursdays or tout their favorite ideologies. Leaders were not given to the Church so that they could be on national television or make lots of money from books and conferences and CD’s or get paid for speaking on Sunday mornings. Leaders were given to the Church solely for the purpose of making sure that every believer in their congregation matured to the point in which that believer was prepared to do the work of ministry, to the point in which that believer could distinguish good from evil.
That. Isn’t. Happening. And because it isn’t, we, as a Church, are dying.
What did the writer of the Hebrews consider to be "baby food" teaching?
• Repentance from dead works
• Faith toward God
• Instruction about baptism
• Instruction about the laying on of hands
• Instruction about resurrection of the dead
• Instruction about eternal judgment
These are, according to the writer of Hebrews, the basic no-brainers of the faith. These are the things that every believer should be well versed in by the end of the first year or so of living as a Christian. And yet, many (I might even say most) Christians in America aren’t versed in a number of these things at all. Otherwise, they wouldn’t vacillate about the surety and eternity of hell every time some obviously unsaved celebrity dies. In fact, my guess would be that there are a hefty number of "saved" believers in our midst who have never even been baptized and others who can’t explain why they themselves submitted to baptism.
And this is the baby stuff!
"Solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us go on toward perfection . . ."
The word translated here "perfection" is teleiosis which denotes "an end accomplished as the effect of a process" (Vines G5050, emphasis mine). Salvation isn’t—can’t be—a one-time event. It is a process in which the believer matures in the knowledge, understanding, and lifestyle of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is a process that our leaders are commanded to teach us both through their words and their life models. That being said, it’s high time that leaders themselves begin to learn how to distinguish good from evil by purging the junk from their own lives and starting to live as humble servants of the Most High God, rather than as CEO’s of successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) companies. As leaders, we need to get rid of the titles (Senior Pastor, President, Chairman, etc.), the trappings (big offices, expensive cars, expense accounts), and the lifestyles (expensive homes, vacations, and other privileges) and begin to live like Jesus really mattered to us. We need to begin to get rid of the cultural trappings in our services and dig into prayer. We need to begin to get aggressive about the junk (Can I say "sin"?) in our own lives so that we can teach others how to practice distinguishing good from evil. We need to get serious about what we need to do in order to mature our Church. It’s going to be uncomfortable, it’s going to be a sacrifice, and often it’s going to hurt. But if we don’t do it, we are signing our own death warrants.
And those of us in the pews (or big chairs with cup holders) need to start demanding that our leaders do this or find a church where the leaders are serous about being Christians! WE NEED TO GROW UP! We need to "choose this day whom [we] will serve" (Joshua 24:15 NRSV).
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.
For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com
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