The Barrier to Doctrinal Maturity
For although by this time you should be teachers, you again need to have someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God. You have come to need milk, and not solid food.
The writer of Hebrews confronts his readers with an uncomfortable diagnosis. They had been believers long enough to be teaching others by now, yet they still needed someone to walk them back through the basics. Something had stalled their growth.
It's tempting to read this as a statement about intelligence, as if spiritual maturity is reserved for those sharp enough to grasp complex ideas. But Pastor John Piper points us toward a different reading of Hebrews 5-6. He argues that this stagnation is fundamentally a moral issue, not an intellectual one. Growth in understanding God's word is tied less to raw brainpower and more to how we actually live in response to what we already know.
This reframing is freeing. It means the Bible isn't a locked door that only the naturally gifted can open. Maturity comes through practice, through the ongoing discipline of obedience that trains our discernment over time. The Hebrews audience wasn't struggling because the material was too hard for their minds; they were struggling because they hadn't put into practice what they'd already been taught.
There's real comfort here for anyone who feels intimidated by Scripture, worried they aren't smart enough or well-read enough to understand it deeply. The invitation isn't to sharpen your intellect first, but to walk in obedience to what you already know, trusting that this is the path by which discernment grows and solid food becomes digestible.
If you want to dig deeper into how Piper unpacks this connection between obedience and maturity from Hebrews, take a look at his full piece, "The Barrier to Doctrinal Maturity."
Read the source: Ask Pastor John →