WE SHOULD BE TEACHING OTHERS INSTEAD WE NEED TO BE TAUGHT

PROCLAMATION

“In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s Word all over again.  You need milk, not solid food!  Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.  But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”  Hebrews 5:12-14 (NIV)

 

EXPLANATION

These words were written by an unknown human author, under the influence of The Holy Spirit of God, to the Hebrew believers and indirectly to all believers.  In this fifth chapter the author begins by describing Jesus, The Christ, as the ultimate high priest.  He compares Him to Melchizedek (Hebrews 5:5-6) whose name literally means “king of righteousness or justice.”  Melchizedek was a Canaanite king who reigned in Salem, and who kept up religion and worship of the true God and was honored by Abraham for doing so. (Hebrew 7:1-2)  The author states that the Hebrews had a number of advantages over other people including being descendants of Abraham, being exposed to the law of Moses and the writings of The Old Testament, having heard the ministry of Christ directly or from His apostles, and having received the gift of The Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.  They had this for thirty years and they should have grown.  Instead of being teachers of others they were in need of being taught the basics principals themselves.  Instead of being ready for the meat of the gospel, the advanced course, they were in need of milk, the basic beginning lessons. 

 

APPLICATION

Today there are many adult Christians who can say that they were “brought up in the church” or that they have “been in church all of their life.”  This text proves that just being around The Word of God for a long period of time does not mean that a person has grown in knowledge and understanding of it.  Considering the number of years that we have exposed to the teachings of The Bible, we all should be Bible scholars by now and we should be teaching others.  Unfortunately, too many Christians have heard many sermons preached but have not internalized what they heard.  Also, too many believers only open their Bibles on Sunday while they are in church.  If we want to grow in knowledge and understanding of God’s Holy Word and to rightly apply it to our lives, then we need to study it on a regular basis. (2 Timothy 2:15)