The Full Study

The apostle's frustration is pastoral, not contemptuous. He has much to say about Christ as High Priest after the order of Melchizedek — deep, nourishing truth — but finds his readers unequipped to receive it. They have become dull of hearing: not ignorant by nature, but slow by neglect.

The indictment is sharp: “By this time you ought to be teachers.” Time in the faith is not the same as growth in the faith. Many sit under sound preaching for decades and remain on milk — not because the solid food was withheld, but because they never exercised themselves to receive it.

John Calvin notes in his Commentary on Hebrews that this dullness is the besetting condition of those who have grown comfortable in a church that feeds them only what they will easily digest. The High Priest after the order of Melchizedek supplies all that is needed for growth; it is the church's calling to press her members toward it.

For Reflection

• Have you been in the faith long enough to be teaching others? What has hindered growth?
• What “elementary principles” (Heb. 6:1–2) have you not yet moved beyond?
• Is your appetite for the Word growing, or have you settled for what is familiar?

Milk is not a failure — it is the right food for infants. The apostle does not condemn those who needed milk at the beginning; he condemns those who still need it when they should have advanced. “For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.”

The word translated “unskilled” (apeiros) means without experience, untested, unpracticed. It is the word for a soldier who has never drawn his sword in battle. The milk-fed Christian is not wicked but inexperienced — he has not subjected himself to the kind of diligent handling of Scripture and obedient living that produces discernment.

Samuel Rutherford writes to his suffering parishioners: “Christ hath a mother's tenderness for weak ones; but His design is ever to wean them, not to keep them at the breast forever.” The covenant of grace appoints the visible church — her preaching, sacraments, and discipline — as the means by which believers advance from first principles to the full stature of Christ (Eph. 4:13).

Robert Rollock and David Dickson, following the Scottish covenant tradition, teach that this progression is the fulfillment of the New Covenant promise: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Heb. 8:10). God writes His law on transformed hearts — not all at once, but through the ordained means over time.

For Reflection

• What has the Lord used to move you from milk toward solid food?
• Are you faithfully attending to the ordinary means of grace — Word, sacrament, prayer, fellowship?
• Who in your life is pressing you toward greater maturity?

The apostle describes maturity not as a level reached but as a faculty developed: “those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” The word translated “trained” (gymnazo) is the word for athletic training — the same root that gives us gymnasium. Discernment is not a gift received passively; it is a capacity exercised actively.

This is a sharp word against a kind of Christianity that seeks spiritual experience without spiritual discipline. The mature believer is not one who has had more vivid religious feelings, but one who has subjected his mind and heart to the rigorous application of Scripture in the ordinary circumstances of life.

George Gillespie, that careful Westminster divine, understood that such training cannot happen in isolation. It happens within the visible church, under the oversight of faithful elders who bring the Word to bear on the whole of life — in sermon, in session, in the faithful administration of the sacraments. The regulative principle of worship exists precisely to guard this training ground.

For Reflection

• What regular practices are forming your discernment? What is lacking?
• Are you under the faithful preaching and eldership that can press you toward maturity?
• Where have you avoided the “exercise” that growth requires?

The telos of all this training is moral and spiritual discernment: the ability to “distinguish good from evil.” This is the same capacity described in Genesis 3:22 — the knowledge of good and evil that God possesses and that Adam reached for in the wrong way. In Christ, this knowledge is restored and sanctified: the mature believer knows good, and by the Spirit's power, chooses it.

Isaiah 7:15 links this discernment to the Messiah himself: “Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.” The image is of a weaned child — one who has graduated from milk. Our great High Priest is the pattern of the maturity He works in us.

Romans 12:2 brings it home: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” The renewed mind does not float above the world; it engages it rightly. Discernment is not withdrawal but wise engagement — knowing the good and, by grace, doing it.

Christ our great High Priest “is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). He does not leave His people on milk. He supplies grace for grace until they reach “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

For Reflection

• Where has the Lord given you increased discernment? Give thanks.
• Where do you still find yourself unable to “distinguish good from evil” clearly?
• Are you seeking that discernment through the means Christ has appointed — Word, prayer, and the community of the saints?