Preaching should move us to maturity

The preaching you imbibe is either moving you toward Christian maturity, or it is not. You are either being stretched to grow, or you are being kept in a perpetual, spiritual infancy.

We all realize this. Where we probably differ is in how we figure out which preaching is which.

Some say their own church’s preaching is the good kind because the pastor only preaches the Bible. But this is like saying someone is a good parent because the children have food. Now, feeding your kids is good, but it’s Square One, the bare minimum. A parent who doesn’t cross over that bar should not be a parent anymore.

Similarly, a pastor who preaches from the Bible has made a good, first step. There’s more to be done.

If you’ve set about to preach the Bible, you’re going to run into places like Hebrews 5:12-14: “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. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

There are some teachings in the Bible, which are comparable to milk. They are the starting place. You have to get these down before you can move on to “meat,” or food for the mature.

But, your church just spent eight weeks drilling down on Christian baptism. Or, you just went to a conference where the focus was justification by faith in Jesus. It was deep teaching, you say. It was all meat.

No. It was milk, and though it may well have been great milk, it didn’t magically turn into meat.

I hear you gasping in horror. How can I say such things? I can say them because your Bible says them.

After warning the Hebrew Christians that they have been babies for too long, the writer goes on to list those foundational principles that we should build upon. It’s not that we leave them or discard them. We wear them like new clothes, and actually move forward. The “milk doctrines” are:

• repentance;

• faith;

• baptism;

• laying on of hands;

• the resurrection from the dead;

• and eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:1-2)

What is the solution? Are you being fed solid food, or are you being stunted in your growth by a diet of milk?

The first passage above connects solid food with a mature, practiced sense of discernment, by which the individual believer applies the principles of the Scripture to the actual world, distinguishing in real life between good and evil.

If you are never encouraged to apply the message from the pulpit to anything other than your own conduct, and occasionally your family, you are likely imbibing milk. If, however, you are being shown how the Bible applies in every area of life, including culture and government and every other human pursuit, you are being challenged toward maturity. If the latter is the case, you ought to thank God, because that sort of preaching is unicorn-rare in America today.

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

[email protected]