Hebrews 5:13
For everyone who uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe.
We have all seen how cute and sweet it is to watch a newborn taking it’s milk. There is nothing more content than that little one in his mother’s breast. The gentle cooing and the sometimes slurps let you know that he is getting just what he needs and wants to make him grow and develop.
By contrast, it is not so cute when we see one that is 3 or 4 years still clinging to the breast. By this time they should have put that aside and gone on to solid foods.
I don’t understand why we know that in the natural realm we should develop and grow to maturity, putting away the milk and going on to the meat and do not see the same process in the spiritual realm.
What the writer here is addressing is the need for Christians to move from babies who are unskillful in the Word of God unto children and then to adolescents and finally on to strong mature men and women. People who have developed the ability to read, study and skillfully appropriate the promises of the Word of God.
It is just as unnatural for Christians to remain baby Christians and never go on to maturity as it is for people to remain baby people. It is an awful tragedy to see a 21 year old who cannot even get up out of bed and feed himself, clean himself and take care of his natural bodily processes. We say of that person that they are disabled, crippled or vegetative. Yet in the Christian realm, we have learned to accept that as the norm. My brothers and sisters this ought not to be. Grow on to maturity !!