Deep Dive into From Milk to Meat: Scripture-Trained Discernment (Hebrews 5:12 –14)

The sources address the contemporary ailment of arrested spiritual development, characterized by a profound mismatch between the duration of Christian teaching and actual spiritual attainment. This state is revealed because hearers who "ought to be teachers" are instead "sluggish in hearing" and require reintroduction to the “elementary principles of the oracles of God” (the ABCs of divine revelation). This regression exposes them as being “unskilled in the word of righteousness,” signifying a critical lack of practiced skill in applying Scripture to govern conduct.

This lack of competence renders the deeper truths of Christian doctrine—referred to as “solid food,” such as the exposition of Christ’s Melchizedekian priesthood—opaque to the immature. Spiritual growth is hindered by this indolence, often aggravated by external challenges like anti-doctrinal pragmatism and the search for “mystical shortcuts” that displace the sufficiency of Scripture.

The key to overcoming this immaturity and progressing to solid food is Christian maturity, which is defined not as a mystical status but as Scripture-shaped competence. This competence is produced through a process of Spirit-enabled, Word-mediated habituation. Maturity is achieved by those whose moral-spiritual perception, or "faculties," are "trained" through "habit" (hexis), which is the acquired, stable disposition formed when Scripture is repeatedly received and obeyed.

The ultimate goal of this training is “the discernment of both good and evil.” The church’s central task is to facilitate this growth by embracing the ordinary means of grace, including expository preaching and structured catechesis pathways, ensuring that stable moral instincts are formed by the Word, in the community, over time.

Reformed Theologian GPT: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-XXwzX1gnv-reformed-theologian

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