Year 6, Day 109: Hebrews 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Information, Imitation, Innovation 

• Information: This is the initial phase of become a disciple of Jesus.  Before we can do anything meaningful we must begin to understand what we are doing.  We may never gain full understanding of God and His ways, but God calls us to study Him, His Son, and His ways as the foundation of being His follower.
• Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process.  First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor.  Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.
• Innovation: When we have studied God and learned to imitate Him, then we can begin to apply what we have learned and practiced into our life in new and innovative ways.  In this way we truly become the person of God that He sees us to be.

The end of Hebrews 5 is a very challenging section.  The author of Hebrews really doesn’t pull any punches with what he says.  He looks at the witness of the people and tells them that aren’t pulling their own weight.  They’ve become dull.  If you want to know why they’ve become dull, the reason is simple.  Keep reading.  They are dull because while they should have developed into teachers they’ve continued to stay students.  They should be feasting on spiritual meat but they only want the spiritual milk.

This is a problem with human beings.  We like to be comfortable.  We also like for people to care for our needs.  We like to be the student, the mentee.  Being the teacher is far more difficult work.  Being the mentor is far more taxing.  But it is when we start to apply our faith, practice what we preach, and pour our faith into the lives of the others that we suddenly find ourselves growing and feeding off of spiritual meat.

What the author of Hebrews is talking about is this idea of information and imitation – and even eventually innovation into ministry.  Everyone needs to learn the basics.  But we all need to grow beyond the basics.  We need to practice what we’re taught.  Then we need to teach what we’ve learned to others.  We grow stale if we always stay the student.

I love the way that this passage ends.  Solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.  Solid food is for the people who are putting their faith into practice.  It is for those on the front lines of the spiritual battle for souls and relationship with God.  It is not for those being sheltered by others for all of their life.

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