Faith Basicsமாதிரி

Have you ever been surprised that an infant consumes only milk (or formula)? Me neither. However, if we encountered an adult who consumed only milk, we would probably assume that there was something ailing that person. That is the metaphor these verses are drawing about followers of Jesus.

Milk is the basic teaching of being a Jesus-follower, and solid food is the actual living out of those truths and not needing to be taught them over and over.

When my first child was born, I made it my goal to teach her something before we left the hospital. I wanted to teach her how to respond to a specific stimulus because that is one of the things we do with infants - we teach them how to live in this world. (My wife argued that teaching our daughter to stick out her tongue at her father was not a skill I needed to teach her, but she mastered it before we left the hospital!)

We expect new Christians to need to be taught the basics of the Christian faith, but a person who claims to have been a Christian for years while still needing to be taught how to live out the basic teachings is still a spiritual infant, too.

So, regardless of where you find yourself on the spiritual maturity spectrum, let’s spend a few days together on the basics that the author of Hebrews mentions here. Like how we would learn the alphabet (or hum it when we need to put something in alphabetical order), let’s learn, or review, some Faith Basics so that we can keep growing toward maturity.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please help me to understand these Faith Basics so that I can please you by living them out. Amen.